Chapter 118 - A Better Path

"Except it doesn't," Zhang Bai said from the doorway. "Father always said to start with lists. List the outcomes, and eliminate only the single most unacceptable one. List all the resources at your command, and find ways to make the list as long as possible. List your methods and the price you'll pay for each of them, eliminate the ones least likely to succeed and the ones that cost more than you can afford," he explained. "Keep working the lists until you arrive at a plan that you may not like but can accept the price of and offers the best chance of success. Sister Wen, you moved straight to short lists. You have all of us," he said, gesturing to everyone in the room. "You have more people too, my uncle, the whole of the Zhang family at your disposal because we will not stand for this any more than you will. You have the Feng family, the Tang family, I'm sure for the promise of an elixir you could have the Fei family too."

"As a late-stage Soldier, Long Ma is one of the single most powerful combatants in Turning Leaf," Wan Yue chimed in, picking up where Zhang Bai had left off. "But in the end, he's only one man. There are people in Turning Leaf who don't like you Alchemist Ao," she continued. "But the number of them who would be a party to using a mortal hostage against you is vanishingly small, and of those, the ones who want to suffer at your hands the way Alchemist Wai did is virtually zero. That means that separating Long Ma from Ao Yang will be enough to preserve your father's life. Once we're able to retrieve him, if you fled and we all hid in the City Lord manor behind Husband's formations, even if he escaped anything else we might do, he couldn't hurt you or your parents. We can launch a man-hunt for him later."

"Wen," Feng Xi said softly. "We should bring in my father. He's a better hunter than any of us. Even though he can't come with us, he can help us plan a rescue. There are other hunters we can call on to scout for us. We don't know where your father is being held but we can find out. Maybe we don't even have to confront Long Ma directly."

"Sister Wen," Tang JIn said, wrapping his youthful muscular arms around her in the best brotherly hug he could manage. "You suffered for three years to save me. I'm not as smart as the others, I'm not good at making plans, but if you don't let me tear that snake apart with my bare hands for making you and your family suffer then I'll never call you 'sister' again. Besides, if anyone is going to swallow that beast core for temporary power," he added, pulling back to show her a reassuring smile. "Shouldn't it be the person you've already turned into your pet lion? Wouldn't it be safer for me than for you?"

Slowly, as each person spoke, the sharp black and red fog of rage and hurt retreated from Ao Wen's mind, loosening its grip on her heart and allowing her aura to settle. "Everyone I,"

"Shh," Feng Xi said, placing a finger on Ao Wen's lips and pulling her from Tang Jin's brotherly hug into a warm embrace of her own. "It's okay to be angry, and hurt, and lost, and all of those things. But it's not okay to shut us out. We're stronger together."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Ao Wen said, unable to see more than a misty haze filled with blobs of color as tears flowed down her cheeks. "We should invite Father Feng, Engineer Zhang, and Novice Wu, and lots of other people too. You're right that he beat me. The first round goes to him. The next round won't go his way."

"Before that, Wen, my love," Feng Xi said slowly, running her fingers through Ao Wen's hair. "The people in this room. Brother Bai is right about listing out our resources and I want to know about your six words and the other gifts that might be able to help, but if anyone should leave before I ask about them…"

"No," Ao Wen said, shaking her head. "You all saved me from myself. Mei Lien said we had close ones with us when we died last time, people I must have trusted enough to share these secrets with. Next time I die, maybe the people in this room will be the ones helping me pass." 

Feng Xi ignored the confused looks on the faces of everyone else present, nodding in acceptance before she asked the question that had been building in her from the moment Ao Wen talked about using her father's hand to alter the beast core's aura. "Wen," she asked, gazing into her lover's eyes, relieved to see that they're returned to their normal amber hue. "What about the three drops of Azure Dragon Immortal Blood Essence you were given by Immortal Empress Mei Lien?"

