167. Chen Patriarch

Chen Leijun stood upon the high pavilion, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes half-lidded but clearly aware of what was happening. Below him, the training grounds stretched wide, dust rising with every clash of wooden spears and every tumble of a fallen youth. The echoes of shouts, the thud of fists striking flesh, the sharp clang of weapons—it was all a symphony he had heard countless times before. Yet today, to his ears, it rang hollow.

The elders of the Chen Clan gathered at his side, their robes embroidered with the emblem of their lineage. They dared not speak first, but their eyes betrayed them—always darting toward his face, searching, measuring, weighing his thoughts. They longed for approval, for reassurance that the seedlings they had so carefully watered would one day grow into towering trees capable of shaking Red Peak City itself.

Fools,

Chen Leijun thought, his gaze sweeping across the youths below.

Since birth, these young ones had been tested, their spirit roots measured, their paths paved with manuals. Every resource the clan could spare had been poured into their bodies. But what use were treasures, when the spirit within was dulled? They moved swiftly, but not like thunder. They struck hard, but not like lightning. There was no sting in their attacks, no fire in their eyes.

They were… adequate. That was all.

Adequacy was death.

Someone among them would one day fight for his own seat… reach the realms of cultivation that would upgrade the clan. But a clan that wished to rule Red Peak City could not be carried by mediocrity. A Chen must not only stand above the masses but crush them beneath his heel, commanding the heavens with his blade and the earth with his will. None below seemed fit to inherit that mantle.

Yet the men around him smiled as though seeing dragons among carp.

“Father,” said his eldest son, Chen Chenglei, breaking the silence. His voice carried pride, his chest swelling as he gestured toward the arena. “Are they not fine? I believe they are the strongest of their age group in the city. The brats of the Yu clan or the feeble heirs of the Huang could only dream of matching them.”

Chen Leijun’s expression did not change.

Another voice followed quickly, eager to be heard. His third son, Chen Rong, stepped forward with a spark of excitement in his eyes. “And among them, your son stands tallest! Look, Father, he hasn’t even suffered a single scratch. Such endurance, such strength! Surely, the heavens favor him.”

Chen Chenglei’s lips curved into a smile at his son’s praise, eyes glowing with familial pride. The other elders murmured their agreement, nodding as though the boy below was already a peerless genius.

But Chen Leijun did not look at his sons, nor at the elders. His gaze fixed instead on the youth in question, watching with the cold patience of a viper.

The boy’s stance was steady, his movements precise. Every strike landed, every defense held, and indeed not a mark blemished his skin. To most, it was perfection. But to Chen Leijun’s eyes, it was a painted mask. The boy did not burn with hunger. His movements were polished, but without edge. His victories came not from desperation or indomitable will, but from calculation and comfort.

A flawless performance yet beneath it, not a trace of ferocity.

And Chen Leijun knew well: what was flawless today would be shattered tomorrow, the moment it faced true killing intent.

His sons could not see it. The elders dared not. But he did.

He alone saw the truth that would decide the fate of the Chen Clan.

The arrogance in each of Chen Eain’s moves was a flare of gaudy fireworks—bright, empty, fleeting. The boy wasn’t fighting; he was preening. Even from the pavilion, with the wind tugging at his sleeves, Chen Leijun could taste the sour bite of a personal grudge riding the boy’s lightning like rot in sweet wine.

The Chen Clan did not become Red Peak’s butcher by playing nice. Grudges were currency. Pride was a cultivator’s spine. But let pride leak into the wrist, let spite stain the breath, and a blade became ornament.

Below, a lightning lance scissored through the dust with a scream of air. Eain slipped past it in a lazy half-step, heel skimming sand, hair lifting as the spear of crackling qi tore the air where his throat had been. He laughed—

actually laughed

—rolling thunder around his shoulders until motes of silver-blue danced across his forearms like fireflies. His opponent, a wiry youth with too-wide eyes, bit down so hard Leijun could see the jaw tense from the balcony.

