It wasn’t long after we were situated in what was already being called The Golden Palace when I ascended. I was simply where I needed to be, doing what needed to be done. Our nation needed a Sage, so I became one. Remarkably unpretentious.

Xiang, having recently given birth and still annoyed by… everything… teleported us somewhere well away from any people, and well outside our borders.

I asked why she didn’t just take us to the moon, but she just told me not to be ridiculous. We still needed to breathe. I shrugged it off, and prepared for a fight.

Xiang… was fast. Ridiculously fast. Even without consciously teleporting, she was moving so quickly that nothing less than an ascendant could’ve tracked her, and even I was having trouble. She’d dropped her human shape, moving essentially as a glowing magic rabbit with sleek fur and golden eyes. I honestly thought this form was beautiful… when she wasn’t trying to kill me.

I didn’t get a fancy shapeshifting power, but I did get a third eye gem to match Xiang’s. It was remarkable, almost seeing the world the way she did.

I say almost, because her senses were unmatched. One of the reasons I had to stop her from sparring with Kaoru was because the fights had become one-sided. Even with Kaoru’s enhancement of her illusions, Xiang saw right through them. Even the ones that had enough qi to do damage were useless, and Kaoru’s fighting style was too dependent on misdirection.

Me, I’d been trained by an up-front and relentless brawler. And even if I had to face her, I’d refined her technique to better suit my own nature. So Xiang kept making passes and attacks, jumping, kicking, boxing, and bouncing around like a glowing ball of death… but I comfortably dodged or blocked almost all of her moves. And what I did take hurt, but didn’t stop me.

Plus, those hits gave me openings to counter.

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Finally, the bunny screamed, and came at me like a cannonball. Noise and fury and furry pain… suddenly stopped as I snatched her out of the air as I’d once seen someone else manage, some twenty years ago.

“Well, Mistress. I’d say I’ve finally learned my lessons. What do you think, Xiang?”

The magic rabbit in my hands was suddenly a very naked human, with a very seductive smirk on her face. “Does feel like old times, doesn’t it?”

I shook her a bit. “Thought we were taking a break to raise the children we already have.”

“Well… mating still feels good… and it’s not like we aren’t trying not to have kids for a while…”

I shook my head. It figures that resolution wouldn’t last five minutes with this baby-crazy bunny. “Teleport us home first, please. I’m not quite as fast as you are.”

She did, and she was form-locked within the hour. Well, most likely. We didn’t exactly stop to check that day. Or the next. Or for the week after.

Honestly, if it weren’t for needing to run an empire, I don’t think I would’ve come up for air until she was six months along with the next kid. The woman’s beautiful, sensual, and puts as much of her all into… mating… as she does into her fighting and cultivation. I knew she had a retirement plan going, and was all for it… in a century or two, when Chang was ready to take over and we had a line of succession that wouldn’t go incompetent and/or corrupt for at least a millennium.

But the western merchants were here again, and I had to make sure their long trip was also a profitable one. Plus the southern kingdoms wanted more silk in exchange for their spices, which I needed if I wanted a happy Xiang and therefore a happy kingdom, and the pottery tribes were wanting iron ore that was more workable than the low-grade sand they could gather on their islands.

This could all be arranged, and would be. Making alliances, maintaining a reasonable peacetime military strength, checking in with the various villages, towns, cities, and monasteries… my time was always in demand. But it was nice to get away for a bit, and I think Xiang had finally gotten that irritation the Tiger King’s subpar fight had left her with out of her system.

I’d have to fight her again from time to time, her dao wouldn’t be denied after all. But I was alright with that, and judging by the jumping… not again!

“Xiang! No naked binkies in the capital! We’ve talked about this!”