Some time later, a servant appeared behind us and announced, "Long Bailian is here."

Natsuki stood, so naturally, I stood as well.

"Let her in," she said.

The servant signaled to another, who opened a side door of the courtyard. In came Long Bailian. Behind her trailed several people carrying boxes. The servant at the door immediately found himself lost as to what to do next, as Natsuki had not given any instruction on whether to ask Bailian to stay in the courtyard or to lead her into one of the several drawing rooms of the manor. He looked back for clarification, but Natsuki did not seem to understand the gesture, and thus merely ignored it.

In the span of those few seconds, Bailian's attention had been caught by one of the divine cypress trees lining the sides of the courtyard, one whose branches had snapped during Natsuki's fight with Ouyang Di. She stood in front of it for some seconds, then reached up and wrenched at an intact branch, which did not budge. Naturally, the people following her took the opportunity to set the boxes down in the middle of the courtyard before promptly leaving, and thus it was decided that we would converse in the courtyard, despite the sunny chill of this late winter's morning.

"Bailian!" I called out, jumping down from the pagoda.

She spun around and, catching sight of me, made her way over to the boxes, and no further. When I arrived by the boxes, I found that somehow, Natsuki was already standing there.

"Good morning, Senior," Bailian said, first turning to me. "Is this your sister?"

"Yeah. This is Xiayue-jiejie. Xia as in summer and yue as in moon. Oh, and, uh, I'm not a cultivator anymore, so you don't have to call me Senior. Just Chunxue is fine."

Bailian nodded, then turned back to Natsuki and bowed. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Long Bailian, nominally the heir of the Long family."

Natsuki bowed in return.

"I am Xiayue. My Xue'er has been in your care for some time."

I could see for a moment in Bailian's face a measure of confusion, though almost immediately it was covered by a wide smile.

"Great. Now, I've brought some stuff for the both of you."

She pointed to a small box filled with scrolls.

"This is a list of some contacts I have in the Imperial Capital. Give them my name and they'll help you out. None of them are associated with the Long family, of course, since if they were then my name wouldn't carry much weight."

"Oh, Bailian, you've been to the Capital?" I asked, surprised, though I really ought not have been.

Bailian snorted and raised her hands up in half a shrug.

"A few times, yes. I do not like it. It is easily the most corrupt place in all the state of Wei, where the rule of law is simultaneously the strongest and the weakest. That is why you need contacts. Without them... you might get killed in passing by a young master who takes offense at the color of your robes. You must understand, compared to the power bases that dominate the Capital, the Long and Bai families are honestly quite weak. We are like... dogs, I suppose. Qualified to bark and bite, but not rule."

Natsuki nodded.

"It is often said that here, east of Altyn-Tagh, relations and karma are the purest form of wealth. This is a great gift."

Bailian smiled. "I hope it serves you well." Then she pointed to a smattering of larger boxes to the side. "This is all the stuff you left behind in the house up in the sect. And this..." Cracking open one of the boxes, she lifted out a dusty old book and tossed it into my hands. "—is your foreign cultivation manual."

I ran my hand along the cover of the book. The title was no longer legible— it had not been legible even when I had first procured the book— but the ridges and patterns on the cover's surface were familiar to me. And above all, my life-thread was sewn along the three open edges of the book, sealing it closed. I alone could open the book as I wished, but even I could never remove my life-thread from it— not without dying, at least.

"Why is there a shitsuke-ito* on this book? You are only supposed to sew these into clothes, and I suppose bags of rice as well. The minds of Xilians are truly incomprehensible..." Sighing, Natsuki snagged a finger under one of the loops in my life-thread, then with one swipe, yanked it out of the book. She dangled my life-thread from her fingers, and it curled up in her hand like a caterpillar about to molt.

"Xia-jie, you—"

I stumbled back, but I could not find anything to say to her, in response to the impossibility she had just drawn forth from nothingness. Out of shock I dropped the book to the ground, and its pages scattered open, freely, flapping in the chilly wind.

"What a strange string," Natsuki muttered as she eyed my life-thread. "It seems to be... immortal in some way, like the silk of the eyeless larva."

For a moment there was silence, but it was almost immediately broken by Bailian's howling voice—

"Now I see what is happening here!" she cackled, holding her sides tightly to prevent her laughter from toppling her over. "That unlawful power... it explains so much!"

Natsuki turned a dumbfounded expression to me, so I sighed and explained, "That's my life-thread. It... shouldn't be possible for anyone, even me, to unbind it."

"I see," Natsuki nodded. "I am aware of how these function, but elsewhere there is no such restriction as to how these are bound. If it is something as valuable as your life-thread, then as your sister, I will keep it in my protection." She raised her hand over her opposite shoulder and tapped on the air, spreading a ripple as if through water. When she brought her hand back down, my life-thread had disappeared.

I suppose that there, in her invisible hands, was the best place for my life-thread to be, if it could be freed from that book.

The book—

I picked up the book, and dusted off its cover.

"Bailian, let me return at least some of the favor. This is one of my favorite books. Whatever can be said about the foreign cultivation techniques, it's a good book to learn about the lands beyond A'erjin-Shan. I think you could make good use of it."

I held the book out towards Bailian.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"What an expensive gift! I shall gladly receive it."