In a second, hands twisted, seals formed and more lances spat from the boy’s trembling meridians.

Eain didn’t rush. He rocked on his feet, head tilted, a smile tilting sharper with every gasp drawn from his foe. He let a lance pass so close the fringe of his sleeve smoked, and then he opened his mouth.

“Is that it?”

Soft words, but in the pit, soft words were knives. The other youth flinched, control faltered, the lances staggered off rhythm. Eain flowed through the gap as if strolling through a night market, not a duel. The air boomed; he stepped in, then out again, always just beyond reach, the storm coiling tighter around him until his skin lit from within. When at last he chose to close, the other boy panicked, hauling up a shield of knotted qi, thick and clumsy. Eain vaulted. One knee skimmed a shoulder. He drifted over the crown like a stray spark and stamped.

The shield shattered with a crack like splitting bamboo. The youth skidded face-first, furrowing the yard with his teeth. Eain landed lightly, brushing dust from his sleeve as if he feared stain more than retaliation.

Cheers rose from the elders as though this were artistry. Leijun’s sons stood among them, blinded by blood.

“Grand as ever!” Chen Rong breathed, his voice slick with pride. “Father, look at his control. Not a mark on him yet.”

Leijun did not answer. His gaze stayed on Eain, on the way the boy’s ankles opened too often when he pivoted, careless, trusting his speed; on the way his taunt had been timed for the opponent’s breath, not his own height of power, wasteful; on the way his shoulders loosened after victory as if the fight had never been a fight, as if battle were stage.

He watched arrogance drip from the boy’s movements and pool at his feet.

This was not new. He searched his memory, tracing rot back to root. The first flavor of it had come, perhaps, when Eain faced Chen Ren on these very stones. Ren—poor, impetuous, soft with excuses—had raised a wall and waited for the storm to pass. Eain had not been a storm then. He’d been a knife, and he’d been eager to cut. He broke Ren’s wall, broke Ren’s stance, broke Ren’s nose, then broke Ren’s will. Blood had made a dark fan beneath Ren’s head like a wilted peony.

Leijun had declared the banishment afterward. Ren’s mouth had opened for protest, but one glance at Eain’s contained delight, the bright cruelty loitering in his eyes, and the boy had swallowed his words and left without being escorted. The clan praised decisiveness, the city whispered of the Chen’s iron fist, and Eain’s name began to collect flattery like a magnet collecting filings.

From that day, each victory had been too easy, each opponent too small. The yardlings of the Yu and the Huang had fallen like reeds in a flood, and Eain had learned to mistake shallow water for the ocean.

Now, the same mistake shone from every step he took.

Another challenger stumbled forward, shoulders squared more out of duty than courage. Eain turned to meet him with a leisurely stretch, thunder purring across his knuckles. Their eyes met. The challenger’s gaze caught and slipped, as if drawn toward Eain’s smile against his own will. Eain tilted his head and offered that same soft, cutting voice:

“Come.”

The boy came in like a moth toward a lantern. Eain let him close. At the last instant, he bent time with a flicker of lightning, the world stuttering as his silhouette smeared and reformed behind the strike. A palm thudded between shoulder blades—no mercy—folding the challenger like wet parchment. No scratch marred Eain’s skin. Again.

Around Leijun, silk rustled as elders shifted, pleased. Chen Chenglei, the eldest, allowed himself a satisfied smile, chin high, as if he himself had ducked those lances, crushed those shields. Leijun’s hand tightened on the rail until old wood creaked.

He wasn’t blind to Eain’s skill. The boy had storm-seed meridians, quicksilver footwork, and a talent for catching a foe’s rhythm and breaking it across his knee. But he fought as a young lord twirls a fan—idly, mockingly, in a garden wind. He had not bled for a breath; he had not felt a strike that could kill. The field had encouraged a habit, and habit had become posture, and posture had become nature.

