The sword descended with mechanical inevitability, death approaching in steel and certainty, Wei Shao's expression grim but resolute as he prepared to end the life of the monster who'd caused so much destruction.
Zhung lay broken on the ground, ribs shattered, lungs struggling to draw air, his body refusing to obey commands from a mind that had never stopped calculating even in the face of extinction.
*This is death,* his thoughts observed with eerie calm. *Finally. After everything. The end.*
But even broken, even dying, even with a sword descending toward his heart—Zhung's survival instincts refused to surrender.
His right hand—the only part of his body that could still move—clawed at the ground beside him, fingers closing around a handful of dirt and dust and debris from the alley floor.
*One chance. One desperate, pathetic, probably futile chance.*
*Better than nothing.*
With the last reserves of strength in his battered body, Zhung threw the handful of dirt directly into Wei Shao's face.
The security chief's eyes—focused on the killing stroke, concentrated on ending this threat permanently—were completely open when the dust cloud struck.
Wei Shao jerked backward instinctively, his sword stroke interrupted, his free hand flying to his face as dirt and debris filled his eyes, blinding him temporarily, pain and reflexive tears making vision impossible.
"DAMN YOU!" Wei Shao roared, staggering backward, his tactical advantage destroyed by the most basic, crude, desperate trick imaginable.
In that same moment, the Jade Moon Inn—which had been burning steadily since Zhung's Stone Bullet technique ignited the back stairwell—finally succumbed to structural failure.
The third floor collapsed with a sound like thunder, wooden beams snapping, stone walls crumbling, the entire back section of the building falling inward in a cascade of destruction that sent dust and smoke billowing outward in a massive cloud.
Through that smoke, through the chaos of collapse and confusion, came a figure.
The driver.
Or what remained of him.
His body was barely recognizable as human anymore. The Shadow Decay technique had consumed most of his flesh, leaving him a skeletal framework covered in patches of rotting tissue. His right arm was completely gone—dissolved into shadow during the technique's use. His left arm hung by threads of decayed muscle. His legs moved with mechanical jerking motions, bones grinding against each other without proper connective tissue.
But his eyes—those sunken, luminescent eyes in his deteriorating skull—still burned with determination and awareness and something that might have been desperate friendship.
He lurched forward with impossible speed considering his condition, his remaining leg kicking out with cultivator-enhanced strength, his skeletal foot connecting with Wei Shao's chest and sending the security chief flying backward into the opposite alley wall with bone-crushing force.
Wei Shao hit hard, the impact driving air from his lungs, his sword falling from nerveless fingers, his body sliding down to slump against the wall—conscious but dazed, temporarily incapacitated.
The driver didn't pause to confirm the result. His decaying hands—more bone than flesh now—grabbed Zhung with surprising gentleness, lifting the broken boy and draping him across what remained of his back.
Then he moved.
Not running—his legs were too deteriorated for that—but a strange lurching motion that combined desperate speed with barely-controlled collapse, his body held together by nothing but Will and stubborn refusal to die before completing this final task.
He reached the alley wall, the same wall Zhung had broken through minutes ago, and began climbing despite having only one functional arm and legs that were more bone than muscle.
*How?* Zhung's dazed mind wondered, barely conscious, pain overwhelming his ability to think clearly. *How is he still moving? His body should be dead. He should have dissolved completely when the Shadow Decay technique ended. What's keeping him animate?*
*Willpower. Literal Will. Using his cultivation to hold his body together through sheer determination. Fighting against death itself to save me.*
*Why?*
They reached the rooftop—the driver's skeletal fingers finding handholds in crumbling brick, his deteriorating legs pushing upward with strength that shouldn't exist, his entire being focused on one purpose: *get to the roof, get distance, save the one companion who still has a chance to survive.*
The rooftop was flat and empty, offering clear sight lines in all directions but also exposure to anyone looking up. The driver lurched across the space, carrying Zhung, heading toward the next building in the row, planning to flee across the rooftops until they reached somewhere safer.
He made it perhaps twenty feet before his body finally betrayed him.
