Book 2 Chapter 74

Mo Jian nodded slowly. "That makes sense. Where would the grave be, if not there?"

Muxue flashed a smile. "You'd be surprised. Many adventurers and seekers have had the same thought. Of course, thinking of it is easy. Getting there is another matter entirely. Even we can only hope to reach it because of you, and, well, because of what I remember from Father's old plans."

That made Mo Jian frown, though not because of the mention of depending on him. They had hashed that out long ago. It was the other part that caught at him. "The interior of the Steppes must be enormous, though. Did your father pinpoint a specific location, or are we going to have to scour the whole area?"

She rolled her eyes – the motion still looking odd to Mo Jian with her seamless pupils. "Of course he did. Though that part took him days of digging through old records, comparing reports, and piecing together fragments that everyone else had dismissed." Her smile faded. "Father believed – and I know he was right – that the Great Khan's grave lies in the very center of the Steppes. Not because the grave was placed there deliberately," she continued, "but because it was placed in the heart of the immortal corpse that lies beneath it. And it was that corpse that made the Steppes."

Mo Jian stopped in his tracks. For a moment, the flow of people carried on around him as though nothing had changed. It took him a second to remember that he was supposed to keep walking. When he finally did, he looked at Muxue as if he had misheard her. "You never mentioned this. I thought the Immortal Qilin's bones were buried and lost."

Muxue sidestepped a rushing Yuan, and for several steps they were separated by the tide of bodies before she slipped back beside him. Around them, shops, stalls, kiosks, and merchants' rugs stretched endlessly into the distance, selling everything under the sun. The deeper they went, the more the central crush of the encampment thinned, but there were still enough Yuan around them that Mo Jian could never forget they were in an enemy city.

Muxue resumed her explanation. "Lost is an overstatement. It is simply that no one can approach them because of the Horde Without End." Her voice lowered. "Over the millennia, enough Yuan have 'returned to the herd'"– the quotation marks around the phrase were unmistakable– "that the heart of the Steppes has never been without powerful guardians. There are always more of them. But Father discovered that it was the corpse itself that Jenghiz sought when he was a newly minted Khan, back when the Steppes were a far cry from what they are today. He believed Jenghiz found something there, and whatever it was gave him his unprecedented control over the Horde Without End."

Muxue paused. "Even now, it may be the greatest army on the continent, perhaps in all of Tianxia. It took an immortal to stop Jenghiz then." Her expression had lost its earlier amusement. "Even now, scholars debate what might have happened if he had launched a second attack."

Mo Jian grunted. He couldn't say he was particularly enthused by the notion.

For all that Jenghiz Khan had made himself a legend, and for all the obvious parallels between him and the historical figure Mo Jian remembered from Earth, he still remembered how terrible the death toll had been during those campaigns. The Yuan were not called barbarians merely because of their nomadic lifestyle. Their habit of sacking cities and piling the skulls of their enemies into grisly monuments had earned them that reputation as well. For all that jade slips were filled with stories of cultivators wiping out entire clans in the name of revenge, such things did not happen often enough to become commonplace in the Empire. If they had, their society would have collapsed long ago.

"The Great Khan was built differently," Mo Jian admitted. "But I'm still glad we live in an era where it is his grave we might encounter, rather than his living self leading his armies." Though, given the greatest threat hanging over Tianxia – the Immortal of Slaughter – Jenghiz Khan was little more than a harmless fly by comparison.

"How did he even manage to reach the center of the Steppes in the first place?" Mo Jian continued. "We have our advantages. Did Jenghiz possess some heaven defying treasure, or perhaps a fragment of an immortal's power, that allowed him to do the same?"

Muxue shrugged, the scales covering her body rippling with the motion. "No one knows, and that is the plain truth. Father obsessed over it for ages, scouring one archive after another, but he never found anything conclusive. Whatever method the Great Khan used, he took it with him to the grave."

She paused, then smiled. "That said, there are still things to be learned even from our failure to uncover his methods. And Father did discover one very important thing." Her smile was inviting, turning what had been a rhetorical statement into an actual question.

"And," Mo Jian said, playing along, "what was this important thing he found?"

