"She's waking," Yung said after noticing the sleeping girl's empathic link change.

The old lady by the bed had been listening to their conversation without contributing. She sighed, her eyes reflecting her experience with the cruelty the world had to offer. And then shook her head, gently removing the damp clothe from Ding Shi’s temple.

The girl stirred with a groan, “W-What happened?”

“Ding Shi!” Wang Gangbao shouted and kneeled beside the girl with his hands grasping for her palm.

Wang Gangbao whispered, then murmured, and spoke with a gentle voice that did a sorrowfully bad job of hiding the tension in his every muscle. He said everything would be okay. He pointed at Yung and said the Su fox clan would protect them. He told her that all the bad guys had been taken care of, and she need not worry.

That it was all a nightmare.

“What happened?” Ding Shi asked again.

No one had an answer. Wang Gangbao sobbed.

The girl cried herself to sleep.

Yung took it all in. It was dawn, and he was tired. He missed Su Nanya.

"If anything happens, contact the guards. Say my name, and they won't dare ignore you." He said, feeling some strength leaving his body.

Wang Gangliu nodded.

Yung repeated that he had also crippled the goons' cultivation. At least these particular ones will never come back, seeking revenge.

“I need to cultivate. Or I can’t protect my family.” The night’s event had blazed the flames of defiance in Wang Gangbao. “I must find a way.” The tears streaked down his face like a river flood, the anger in the waters swallowing the hapless village that was his life.

“Good luck,” Yung said, “Don’t become like them.”

Yung left the room; he waited a while in the restaurant's main dining area, standing on the small stairs while his hand squeezed the front door's frame. He could still hear the muffled sobs of Wang Gangbao.

They’re both teenagers…. Just teenagers, for Gaia’s sake!

It was time to depart from both the vibrant tapestry of the night bazaar and the unseen tragedies that occurred beneath.

Yung walked, feet moving slowly along the dawn mist. It was a spring mist, and it lazily drifted above the moist earth, a soft, creamy fog illuminated by a pinkish-orange hue from the rising sun to the east. Violet wisps hung like cobwebs, creating an ethereal ambience, the to and fro of the early risers backdropping the light with a promise of a vibrant day.

They look so happy, so full of hope.

Yung walked, and with each step, dawn awoke more to greet the ren. The mist transformed into a translucent veil over their heads, a gentle, sun-bathed blanket that the world was shedding on its bed of hope and lies. To wake up, and to be about the day’s daily tasks with the solemness they deserved.

With time, the mist released the sounds of life, the denizens walking within found the courage to speak up. And amidst its serene embrace, faint bird chirps too sang out, and the rustling leaves complemented the morning greetings of the people of this city. The scents of dew-kissed grass, wildflowers, and hints of the night bazaar mingled from behind. Fragrant and intoxicating, it carried the essence of perfumed delights.

It was a morning that was like a warm embrace, the best Yung had ever seen in this world, like nature's tender kiss of peace upon the skin. To make the sons and daughters of this world forget about how truly cruel nature could be—the nature of men, the nature of beasts.

It’s all an illusion. This happiness, this frailty. Nothing but daydreams.

He saw the peddlers and vendors coming from all directions to replace their nocturnal counterparts. The day bazaar would commence soon, and perhaps the cycle of good and evil would renew.

Will there be more assaults? Today? Tomorrow? How many happen every month? And in a year….

With a sad laugh, Yung doubted if the record keepers kept diligent notes of such ‘trivial happenings.’

Yung stopped. He stared at a couple walking their toddling daughter by the grassy roadside.

As the family of three strolled down, their laughter and giggles filled the air, resonating like the melodious ringing of bells. It was high-pitched and light-hearted, and their expressions of mirth were contagious, intertwining with words of affection and delight that wrapped around them like a quilt of wool, with nary a hint of any sudden dangers to come.

The father reached down to his daughter's level as she tugged his sleeve, tickling and teasing her with silly facial expressions, evoking more giggles and squeals. The mother looked on with tenderness, her eyes reflecting the love and happiness that no doubt nurtured such a home.

Yung watched with horror at their receding backs. The father's deep chortles blended harmoniously with the mother's gentle laughter. Their daughter, captivated by their cheerful display, joined in with carefree shrieks of glee, her infectious giggles further amplifying Yung’s rising sense of dread.

Despite such a scene shining so bright, being a beacon of unwavering love and hope. It stood out as the most malicious force to defy this world’s heaven, cutting through the noise and distractions, reminding the shocked-still Yung of the reverberating power of love, and of how fragile even such enduring bliss could be in front of a muscled fist.