His legs gave out completely, bone snapping, the last connective tissue finally failing. He collapsed, Zhung spilling from his back to the rooftop surface, both of them lying broken and gasping.
"Can't... carry you further," the driver rasped, his voice barely recognizable coming from a throat that was mostly exposed bone and cartilage. "You'll have to... run yourself... even if crawling..."
Zhung tried to move, tried to stand, but his shattered ribs screamed in protest and his legs wouldn't support his weight. He managed to push himself up to hands and knees, agony exploding through his torso, blood running from his mouth where broken ribs had punctured internal organs.
"Can't," Zhung gasped, each word costing him dearly. "Body's destroyed. Can't run. Can barely move."
The driver's skeletal face—what remained of it—twisted into something that might have been a bitter smile.
"Figured... as much."
They knelt there together on the rooftop, two dying assassins who'd pushed their bodies far beyond any reasonable limits, who'd survived impossibilities only to fall short of actual escape.
Then a new sound cut through the morning air—a whistling, growing louder, approaching fast.
Zhung looked up just in time to see the fireball.
A massive sphere of flame, easily six feet in diameter, launched from somewhere below, arcing through the air toward the rooftop where they lay helpless.
*Cultivators,* Zhung's mind registered with numb recognition. *Wei Shao hired backup. Fire technique specialists. High-rank practitioners who can manifest elemental attacks.*
*We're about to be burned alive.*
The fireball struck the rooftop behind them with devastating force, exploding on impact, flames spreading across the surface in all directions, heat washing over them in waves that singed hair and clothing.
The driver moved on pure instinct, his remaining skeletal hand reaching into his deteriorating robe and pulling out something Zhung hadn't known he carried—bone shards, similar to the ones Zhung kept in his wolf pelt, sharp fragments of the Albino Mountain Wolf they'd hunted weeks ago.
With his last functional arm, the driver threw the shards toward the edge of the roof where their attackers presumably waited.
The throw was good—professional technique despite dying body—but the shards fell short by several feet, clattering harmlessly on the rooftop surface, failing to reach their targets.
*Can't even throw properly,* the driver's expression showed bitter resignation. *Body too damaged. Strength too depleted. Nothing left.*
Another fireball was already forming below, its glow visible even from their position, preparing to launch and finish what the first attack had started.
Zhung tried to reach his own wolf pelt, tried to access the bone shards he carried, but his arms wouldn't obey, his body shutting down from accumulated damage and blood loss and exhaustion beyond endurance.
They were finished. Truly, absolutely finished.
The driver's luminescent eyes met Zhung's dark, empty gaze, and something passed between them—understanding, acknowledgment, the grim acceptance that this was the end for both of them.
"Tired," the driver said quietly, his voice carrying resignation and something like relief. "So tired. Hurt everywhere. Can't fight anymore. Can't run anymore. Can't even stay conscious much longer."
His skeletal chest rose and fell with labored breathing.
"Hopeless, isn't it? After everything we did. After surviving the banquet and the execution and the inn. After killing so many and completing the mission. We're going to die here anyway. Burned alive on a rooftop by cultivators we can't even see."
Zhung wanted to respond, wanted to deny it or agree or say something meaningful, but his lungs were full of blood and his throat wouldn't form words.
The driver's deteriorating face shifted slightly, the remaining flesh around his mouth pulling into what might have been a smile if it wasn't so heartbreaking.
"At least... we tried. At least we made them work for it. At least we didn't surrender or beg or make it easy."
He paused, his luminescent eyes growing distant.
"That's worth something. Maybe not much. But something."
The second fireball launched, its trajectory taking it directly toward their position, death approaching in flame and inevitability.
The driver's remaining hand moved, fingers forming that same cross pattern he'd used in the inn—the Shadow Decay technique, the power that had consumed most of his body already, the final weapon he possessed.
"One more time," he whispered. "Last one. Use everything left. All the shadow. All the decay. Everything I am."
His hand completed the sign, and darkness erupted around them.
Not the spreading shadow from before, but a vertical wall—a barrier of solid darkness that rose between them and the approaching fireball, thick and dense and pulsing with corrupted power.
