Path of the Sect Leader-Chapter 41: The So-Called Fate-Cloaking Talisman

After three straight months of back-breaking hustle, Chu Qin Sect finally caught its breath. The days of endless chores were over. Now, aside from rotating shifts on sect duties, only one thing mattered: cultivation.
Spells, secret arts, innate gifts, weapon-bonding techniques; Zhang Shishi crammed every waking hour with practice. Bodies no longer ached from labor, but minds stayed wound tight as bowstrings.
Inside the two Spirit-Gathering Formations, someone was always meditating. Especially on that stone platform above the mountain-foot pool; disciples took turns even sleeping, refusing to waste a single minute of the dense Spiritual Qi. A fierce, hungry energy crackled through the whole sect. When Yu Denou dropped by on one of his visits and saw the fervor, he clicked his tongue in front of Qi Xiu.
“Keep this fire burning,” he said, “and Chu Qin will shake the southern borders before long.”
Qi Xiu accepted the praise with a faint smile. He saw the sweat his disciples poured out every day; how could he not hope for a brilliant payoff?
With the Black-Heart Lotus safely planted and no pressing crises on the horizon, he finally shut his door and picked up the long-neglected art of talisman crafting. Results came quicker than expected. After all, this had once been the only talisman he could make reliably. Ten-odd trials with fresh materials, and success came on a single breath.
Yu Denou’s timing was perfect. Qi Xiu handed him the finished product and asked the wandering merchant to size it up; could this thing actually sell down south?
Yu Denou took the talisman. At first glance the lines looked like a drunk spider had danced across the paper: yin and yang tangled, trigrams half-formed, the whole thing closer to a child’s scribble than proper runes. Yet faint灵力 shimmered unmistakably across the surface; no denying it was a genuine first-grade talisman.
He turned it this way and that, coughed twice, and finally scratched his cheek with an awkward laugh.
“Forgive me, Sect Leader Qi… I’ve never seen its like.”
Qi Xiu waved away the embarrassment. “It’s obscure for a reason. Few situations call for it, even fewer people buy it, and our sect never had much use either. Most cultivators wouldn’t recognize it if it slapped them.”
He explained the talisman’s power plain and straight.
**Fate-Cloaking Talisman** (first-grade special talisman): once activated, it severs nearly all divinations tied to fate; prophecy, retrospection, heavenly secrets, anything that peers along the threads of destiny. Within a small radius it lasts one-quarter the burn of an incense stick.
Yu Denou’s eyes sharpened the instant he understood.
“So if I trigger this, then kill someone inside its range during that window… no fate art under the heavens could trace the deed back to me?”
“Same realm, yes. That’s what the old records claim.” Qi Xiu shrugged. “Truth is, arts that touch true fate are rarer than phoenix feathers. I’ve never even met someone who wielded them, so I can’t test it myself.”
Yu Denou weighed the talisman like a viper weighing a mouse. “Your sect hails from Qi Yun; if the manual says it works, I’ll trust it.” He paused, expression turning complicated. “Only… the kind of people who’d pay good spirit stones for this probably aren’t righteous heroes.”
Qi Xiu kept his face neutral while inwardly rolling his eyes. *Back on Qi Yun nobody wanted these because the lands were ruled by laws. Here in the chaotic south, especially around White Mountain Market? Different story.* Out loud he only chuckled and changed the subject.
Yu Denou flipped the sheet again and tapped a tiny mark in the lower left corner on the back.
“And this faint seal?”
A touch of pride crept into Qi Xiu’s voice. “My private sigil. Qi Yun tradition; talisman and artifact makers leave sect and name in an unobtrusive spot. A famous master’s mark can double the price.” He traced the characters with a fingertip. “Chu Qin – Qi Xiu, stacked into one glyph.”
Yu Denou gave a low, knowing chuckle. “Sect Leader, you’re thinking too straight. A talisman like this? You never leave a trail. Someone buys it, uses it for murder, then the mark leads straight back to your door. When the hunters come knocking, who takes the blame?”
Qi Xiu froze, heat rushing to his ears. Damn it; rookie mistake. “You’re absolutely right. I was careless. Many thanks, Brother Yu. I’ll make another without the seal.”
After seeing the merchant off, Qi Xiu’s steps felt lighter than they had in weeks. He began his new evening ritual: a slow circuit of Black River Peak.
First to the water-gathering crew led by He Yu, still toiling like ants; a few words of encouragement. Then up the stone steps, greeting every disciple he passed, checking arrays, storehouses, herb gardens. A quiet joke with Zhang Shishi and the others cultivating in the main hall. Finally the kitchen at the back, where he teased tomorrow’s menu out of the cooks.
Walking his mountain like this, Qi Xiu felt every inch the lion surveying his pride. Every blade of grass, every awkward earthen hut clinging to the slope, the golden auspicious clouds conjured by the grand formation overhead; all of it built brick by brick, drop of sweat by drop of sweat. His blood and heart were soaked into the very stones.
And he no longer cursed the fourth-generation ancestor who’d squandered the sect’s fortune on beauties. That red-jade array plate the man had left behind was now the heart of their defenses. Without it, Qi Xiu would still be a nameless stall peddler in Clear River Market, or at best some forgotten inner disciple in a proper sect. Instead a late Foundation Establishment rogue like Yu Denou bowed and called him Sect Leader.
Satisfied, he returned to his chambers, shut the door, and laid out fresh talisman paper.
Deep breath. Circulate Qi until the dantian hummed like a bell. Then, with the lightest touch, he dipped the spirit-beast brush into the inky slurry of ground spirit stone and rare pastes, and began to draw.
Stroke; law-seal. Stroke; law-seal.
Years ago he had mastered the Fate-Cloaking Talisman so quickly the old Sect Leader thought him a once-in-a-millennium genius. Later they realized only certain bloodlines could draw it at all. The master had suspected a connection to Qi Xiu’s natal spirit, the Scarlet-Bottomed Horse Monkey (a divine creature said to comprehend yin-yang, know the affairs of men, come and go freely, and evade death to prolong life). Two of those traits brushed dangerously close to the power of fate.
Back then the talisman had been useless to Qi Yun, and Qi Xiu couldn’t even manifest his natal phantom, so the mystery was shelved.
Now, with rare free hours stretching before him, Qi Xiu’s heart itched again.
*The Great Dao never truly closes a door. Who gives up while there’s still breath?*
He poured himself into the brushwork, into the flow of intent and Qi, chasing the ghost of a connection that might let him grasp destiny itself.
Outside, dusk bled into night. Another peaceful day slipped away atop Black River Peak.
Yet beneath that calm surface, unseen currents had already begun to stir.