Bailian held her arm out in front of her and arced her wrist up. The book flew out of my hands in a circular arc, following the angle of her wrist, and landed in her other hand.

Natsuki called for some servants, who carried the boxes inside, leaving the three of us standing in the courtyard.

—A particularly cold breeze blew, and I found myself shivering.

"Should we, uh, go inside?" I suggested.

Bailian shrugged. "Sure, that would be—"

"Wait," Natsuki interrupted. "We should probably stay out here. Something... is about to happen."

"Is this another long-lost technique?" Bailian inquired with a wide grin. "First the Law of Seven Elements, then Life-Thread Reaping, and now Fortune Divination? Ai, ever more surprises!"

"I have only recently learned this technique after imperfectly copying it from someone who used it on me, and thus I have yet not fully comprehended it, but I can say with certainty that it is not divination. It is rather the art of reading karma."

Natsuki raised her hand, and dragged it through the air until her pointer finger landed on— Bailian.

"I cannot properly determine the source of the trembling thread, but it somehow interacts with you, Long Bailian."

Bailian cupped a hand over her mouth. "Is that Karmic Severing, then? Reading karmic threads is only the first half of the technique. The second half is severing them. But that part is ancestral knowledge of the Li clan. They have a major power base in the Capital, though they're originally based way up north, if you want to go make trouble for them."

"If it helps me fully understand this truth, then so shall I do." Natsuki let her hand fall down to her side. "Well, let us wait here until this... something occurs."

So we stood there, all looking off in different directions, anticipating the something that might happen—

"Bailian, what are you doing here?"

An unfamiliar voice carried from the direction of the fountain. I turned my gaze, and saw there hovering a few feet above the ground an elder with thoroughly grayed hair and an irritated expression. I did not recognize her face, but I was fairly sure that I had seen her once before— exactly one time— though I could not remember when. Yet I could see the dragons embossed upon her robes, so it was clear enough that she was some kind of elder of the Long family. The more difficult question was... how she got past the barrier. The servants had clearly not let her in. Rather, all the servants in the courtyard only took one glance at her before shuffling indoors, out of sight, into the safety of the protective formations over the manor's buildings.

"Huh?" Bailian turned to the elder, and instinctively made a pained sort of expression. "Geh. Grandaunt. I'm just here visiting a friend. Rather, why are you—"

"Before others, I am your Clan Chief, not your grandaunt."

Bailian nodded. "Grandaunt, you're supposed to be in Quanzhou right now. Why are you here?"

Stepping down to the ground, Long Guan sighed and dangled a token out from her palm. My eyes opened wide when I realized that it was a Bai family token, a type used for ceremony more so than identification, though the name engraved upon it was too worn for me to read from a distance. And further— there was a torn life-thread wrapped around it!

"Bai Qiao. Do you know the name? She is my sworn sibling. If it were not for our friendship, the Long and Bai families would not have been able to coexist the way they have done for this past century. I am here to find out how she was killed, and to honor her life while her body is not yet cold."

She cast her gaze over the courtyard, over the manor, over me, and then fixed her eyes on Natsuki.

"Black hair, Core Formation, no more than forty years... you must be Bai Shentong. I am told that Bai Fei is visiting Kangtian currently. Where is he? Bring me to him."

Natsuki raised her eyebrows. "Bai Shentong? She was in Zhaoqing. Until I killed her."

Long Guan's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"I killed Bai Fei, and then I killed Bai Shentong, and then I killed Bai Qiao as well."

Long Guan scratched at her head, then sighed, lost for a response. Only some moments later did she manage to say—

"How do I put this? If you say you are not Bai Shentong, then that is that, but otherwise, your words are... not credible."

Natsuki raised her left hand to her right shoulder, and from her hand's shadow crawled out a drowsy-looking three-legged crow. She placed her hand before the crow. The crow squawked once, then spit an ornately-carved jade token wrapped in a glowing life-thread out of its gullet into Natsuki's palm.

"This is yours, isn't it? My crows took it from her corpse."

She tossed the token to Long Guan, who grabbed it out of the air, then examined it from several angles.

"This is... yes, it's the ceremonial token I gave to her. It still has my qi on it, from a century ago." Long Guan turned a narrowed gaze to Natsuki— not a gaze filled with anger, as I would have expected, but rather with confusion and suspicion. "Why do you have it?"

"Because I killed her."

Long Guan tightened her grip on her token, so much so that I feared it might break. "Child, you are trying my patience. I do not have time to play games with you. If you are so opposed to giving me an answer, then I will simply soulsearch your corpse instead. I will ask you only once more, so think well before you respond. Why do you have the token I gave to Bai Qiao?"

Bailian leaned over to me. "What's up with this?" she whispered. "Why is your sister lying?"

"She's not lying," I responded, somewhat confused.

"I can read her qi. There's no way she's above Core Formation. She couldn't have killed Bai Qiao."

I frowned. "My sister's power is too great to be categorized."

Bailian shrugged, in a way that suggested only halfhearted confidence.

—Natsuki, unappreciative of Long Guan's question, sighed.

"Why are the cultivators of this land so distrustful? Why can you not speak truth and hear truth, as all the other people of this star do? Is it not better to fight on the basis of actual difference, rather than imagined slights? Why do you not—"

Suddenly, Natsuki bit down on her lip and turned her gaze towards the mountains where the sect was located.

"I do not recognize this timbre."