Muxue answered with a question of her own. "What was the Qilin an immortal of?"

Mo Jian considered that. He had never spared much thought for the question until now, but Muxue's point was valid. Every immortal was an immortal of something. A path, a way, a dao, whatever one chose to call it, defined the direction of their immortality and the path they sought to walk. The Immortal Emperor was the Immortal of Listening, something Mo Jian knew from his knowledge of the books. Rahu was the Immortal of Beasts. Madam Feng, the Immortal of Frost. The Mad Monk…

Mo Jian hesitated even in his thoughts, but the books had made it clear: he was the Immortal of "Moksha," albeit according to his own twisted interpretation of it. And the five in the Land of Wealth? Those five sworn siblings each possessed their own strengths as well: the Immortal of Righteousness, the Immortal of Strength, the Immortal of Archery, the Immortal of Beauty, and the Immortal of Astrology.

So what had the Immortal Qilin been an immortal of? He turned the question over in his mind, examining what little he knew of the Qilin and how its power manifested in the Yuan: the scales, the fire, the half-horse, half-dragon form. But those were traits of the beast itself, not necessarily expressions of its immortality. Then what? What did the Yuan prize above all else? What was it that made their society move?

"…The sky," Mo Jian said slowly, almost tasting the word before letting it loose. "That's the best I can think of."

Muxue beamed. "An astute answer, Jian. And one Father came to as well. He considered the sky at first, but even with the respect the Eternal Blue Sky commands in Yuan culture, he ultimately settled on a different answer." She paused. "Freedom."

Mo Jian raised an eyebrow.

"He believed the dead Immortal Qilin had once been an immortal of freedom."

Mo Jian nodded slowly. The answer fit. He considered it for a moment before bringing the conversation back around. "And that matters to our discussion about Jenghiz how…?"

Muxue huffed. "Because it tells us something about the conditions required to even approach its corpse, let alone achieve anything there."

She glanced toward the surrounding Yuan before continuing. "There are very few immortal corpses left in the world, even though a million immortals died in the Shattering. Part of that is because their qi dispersed into the land and sky. Part of it is because the world itself was thrown into upheaval. But the biggest reason is that very few immortals died while clinging so fiercely to life that they refused to release their qi. Those who did left their mark upon the world so strongly that their corpses continued to taint the land long after their deaths."

"The Immortal Qilin was one," she continued. "The Dragon of the Stormwall was another. And Jormundagr as well, if those stories from sailors contain even a shred of truth. All three beasts."

And the Gu, Mo Jian added silently. He remembered the bone Bai Ning had recovered years ago from that battle near Blackrock Island. That too had been a lingering piece of an immortal's corpse, though the circumstances surrounding it had been different.

Muxue continued. "What the Qilin valued was freedom. The freedom to run and fly wherever it wished, the freedom to go anywhere it wanted, and the freedom to do anything it liked." She shook her head, a strange smile touching her lips. "Ironic, then, that its corpse bound the people who worship it to this land, making them unable to leave without surrendering the very power that raised them in the first place."

Mo Jian said nothing.

"And we know from the historical records that Jenghiz was always different. He rebelled against the traditions practiced by the tribes of his time. He spent half his life wandering, running from one place to another, refusing to settle down. It was only his father's death and his tribe's near defeat that propelled him toward becoming a Khan." Muxue's expression grew thoughtful. "But that sense of freedom he carried in his heart never wavered. Father believed that was what drew him to the heart of the Steppes more than anything else."

She looked at Mo Jian. "It is why he found approval there, why he found power there, where everyone else found nothing but death." Her smile faded. "Because, deep down, he was like that Qilin. He was seeking a freedom he could not name, a freedom that had been inside him from the very beginning."

Mo Jian was silent for a long moment.

Finally, he spoke. "That's why Tayang is so important. Not just because he might ally with us and our plans, but because he might be our only real shot at succeeding. Even if we could convince another Khan, they might not have what it takes to win the Qilin's approval."

Muxue smiled ruefully. "I had heard that he inherited his father's nature and teachings, so I thought there was hope. Tariq Khan rebelled against many of the Yuan traditions years ago, even as he was ostracized for it. His son is doing the same now. Perhaps that will be enough to resonate with the will of the immortal."

