"Chun'er, don't you think it's too early to be packing?" a mellow voice rang out.

Chun was midway putting in her third set of magenta robes inside the storage artifact but stopped and looked up at the speaker from her kneeling position. Clothing items and knick-knacks were placed around her on the floor in a messy manner, with their clan maids carrying in more from another room. Chun, like her room, was a mess. Her raven hair was sticking to her face and lips with her sweat, and her lustre-rouge was melting into black lines of smudge.

"Mother," Chun said, tired.

"Take a bath, dear." The woman said. There was the slightest hint of dissatisfaction in her voice.

Youjin Jiashui, maiden named Zheng Jiashui. She looked like an older version of Chun by all regards. Black flowing hair tied with ribboned Qilins at the very ends, with a dim gold woad band on her forehead to signify her status as the matriarch. Fair skin with a slight red blush around her cheeks, and crow's feet near her eyes. Most would cover it up with lustre-rouge, but Youjin Jiashui had a severe physical reaction to one of the herbs needed to make the powder. She was the same age as Chun's father, yet her cultivation was not as high, so she looked older. At half a head taller than even Chun, she was not a short woman. And had done an excellent job of keeping her body slim without any of the fat that came with ageing and childbirth.

"I should. I will," Chun replied to her mother's statement, "Later."

"I think you are being bullheaded." Youjin Jiashui said, waving at the gaping maids to leave the room.

"Mother!" Chun rolled her eyes.

"Hush now. I also think you are being too obsessive about Chao'er. At this rate, you will scare him away. Have I not always taught you to be smart?" Youjin Jiashui said, her nose scrunching up.

"You told me to be stubborn too."

"Smartly stubborn. Not stupidly. Chun’er, you mustn’t be like so." The woman tutted in that elegant way only noble matriarchs could. Chun hadn't mastered the technique yet, but she would get there in time. After all, the vixen also had the tut down to a t.

"Well, you stuck with father for years before he gave in. Decades!" Chun said with righteous indignation.

"I had the advantage of not being a heartbreaker," Youjin Jiashui stopped, then looked at her dishevelled daughter from head to toe.

Chun was creeped out, "What?"

"You… are still a maiden, right?"

"Mother! I told you I—"

"Okay, no need to be defensive. I was just—"

"I’m not defensive! You're ruining my reputation!" Chun yelled with exasperation.

"Sorry, dear," her mother said, "I just wanted to warn you. If you did the deed, then you should give up on Chao’er because you will be wasting your time. Men like him are the machismo puritan type, like your uncle Gengxin."

"Stop it already! I already proved that I’m pure and clean like you wanted, right? And I still can't believe you forced me to go through that humiliating chastity test with that smug Royal Maid from Westmoon Palace!" Chun spat out, her words heavy with anger. "You treated me like I was just another girl from the Zheng clan being auctioned off, practically parading our dirty laundry in public!" She couldn't shake off the memory of the test, the smirking female 'eunuch', a court wench that had her uterus removed, who seemed to find it funny that a high-born girl like her had to go through such a thing in the early morning. "This is what I can't stand about you," she said, barely keeping her voice steady. "Didn't you promise you left all that Zheng stuff behind when you married into this family?"

"Hah!" The giggle that came out of the woman's mouth did more to piss Chun off than the entire conversation, "Don't be stupid. I left back all the bad things, not the good. But you know, I got a letter from the capital today. The Duan heir seems to be quite pissed with Chao'er's talent. I wonder if he will try something."

"Dare he do it!" Chun said with a grim tone.

"Yeah, well, even if he does, you can't do anything to stop it. Being so weak and all."

"Mother!" The voice that screeched out of Chun’s throat was not something she was proud of.

"What?" Youjin Jiashui jerked away at the scream and covered her ears, "I am telling the truth. Although…"

"Can you leave?"

"I do think he won't. Duan Louheng was such a good boy." Her mother did not leave. She wasn't afraid of Chun's tantrum for one thing, and she had the hard job of being the sensible one in the house as second.

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"He plotted our downfall. His clan gave that weird scripture to the previous patriarch."