The fireball struck the shadow wall and exploded, flames washing over the darkness, trying to consume it, heat and light battling against decay and void.
For three heartbeats, the wall held.
Then it collapsed, the shadow dissipating, the technique's duration expended.
But those three heartbeats had been enough—the fireball's momentum was spent, its flames dispersed, the attack neutralized.
Zhung turned to look at the driver, to acknowledge the save, to express gratitude—
And his dark eyes widened with genuine shock.
The driver's left arm—the only limb that had remained partially intact—was completely gone now. Not just deteriorated. Gone. Fully decayed, dissolved into shadow during the technique's use, leaving only a skeletal torso and skull with those luminescent eyes still burning with awareness.
*He sacrificed his last functional limb,* Zhung understood with cold horror. *Used the flesh of his own arm as fuel for that shadow wall. Destroyed himself to buy us a few more seconds.*
*He's dying. Right now. In front of me. And there's nothing I can do to stop it.*
But the few seconds mattered, because the shadow wall had bought them enough time to move.
The driver's skeletal jaw worked, trying to form words, and somehow sound emerged despite lacking most of the anatomy required for speech:
"Run. Now. While they're... preparing next attack. Get off this roof. Get to the forest. Survive."
Zhung tried to stand, tried to obey, but his body wouldn't cooperate. His legs trembled and collapsed. His arms couldn't push him upright. Everything hurt with intensity that overwhelmed thought.
"Can't," he gasped. "Too injured. Can't move."
"Then crawl," the driver commanded, his voice carrying unexpected authority despite his condition. "Drag yourself if you have to. Just move. Get away from here. Don't let my sacrifice be for nothing."
Zhung began crawling, each movement agony, each inch purchased with pain that made his vision swim, but moving because stopping meant disrespecting the driver's final gift.
Behind him, he heard Wei Shao's voice shouting from below:
"THERE! ON THE ROOF! FIRE AGAIN! DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!"
Another fireball was forming, its glow brightening, preparing to launch.
And Zhung was still crawling, still meters away from the roof edge, still exposed and helpless.
The driver's skeletal form lurched upright one final time, his body held together by nothing but Will and desperate determination, and somehow—impossibly—began moving toward Zhung.
He reached the injured boy, his remaining skeletal hands grabbing Zhung's collar, and with strength that shouldn't exist in a body that was ninety percent dead, he threw.
Zhung's body flew through the air, propelled by the driver's final exertion, clearing the gap between buildings, crashing onto the next rooftop with bone-jarring impact that made his vision go white with pain.
But he was on the next building. Out of immediate line of fire.
The fireball launched, its trajectory taking it toward where Zhung had been lying—
Where the driver still stood, his skeletal form backlit by morning sun, luminescent eyes watching Zhung land safely on the adjacent roof.
The fireball struck him directly, flames engulfing his remaining body, consuming what little flesh remained, burning away the last traces of the man who'd been their companion through weeks of preparation and violence.
"NO!" Zhung screamed, the word tearing from his throat despite the pain, despite the blood filling his lungs, despite everything.
But the driver was already gone, consumed by fire, his skeletal remains collapsing into ash that scattered on the morning breeze.
*He's dead,* Zhung's mind acknowledged with numb shock. *Really dead. Not coming back. Not surviving through impossible techniques or stubborn will. Just... dead. Gone. Ash on the wind.*
*He threw me to safety and took the fireball himself. Deliberate sacrifice. Choosing his own death to ensure my survival.*
*Why? Why would he do that?*
But there was no time to mourn, no time to process, because more fireballs were being prepared and Wei Shao's furious voice was directing cultivators to pursue.
Zhung forced himself to move again, crawling across the second rooftop, his body screaming in protest, leaving a trail of blood behind him, driven by nothing but survival instinct and the desperate need to make the driver's sacrifice mean something.
He reached the far edge and fell more than climbed down to the alley below, landing hard, feeling something else break inside him, but pushing through the pain because stopping meant death and death meant the driver died for nothing.
*Move. Crawl. Drag yourself. Get to the forest. Get away. Survive.*
He moved through alleys and back streets, avoiding main roads, staying in shadows, a broken sixteen-year-old leaving a blood trail that should have made tracking trivial.
