We passed the day like that, and the next, and the next, though some days we also wandered around the city, and some days we even visited Professor Jibeidi at the Alchemist's Tower. Nobody dared say anything to me for the hours I was at the sect, and the Bai family also stayed quiet. I suspect that they were summoning everyone, probably to the ancestral home in Zhaoqing, to come to a decision on how to handle my situation. That was fine. I was not worried. One way or another, I would be free, and with my freedom, I would prove my worth to them. Not today, but some day, certainly, they would convene in Zhaoqing to recognize me as a real member of the family. I knew it. I was certain of it.

Three weeks passed. Bailian's message came. I went down to a fancy restaurant to meet her for lunch on a quiet Thursday afternoon, and though I asked Natsuki to come along, I had not yet managed to teach her how to use chopsticks, so she decided to stay in the shadows.

The two of us sat across from each other at a circular table filled with more food than I had ever seen in one place in my life. I reached to take some food onto my plate, but Bailian put a hand out and stopped me.

"Wait." Narrowing her eyes, Bailian looked over the table. "We're forgetting something." She scratched her head for a moment, then—

"Waiter!" she shouted, and a waiter scurried over. "A jug of your best huangjiu. I'm treating a friend today." The waiter nodded and scurried off.

I frowned. "I thought I was supposed to be treating you, Bailian."

Bailian raised an eyebrow, then laughed. "Really? Then you must get to the bill first."

The waiter brought over a jug of yellow wine, pouring some into two square glasses. Bailian raised her glass. I raised mine, half an inch lower than hers, but she dropped her glass below mine.

"Ganbei," she said,

"Ganbei," I said, and after downing the glasses, we began eating.

—"Senior, have you heard the rumors about the Long family?"

"No. I haven't been in the loop recently. I suppose something happened to Long Guoqiang?"

"Mm." She nodded, her face stuffed full of dumplings, and took some time to chew through them before continuing. "They took First Brother to a countryside property a few days east of here to treat him. However, rumor is that the Phoenix Elixir had no effect, and he's been unable to recover his cultivation."

"But..." I put a hand on the side of my head and thought. It was reasonable to expect that what I had done to his soul would, one way or another, prevent his cultivation from being repaired. But I did not understand why Bailian was telling me this.

"Why are you telling me the rumor? Don't you know what's actually happening?"

She shook her head. "No. The medical work they're doing is highly secretive. They haven't sent any messages back here, and I don't have any moles out there in the middle of nowhere. I thought you might know something, though."

The implication of her words was clear. She was asking me if I had done something unusual during the duel that might have caused such a problem to arise with the Phoenix Elixir. Of course, nothing could be proven, since even the most advanced of cultivators had only a middling understanding of the pulsating souls that Natsuki extracted from my victims. But precisely because nothing could be proven, it was possible to offer less substantiated solutions.

"My understanding is that it's possible to repair a broken dantian, but not a broken golden core. Perhaps since his dantian shattered when his golden core was still just developing, the deviation in qi caused his golden core to become malformed."

Bailian nodded slowly. "If you think of a golden core like a baby's skull, then any heavy impacts could cause it to become malformed and eventually lead to death."

I winced at her choice of image, but— I suppose it more or less accorded with my own. And yet I felt myself obligated, by her choice of image, to ask the next question.

"...What are you planning to do if Guoqiang dies?"

Bailian made an expression of mock surprise. "I am a good Confucian child, Senior. Of course I will weep and mourn for forty-nine days, and then I will forget about him. That is my duty." Then she sighed and let her posture loosen. "Well, all sibling feuds come to death one way or another. But now, to be honest, there's no point in killing him unless he heals. If his faction wants to waste time wiping his ass, then let them. The longer they wait, the more time I have to consolidate support, and the less angry they can get at me when he does croak. Same thing goes with Chen Mantian."

My chopsticks clattered to the ground. Every limb in my body frosted over with fear, like the sensation of frostbite, or like the sensation of her maggots crawling through my blood, I sensation I could still feel as if it was still occurring.

"What... happened to Chen Mantian?"

"Hm?" She turned her gaze up to my shivering eyes. "Senior, didn't you hear what I said before the duel? Her life-thread is ruptured, but not fully torn. The elders say that she might still be alive." Suddenly, Bailian narrowed her gaze. "Actually, Senior, just what did you do to Chen Mantian? Does this have something to do with your Law of Seven Elements?"

I could feel the frost, her curling blood, crawling through my chest, crawling through my neck, reaching for my very consciousness! What had I done to her?! I had killed her! I had sent her skull flying off her neck! I had snapped her spine in two! I had shattered her cervical vertebrae! And yet she was still alive?! How was that possible?! How could it be?!

"Natsuki..." I whispered to myself,

—and as always, I heard her reply, the certainty of her presence.

"I still have not consumed her soul. That may be why."

I exhaled forcefully, pushing all the frost in my body out through my breath, and responded to Bailian's question thus:

"No, I killed her. I have a guess as to why her life-thread is like that, but either way, she's dead."

Bailian smiled crookedly. "All the better." Then she returned to her food.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Taking another pair of chopsticks from the waiter, I chewed through some pork shoulder, and as I did, I found myself wondering more and more about that puzzle I had not been able to resolve.

"...Bailian, what does Confucianism mean to you?"

