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Sky Pride Vol. 4 Chapter 39- Making a Name for One’s Self
🕑 Added 2025-11-06 15:00:12 +0000 UTCThis close to the Green River, farms and tiny farming villages were everywhere. You could say a lot of unkind things about the Broadsky Kingdom’s civil service, but their commitment to having peasants dig water management systems was entirely sincere. More importantly, it was skillful. Farms got irrigated. Floods were, to the extent possible, diverted and mitigated. Cities did not run dry in summer months.
It was just a few weeks past the end of the rice harvest, and well before the next planting. The paddies were bone dry, having been carefully drained into the narrow canals that crossed seemingly every flat surface of the country. Peasants didn’t have the spare money to buy a lot of lamp oil. Once the sun set, they were in their homes, eating dinner and heading for bed.
In other words, there was a lot of flat, open country between Tian and the Iron Range, regularly crossed with places to hide if he suddenly needed to drop out of sight. No need to worry about “strolling” or not spooking the mortals.
It had been a while since he really pushed himself to run all out. He was curious to see how fast he could go. He leaned forward, dug his toes into the dirt and started circulating Light Body, Heavy Hands. The pressure on his leading foot dropped dramatically. He weighed less than ever.
Tian shoved off his front foot, exploding into a sprint. Plumes of sun-baked earth flew in the night air behind him, the grass madly waving from the speed of his passing. He saw a village up ahead. A bare minute later, it was behind him. He ran as hard and as fast as he could for ten minutes. It felt spectacular. Up to a point.
He came to a stop in a bamboo grove, cut stumps showing this place was regularly harvested by the local farmers. “I have a trouser situation. And a tunic situation.” Tian muttered.
The faster Tian ran, the more the wind pushed against him. The more the wind pushed against him, the more it tugged at his loose, flowing tunic and trousers. The tunic was belted, so it wasn’t too terrible around the chest, but the wide sleeves acted like scoops. The trousers were flapping and snapping like flags. Aside from the racket, they were uncomfortable. He was worried they would tear themselves apart.
How did the senior brothers manage it? He didn’t think they had ever mentioned it. Hmm.
Tian puzzled over it for a moment, doing his best to remember how the seniors would return to base after roaming the Wastes. They would be wearing their wasteland protective suits, which were pretty loose. They would surely have the same problems he was having. And they… wrapped straps around their calves from above the ankles to just below the knee, leaving it loose from the knee through the hip. They did something similar with their arms, wrapping straps around from wrist to elbow.
Sometimes, it’s not that complicated. Something is flapping? Tie it down.
“I’m a very smart boy, yes I am.” Tian muttered, pulling out some twine. Then paused. This wasn’t the Redstone Wastes. It was a lovely summer night, in fact. It would be even simpler to just run naked. If he was already rejecting the sect’s dress code, why not go all the way? Just strip off and run through the fields like an animal. Uninhibited and free?
He started stroking his chin in contemplation, then froze. He was stroking his chin exactly like Brother Fu did. He hadn’t even flinched when he was thinking about his Senior Brothers either. Even though some of them killed his birth family and were the reason he starved in the dump and was covered in burns.
Presumably the Mad God had a hand in all this. It seemed like something a mad god would do, and if you were looking for the start of things, wasn’t that a good place to begin? But everyone has to be responsible for their own choices. Some of his brothers, out of a desire to make a good relationship with a Heavenly Person and possibly ascend, helped slaughter his birth family. And Brother Fu gave his approval. Not because he approved, but because he wasn’t willing to accept the consequences of refusal.
So… why was it still his face he thought of when he thought of the word “Father?” Why did it still matter what he thought and what he taught? Because standing here, alone, in the dark of the night, he still worried about what Brother Fu would say if he learned Tian was running around naked.
Tian sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t have a good answer, but tying his clothes down wasn’t so bad. It would be dumb to ignore common sense. Tian quickly tied the strips. A good fit. He shook his head and looked east, trying to see the hills through the dark.
Tian ran off again, pushing as hard as he liked and feeling the lightness of his body. Something of Hong was in him now, something of her Yang nature. He found he liked the thought. His sister was always quicker off the mark than he was. Perhaps she would have some of his steadiness now.
Yes, he was, indeed, the steady one. Tian nodded firmly to himself as he ran off alone to slaughter a gang of bandits capable enough to keep a level nine crane caged, based on a tip from the world’s least promising-looking diviner. On the other hand, he really wanted to be moving and not thinking about all the complicated things swirling through his head so really, this was the sensible thing to do. Tian picked up the pace a bit.