But somehow—through luck or the confusion Wei Shao's forces were experiencing or divine intervention—he made it to the town's edge without being caught.
The forest loomed ahead, dark and welcoming, offering cover and concealment and the slim possibility of survival.
Zhung crawled into the underbrush, leaves and dirt mixing with his blood, pain overwhelming everything, consciousness beginning to fade from blood loss and exhaustion and injuries that would probably kill him even if he escaped pursuit.
He managed perhaps fifty feet into the forest before his body finally gave out completely.
He collapsed against a tree trunk, unable to move further, each breath a struggle, darkness creeping in from the edges of his vision.
*This is it. Made it to the forest. Made it away from town. But dying anyway. Too injured. Too much blood lost. No medical treatment. No help coming.*
*At least I'll die free. Not captured. Not executed. Just... dying alone in a forest.*
*The driver bought me this much. A death of my choosing rather than theirs.*
*That's... something.*
His eyes began to close, consciousness fading, death approaching with gentle inevitability—
Then a skeletal hand touched his shoulder.
Zhung's eyes snapped open in shock, expecting enemies, finding instead the driver's skeletal form crouched beside him.
Not ash. Not dead.
Still moving. Still somehow animate despite being burned to bone by the fireball.
"Still... alive," the driver rasped, his voice barely audible. "Told you... hard to kill... something that's already... mostly dead."
His luminescent eyes—somehow still present despite the fire, still burning with awareness—studied Zhung's face with something like concern.
"You... made it... to the forest. Good. Stubborn. Refusing to die. I like that."
Zhung tried to speak, tried to ask how the driver was still moving, but his throat wouldn't cooperate.
The driver's skeletal hand—just bone now, all flesh consumed—reached into the charred remains of his robe and withdrew something.
A book. Small, leather-bound, somehow protected from the fire that had consumed everything else.
"My technique," the driver explained, his voice growing weaker with each word. "Shadow Decay. Everything I learned. How to use it. How to control it. The costs. The dangers. All written down."
He pressed the book into Zhung's hands.
"Yours now. Learn it. Use it. Maybe you'll find a way to master it without the decay. Maybe you'll discover something I missed."
"Why?" Zhung finally managed to rasp, the word costing him dearly. "Why give me this? Why save me? Why any of it?"
The driver's skeletal jaw moved in what might have been a smile.
"Because..." He paused, gathering strength for what he needed to say. "I'm dying. Really dying now. Minutes, not hours. The fireball burned through what was left. I'm running on nothing but Will holding bones together."
His luminescent eyes dimmed slightly.
"And before I die, I want someone to know. Someone to understand what I was. Not just the monster everyone saw. But the person beneath."
He shifted position slightly, settling against the tree beside Zhung, two broken figures resting in their final moments.
"My name is Li Jiangsu," he said quietly. "Not 'the driver.' Not 'the masked one.' Li Jiangsu. And I'm the illegitimate son of Li Huang."
Zhung's dark eyes widened fractionally despite his pain. *Li Huang's son. That explains the resources. The access. The reason he was on this mission.*
"My mother was a servant in the Li manor," Jiangsu continued, his voice carrying memories and old pain. "Li Huang used her for a night and discarded her when she became pregnant. She died giving birth to me, and he kept me because... because he saw potential."
His skeletal fingers traced patterns in the dirt absently.
"I had an unusual Aperture. It formed in my left arm instead of the standard locations. That made me interesting to him. A curiosity. An experiment."
The luminescent eyes turned toward Zhung.
"He wanted to see what would happen if someone with an arm-based Aperture consumed demonic blood. Whether it would enhance that specific limb or spread through the body differently. Whether it could create unique techniques."
"Shadow Decay," Zhung said quietly.
"Yes. The technique manifested naturally after I consumed blood from a shadow beast. I could control darkness. Make it solid. Use it as weapon and shield. It was powerful. Incredibly powerful for someone my rank."
His skeletal jaw clenched.