Leijun felt the faintest tremor of killing intent rise from his dantian and settle, cool and flat, behind his eyes.

This yard has grown small,

he thought, realisation sinking in.

And small yards breed fat tigers.

Below, Eain paced his beaten foe, the grin still fixed, a child admiring his reflection in polished bronze. He glanced up—just for a moment—toward the high pavilion. Pride met the old man’s gaze like a thrown glove.

Leijun did not blink.

He hadn’t foreseen that pruning one rotten branch would let a good bud grow so crooked, that talent could turn so arrogant it would take battle as leisure, victory as theater.

“Isn’t he really good, Father?” Chen Chenglei leaned forward, pride gleaming in his eyes as Eain toyed with yet another opponent below. “I believe he can even take on first star foundation establishment cultivators.”

Leijun turned his head. He didn’t speak. He simply looked.

The weight of that look hit like winter. Chenglei’s shoulders drew in a fraction, his heel slid back half a step, as if he’d remembered a precipice behind him.

“Do you truly think he’s good?” Leijun asked.

Chenglei rallied. “He’s completely overwhelming his opponent.”

“Yes.” Leijun’s fingers tapped the rail, once. “That’s the problem.”

Below, Eain let another lightning lance graze his sleeve, grin widening as if sparks were applause. The boy’s foe staggered, panting, dragging up a shield as if bracing against a tide. Eain circled, not striking but posing.

“The fight shouldn’t have lasted this long,” Leijun said, eyes never leaving the sand. “A wolf does not toy with sheep. Every breath he wastes earns him an enemy’s memory. Do you want me to send him to a sect for the next few decades to temper that pride?”

Chenglei’s head snapped up. “No, Father.” He shook it quickly, both hands raised as though to ward off a decree. “I—I will teach him better. I’ll rein him in.”

“See that you do.” The sigh left Leijun like steam off quenched steel. He knew what glimmered behind Changlei’s eyes: the itch for the patriarch’s seat. Letting the boy crown the young generation would polish Changlei’s name until it shone before the elders. Ambition wrapped in filial piety—pretty ribbon on a knife.

Beneath them, Eain finally ended it with a casual heel to the spine, the shield shattering like frost-glass. He didn’t look like a youth who had just risked his bones. He looked like a young lord finished with a stroll.

Leijun took one last, long look over the training grounds. The banners of crimson lightning snapped in a breeze that smelled of dust and medicine. Elders murmured, pleased; juniors stole glances at the pavilion, waiting for judgment to fall like rain.

He turned.

Patriarch Chen Leijun left the balcony. A ripple of surprise traveled the platform as he passed without a word. He did not need to explain what none of them wished to see: not one among the new generation had struck sparks enough to catch his eye. If the clan let this softness harden into habit, the Yu and the Huang would press, inch by inch, until Red Peak’s thunder belonged to other mouths.

On the steps, he paused only once, feeling the yard’s heat on his face.

“Temper him,” he said without turning. “Or the world will.”

***

Chen Ren watched Whiskey tilt back the barrel and drown the last of the moonshine. The Lunari’s throat worked like a bellows; the scent of grain and bite of alcohol rolled across the porch. When the barrel gurgled dry, Whiskey thumped it down, patted his round belly with both hands, and flopped onto the planks, limbs splayed to chase the sun.

End-of-winter light laid soft gold across the eaves.

Meltwater clicked somewhere under the steps. He almost felt like yesterday's torrent of qi might have been a dream. After that surge, Whiskey had slept an entire day—odd for a lunari, who could glide through weeks on handful of hours. Waking, he’d rampaged through Chen Ren’s pantry like a locust: jerky, roots, steamed buns, even the emergency pickled peppers. Now he lay smiling, eyes half-moons, as if the world held no sharp edges.

Yalan’s voice brushed Chen Ren’s ear. “He has a lot of foreign qi inside him.”