He really was skimming along the ground now. Not flying, not close to flying, but light plus strong equaled fast. Tian didn’t know the phrase “power to weight ratio” but he knew the feeling with his body. It was glorious. Then suspicious.
“This can’t all be yang qi lightening me, right? Can it?” Tian wondered aloud. “If yin is the property of making things heavier and more solid, and yang is lighter and airier… but I don’t feel that different just walking around. Is it Light Body Heavy Hands? Am I using it differently? I haven’t spent much time studying it, but there just isn’t that much to know about it.”
Tian carefully watched the energy flowing through his body as he moved. It all seemed normal. Moving faster than usual, but that shouldn’t have any effect. Maybe a touch more earth element vital energy in the mix, but not to an alarming degree. That tickled something in his mind. Things started snapping into place.
“Of course! She has the Southern Mountain Physique. Fiery yang qi, but she has that core of earth inside of her as well. I’ve never understood how Light Hands works, but it’s so obvious now that I think about it. Earth qi. Earth is heavy and solid, Yin, pulling things down. The ground is mostly earth qi, so the ground contains the principle of sinking and likewise pulls everything down. Lava, which has yang fire qi in excess, goes flying up from volcanos until the fire dissipates, then it falls again as the earth qi within it reasserts itself. It’s why heavier things fall faster than lighter things. They have more concentrated earth qi. By controlling the flow of earth qi in me, the ground pulls on me less. This is it! It’s all about earth qi!”
Tian had the oddest feeling that Grandpa was burying his ghostly face in his ghostly hands, but quickly shook it off. The world was so big tonight. He was determined to make the best of it.
He found the Iron Range two hours before dawn. Steep rolling hills, rising from green farmland. Not much in the way of pastures, but there were wide roads for the mining wagons. There was a nearby river, not very wide but wagons could make it from the mountains to the river in two days, and from there the ore could be loaded on to barges and carried to smelters.
“I really have no idea where to look in all that for bandits. Presumably they hide their traces, and the locals wouldn’t know. And even if they did know, they definitely wouldn’t say.” Tian grumbled. In his experience, bandit groups above a certain size weren’t relying so much on being perfectly camouflaged as they were on remoteness and difficulty of reaching them. It was a balance- be close enough for raiding, but far enough that chasing you was more trouble than it was worth. Or, at least, if the army was sent after you, you would have plenty of time to run away.
They had three cultivators, which meant that most of them probably weren’t cultivators. The hills were not heavily populated, but there were mining villages in there. There was a limit to how remote the fortress could be, but how much value would they get from robbing famously poor mining villages? They probably had horses, then, which would need pasturing.
He sighed, and started running. He could move very quickly, and the hills weren’t that big. So long as he kept away from villages, he would find their camp eventually.
He never actually found them. The Crane found him. Whatever had been done to cage the bird hadn’t caged her mind. Brainpower, and the connection formed by almost a year of traveling and working together, bridged the gap. She sent him memories of the route they took, along with startlingly vivid images of her captors.
Tian had underestimated the bandits. They were mostly cultivators and their chiefs were all Level Nine. Not fun, given that they would threaten to kill the crane if he just went storming in. Still, with an inside bird, it should be doable.
The bandit camp was at the back of a deep canyon. There were a few horses, but they were mostly used to pull wagons. Lots of simple wooden shacks, lots of tents… lots generally, actually. It was the size of some villages he had seen. It made more sense once he realized there were women and children mixed in with the desperate looking men. It was a bandit gang, yes, but a long established one. Generations of bandits.
Did he… still rush in and slaughter everyone once he got the crane free? Surely not. Not after what happened to his family. Or just generally. Tian had never killed a child, and didn’t intend to start now. None of the women looked like fighters. They didn’t look like prisoners either. Just peasants, doing their not-very-good best.
Wait. Had they really not found any female cultivators? Had… had they just not let the women cultivate? That was insane. That halved their potential fighting force. But the evidence was in front of him- women and children, none of them cultivators, but plenty of men who were.
The huts and tents were arranged around a bigger building with a stockade fence. The fence seemed more symbolic than practical, in a cultivator camp. Tian started to edge a bit closer, when a bell started ringing urgently. The camp exploded into action, the women and children running for caves in the sides of the canyon walls, the men scattering then reforming. Armed now, and in formations, looking wildly around.