"But there was a cost. The arm-based Aperture couldn't circulate blood properly. It would accumulate essence but couldn't distribute it to the rest of my body efficiently. The demonic corruption built up, concentrated in my arm, then spread slowly outward."
He gestured at his skeletal form.
"Decay. Starting from the arm, spreading gradually through my entire body. Every time I used the technique, every time I channeled shadow, the decay accelerated. My flesh rotting while I was still alive. My body consuming itself to fuel the power."
"Why didn't you stop?" Zhung asked, genuinely confused. "Why keep using a technique that was killing you?"
Jiangsu's laugh was hollow and bitter.
"Because Li Huang commanded it. Because I was his weapon, his experiment, his tool to be used until broken. And because..." His voice dropped to something barely audible. "Because I'm a freak. A monster. Something that should never have existed. At least if I was useful, if I could complete missions and kill targets, my existence had purpose."
He turned to look at Zhung directly.
"They called me that, you know. The guards. The other servants. Even Li Huang sometimes, when he thought I couldn't hear. 'The freak with the rotting arm.' 'The walking corpse.' 'The failed experiment that's too useful to dispose of.'"
His luminescent eyes dimmed further.
"The mask wasn't just to hide the decay. It was to hide my shame. To pretend I was normal. To give myself the illusion that I was human instead of... this."
Silence settled between them, broken only by their labored breathing and the sounds of forest life unconcerned with human tragedy.
"I have a condition," Jiangsu continued after a long moment. "I can control shadows easily—better than most cultivators control their primary elements. But my Aperture location means I can't generate enough blood to sustain my body properly. Every technique use consumes flesh. Every shadow manipulation accelerates the decay."
He held up his skeletal hand—just bones now, all flesh gone.
"This is what happens when you use a technique your body can't support. When you push beyond your limits because you're a weapon that exists to be used. When you're a tool instead of a person."
"I understand," Zhung said quietly, and was surprised to realize he meant it.
*I was a tool too. In my previous life. Used by people who saw me as means to their ends. Exploited and manipulated and treated as disposable.*
*My brother...*
The memory surfaced unbidden—his modern life, the family that had used both brothers for their schemes, the final confrontation where he'd escaped but his brother had died taking the consequences Zhung should have faced.
*My brother died so I could be free. Sacrificed himself because he loved me despite everything. And I... I ran. I survived. I became this.*
Something twisted in Zhung's chest—an unfamiliar sensation, uncomfortable and sharp, like a knife made of emotion rather than steel.
*An ache. Pain that isn't physical. Grief? Empathy? Something I thought I'd burned out of myself when I embraced the coldness.*
"You're crying," Jiangsu observed with surprise.
Zhung's hand moved to his face automatically and came away wet. Tears. He was crying. When had that started?
*I don't cry,* his mind protested. *I don't feel things strongly enough to produce tears. I'm cold. Empty. Detached from emotions that would interfere with survival.*
*But I'm crying anyway. For Jiangsu. For my brother. For everyone who gets used as tools and discarded when broken.*
"I'm sorry," Zhung said, the words feeling foreign on his tongue. "I'm sorry you were treated that way. Sorry you were seen as a freak instead of a person. Sorry your own father used you until you decayed."
Jiangsu's skeletal form shuddered slightly—laughter or sobs, impossible to tell without flesh to convey expression.
"Don't apologize to me. Save your sympathy for yourself. You're just like me, you know. Another tool being used by Li Huang. Another weapon he'll deploy until you break."
"I know," Zhung replied. "That's why I'll become strong enough that he can't use me anymore. Strong enough to choose my own path."
"Good," Jiangsu whispered. "Good. Then my technique... maybe it helps. Maybe you find a way to use shadows without the decay. Maybe you succeed where I failed."
His luminescent eyes were fading now, the light within them dimming like candles burning down to nothing.
"Zhung," Jiangsu said, using his name for the first time. "Thank you. For listening. For understanding. For seeing me as a person instead of a monster in my final moments."
His skeletal jaw moved in what might have been a smile.
"That's... all I wanted. Someone to know I existed. Someone to remember Li Jiangsu the person, not just the rotting weapon."