Chen Ren’s mouth tightened. “You already said that.” He crouched, resting his forearms on his knees, studying the lunari’s slow, pleased breathing. “We need to know what it is, and whether it’ll gnaw at him in the long run. Unfortunately, your eyes can't identify it. Lunari are attuned to the moon and star qi, right?”

Yalan purred. “They are. Whiskey isn’t yet. He’s still tier one. As he grows, the astral pull will take hold. But the foreign stream could interfere. It's already taking over his body slowly.”

Chen Ren dragged a hand down his face, thumb catching on an old cut at his chin. Problems had a way of multiplying; lately they bred like rabbits. He thought back to the egg Whiskey had eaten. The only reason he’d kept the dead egg at all was habit; he hadn’t wanted to toss it on the road, and it cluttered his spatial ring like a useless stone.

“You said the egg wasn’t worth anything,” he muttered. “So how did Whiskey pull qi from it by eating the damned thing?”

Silence hung long enough for Whiskey to sigh and roll, presenting his stomach to the sun like an offering.

“Lunari can take in almost anything they swallow. Even dull poisons. They digest more than food. That’s why he can drown a barrel and never stagger. The egg must have held a trickle—thin as dew under bark—but it was there. He drank it.”

Chen Ren’s gaze slid to Whiskey’s fur—no sheen of frost, no astral shimmer, only the faintest prickle of something that didn’t belong. He reached out and pressed two fingers to the lunari’s belly. Warmth. A lazy rumble.

Whiskey cracked one eye, saw Chen Ren’s frown, and chirruped as if to say

more moonshine would solve this

. Chen Ren snorted despite himself.

“Greedy beast,” he said, rubbing the fur once. “All right. We find what that trickle is, and we bleed it or bend it before it knots your meridians.”

The lunari’s eye drifted shut again.

“Even a trickle was enough to flood him. That egg belonged to something strong,” Yalan said with a sigh.

“You don’t know what kind of beast,” Chen Ren said.

“No. And it’s hard to taste the qi itself; it’s mixing with the little moon and star he already carries. We can only hope it marries well with those. Otherwise there will be knots later.”

Chen Ren nodded, gaze drifting past Whiskey to the courtyard’s edge. Children’s chatter rose and fell—barefoot brats chasing each other around the plum stump, wooden swords clacking, laughter spilling like millet. If he was honest, this felt like a problem he hadn’t asked for. He’d taken the lunari in because the creature was all bright eyes and foolish bravery; because the sect needed cheer as much as it needed guards on the gate. Whiskey was energetic, curious, and—damn it—cute. He’d become part of the sect without a ceremony or a seal, and he was likely the only beast not snapped up by Zi Wen’s collection of contracts. For whatever reason, the little glutton preferred him.

But to help him, they had to know what kind of qi was threading his insides. You couldn’t cut a weed you couldn’t see.

That wasn’t easy. Until—

A thought struck.

“I have an idea,” Chen Ren said.

“What?”

“A fight.” He watched Whiskey’s flank rise and fall. “Let him move. He’ll call on whatever’s inside without thinking, and we’ll see how it colors him.”

Yalan considered. “A workable trial… if… he bothers to fight.” Her attention slid to the lunari, who was sprawled across the porch, one paw twitching in dream, a string of drool glistening from his lip to the plank below. He looked like he cared for nothing but warmth and sleep.

Chen Ren smiled. “He’ll fight. Where’s the weasel Xinxin? They always fight.”

“From what I heard, they’re in some sort of truce.”

“Huh? A truce?”

“I don’t know how it happened,” she said, amused despite herself. “But from what I overheard, they aren’t fighting as much.”

Chen Ren looked down at the lunari sprawled. “Then how are we going to get him to fight?”

“That’s on you to decide,” Yalan said. “You’re good at goading things.”

Chen Ren sighed, thinking, while Whiskey rolled onto his back and made small happy chirps, paws paddling at nothing. An idea slid into place. He stepped over, crouched, and poked the soft white stomach.