What if that girl grows up, and something like Ding Shi….

“Kii!”

Silky flew out of Yung's dantian with a buzz and nuzzled his cheek while floating like a worried balloon.

“Kyu~”

Yung jolted back to reality, shaking off his foreboding contemplations. He had exerted every effort to improve the lives of the madlanders, ensuring their safety and sparing countless families from unjust systematic and cultivator cruelty.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But that family of three were white ren! Like Gangbao… I’ve done nothing for them but break all their traditions. Their feelings of safety!

“Kieuyu!”

Silky was right. He reminded himself that he couldn't shoulder the burden of responsibility for all the world's people. That, for sure, his social plans would spill over and better the native lives too! If not, he would actively make sure of it.

He hummed his mantra and affirmed his weakening will, that the consequences of his past inaction, fuelled by ignorance, did not warrant him taking the blame for every tragedy that unfolded!

He wasn't so arrogant. Not like Youjin Chao. Not like Su Nanya's former fiancé.

But it hurts so much!

Yung clasped his chest. His heart was about to burst out of his body.

It hurts…

He didn’t need to see it. Not the assault at the restaurant, not the happy family of three.

All he wanted was to be a philanthropist. Like the rich ones from back home. Earn a load ton of cash from a cheat business, then give a part of it to the less fortunate. Effective altruism was the new term to denote it when Yung was still Jung, the fancy phrase folks used to talk about the unique morality of the ultra-rich. He, with the help of his alien ideas on liberty and Su Nanya’s help, could promote laws that pushed for equality and liberalism from the comfort of his home.

Like when he was Jung, in the comfort of the machine that kept him alive, never having to see the consequences of tragedies other than on news sites and YouTube videos. Wars, famine, fundamentalism, corporate greed, and the apathy of the people. He could just make a donation, and his heart would feel lighter.

Yung didn’t need to see what happened today. He didn’t want to.

If he didn’t, then Wang Gangliu would probably be dead, and so would Wang Gangbao.

And who knows what would become of Ding Shi.

Nyanya…Nanya….Su Nanya.

Yung reached the Dim Gold market square. The festival was still on. Every street was packed with travellers, townsfolk, merchants, cultivators, commoners, domestic fiends, and nobles. Too many people of unknown origins had sneaked into the city, each with their unknown, uncertain motivations.

There was nothing to regulate anything other than the absolute power of the fist. But the Youjin Clan weren’t all-knowing. And despite Su Nanya’s boasts, the Su Fox Clan weren’t either.

“Kii? Kii kyu.”

Silky sat on his nose and sent Yung nice thoughts. The critter was doing its best to cheer Yung up in the only way he knew how.

“Thank you. I’m fine.” Yung lied. Yung hated lying.

He saw Wang Lihou, Youjin Chao, Ziyou Ling, and a few other familiar faces lounging on the restaurant floor of the Dim Gold Hotel.

I wonder what kind of food Wang Gangbao’s place serves?

The group waved at him, then noticed his state. Yung didn’t have a mirror, but he could guess.

“Boy.” He heard a golden chime, and the vixen was there.

Yung had been whisked away from the restaurant. He fell on a fluffy bed and was hugged by a velvety body.

“We heard what happened.” Su Nanya said.

The sobs came out involuntarily.

"We shall comfort you for however long you desire." She said, and caressed his hair gently.

“I-I…” Yung stammered. He needed to know. “H-How is my hair?”

“Like the divine locks of the Celestial Dragon.” The pride in Su Nanya’s voice let itself be known.

“H-Heh.” Yung cried. “You’re so weird.”

***

Nanya had a lot to think about. It was a strange action. Thinking. Usually, the world would have lined up perfectly to do her bidding. But ever since that bastard returned a few decades ago, she had to start… contemplating her life.

"M'lady lets Ziyou Yung take too many liberties," Su Yafeng said after leading Su Haochen out of the room. The young assassin would make his usual rounds once more tonight; what ecstasy he felt in punching teeth out of mouths until they were symmetrical, Nanya could never hope to understand.

“Do you dare propose that our dearest of servants should suffer punishment akin to that of a common man?" She questioned, her noble countenance marred by a disdainful roll of her golden eyes. "He merely gropes our shapely breasts. A transgression to the heavens his hands may be. Yet to us, it is no sin.”

Precisely at that moment, Ziyou Yung’s unconscious hands squeezed just a bit tighter, and Nanya let out a pink moan.

Su Yafeng stared expressionlessly. It was a good façade to hide her speechlessness, but Nanya knew her cousin too well.