"I'll remember," Zhung promised, tears still falling despite his attempts to control them. "I'll learn your technique. I'll master it properly. And I'll make sure Li Huang knows his son was more than just an experiment."
"Don't," Jiangsu interrupted weakly. "Don't tell him I mattered. Don't give him the satisfaction of knowing I died caring what he thought."
His eyes dimmed further.
"Just... live. Survive. Become strong. Break free of being his tool. That's the best revenge. Living well when you were supposed to be disposable."
His skeletal hand reached out and gripped Zhung's with surprising strength.
"Promise me. Promise you'll survive. Promise you won't become like me—used up and thrown away and dying alone in a forest."
"I promise," Zhung said, his voice breaking despite his best efforts.
Jiangsu's grip relaxed, his luminescent eyes fading to darkness, his skeletal form going still against the tree trunk.
For several heartbeats, nothing happened.
Then his skeleton collapsed, bones separating, falling into a pile of remains that looked like they'd been there for decades rather than seconds.
Li Jiangsu was dead.
Really, truly, finally dead.
And Zhung sat beside his remains, clutching the technique book, tears streaming down his blood-stained face, his chest aching with grief and recognition and the terrible understanding of what it meant to be human in a world that treated people as disposable tools.
*He was like me,* Zhung's thoughts acknowledged through the pain. *Used. Broken. Treated as a weapon instead of a person. And he died saving me because he saw that same brokenness and wanted someone to survive who understood.*
*My brother died for me in my previous life. Jiangsu died for me in this one. Both of them sacrificing themselves so I could live.*
*Why? Why do people keep dying for me? Why am I the one who survives when better people fall?*
He had no answers. Only tears and grief and the weight of survival purchased with others' lives.
The forest around him continued its morning routines, birds singing, insects buzzing, completely indifferent to human tragedy playing out beneath the canopy.
Zhung sat there for uncounted minutes, crying for the first time in this life, mourning someone he'd barely known but somehow understood completely.
Eventually, the tears stopped. The grief remained, but his body ran out of water to express it physically.
He carefully gathered Jiangsu's bones—what remained of the man who'd been Li Jiangsu, illegitimate son and failed experiment and dying weapon—and placed them reverently at the base of the tree.
*I should bury them,* he thought. *Should give him proper funeral rites. Should do something meaningful.*
But his body was too broken, his strength too depleted. He could barely sit upright, let alone dig a grave.
*I'll come back,* he promised the bones silently. *When I'm stronger. When I've survived. I'll return and give you proper burial. This isn't the end of your story. I'll make sure you're remembered.*
He placed the technique book carefully inside his wolf pelt, protecting it from the elements, ensuring Jiangsu's final gift wouldn't be lost.
Then, with agonizing slowness, he began moving again. Crawling deeper into the forest, putting distance between himself and Xia Lu Town, seeking somewhere safe to rest and recover.
Each movement cost him dearly. Each meter was purchased with pain. But he moved because stopping meant disrespecting both Jiangsu's sacrifice and his brother's death in that other life.
*I survived. Again. Bought with someone else's life. Again.*
*That means I have to make it count. Have to become strong enough that their deaths weren't wasted.*
Hours passed. The sun climbed higher, then began its descent toward evening. Zhung crawled and rested and crawled again, leaving a blood trail through the forest, his consciousness fading and returning in cycles as his body fought between survival and collapse.
Eventually—he wasn't sure how long it took—he heard voices.
Human voices. Familiar.
"...should have been here. This is the rendezvous point. Where the hell is he?"
Hu's voice. Rough and concerned and carrying the weight of someone who'd been waiting far too long.
Zhung tried to call out, tried to make noise, but his throat was too dry, his voice too weak.
He managed to move one more time, dragging himself toward the voices, until he emerged from the underbrush into a small clearing.
Hu stood there, Bai propped against a tree behind him, still unconscious but breathing steadily. The older man's eyes widened when he saw Zhung's condition—broken, bleeding, alone.
"Zhung!" Hu rushed forward, his hands immediately assessing injuries. "What happened? Where's the driver? Did Wei Shao—"
He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes searching the forest behind Zhung, seeing no one following, understanding dawning in his expression.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Hu said quietly. "The driver. He's gone."