Whiskey twitched, snapped his little claws in a lazy

go away

motion, and tried to sink deeper into the sun. Chen Ren poked again. This time Whiskey’s lips peeled, a tiny growl rumbling up as if to ask what was wrong with Chen Ren’s hands.

“Do you want additional barrels of alcohol to drink every day,” he said, deadpan, “and some cake?”

Whiskey’s mouth fell open at “barrels,” excitement blooming, then he stalled, head tilting, ears cocked at the unfamiliar word. One ear flopped.

“It’s a sweet dish,” Chen Ren explained, straight-faced. “Very good to eat.”

The lunari’s eyes went round. He nodded so hard his whiskers blurred, then launched himself at Chen Ren in pure joy. He caught the little glutton mid-pounce, and set him back on the boards.

“But you have to fight me if you want it.”

Whiskey froze, glanced at the empty barrel beside the steps, and made a grumble that sounded suspiciously like a complaint about unfair market rates.

“That’s the only way you’ll get it.”

Silence. Whiskey’s gaze went from Chen Ren’s face to the barrel, back to him. He puffed out his cheeks, then deflated, and—very slowly—nodded. One paw lifted and touched the empty barrel with tragic solemnity, as if swearing an oath upon it.

“Let’s go,” Chen Ren said. “Let's see what you can do.”

They walked to the center of the yard.

At their entrance, Children paused mid-chase, wooden swords drooping, eyes bright with nosiness. Chen Ren kept his gaze on the lunari. Whiskey was patting his belly with both paws as if sealing a pact with his stomach, then narrowed his eyes at Chen Ren in a very serious way that clashed violently with the drool still drying on his chin.

No lightning today. Chen Ren rolled his shoulders, settled his breath. He wouldn’t call qi—not a spark. Body alone would do. Knuckles, tendons, bones. He’d hammered gains into his frame these last months; against a tier-one beast, that was plenty.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

Whiskey seemed to nod.

He moved—one clean step, the ground a drum under his heel. He cut in with a straight line of shoulder and hip, fist tracking the Lunari’s cheek… and let it slide past so close it kissed fur without pressing. Whiskey yelped, sprang backward, ears flat. Chen Ren followed like a shadow with teeth: another fist, another near-miss, a knee that bent the air, an elbow that sighed over Whiskey’s whiskers.

Panic showed in quick jerks of the tail. Whiskey snapped forward with a flurry of little claws—fast, honest, clumsy. Chen Ren’s head dipped; the strike went by; his hand touched the paw in passing and turned it aside like a leaf.

“You’re pretty weak,” he said, almost bored.

Whiskey puffed up at once, cheeks round, eyes sparking with outrage. He bunched himself and launched—tiny body a white bolt aimed at Chen Ren’s chest. Chen Ren caught him by the scruff and hip, turned, and threw. The lunari tumbled, flipped twice, landed in a skid with his paws splayed wide, fur full of dust. He spat out a pebble and glared.

No flare of qi yet. Chen Ren’s plan began to feel thin at the edges. He circled, hands loose, breath smooth. The yard held its breath with him.

Then, there. He felt a wisp.

It brushed Ren’s skin like a cool fog lifting off river stone. His mouth tipped, almost a smile—

—and the wisp swelled. It thickened in an instant, from thread to skein, from mist to pressure. Whiskey’s fur dulled, not dimming but clouding, as if a small storm had crept under his skin and was trying on his shape. The air cooled at once and the fine hairs on Chen Ren’s forearms rose.

Whiskey gave a little… shirk—half shiver, half strangled cry—and then let loose.

Rain burst out of him first: a sheet, not droplets, warm and sudden, drenching the dust into scent. Lightning rode the rain a heartbeat later, a white bar that erased all color and drew it again in ash and silver. It hit Chen Ren point-blank.

“Fuck!”

***

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