Tian slowly rubbed the spot between his brows. If he could feel the breath of cultivation on them, as long as they had any sort of real training, even from a minor sect, they would sense his cultivation too. Most of the bandits he had come across didn’t have that kind of awareness. These were clearly a cut above.
Run for it? Come back later? Didn’t seem very plausible. He was out of uniform. Bluff? Try to buy her freedom? He didn’t have much of worth, but he did have some spirit stones he was willing to offer, as well as a few odds and ends that Liren didn’t wind up selling. He wouldn’t accept them in trade if he was the bandits, but…
Three level nines came strolling out of the base, one carrying a saber and shield, another a halberd, the last a bow. Tian stopped trying to hide and walked out from behind the rock he was crouching behind.
“The fellow daoist appears lost.” The one with the saber spoke in a booming voice, the sound echoing off the canyon walls.
“Yes, I do.” Tian nodded. That seemed to puzzle them for a half second, then they grinned nastily.
“Are you saying you are lost, and you just happened to find us?”
“No, I look lost. I was coming to find you.” Tian gently corrected.
“Oh? And what does a wandering madman want with us?”
“A very smelly old man told me that you caught a bird recently. I want it, and am willing to buy it.” Tian kept his voice steady. He counted two hundred bandits. A sizable force anywhere, but their cultivation was largely trash. Level one and twos, mostly, with a sprinkling of middle rankers and and only four level sevens. The three level nines were the only force here worth paying attention to.
He sharply corrected that thought. After the ambush by the Five Poisons Sect, he had no excuse for underestimating anyone.
“Oh? Anyone I know?” The saber carrying bandit stroked his chin with the kind of fake thoughtfulness that Tian associated with someone about to launch a surprise attack.
“Dunno. Selling or not?”
“Everything can be discussed. How much do you have?” This from the halberd carrier.
“Does it matter? Name a price, and we can work something out.” Tian shrugged.
“Heh. I suppose it doesn’t. Kill this wandering madman-”
“Sorry, sorry to interrupt, it’s just, you keep calling me mad, and I feel that I should clarify. I’m not crazy. I’m not well, but I’m not crazy.”
“Oh? And you think that makes a difference?” The saber carrier sneered.
“Yes.” Tian nodded. “Give me the bird. Name a reasonable price, and I can see what I can do. Test me, and even if you kill the bird, you will all die. The three bosses, and all the little bandits. You will all die.”
He got a message from the crane. She had sensed a familiar mind, even if she couldn’t communicate with it. Tian started smiling. Warmly and sincerely smiling.
“Last chance to settle things peacefully.” He carefully eyed the bandits, devising his strategy.
“Are… are you asking us to surrender? And you say you aren’t mad?”
“I’m not mad. I’m just not well. The difference is important.”
He felt a familiar breath rushing faster than even he could move towards the back of the stockade. The three bandit chiefs started turning, slow, far too slow.
“A mad person wouldn’t leave signs for his sister to follow. A person who isn’t well would be willing to play the distraction. Again. Even after what happened last time.”
A blaze of fiery qi smashed through the stockade fence and into the big wooden building inside.
“HONG LIREN IS HERE! WHO DARES BLOCK MY PATH!?”
Comments
Chibrahim
Hong is way too fucking based
Art Dragon
They need to seriously talk about this looming issue and both of them need some goddamned hugs.
Matt DiMeo
was the “last time” distraction during the demon finger event, or was there something more recent I’m forgetting?
Gerald Ransom Jr
Hammer down full send
Jeff Gault
I was worried the dynamic duo would be split for dozens of chapters.
Slapjack
This young noble thinks the bandits are courting death
Jentry Lange
Tian brings the fuck around, Liren makes sure they find out
Sean Shivers
That's kinda how I read it. "They killed the people who were supposed to love me." Isn't about his actual family... It's about the gap created.
Sean Shivers
Liren is crazy, but not unwell.
Hugo Nuef
I am such a fanboy! I was that close to cheer Liren! "LIREN, LIREN !!“
Mundane
Not sure if I need an entire alternative universe chapter but thinking about this different situation cracked me up. I am not mad I just did not want to destroy my pants by running too fast.