She turned to him, her brow furrowing. "You know, when Father first shared all this with me, I asked him why Grandfather had never taken control of the Horde Without End. Or any of the other immortals, for that matter. Surely, with their unfathomable powers, they could have." She shrugged. "The only answer either of us could come up with was that they were not interested… or that they could not do it."

The surprise must have shown on Mo Jian's face, because Muxue nodded. "Just like you, I found both explanations difficult to accept, though for different reasons. But now I suspect I know why Madam Feng and Rahu do not simply march upon us at the head of a Qilin army. They cannot."

Mo Jian remained silent.

"A Yuan is needed. Someone willing to walk the path of freedom. And if they simply train a warrior to obey them, what freedom would he have? No. An ally is needed. And for that reason alone, the immortals cannot be bothered to try." She huffed. "Which immortal would bother allying with an ant?"

It was a cultivator's reasoning, the natural way the powerful looked at the powerless, and the way they assumed the immortals must view the world. Mo Jian knew for a fact that it was wrong. Immortal or mortal, power did not determine whether one looked upon another person as an ant. That came from somewhere deeper: from one's nature, one's upbringing, one's morality. There were immortals who walked among mortals, living and laughing as they did, and the story had shown him scores of them in its latter half. Even the Immortal Emperor, callous as he could be, did not look at people as ants.

Still, Mo Jian had no intention of correcting Muxue. In matters like this, it was often better to let people believe what they believed and keep his own counsel.

Instead, he asked another question as they passed a tent filled with herbs that seemed to be fighting a battle of their own. A plant nearly as tall as Mo Jian lashed out with a thorny vine. Its opponent incinerated it with a flash of golden fire. "Careful!" another Yuan shouted from the side, his voice scolding. "Those herbs are worth more than you, boy!" Mo Jian barely spared them a glance.

"How was your father planning on getting Tariq to the Heart of the Steppes in the first place? Regardless of whether he would have found the Qilin's approval – or Jenghiz's methods – just reaching it is nearly impossible. We have the gui, but your father did not."

Muxue turned to him with a fond look. "By using the same method you plan to use in the future."

Mo Jian raised an eyebrow.

"He was Crown Heir," she continued, "and he was going to demand an audience with Grandfather, lay out his plan, and ask for his support." She smiled. "The same dream Grandfather once had with Jenghiz, now alive again in Tariq Khan." There was something wistful in her expression. "That was why I was willing to work with you – well, one of the reasons, at least – when we first met. It reminded me a little of him."

Huh. He shouldn't have been – he really shouldn't have been – but Mo Jian found himself surprised by how impressed he was by Muxue's father, the former Crown Prince. The original story had not spared him even a sentence. He had not even been named. Yet here he was, in a way, following a dead man's plan alongside his daughter, trying to outmaneuver the very prince who had killed him. It was poetic, in a way, at least if they succeeded. If they failed, it would merely be ironic for their enemy and tragic for them, a possibility Mo Jian immediately pushed from his mind.

But then… the way Muxue described him, and the way revenge for his death had kept her motivated for fifty years while inspiring others for just as long…

Of course the man had been exceptional. How many heroes and villains had there been in this world? How many had existed without the story ever sparing them a single line? In the original story, Ye Chen had been the lone star, and everyone else merely revolved around him. But Mo Jian was beginning to realize that reality was nothing like that. Everyone had their own stories, their own reasons for acting. Their own people they loved, hated, feared, and mourned. No one could truly be summarized by a few words in a book.

Though, of course, if the Immortal of Slaughter ever got loose, all those stories would end. And Mo Jian had already made enough mistakes – a thought he had to acknowledge – with Shen Jinglan's death. It wasn't just this situation, or the assassins hunting them. There were other needles he needed to thread perfectly, and meeting the Immortal Emperor was only one of them.

Muxue shot him a sidelong look when his silence stretched on. He shook his head at her, reaching up to run a hand through his hair, now threaded with fire. It brushed strangely against his scaled skin, warm and dry and almost ephemeral. "Just impressed," he said. "Your father must have been a scholar capable of putting half the Empire to shame to come up with all this. And ambitious beyond measure. An emperor like him comes once in a millennium."

