The trees had not yet begun to bloom when Mei Jian first entered the Plum Blossom sect. That was intentional, she had heard. As symbolic as it would have been for the blossoms that gave the sect its name to be flowering at the same moment it took in its newest disciples, that was a superficial thing.

It was a martial sect, first and foremost, defined by accomplishments above all else. There was no need for beauty at the beginning; like the sword handed out to her as a new recruit, plain and functional in every way. Focus, focus. She needed to stay calm as her guiding principle, more than anything. That was the one piece of advice her patron had bestowed on her repeatedly.

Her hand crept down to the aforementioned sword as she waited, trying to take some kind of comfort, trying to get used to the feel of the hilt. It was completely smooth and unworn, likely freshly forged and fitted en masse for people like her. Not just her; three quarters of those now arranged in the courtyard had similar weapons, be they swords or spears. Those would be the ones who lacked their own weapons, their own connections.

The ones who were more likely than not to have their journey end here on the first step.

“Weaklings gather in droves, prepared to be culled.”

The man next to her was the one to speak, and it drew a turn from every head that heard it. From the cocksure smile on his face, it wouldn’t seem that he cared. “You would think that pigs would know better than to challenge tigers.”

She looked away. Don’t engage, not now. It wouldn’t be wise to make an enemy right before the trial, even assuming his skills didn’t match his tongue. He looked around, taking the measure of all those close to him. Somehow, since he started to speak, she had become the closest. His gaze ran over her, and she could feel his eyes lock on.

“It would appear that I’ve frightened everyone else away!” A line directed at her, but with pitch enough she was sure the whole courtyard of applicants had heard it. “So, which are you? A pig, or a tiger?”

Something in her face grew stiff as she faced him. “I don’t believe that I have had the pleasure of your name.”

“Wei Feng.” He took a step closer to her, grinning even wider. “You can call me senior brother, if you make it in. Although…”

His eyes flicked over her again, more slowly this time. “For a girl as visually blessed as the one before me, success might not be required to get to know me better.”

The clothing he wore was nice, a step up from the common sect robe, yet clearly cut in the martial style. His sword as well, a custom design that seemed fitted to his body, with a handle longer than the average, and even a touch of gilding on the hilt. Mei Jian looked back up at him, and her next words came through clenched teeth.

“Young Master Wei Feng, I presume?” She didn’t allow him to affirm. “A shame, still too young to master your tongue.”

There was nothing comical about his chuckle that came as response. “I don’t suppose you’re offering to master it with your own.”

She was uncertain of at what point in time her hand had gripped the sword, but she knew for certain that was the moment she drew it out.

“I can remove it for you, should you like.” Her voice was as heated as her cheeks. “You seem reluctant to draw. Tell me, could the young master perhaps be scared of a poor farm girl? Or is the gold on that sword too heavy for you without a servant to carry it?”

A clapping sound, somehow both too harsh and too clear to have come from humans hands. Yet come from them it did, the man who suddenly stood between them lowering the source of the noise. His hands could only be described as worn. Like leather boots that had been beaten into shape through long months of hard walking, yet were only all the tougher for it, or the trunk of a tree gnarled with age and yet seeming as though no storm could ever fell it. The voice that followed fit his appearance. It carried all the weight of his age, and all the power of his broad torso bound with muscle.

“It’s nice to see that the youth are still as foolish and brash as ever,” he said. “But I would hope you can at least wait until you’ve registered to start cutting one another down over petty nothings.”

Mei Jian could feel another blush coat her cheeks, this one of mortified shame she could barely hide with a hurried bow. After all she heard, and all she’d told herself about keeping her head clear, all it took was a handful of rude lines from a worthless fop? But, at least surely this man from the sect could see that she wasn’t the one at fault.

She let her eyes sneak up, still bowed, only to see that the taunting young master had suddenly transformed into the very image of civility, bow perfect and refined as he spewed niceties.

“Master Zhihao Chen! It is a pleasure to see you here, truly. I am certain that your esteemed eye on the proceedings, that everything will flow as smoothly as the great river, and that your judgement of the initiates shall rival the great King Yan himself.”

Said master exhaled in a way a generous person could have called a laugh. “I don’t recall introducing myself to you.”

Wei Feng straightened, shooting a bright smile at the older man. “Please, a master such as yourself needs no instruction.”