Cole Armstrong
I assume the plan was probably the use the darts to eliminate the nines. After that, cleaning up the rest with palms probably wouldn't be *that* bad. Though I do agree that it's a bit risky and tactical retreat would be better. My guess is that he suspected Hong was following the whole time to make sure he didn't do something silly
Duck_Giblets
Warby commonly upsets all the traditional tropes. It's great, an arc apart would be dumb, this is a tale of two cultivators who are both the main characters, told from the perspective of one. More difficult to write surely, Warby has the skill.
Duck_Giblets
Well, they're teenagers. Level 7 is a reach, and I'm guessing their reputation is still contained to the sects.
Duck_Giblets
I half want to find out what the reaction would be if tian flounced some of his wealth.. And was free swinging.
Harimeow
So we can sleep soundly knowing Hong didn't gain *too much* of Tian's steadiness
Thomas Lawless
And Liren swoops in like Underdog.
Trasen56
One thing that was interesting about that explanation is that if you consider Earth Qi mass and Fire Qi kinetic energy then it isn't a bad explanation. Accumulating mass leads to gravity and weight, accumulating kinetic energy leads to movement.
Gardor
This is the first time ive associated cultivators with like, super extra "kayfabe" wrestlers, and i do NOT hate it. Liren smashes in and her theme song starts blaring. "AND HER NAME ISSS....HOOOONG LIREN"
Spacefather
I think Tian should be spending less time hating the brothers/monastery/Fu for killing his family, but more for the pain and suffering that he went through (burns, ending in the dumps, isolation). His parents and family mean nothing to him. But they were also the ones to bring him back into society, to show him care and concern even though he was a Nobody. To be fair, he died once (in the fire), was in limbo/hell (the dumps), and was reborn with tian soup (thanks to grandpa) and reintroduced into human society with the brothers. "“I pray your next life will be peaceful. I pray that you will be healthy. I pray you never have another devil mother and demon father. I pray that you have no enemies. I pray-” He is now healthy. He no longer has a devil mother and demon father. His life isn't peaceful, and he has enemies, but he has friends to face them with, and at least the abilities to meet some of the challenges and overcome. I think Hong, being as emotionally stunted, and as immature as Tian, really didn't help, but I don't blame her for not helping. But I hope she was smart enough to realize that he needs to be reminded that he isn't alone, and he needs to be reminded of the love his proper dad has for him (because we didn't even see the other).
Spacefather
Like, "It’s why heavier things fall faster than lighter things"... Whaaaat?
Anonymous
Never fear, Hong Liren is here!
BaguaBrady
LOL to Grandpa face palming at xianxia laws of physics
Nonnyor Business
That's basically it. He is violating the social norms in a very significant way. This is a reference to a couple of things- depending on the period, men's hairstyles could change radically, but they were often long, and for the more aristocratic, up in a bun. Loose hair was considered low class, barbarous, or even crazy. So actual daoist priests and monks would have their hair up in buns, and even under little hats, a lot of the time.
Zenopath (AEV)
Let's take a second to realize that Tian doesn't have his primary weapon right now. I mean, yes, he's got thunderous palms, but if he really wanted to take on 200 bandits and win, he'd probably need a rope dart. So the fact that he just walked up to the front door, not knowing that Hong was only minutes away, is pretty crazy. To be fair, he was trying to be stealthy at first, but he could have made a tactical retreat when they noticed him.
Isaac Kim
Bonus chapter?
Dillon
“Yes, he was, indeed, the steady one. Tian nodded firmly to himself as he ran off alone to slaughter a gang of bandits.” But the gag is that we discover that this is, in fact, the calm and steady version of entering a bandit camp.
Jerkface
For my own understanding, people keep calling tian a madman because his hair is down and he’s not all done up in his robes? Or is there something else I’m missing?
Doubledoor
'How could I possibly be lighter?' asks the guy who spent a signinficant amount of time complaining that he got shorter.
Hakurei06
Bandits: Oh, no! Hong Liren: OH, YEAH!
João Vene
The same way that Saber Heavenly Person could have decided to not look for Tian and Liren because of the sect's politics, they could have abandoned the crane too. The crane was entrusted to Tian, so it being captured or lost could be said to be his fault. In the absence of Tian, a bad faith argument can be made that the fault lies with Tian's father, Brother Fu. But yeah, I'm really interested in hearing what Liren found out from the sisters about how that battle ended up. It could be as simple as the heavenly fighters injuring each other and running away, leaving the clean up to the earthly people, who just didn't have the capability to find the survivors.
