One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

The firewood in the hearth crackled, and a small piece of charcoal rolled out from the edge of the fire. Zhang Chulan caught it with tongs and tossed it back. Nie Lingfeng placed the bowl on his lap, not answering immediately, but slowly rubbing his thumb around the rim of the bowl.

"What it said about the sealed part is true." He spoke calmly. "That kind of resentment can't be faked. Four hundred years without seeing the light of day—anyone who went in would go mad. But on the matter of 'why it was sealed'—it left out at least half the story."

"What's missing?" Zhang Chulan asked, his mouth still full of rice.

"Who is Zhang Sanfeng? The founder of Wudang Mountain, he lived many times longer than the average person, compiled the Daoist canon, created martial arts, and left almost no record of personal involvement in his life. Such a person doesn't act without reason." Nie Lingfeng picked up his bowl and took another sip of soup. "That dragon said Zhang Sanfeng feared its power. But if it was merely 'fear'—given the Great Master's abilities back then, he could easily have eradicated it completely. Why then would he expend the power of the Kunlun Mountain dragon vein to create a seal that lasts for hundreds of years?"

"You mean..." Master Wang Ye continued, pouring tea from the copper kettle into everyone's cups with unhurried movements and a steady pace, "Zhang Sanfeng sealing that dragon might actually be to protect it?"

"Or to protect something else from being hurt by it." Nie Lingfeng nodded.

"But that dragon said it has been guarding the Kunlun Mountains for over a thousand years." Lu Linglong frowned. "If it really lost control, wouldn't it know? Or—" she hesitated, "it doesn't remember?"

The flames in the hearth flickered, and a half-burnt pine branch snapped in two, falling with a thud into the ashes and scattering a few sparks. Everyone fell silent for a few seconds.

"Dragons are different from us humans." Wang Ye picked up his teacup, took a sip, and stared intently at the rising steam. "Their memory might not be linear. A seal of hundreds of years might be more like an extremely long dream for them. Things from the dream and reality are mixed together, and they themselves might not be able to distinguish them."

"If it truly doesn't remember ever losing control," Lu Linglong's voice lowered, "then when it tries to break free of its seal, and we stop it—won't it feel like it's the victim?"

"It was originally a victim," Nie Lingfeng said. "But it simultaneously embodies both the identities of victim and dangerous substance. If we don't stop it, the aftershocks it unleashes will first destroy the town at the foot of the mountain. This logic has nothing to do with whether it feels wronged or not."

"What about Qu Tong?" Zhang Chulan swallowed the last mouthful of rice, put the bowl down on the ground, wiped his mouth, and asked, "When she tore open the array's core, did she know there was such a huge thing inside?"

"Of course she knew." Nie Lingfeng's answer came quickly, without hesitation. "She found Kunlun Mountain before us, and she set up the scheme much earlier. The location of the array's core, the intensity of the corrosion, the timing—all of it was calculated."

"What does she want to do with that dragon?" Lu Linglong asked.

"The dragon itself gave the answer." Nie Lingfeng looked down at the flickering flames in the fire pit, the firelight illuminating his face. "A tool. She released the dragon from its seal, and in the instant it erupted in anger, she absorbed the overflowing dragon vein power—the dragon itself was merely the tip of a crowbar; what she truly wanted was the primordial energy sealed and suppressed for hundreds of years at the foot of Kunlun Mountain."

"If it succeeds..." Zhang Chulan rested his chin on his knees, his voice muffled, "Wouldn't that woman Qu Tong become a goddess?"

"Not quite a miracle worker," Wang Ye shook his head, a rare hint of bitterness in his voice, "but with all the things she's collected from elsewhere, she's just one card away from being 'unstoppable.'"

"So we can't let her get this card," Zhang Chulan said.

"Yes." Nie Lingfeng put down the empty bowl, stood up from the hearth, walked to the door, pushed it open, and glanced outside. The snow had stopped, and the night sky was gradually being cleansed. The dark blue sky was studded with countless stars, so bright it looked as if someone had scattered tiny diamonds onto the dome. The Milky Way stretched across the sky, bathing the highest peak of the Kunlun Mountains in a silvery-white halo.

He stared at it for a long time, then closed the door and turned around.

"I'm going back to town tomorrow. Then I'll go find someone."

"Who?" Wang Zhenqiu asked.

"Li Muxuan," Nie Lingfeng said, "Back on Nathan Island, he said he'd been wandering around Kunlun Mountain for years, and he knew better than anyone what was in those mountains. The dragon, Zhang Sanfeng's sealing, even which direction Qu Tong's people had sneaked into the mountain—even if he didn't know everything, he knew more than enough."

