The preparations had already been completed. The food had been gathered and the pack animals had been secured. The proper seals and letters had been sent out beforehand, a formality that Cai had never bothered with before, but with influence came politics and it would be considered unbecoming for him to visit without warning.

“Peng Li, let's head out.”

The servant nodded and led him outside where a carriage awaited. The guards were already on their horses, qi beasts that could traverse five hundred miles in one hour. Overall, there was about a fifth-rank spirit stone’s worth of wealth traveling with him, counting the carriage, the guards, the beasts, the servants, and of course his weapons.

It was a fortune and it had all been gifted to him.

His stomach turned. Cai felt uneasy. This felt wrong, undeserved, and… dangerous. Yes, that was the feeling.

It didn’t feel right. Something was off about all of this.

But that feeling had been there since he’d returned. It flared up at times but he wouldn’t let uncertainty get in his way. Cai got on the carriage followed by Peng Li. She was his only personal servant that would come with him. Cai wanted to go alone but servants were a sign of wealth.

He could feed and cloth himself, but he would need someone to follow him around to demonstrate his significance, a human decoration. He hoped the poor girl could take the trip, though it should be safe and fast she was still a mortal.

A part of him felt disgusted with the thought of using people as a display of ability. But that was the way of the world and he had to follow it.

He entered the carriage. It had already been loaded with his luggage and other necessities and Peng Li followed after him, sitting on the opposite side of the thing.

“Comfortable,” he muttered to himself.

The carriage was luxurious and as the driver pushed the horses forward, Cai Xuin felt uneasy.

He swallowed the feeling down once more. This was his life now. He’d have to get used to it.

The horses trodded slowly through the streets and outside the city limits, eventually hitting the clear and wide road. Then, with a whip of the reigns, they started to pick up their pace, pushing further and further till they were at their top speed. The land next to the blurred and the road became one giant drawn-out mass of dirt.

Within minutes, they were out of civilization. The driver wouldn’t have to worry about running over people out here. The land between villages was vast and unoccupied, and the few villages that were out here had light towers for communication, and those were visible from a hundred miles away.

The guards, Cai’s guards, were actively projecting their aura all around them as they rode, pushing away any bandits and beasts. Cai would see glimpses every now and then, eyes and auras, flashes of qi from the side of the road. Threats he’d normally have to avoid and maneuver around had he been traveling on his own.

Now they looked at him with fear.

He wondered what that assassin would have to go through to get to him now. That felt so long ago, and yet he remembered it like it was yesterday. The sand, the exhaustion, the fight, his arm.

It hurt.

It went away if he forgot about it, but when he remembered, his arm stung like a fresh wound, as if it still hadn’t healed quite yet.

He could see death and the blade. The clean stinging cut and the cruel eyeless smile.

“Master Cai.”

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His mind snapped back to the moment.

“Yes?”

“It’s time for lunch Master Cai,” Peng Li replied.

“Is it?” He mumbled.

That happened too, sometimes time would just slip away. Hours would crumble and the world would simply run away while he wasn’t thinking.

“Alright then,” Cai replied.

He left the carriage and reached into his storage ring, taking out the already prepared meals as Peng Li and the guards set up his dining area. He felt nasty, watching as the girl worked away.

It wasn’t much, just setting down a blanket and a small table from the back but the new servant struggled with it nonetheless. The ground was lumpy and the winds would not let the blanket stay on the ground. Cai decided to help her. He took the blanket and laid it out in one swoop, having chosen the flattest spot within the area.

“Thank you, Young Master Cai,” Peng said with a bow.

Cai nodded.

Young Master.

Uneasiness came again but this time it did not go. This wasn’t some mere discomfort, this was instinct.

Of all the times in his life, things had only seemed stable right before his world quickly came apart. He felt fine, he was fine.

But Cai knew the quiet before the storm. When his cousins stopped tormenting him, it had been only to plot. When his mother had last hugged him, it was right before she left.

Even now, when he had everything and more, he could still feel it. Where were his opponents, his enemies? Surely they hadn’t all hidden, surely there was something else, someone else, waiting to take him down.

There must have been clans within his sect that he had offended merely by daring to gain power, people who didn’t want him to even be a candidate for the throne of Patriarch. Where were they? Why was everything so silent?

“Young Master Cai?”

Reality snapped back.

“Your food’s getting cold, Young Master Cai,” Peng Li commented.

“Eat quickly,” Cai replied, bringing his own chopsticks to his mouth.

Afterward, Cai had the driver completely rework his course. They were now driving a few miles away from the Great Desert Strip. The roads here were occupied and the driver would have to slow down and work the horses through caravans and merchants every now and then, but it was safer here.

For one there were more witnesses, so if something should happen to Cai, it would be seen. And two, well, it was close to the honored master's territory. At worst, he could run to the strip and pray the immortal would uphold his rule of no violence.

He had saved him once and Cai would shamelessly throw himself into his care again.

Cai looked towards the desert and saw the small light tower peaking at him at the edge of the horizon. That was where the honored master stayed, the immortal.

The man was strange, but he was honest. The five sects had taken to calling the sect The Immortal Oasis Sect and had spread the word of avoiding violence when crossing the region.

And since it was the rainy season, a lot of the lesser clans and smaller sects were treading through the desert and bringing their trades and goods through that village, if only for the chance of meeting an immortal. Massive beasts of burden were everywhere, and pack beetles could be seen scurrying across the sand in the distance.

A huge wave of merchants came from the Hidden Viper’s land. They were the decorators of fashion and such after all, and they had the most interaction with the world outside of the five sect’s region. But even aside from that, they were the leaders of high fashion and alchemical herbs throughout all of the five regions and almost all the beasts cultivators used had originated from their green jungles.

Cai wondered what it would be like down there. Green, no doubt. He’d been there a few times but as a wandering cultivator touring through their cities, never as a guest.

They were a matriarchal folk down there. The Hidden Viper bloodline did well with yin energy and manifested more in women. Over the millennia, the mortals there had taken to their approach and followed similar social standards.

Not that Cai knew what mortals thought. He lived in a different world from them. A mortal could at most travel a few hundred miles, see only the few cities that surrounded them. Cai could cover that distance in a day.

Just now he was thousands of miles away from where he had woken up. The languages and dialects here were different. Of course, everyone here spoke common, but that was because cultivators considered the language to be universal. And Cai had heard various variations of the language, passed down and changed by the mortal who spoke it. It was barely recognizable after a few centuries and completely different within a millennia.

Mortals.

He thought about that farmer, the man the immortal was talking to. Now that had been strange. He looked at Peng Li, the girl sat perfectly still with her eyes closed but Cai knew that she was sleeping.

He smiled. She had stayed up and prepared for the trip, plotting the course and organizing the required materials for the journey. She deserved a break.

And that farmer man, what was his name? Chin?

Cai had called him an honored master right before he left. He hadn’t misspoke, rather, he had spoken on instinct.

It had felt right. The man was older than he was. He had lived longer and taken care of his people. He deserved respect.

Since that day something had been different within him. He was troubled by his path, his desire. All that he sought, all that he wanted, it felt empty now.

Then the world turned upside down.