Zhung nodded, unable to speak, tears beginning to fall again despite having thought he'd cried them all out.
Hu's face crumpled with grief he tried to hide, his jaw clenching, his eyes growing suspiciously bright before he blinked the moisture away.
"Damn it," he whispered. "Damn it. That stubborn bastard. He should have run with you. Should have saved himself instead of—"
He couldn't finish the sentence.
Hu carefully lifted Zhung, his strong arms gentle despite their power, and carried him to rest beside Bai.
"You're both alive," Hu said, his voice rough with emotion. "Bai still breathing. You broken but breathing. That's... that's something. Two out of four surviving. Better odds than I expected after that disaster."
He sat down heavily, suddenly looking decades older than his actual age, exhausted and grieving and trying to process everything that had happened.
"The driver," Hu said after a long silence. "Did he... was it quick? Did he suffer?"
Zhung shook his head, then changed his mind and nodded, unable to express the complexity—that Jiangsu had suffered his entire life, that his death was both quick and agonizingly prolonged, that suffering was too simple a word for what he'd endured.
"His name was Li Jiangsu," Zhung finally managed to rasp, his voice barely audible. "He was Li Huang's son. An experiment. A weapon. He... he gave me his technique book before he died. Wanted someone to know he existed. To remember him as a person."
Hu's eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with understanding and fury.
"Li Huang's son. That bastard used his own child as a disposable tool. Sent him on missions knowing the techniques were killing him. Treated him like..." He couldn't continue, rage and grief choking off his words.
They sat together in the clearing as evening approached—two conscious survivors and one unconscious, three assassins who'd completed an impossible mission and paid for it with blood and sacrifice and the death of someone who'd deserved better than the life he'd been given.
The sun set slowly, painting the sky in shades of orange and red and purple, beautiful and indifferent to human suffering.
Hu eventually broke the silence: "We need to move. Get further from town. Find real shelter and medical supplies. You're both dying slowly. Need treatment or you won't last another day."
"I know," Zhung replied quietly.
"Can you walk?"
"No. But I can crawl if necessary."
Hu made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob.
"You're the most stubborn person I've ever met. Sixteen years old and you've already survived more than most people face in their entire lives."
He stood and carefully positioned Bai across his shoulders again, then extended his hand to Zhung.
"Come on. Let's get out of here. Let's survive. For the driver—for Li Jiangsu. Let's make sure his sacrifice meant something."
Zhung took the offered hand and let Hu pull him upright. Pain exploded through his torso, but he gritted his teeth and remained standing through sheer willpower.
They moved into the forest together—Hu carrying one companion, supporting another, heading deeper into the wilderness, seeking safety and survival.
Behind them, in a clearing they'd never find again, Li Jiangsu's bones rested against a tree, unmarked and unmourned except by one sixteen-year-old assassin who'd seen himself reflected in a dying man's confession.
The Broken Path continued forward, now carrying the weight of two lives lost—one brother in a previous existence, one companion in this one—both sacrificed so that Zhung could survive.
*I'll make it count,* Zhung promised silently, clutching the technique book through his wolf pelt. *I'll become strong enough that no one else has to die for me. Strong enough to choose my own path. Strong enough to honor both of you by living well.*
*That's the best revenge. The only revenge that matters.*
*Living when you were supposed to be disposable.*
The forest swallowed them as darkness fell, three survivors disappearing into the wilderness, carrying wounds that would scar and memories that would haunt and the grim determination to make their survival mean something.
And somewhere far behind them, in Xia Lu Town, Wei Shao stood on a rooftop looking at the forest where his prey had escaped, his expression carrying fury and grudging respect and the certainty that this wasn't over.
*They survived,* Wei Shao thought coldly. *But Lord Lu Shin lies in coma because of them. And I will find them. Eventually. When they least expect it.*
*This isn't over.*
*Not by a long way.*
The night deepened. Stars emerged. And the world continued turning, indifferent to the tragedies it contained.
---
**End of Chapter 32**