"But didn't he run away last time on Nathan Island?" Zhang Chulan said. "Where are we supposed to find him?"

"He hasn't gone far," Nie Lingfeng said confidently. "If he really wanted to stay far away from us, he wouldn't have shown up in front of us on Nathan Island. The fact that he showed up means he originally wanted us to find him."

Wang paused for a moment, then laughed: "This old man... is fishing."

"We'll only know what bait is on the hook when we sit down and talk to him." Nie Lingfeng sat down again by the fire pit, picked up the tea that had just cooled, and took a sip. "Get a good rest tonight. We'll go down the mountain first thing tomorrow morning. First, call Chairman Zhao's men and ask them to check around Nachitai for a tall, thin old man in a gray robe who likes to squat by the roadside and sunbathe."

"This description..." Zhang Chulan scratched his head, "Aren't there tons of old men like this at the foot of Kunlun Mountain?"

"So he won't squat on the street sunbathing," Nie Lingfeng said. "He'll squat in a spot we can find, but where outsiders won't give him a second glance."

"Where?"

"On the steps behind the teahouse," Wang Ye suddenly spoke, his posture holding the teacup abruptly halting, his eyebrows slightly raised. "Old men who frequent Wudang Mountain all have this habit. Li Muxuan and Master Zhou were quite good friends back then."

Zhang Chulan blinked: "You Wudang people have this tradition?"

"It's a family heirloom." Wang Ye took a sip of tea without changing his expression.

Night deepened. A new batch of firewood was added to the hearth, and the flames leaped half a foot higher again. Zhang Chulan, wrapped in his sleeping bag, rolled over on the wooden bed and began to snore. The sound wasn't too loud, but the rhythm was steady, like an old-fashioned sewing machine working at a steady pace. Wang Zhenqiu leaned against the corner of the wall, using his backpack to support his back, his head slightly tilted, his breathing even and gentle. Chen Duo held Xiaoyun in the warmest spot of the hearth, the little girl fast asleep, her face flushed red in the firelight, her lips slightly pouting, occasionally smacking her lips in her sleep. Zhang Lingyu sat upright in the darkest corner of the wooden house with her eyes closed, her posture languid, her breathing so long and almost inaudible that only the occasional rustle of her clothes by the residual breeze from the hearth reminded one that someone was still sitting there. Lu Linglong, wrapped in a blanket, leaned against the wall beside the wooden bed, a sword manual resting on her lap, her fingers still tucked between the edges of a page, her eyelids drooping, hovering between half-open and half-closed.

Feng Baobao sat on the inside of the threshold, her katana across her lap, her back against the door, her face half-turned as she gazed at the bottomless darkness outside the crack in the door. She had kept her first night watch, and no one dared to challenge her—because no one could outdo her.

Nie Lingfeng sat by the fire pit, the last person not to lie down. He used the fire tongs to adjust the position of a few thick pieces of firewood, making the flames burn more slowly and evenly. The firelight shone on his lowered eyelids, casting an indescribable softness on his usually expressionless face.

He mentally reviewed the day's events. The dragon's last words still echoed in his mind—"Don't disappoint me within three days. Otherwise, even if you don't want to be his weapon, you might not be able to stop me."

Three days. Now there are only two and a half days left.

He still didn't know which fold of Kunlun Mountain Qu Tong's people were hiding in. One of the array's key points had been torn apart by seventy percent, and the remaining thirty percent of the seal could only hold for the last bit of time. He had to find Li Muxuan before that and figure out the true nature of this mountain.

He looked up and, through a gap in the blackened rafters of the wooden roof, saw a bright star blink at him through that narrow opening. The deep winter night sky was as cold as cracked celadon, and the Milky Way stretched from the highest peak of the Kunlun Mountains to the horizon.

Xiaoyun rolled over in Chen Duo's arms, mumbled "Daddy" indistinctly, and then fell into a deep sleep again. Nie Lingfeng turned his head to look at her for a while, and the line at the corner of his mouth that had never loosened curved slightly. The curve was not big, just a very faint curve, like the end of a crack on the surface of ice.

He looked away and added another piece of firewood to the hearth. As the piece of firewood fell into the fire, it sent up a small burst of sparks that flew half a foot high before falling back into the embers and going out.

Tomorrow. He weighed those two words in his mind. Tomorrow he would go down the mountain and uncover everything he wanted to know, one by one.

The light in the hearth flickered one last time, then settled and burned quietly.