Within minutes of the fight, the wind eased. Freezing mist came down from the glaciers and turned the walls of Throat Pass to dark shapes on either side of the narrow floor.
Pei Jing knelt beside Ling Feiyu on the boulder. The last eagles had turned south when the thunder echoed through the lower valleys. None had reached the cleft yet. He had time to take stock and leave if he kept moving.
He slipped the ring off Ling’s right thumb. It was deep-sea mustard-seed jade with eight cloud patterns picked out in white gold. A mid-grade storage ring, with room for thirty cubic yards of cargo. Ling’s blood seal no longer had his living qi to feed it. It was stronger than Meng’s had been, but it held none of the extra wards Han had sewn into his pouch. Pei Jing pressed Chaos Qi against the last trace of the imprint. The seal went dark, and the ring opened.
Twelve stacks of low-grade spirit stones lay wrapped in oiled parchment. A thousand stones exactly. He had yet to count the mid-grade stones. Ling had left those in a jade casket in Zhao’s satchel.
He found three silk-bound books of Cloud Mist teachings, including the Cloud-Drifting Sword Scripture. Three small jade flasks sat beside them. The first held eight Tier Two Spirit-Condensing Marrow Pills under beeswax seals. They could restore qi during a long pursuit.