"Confucianism? Confucianism is two—" She paused and scratched at her chin— "no, three things at once: a coping mechanism for the weak, an obstacle for the ambitious, and a big stick for those in power. If you are weak, then it is a means by which you persuade yourself that your weakness is justified, and by which you delude yourself into thinking that your superiors will do their duty to you if you serve them. If you are ambitious— like myself— then it is an excuse for the elders to disparage you. And if you are one of those old codgers who hold power, then it is how you brainwash everyone into thinking your power is just."

Perhaps I should have expected that answer. After all, as a young second child, Bailian did not benefit from the Confucian prescription. Respect and defer to your superiors— if Bailian did as much, she would never be able to really take control of the Long family as she desired.

"In order to carve the world in your image," I muttered, "you must impose your own will on the world."

"Yes. And under Confucianism, only the heavens have the right to do that. So all those with ambition must dress up their dreams by deferring to the Heavenly Mandate, or to the inheritance of the old Han dynasty. It's a load of bollocks, but I have to say that the southerners were wise to take the name Han. Even though they're actually all Legalists! Fucking weaselly-ass liars."

Some time later, when the jug of wine had been emptied and the table had been cleared of food, I thought it would a good idea to start the fight for the bill.

"Waiter!" I shouted. "Bill, please!"

I would win this fight. I had read a book on how to do this properly.

—The waiter looked at me, confused. He raised his hands as if my words offended him, then shook his head and went off to another table.

"You're too late," Bailian chuckled. "I've already paid the bill."

"What?!" I cried out. I couldn't believe it! I had read up on all the tricks! I had even made sure that she didn't get up to 'go to the bathroom' during the meal! So— "How?!"

Bailian smiled her characteristic crooked smile.

"The wise win their wars before the first shot has been fired. Senior, I made the reservations, didn't I?"

—And thus was the end of my lunch with Bailian.

We rose and left the restaurant. Bailian stood there on the sidewalk, stretching for a few moments, before she suddenly froze with her head directed towards the mountains of the Phantom Orchid Sect.

"Senior," she called out, her voice suddenly serious. "Look."

I turned my gaze towards the sect, and saw thunderclouds gathering like a whirlpool over the peak of one of the inner sect's cultivation mountains.

"Someone's ascending to Core Formation? I wonder who," I muttered.

"Senior, those clouds aren't Core Formation clouds. You can tell by the countercurrents in the middle radial layer. They're First, maybe Second Severing clouds. It's a bit too far for me to tell which."

I nodded slowly. I had never learned the difference, so I could do nothing but accept her assessment. "It's probably Qian Fugui, I guess. Everyone's been saying he would ascend soon."

"Could also be the princess. I heard she went into secluded cultivation recently."

I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. I'm pretty sure Wang Wujiu is still in early or middle stage Core Formation. How could she break through to the Spirit Severing realm?"

"Senior, Spirit Severing is strictly speaking not a realm, but a process. You can perform severings anytime you like, though it generally kills anyone who is not in peak stage Core Formation. That said, severings are ultimately a matter of willpower, so someone like the princess wouldn't have a problem doing it early."

A flash of inspiration ran across my thoughts.

"Wait, so doesn't that mean I could do it too?"

"I suppose. And for black sheep like you and I, the first severing should be pretty easy. We can just sever our filial piety— familial duty, so to speak. It carries so much weight that severing it would make us drastically stronger, but it carries so little value that the backlash wouldn't even be that bad."

I rubbed my temples. What heretical words! Severing filial piety from your own soul?! If I did that, wouldn't I—

wouldn't I—

wouldn't I be able to kill them all?

My jaw shook with excitement, though I could not tell if it was passion or terror that drove it. Passion for the crime I would be free to commit, or terror for the crime I would have no choice but to commit. Stuck between these emotions, at once one and two, I could not help but shrink away from the choice, from the potential of the choice. Should I perform my First Severing over my filial piety, and take revenge on the Bai family? Or should I not do a severing, and prevent myself from indulging in familicide? Rather than make a decision, it was easier to foreclose on the option altogether!

"But— wouldn't the heavens punish you for severing something like filial piety?"

"If you tried to violate the Supreme Dao by severing something like dukkha or samsara from your soul, Senior, then yes, the Amitabha Buddha and his friends would descend to punish you. In most cases they'd just outright erase your existence, but if you're lucky they might pin you under the Five-Elements Mountain as they did Sun Wukong, though I suppose he did get away with striking his name from the Register of Life and Death*. But that is what happens to those who disrespect Buddhism, a divine law. Confucianism is merely a human law. At most, your elders can get angry at you, but who cares? They cannot kill you, not as long as they respect their own Confucian duty. In fact, I would go as far as to say that that is the only reason the two of us are alive. More so you than me."

I frowned. I could not foreclose on the option. I would have to make the decision, sooner or later, to either sever or not sever my own filial piety, my own respect for my family. I did not want to make the decision. It was too heavy a decision for me. I hated my family, but at the same time, I hoped desperately that one day, some day, our strained relations might be mended. If I were granted the power to kill them, then how would I be able to mediate those two impulses?

"—Well, Senior, send me a message if you find anything out. I'll be heading back. Until later."

"Ah, yeah, see you."

She disappeared off into a crowd, and I wandered off into a field.

"Natsuki," I called out, and only then did I realize that I would have to fly back to avoid any suspicions, given that a Heavenly Tribulation was occurring.

—"Chunxue!" I heard the stress in her rasping voice, like floods crashing upon the banks of a turbid river, and so I spun around, fearful of what it was she had to had to say. There she stood behind me, a deep grimace on her face, her arms folded tightly.

"Long Guoqiang is dead."