Veridescent
Ah yes the old classic. Most successful larger bandit groups tended to be communities that robbed travelers and outsiders. Multigenerational and communal culpability. Extend such to cultivators and you have a problem of harm. A truly strong cultivator would seek the root their deprivation, ask and teach them to not enact the harm again and have them act to reconciliate those harms by acting mindfully going forward. But thats more Bhudha than Confucius, and not sure either of the young are ready yet.
Matt DiMeo
She’s gonna make a bunch of bandits compose and perform odes to her beauty.
William Johnson
Holy shit I say it all the damn time but Hong Liren is the motherfucking GOAT!
Robert Mullins
Tian is discovering that it is possible to hold 2 extremely opposing emotions towards someone simultaneously. Life is not so clean as to be made up only of situations where your feelings toward someone can be only positive or negative.
Zenopath (AEV)
So the most charitable chain of events (for the sect) is that the parasite arts using heretic heavenly person drove off (or killed) the saber-using orthodox heavenly person. At which point the heretic decided to dump the crane onto a group of bandits for safekeeping? She had said she was going to sell the crane off, maybe she didn't have a buyer yet and considered it too risky to drag the crane all the way back to the wastes? So are the bandits her underlings, are some of them her puppets or did she just sell the crane off to a middleman? So many questions. Of course, the least charitable chain of events is that the orthodox heavenly person actually drove off the heretic and decided not to bother to rescue the crane and let it get captured by a random group of bandits, or sold the crane off themselves, but I don't think the sect is that evil/lazy. Presumably, the crane doesn't have the political enemies that Tian and Liren do, so that if no effort was made to rescue her, it probably means that the sect doesn't know she's been captured. Which also raises some questions. Either way, the sect comes off as rather incompetent if in all the days Tian and Liren spent healing, no one came looking for any of the 3 of them.
Cisby
I burst out laughing at the last scene, hahaha
Raymond Mouton
Thanks for the chapter. Good One.
Robert Mullins
It's important to remember in moments like this that Tian and Hong would look like relatively normal level 7 cultivators. At most their apparent age might make someone think they are extremely talented.
Gavriel
And then gandalf shouts back, YOU SHALL NOT PASS
Logrus
Hong following the Dao of the Dynamic Entrance!
Andrew Goebel
Is Tian parsing his emotions or is he rationalizing so that he doesn't have to feel mad at Fu? I think forgiveness is possible, but this is a little fast.
Zenopath (AEV)
I think Liren and Tian might have to have a discussion. Liren hates bandits. I suspect she might be inclined to kill the kids if Tian doesn't stop her.
Robert Mullins
Odds that Tian, after feeling lighter than he expected to , interrupts the battle to ask Liren if she gained weight?
Noroh
Hong: What were you thinking just rushing into two-hundred bandits alone??? Tian: *raises eyebrow*
Robert Mullins
200 bandits: you really think you can take us all on your own. Tian: ah, but I am not alone. 200 bandits: A Trap!! Hong: and you've fallen for it, There's actually 2 of us! 200 Bandits: ...
atmosphericturtle
Hong’s entrances always get me lmao
True_Jolly_Roger
I wonder what way of killing kids Tian will use? He doesn’t have mind control techniques to force bandits to do it, nor summons. Plus he didn’t advance far enough to it himself.
ioajfidsnmfomds77
Silly Ghost Grandpa all physics is actually just qi and the Dao
dkpfrog
Tftc!!
Aaron Archer
Im so glad it was days and not decades before he saw his sister again.
pierre boucheron
OH god... and here I went last chapter thinking unkind thoughts about the innkeeper and the old seer. I was unfilial, the shame is on me for those most accomplished men did their duty perfectly.
JTP
These two are just the best. I love their dynamic so much!
EvilLittleThing
Hong is absolutely best girl
Codered999
Tian will need time to heal, but he also needs to realize that having friends will help him heal. Also, love Liren showing up in a blaze of glory as always.
Vainirion
“Oh, yeah!” - Hong Liren
Roxanne Moore
Let's go! tftc!
Kain
She’s so the actual main character lol.
João Vene
You have to shout your name out loud, otherwise how will the bandits know who's killing them?
SquiddlyWinks
Kyyyaaaaaaaa
Chrysos au
Thanks for the chapter
Johan Persson
Yeeeeeah here we go! Time to see what double-soup brings with it!
Ekko
I love how Hong Liren just Leeroy Jenkins' her way into the situation. I imagined her calling her name out in that exact same tone XD