Another snort, this one followed by a pause as Chen reached for the pair of nondescript bags that she just now noticed hanging at his belt. “Here.”

He tossed one to Wei Feng, and the other to her. “Since you two seem incapable of controlling yourselves, you’re now my assistants. Hand one of these out to everyone here.”

It was heavier than it looked when she held it. A peek inside showed Mei Jian pieces of wood, dark enough brown to nearly be black and cut into disks about the size of one’s palm. Carved from the plum blossom trees that gave the sect its name?

“I seem to recall ordering you to pass them out, not to gawk at them.”

She startled into action, hurriedly passing the first one to the closest man. They were smooth to the touch, and felt as though they had weight and strength beyond what wood should. Each one had a circle just inside the diameter on one side, and the delicately carved plum blossom that served as emblem on the other.

The various initiates gathered into two loose groups, one centered around each of them. One-by-one she placed a token in each outstretched hand, until hands stopped reaching out as the last man shuffled past her, giving a brief nod of gratitude.

In comparison, the empty bag felt freakishly light, leaving her hands feeling unbalanced without the need to constantly correct her center of gravity.

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Wei Feng turned to her; smirk plastered onto his visage. “Forget something?”

She bit back the barb that rose to mind. “I do not believe so.”

His face split further. “Then, you surely didn’t forget that you would need a token of your own?”

The young master held it out and waved it before her. She snatched it from his hand and half-turned away, hiding her face before replying. “I just thought that fulfilling Master Chen’s task came before my own needs. Is that not the proper mindset an initiate should have?”

The chuckle that followed was enough to know he saw through her bluff, even if he had enough scraps of civility to give face rather than calling her out on it. Somehow, that felt like even more of a humiliation than another biting response.

It was heavy in her hand as she clutched it. This one seemed to hold half the weight that the whole bag of dozens had moments prior. Then as much weight. And then twice that. Mei Jian could see the muscles in her forearm and hand visibly strain under the skin as it suddenly grew denser than lead or gold could dream of being, and she was forced to grip with both hands.

There was something off about the weight, taxing her muscles to their limit without truly affecting her balance. No, it wasn’t heavy at all. As her second hand supported the first, she realized that her strength had just suddenly failed from the point of the token, the closer the part of her body to the lustrous wood, the less power she could put into it.

Her other arm started to tremble, and the veins and tendons in both stood out as she gritted her teeth to keep from dropping it. Slowly, as though to match the burning sensation in her arms, the plum blossom carved into the top began to dye itself a light, airy, yet rich, pink. The color spread from the center of the design to the outstretched petals at the ends, mimicking the way a bud unfolded.

It was only when both of Mei Jian’s arms were at their limit that the weight began to fade. She could feel it, something below the surface, below the muscles and tendons and veins themselves, flowing back down her arms. Like when a leg sat on for too long, deprived of blood, slowly came awake when she stood. It was that same feeling of pins and needles dancing down her flesh, turning her hands into a mess of buzzing where they met the token. Then that too faded away, leaving her merely feeling as though she had already spent the whole day in hard labor in the fields.

She became suddenly aware of all the others around her, more of them than not having dropped their token or having been dropped to the ground themselves. Those that still stood had reacted in one of two ways, either having seemingly been drained of the energy to do anything other than hold themselves, being as haggard as she was now sure she looked, or having suffered pain in the arm in which they held the wood. The latter group, which she noted with no small satisfaction held Wei Feng, all gripped their hands with a sense of tenderness, testing how well they could still move their fingers with hushed grunts of pain and poorly hidden winces.

Another clap, just as impossibly sharp, loud, and clear as the first, drew Mei Jian’s eyes back to Master Chen.

“All of you bring your tokens over to me.” His eyes flicked over the remaining third or so. “That is, those of you who still hold a token, and can still walk.”

The air tasted sweeter now, now that she wasn’t trying to strain against a physics-defying weight. In sharp contrast to when they had all piled into the courtyard, the line formed slowly and in an orderly manner, no one willing to push or race in front of the master’s gaze. Likely, many of them were too tired to do so even without supervision.

When she presented the circle to him, Chen looked over it briefly with an approving nod. “That’s a nice etching. Congratulations on passing the first test.”