"I don't think I can use it the way she would have," Ao Wen said with a shake of her head. "I asked Mother several questions about infusing Immortal Dragon Blood Essence, it evidently wasn't uncommon in her clan for ascending immortals to leave behind a drop or two of blood essence on their ascension. It's not a very straightforward thing to do and if the gap in strength between the person receiving the blood and the dragon bestowing it is too great, it can be catastrophic."

"So it's nothing that will help us now," Feng Xi said with a sigh. 

"That's not entirely true," Ao Wen said. "I've managed to stimulate the Azure dragon blood once before when we were fighting the Rage Queen but I barely had control of it," Ao Wen explained, holding up her left hand. "This time though, after three years at mother's side, I know a lot more about True Dragons and Flood Dragons. There's a curse affecting Flood Dragon bloodlines that I may be able to take advantage of. Because Flood Dragons have developed a racial obsession with ascending to become True Dragons, they're susceptible to Bloodline Suppression. In a fight against a True Dragon, depending on the strength of the bloodlines involved, it effectively lowers his cultivation by as much as half a stage which means I wouldn't have to fight him as a late-stage Soldier but more like a mediocre middle-stage soldier." 

"As useful as that sounds, and it sounds VERY useful," Wan Yue inserted herself into the conversation. "I feel like I'm missing something very important to understand."

"It's complicated," Ao Wen said. "And we don't have time to explain it all. You may not believe me," she added with a smile, finding comfort in expanding her circle of trust in the middle of the crisis they currently faced. "But I'm the Eighteenth incarnation of the Myriad Path's Immortal Empress. I don't have overwhelming powers from my past lives or anything," she explained, receiving looks of disbelief. "But sometimes, if I'm willing to accept the risks, I can… relive or maybe just live a portion of one of my previous lives. In one life, I was a warrior in the desert, a member of the Jun Clan named Jun Biyu after awakening, while my body slept for nine days, I spent three months in the desert with Teacher Xie and seven newly awakened youths of the Jun clan learning how to fight with a saber."

"So you didn't actually enter a mini-realm," Wan Yue said, understanding washing through her mind. 

"No. I didn't enter a mini-realm and meet Cong Houzi… I lived for three years as the orphan 'Yu' and was adopted by Cong Houzi as her only daughter. She gave me the name Cong Daiyu before she brought me back to the sect. The thing is, I'm still very much 'me' while I experience these things, even while I'm also 'them.' They really are my memories," she tried to explain. "More than that though, I was able to tell Cong Houzi about the Azure Dragon Immortal's move to protect me in this life, even though Cong Daiyu should have been my first life, the only other time I was ever an alchemist, and the Azure Dragon Immortal did what he did when Mei Lien, my seventeenth self, was in the process of passing me what power she could. All of which is to say that it's complicated and while I might be able to gain power using what I've inherited from the past…"

"It takes too long to access any of it to be useful now," Feng Xi said with a shake of her head. "I hoped the Dragon Blood would be different but it sounds like it's not any more accessible than your memories are and you've already turned the Phoenix Flames you were given into your Alchemy Flames, so there's no hope of using those either."

"It doesn't mean I won't fight as an Alchemist though," Ao Wen said. "Xi, thank you, thank all of you, for helping me to think things through. Now, more than anything, what I need is to get to work. Xi, please invite your father to help us plan," she said, beginning to martial her close ones much as she had once commanded members of the Sacred Flame Celestial Temple. "Jin, please fetch Novice Wu for me, I'll need his help to speed concocting. Bai, can you command your father's men?" Ao Wen asked. 

"Within reason. There's a difference between the City Guard and the Zhang Family Guard, I can command the latter but not the former."

"I can talk to Brother-in-law about the City Guard if you need them," Wan Yue offered. "This isn't just an attack on the Ao family or the Zhang family's alchemist. Long Ma has targeted a mortal as a cultivator, that's a crime the office of the City Lord can punish. What do you need?"

"Here's what I'm starting to think…" Ao Wen said, following Zhang Bai's advice and building out a list of options.