What followed was not a surprise.

I went to the mess hall to eat, and when I was halfway through my meal, Canyue threw open the doors and stomped in. Only a few of the outer sect disciples recognized her, so murmurs rippled across the hall as they exchanged information. Canyue cast her gaze around the hall, and when it landed on me, she flew like a leopard over people and tables alike, all the way to the back where I sat. She landed right by my side, before grabbing my collar and using her momentum to slide forward and slam me down onto an empty table where, luckily, nobody was eating.

She pressed her fist against my chest, squeezing my ribcage between her fist and the table.

"Speak, bastard. Where is the foreigner? What did she do to Xiaolong?"

"I— I don't know," I wheezed.

The pressure of her fist against my ribcage increased, pressing out the air from my lungs, darkening my vision.

"Of course, of course, you don't know. Don't worry, I know what you bastards are like. You are all the same. You cannot speak the truth unless incentivized by force. So be it. What should it be this time? I don't think I've broken your femur yet, should we start with that? It won't heal very fast, but it would be appropriate to the occasion."

Qian Fugui approached us, coughing loudly to catch her attention. "Lady Bai, if I may..."

Canyue turned her head and glared at him. "You would interfere in Bai family affairs?"

Ah, the arrogance it must take to say such a thing when airing dirty laundry in public! If Canyue had not been so caught up in her anger, she would have first taken me somewhere private before threatening to beat me! But this, this was simply comical. I would laugh if I could. If I had any pride for my surname, I would cry for the shame she brought upon it by acting like this in full view of others. I could not imagine how someone with such fragile judgement could become the next head of the Bai family.

I did not even need to call Natsuki. After all, even if Canyue did not have enough of a sense of shame to not do this, society has enough of a sense of shame to not allow her to continue.

Qian Fugui shook his head. "I wouldn't dare. However, I happen to know where the foreigner is—"

Canyue released her grip and leaped back to stand before Fugui. I rolled off the table, holding my neck, trying to reopen my windpipe.

"Speak, then."

"She has been with Professor Jibeidi and several elders. They have been talking all day about array designs. All day."

Canyue's expression contorted. "All day?! That cannot be right. Xiaolong said—"

"Lady Bai, she is a guest from so far away. As long as she is here, we must make sure no harm comes to her, so there is not a moment that she is out of our sight."

In other words, they were keeping her under surveillance. Ah, if only they knew that Natsuki is as the shadow; sometimes one, sometimes many, but always there, everywhere!

"Then I shall go speak with the people in question." Canyue bowed and dashed out of the mess hall.

Qian Fugui eyed me as I lay wheezing and coughing on the floor.

"Bai Chunxue, take your seat and finish your meal. Do not cause trouble for your fellow disciples."

----------------------------------------

Once again, I was able to eat dinner that night. But it was an awkward experience. Natsuki stood in the shadows, only halfway present in this world, barely visible but for her irises that glowed a brilliant white in the darkness. It is a strange experience to eat while other people are just watching. It makes you feel like you are wronging them somehow. And for me, someone lacking the ruthless soul of a cultivator, that is a feeling I could not bear.

"Um, Natsuki," I finally managed to whisper, "why don't you eat something too?"

"I do not require such sustenance," she replied dismissively. "I am not human, so human food does not sate my hunger."

"You say you're not human, but you also say you're not a demon, so just what are you?"

I did not immediately hear her response, so I turned my head up to look at her, at her eyes, shut close but only barely, at her brow, tense but not furrowed, at her mouth, tightened but not frowning.

After many seconds she sighed and began to speak.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Once, many dreams ago, I met someone who was... like me. They told me that in the tongue of man my kind was called the one who bears witness. Their dream ended shortly after, and I learned no more from them. And I have never found a dream in which the children of man know that name. Thus, I believe the correct answer would be I do not know."

I did not understand most of her words, but when I saw the hint of listless sorrow in her limp expression, I decided not to ask any further.

"But even then, isn't food worth eating for the taste?"

"Taste?" She paused and put a finger to her chin. "I am not sure. I have tasted human food a few times, but I do not recall the taste."

"You should try it. It's good, sometimes."