He gestured to the gateway that mirrored the one she had entered from. “Go rest over there, and prepare yourself for what comes next.”

It took every ounce of will left in her not to slump down against the twisted trunks of the plum trees that lined the border of the new courtyard. She seemed to be a minority in that regard, with many making as fast of a beeline as they still could in their exhausted state the moment they were able.

Instead, Mei Jian forced herself to walk around, to keep moving and to observe the new area in full, looking at it from all angles. If this was where the second test would be held, then every bit of information could be helpful. That too was one of hints she had been given by her patron.

The tiles in this courtyard were less well maintained. Almost to a startling degree, knowing what she did of the Plum Blossom sect. It was infamous for its beauty and refinement, as much as it strove to emphasize its martial excellence and attributes. From the finely trimmed yet still natural looking namesake trees, to the walls that each seemed to bear a matching yet different pattern in their bricks, to the previous courtyard, where there wasn’t a single errant blade of grass or crooked stone, everything she had seen prior to this had lived up to expectations.

So then why was this area the sole exception? The stones inlaid in the ground were uneven, many sinking in or jutting out crookedly. Some had cracked apart into multiple pieces, or been buried by the dirt over time. Others had let weeds and grass supplant them, shooting up into tangled messes that could catch a boot if stepped into in the wrong manner. Surely this couldn’t be the state of the whole sect inside the main gates? This mess that seemed as though it hadn’t been looked after in years, or even decades?

“Here.”

She was awoken from her thoughts by the man before her, who wore the sect robes, although free of any markings of status. Her age, if not a bit younger. He wore a box filled with waterskins around his torso, one of which he offered to her now. Mei Jian bowed deeply as she received it.

“This one thanks benefactor. May she be so presumptuous as to inquire towards his name?”

His hands and head erupted into panicked shaking. “No, no, not benefactor! I’m just the sect errand boy. Besides, I’ve only been here half a year, and I haven’t even learned the basics of the style. Please, just call me Yi Ping.”

She straightened. “All other things aside, you have helped me, and you are my senior at this time. Thank you, Yi Ping.” She bowed again, just as deeply as the first time.

This time he didn’t correct her, merely blushing slightly giving as much of a flustered bow as he could with the box of water still attached, before hurrying on to the next initiate. She waited until he moved past her, and then guzzled the water greedily. The time she had spent thinking must have been longer than she thought, for this level of thirst to have been worked up already. That, or whatever the token did during the first test had made her parched as a secondary effect.

As she watched Yi Ping deftly navigate the unstable grounds, drifting over them in a way that reminded her of a flower petal floating in the wind, she found herself impressed. This was what only half a year of training could do? She could already see a nearly inhuman grace in his movements at times, as unhurried and casual as they were. In contrast, the initiates stepped carefully and cautiously, lifting their feet high and looking at the ground as they walked.

Perhaps an overreaction, as even the worst places were only skewed by a few centimeters, but it would be a great loss of face to trip now when merely walking around, unworthy of one trying to gain entry to a martial sect.

Then it struck her. That’s why the ground is so chaotic! It was intentionally like this, mimicking the natural areas in which one would be expected to move during missions for the sect. That was why Yi Ping’s footwork seemed so perfectly suited to it.

With that in mind, she scanned it again, taking note of the areas in which it sloped, the sizes of protrusions and dips, and the areas where plant life had burst free. There was a pattern to it, each part spread out in a way that ensured the same variations occurred in roughly the same sized areas, spread out throughout the courtyard.

It was just as that thought registered in her mind that each one of those areas came alight with a glow that raced over the cracks between them, dividing each one into its own separate square cordoned off by the purple light that seemed itself to reflect the sun.

It was only a heartbeat later that Master Chen clapped for the third time.

“Alright then, time for the real test. You should have had enough rest to recover, and if you haven’t…” He shrugged. “Well, that seems like a problem for you to deal with. Each of you, into one of the marked off areas with one other. It’s time to see how well you can use those weapons at your sides.”

Mei Jian made to step forwards into the nearest one, then stopped herself as something caught her attention from the edge of her eye. The first one, or one of the first at least, to sprint forth into a square. He didn’t have an opponent yet. She didn’t give anyone else the chance to step in.

“Wei Feng,” she said, drawing the slender, straight blade from her hip. “I do believe that we have some unfinished business.”