The maid would rue the day she had threatened to tell Nanya’s mother about her secret stash of demonic stories! It was why the vixen was putting on such a ‘lovey-dovey’ act—as her dearest servant had once put it—in front of the untouched, unloved bachelorette in the first place. Nanya's tastes in novels might have been depraved, but Su Yafeng's were just sad!

"We merely joke." Nanya pulled out her arm when Su Yafeng started melting. It was the one Ziyou Yung was hugging like a body pillow. She covered her dainty mouth, and with a daintier yawn, she scrunched up her nose so daintiest at the insolent maid. Such was her elegance.

"Does… M'lady wish to stay?" Asked the maid. She stood by the large window, the interlocking wooden brackets acting as the window's valances. They cast a long shadow through the middle half of her demure figure as the sunlight kissed the rest. Her hair was done perfectly, and the artful calligraphy on her hanfu read 'Snitch.'

A strange woman she was, her cousin with a thousand hobbies, the foremost of which was gossiping. Such was her oddity.

It was yet the morning, a day and more having passed since Ziyou Yung had fallen asleep. Just like yesterday, today had begun with the jubilant illusion of the villagers. Although the festivities were dying, and those who had passed phase one would journey with the sects that had invited them to the fabled Moonvalley trade city. To fight the fiends in a much angrier forest, then fight each other like the mere slaves they were.

Nanya had the thought that her dearest servant would not enjoy it. Such was his cowardice.

"We do not have any urgent matters, do we now?" Nanya stretched, a soft exhale leaving her as the Essence qi surged through her body with electrifying tingles. It truly was wondrous, such unfair speeds of cultivation.

"M'lady is a jobless princess. She doesn't do matters." Said Su Yafeng. "Other than reporting back to the Matriarch. Which she must do."

"Would you not do it on our behalf?"

"No." Su Yafeng's voice rose ever so slightly at the bottom end of her negative reply. Nanya would take that annoyance as her ploy-bearing fruit.

"You miss your brother," The vixen showed a knowing smile; the blush on her face made it all the more bratty. "We shall permit you to bring him."

"T-That." Su Yafeng hesitated. "It's his choice. That boy is too stubborn."

"Nonsense. Our will is supreme. It is settled, and it shall be so." Nanya commanded.

She had a tired meeting amongst the stars with her clan's various leaders the last night. About her engagement and about her disdain towards it. Her soul was weary in the most literal sense. The esoteric dao of the occultic foxball could connect a fractured soul across millions of miles at little cost, yet it was a tedious process.

To be one whole again. To think with the power of six as one.

"Woof!" Came an adorable bark.

Nanya gestured a tired palm towards the window. Her Su Xiya jumped up and dropped off her haul of Essence qi treasures, bouncing about with her tongue sticking out.

"Woof." Su Xiya arfed.

Nanya smiled, then rubbed her most lovable servant's chest. "Come on out." Her will was to be heeded.

The small foxmoth, so weak yet so cheerful, flew out of Ziyou Yung's dantian. The boy stirred, but did not wake.

"Kii~"

"Woof!"

Her Su Xiya, their Madam Floofykins, was yet small. The new body was crafted around a reserve occultic foxball, inferior in aspects to the others. Her brain and mind were too limited in depth, merely just enough to deliver complex cognitions. Nanya wondered if she was like this when her past cardinal self was a mere fox kit.

But that was fine.

"Do not touch the cave." Nanya said to her maid, "Go back to the sect. Discuss our wishes with the Bloodsanguine hall elders, what ever their resistance might entail."

"Won't the sect master complain?" Su Yafeng asked.

"What are the complaints of a mere servant?" Nanya replied rhetorically.

Su Yafeng looked at the sleeping Ziyou Yung taking ample liberties with Nanya's ample assets.

"He's quite special, is he not?" The vixen covered her mouth and grinned.

"The Matriarch always said playing favourite is a bad thing," Su Yafeng said, "If you force me to report in your stead, that is a bad thing. I’ll tell on you!"

"And since when has your canary-mouth been a new matter, oh perfidious maid?" Nanya waved her hand. The windows closed with a gentle click. "When the smoke-monger empress comes, order her to wait. If she refuses, that shall be her lot."

Su Yafeng nodded and left.

"M'lady should deal with your engagement sooner." The wind carried the maid's final sentence, "If you want Ziyou Yung to live."

Nanya laughed at her maid's fears laid bare, her voice mellow as if to mock the last flower of the spring mist, wilting it to an inglorious death.