She shook her head. "If a cow were to tell you that grass tastes good sometimes, would you eat grass?"

"...No. Probably not. But—"

"But if you insist, then I shall."

I blinked, and she was gone; I blinked once more, and she was sitting in front of me, holding a tray of food that was remarkably different from mine.

"Where did you get that from?"

"Wang Wujiu's place."

She picked up some soup— not the bowl, but the soup itself, and somehow it did not splatter as liquid does when you pick it up— and took a bite out if it.

"It is remarkably mild. But it is not bad."

"Ah, well, that's the soup. Try that." I pointed with my chopsticks to the oily red noodles on her plate.

She set the soup down. She twirled the noodles around her fingers, and then shoved her fingers into her mouth.

"Still mild, but a little less so. It tastes like pride. But it is red, like anger."

"Ah, so pride is... spicy?"

"Yes, yes. I have heard that word before. It is food that burns the tongue. But what about the opposite, food that satiates the tongue, the taste of greed? I cannot remember what word you use for this..."

"Savory? Try that fish. It might be what you're looking for."

She ripped a strip of meat off the fish and tossed it into her mouth. She chewed a few times and then nodded. "Yes, this is the flavor. Savory, is what you call it? Interesting. They had another word for the taste of greed on the archipelago, one that even those on the western parts of the continent had adopted. But I cannot say that I remember it."

I smiled. Somehow, this silly and inconsequential conversation, over a meal that was only "shared" in the weakest of senses, was for me remarkably pleasant.

It felt almost like... family.

"—Speaking of greed. Why did you not kill Wang Wujiu? I thought you were intending to do so."

"She... doesn't hate me."

"And that prevents you from killing her?"

I nodded slowly.

"I see. So you are the type of person that hates not because you have been wronged, but because you are hated."

My brow furrowed as I thought— did I hate Wujiu? Could I hate her? Could I hate those cold, distant eyes, those eyes that directed all their emotions beyond me?

Distaste, revulsion, indignation; I found these emotions in me. But hate— I could not find hate. It was like looking up at the clouds of rock and ash frothing forth from a volcano, or looking down at the fields of corpses lain in wake of an epidemic. How could I hate what harms in mere passing?

And I was not like her. Without hate, I could not kill.

"I suppose so."

"You are too normal, Chunxue," Natsuki muttered. "Your innocence is not suited to the wilderness. You will only get yourself killed at this rate."

"I know," I said through half a sob. "But I didn't have a choice. The Bai family sent me here despite the fact I'm normal, despite the fact that I couldn't become a cultivator. Despite the fact that I was suited to becoming a scholar."

"Is that your dream? To become a scholar? I have heard that in this land, working for the imperial bureaucracy is a well-respected profession."

"My dream?" I paused. I had never considered what my dream might be. Did I even have the right to hold onto dreams? I, who had no power to realize any of my visions?

"...I suppose so," I finally said.

"Then let us achieve it."

My eyes opened wide. Achieve it? Achieve my dream? Escape the sect and become a scholar? Of course, I wanted to do that more than anything else. But...

"...How? I'm not allowed to leave the sect. If I run away, they'll just bring me back..."

"You are here because the Bai family has asked a favor of the Phantom Orchid Sect. In other words, if you cause enough trouble for the sect, they will expel you, even if the Bai family asks them not to. They are ultimately a cultivation sect. Kill their inner disciples, and what choice will they have but to expel you when they find they cannot kill you?"

—Kill their inner disciples? In other words, if I killed Guoqiang and Wujiu, if I simply carried out my revenge as I had originally planned, I would have a justification for leaving the sect? I smiled, and I could feel my facial muscles twist in a way they had never twisted before. Surely my smile was terrible, for now I had another reason to kill. Not just for revenge, but for my own future! I could build myself a future on the corpses of my enemies! How great a proposition! I no longer needed to hate in order to kill. All I needed was to hope.

"Thank you, Natsuki," I managed to gasp through blissful tears. "Let's do that."

She nodded.

We ate a slow and peaceful dinner together.

By Natsuki's grace, I had my resolve.

I would kill Wang Wujiu.