Muxue's lips twisted. "Thank you," she said, sounding not at all thankful. "I know you mean that sincerely, but those were the very words Chengxuan spoke at his funeral. And now, as then, they irritate me the most."

She sighed. "If he was that great, he should have lived." There was no anger in her voice, only an old and complicated hurt. "I loved him. But I won't forget his mistakes either."

Ah. Mo Jian nodded agreeably, careful not to step into that particular quagmire. Muxue's feelings toward her father were complicated, even if the love beneath them was obvious. He had no desire to entangle himself in them.

"How did he come up with this plan in the first place, if you don't mind me asking?" he said instead. "Were the Yuan always a passion of his, or was this something he came up with from the beginning and then gradually modified and improved?"

She scoffed. "Hardly a passion. He was ambitious, as you said, and wanted to leave his mark on the Empire. He used to tease me about it, you know. He said that if I wanted to surpass his legacy as Empress, I would have to do something truly impressive. Open the Western Ocean, perhaps, or find a route through the Trackless Sea." There was a smile in her tone, if not on her lips, as she reminisced. "He decided on the Yuan as a project early on, intrigued by all the tales of their history and glory, even before I was born. After that, he kept pushing forward with it. And fifty years ago…"

Her voice faltered. "Chengxuan managed to lure him to the Wall because Father feared the collapse of everything he had spent his life building toward. Even at the end, I wonder if he ever suspected that it was his own nephew who was trying to kill him." Her voice was soft by the end, so soft that Mo Jian wondered if he ought to say something.

But Muxue continued, and her voice gradually regained its strength. "At the beginning, the question he asked after reading through all the reports was simple: Why did Jenghiz not leave behind a way for his successor to control the Horde Without End?" She raised a finger. "There were only two possibilities. Either such a method did not exist, and he could not leave it behind, or it did exist, and transferring it was complicated."

A second finger joined the first. "There was a third possibility, of course, that Jenghiz simply considered his successor unworthy. But Father quickly dismissed that. Jenghiz went to great lengths to establish his grave, and he left the Black Sulde to Ogedei. Those were not the actions of a man who thought his successor a failure." She paused as they continued walking. "So Father's answer was that the method – whatever it was – was simply too complicated to transfer."

Mo Jian listened.

"We know from historical records that Ogedei sought his father's grave for years after being crowned, Black Sulde in hand. Jaghatai did the same after him. All the way to Kublai, who ultimately lost the Sulde and fractured the Steppes Empire." Muxue's expression grew thoughtful. "Generation after generation, they tried to reclaim what Jenghiz had possessed. So perhaps Jenghiz did leave instructions. Perhaps he left messages or even a method for his successors to follow. But none of them succeeded because the task was simply beyond them."

She spread her hands. "That was the foundation Father worked from. From there, he went backward through every record he could find, comparing accounts, eliminating possibilities, piecing together what he could."

"And eventually he came up with the plan."

"Yes." Muxue smiled faintly. "Even then, it rests on a mountain of assumptions. But many of those assumptions have since been validated, while others are simply common sense when you put all the pieces together."

She glanced at him. "That is why I targeted Shi Wanjun so early. I knew there was a possibility Chengxuan might try to banish me here, to kill me in the same manner he killed Father. I had to prepare for that possibility." Her smile sharpened. "Even he would never dream that an old plan he scattered to the winds so long ago might still be alive." She looked ahead, toward the endless sea of tents and Yuan beyond them. "Let alone that it might one day stir back to life and burn down everything he has built."

Mo Jian let that sit for a while. Then he glanced at Muxue. "And you remembered all of it?"

"Not all of it," she admitted. "But Father was very fond of explaining things at length. Though there are parts I'm sure I've forgotten."

The noise of the encampment filled the air around them. Voices rose and fell, merchants called out their wares, and somewhere nearby another argument broke out over the price of a bundle of herbs. Yuan passed them in every direction, each going about their own business, unaware – or uncaring – that two outsiders were walking among them with plans that could one day change the fate of the Steppes.

They continued onward, disappearing into the endless flow of the Yuan.

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