"Chun'er," A sad look flashed past Youjin Jiashui's eyes. It was genuine worry and disappointment, and Chun did not like it one bit. "They tried to help us out, you know. It wasn't some strange conspiracy, and the soul harvesting was meant to be used on captured voidfiends, never chaosfiends. Even the Malignant Moon Sword Sect doesn't know how the previous patriarch did what he did with the foxmoth pupae. They're investigating it with our clan."

"Well, I don't believe them."

"Why are you like this? Did I not raise you right? Is it that Ling girl? Word around the slum is that Chao took her chastity. And if so, they are already lovers, right? Listen, Chun’er. I think stealing someone’s lover is a bad hobby, and when Duan Louheng stole you from Chao, just think about what went through his heart—"

"Get out!" Chun had enough. She was not stolen like some object to be had! She—

"Dear, stop being stupid—"

"GET OUT GET OUT GET—"

"Okay, okay. By the heavens." Youjin Jiashui ran out like she was running away from a furious lion, with no small amount of disconcert.

Chun was panting hard, and her hair and lustre-rouge were messier for it. She slammed the door shut and collapsed on the bed in the most un-noble way possible.

After a good hour of crying, she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"Mother is right. Why am I so stupid… I…" Chun wanted Youjin Chao. And she would do anything to get him back.

Anything!

She did not care for whatever had happened between him and Ziyou Ling, and refused to allow the immoral vixen to snare him away!

"Where is brother Chao anyway?" The girl asked with melancholy, staring out the window at the garden. She saw her mother dragging her father by his hand and pointing in her direction and whispering. Youjin Liu had a strange expression on his face.

That pissed Chun off even more, and she slammed the window shut too. But just before the sash and frame closed,

"…love you..!!"

A faint whisper entered her ears, followed by a paper crane controlled by Heart qi. It opened in front of her eyes.

"Brother Chao is rampaging in the forest?" Chun muttered out loud. Then collapsed on the bed again.

Her mother, despite her nagging, was still the one who loved her the most. And Chun decided she needed to spend more time with the annoying woman before leaving for the Twilight Blood Palace.

***

Chao spat out a mouthful of blood. He kicked the dying hornbeast away and sat on a rock, ingesting a potion he had refined to heal the most severe of wounds.

It was his third foray into the forest and the furthest he had gone in recent times.

"I might not make it back before the plan starts," Chao said to no one. The last time he visited uncle Maque, they were gearing up to tackle the foxmoth recovery.

Right now, Chao was injured and he was at least two days of walking from Dim Gold City. That is, if he was lucky to not encounter any fiends on the way. With hiding and choosing his path carefully through the territories of the various fiend hordes, it would take at least a week.

Chao took out the Imperfect Heaven 3rd grade transmission token the elder from the Twilight Blood Palace had given him. It was crafted with a portable store of an Imperfect Heaven 3rd realmer’s Spirit qi to power it along side similarly high ranked spirit stones, and had the capacity to directly reach out to the elder.

That’s because Chao’s forays into the forest were greatly encouraged, and as far as he could tell, the elder was satisfied with the results. The token was the final lifeline and would send his location to the elder in case anything went horribly wrong. The man had promised to fly to his rescue. Chao was loath to use it, not for something so trivial as "saving time." The very fact that he would need to call for help, like some damsel in distress, was humiliating. That one time Su Nanya's maid had to save their behinds from the Dusk Valley Lion King was once too many.

He would miss the fun and, more importantly, a great chance to prove his prowess to Su Nanya with tangible results.

But Chao trusted his gut instinct.

Something had been calling him. He now sat on the precipice of a cliff, and he would have to climb down the vines and walk upstream of the river below. There were no easier ways there, but the intense yang in his blood roiled at the thought of not following his instincts. So he would, and see what lay there.

He wasn't being totally reckless either. The elder had given him a great deal of elixirs and talismans, among them Unfolding Heaven grade ones that he could activate despite his non-existent cultivation levels, to hide his presence and create protective barriers.

They were meant to protect him during the period he used the transmission token to ask for rescue and until the rescue arrived.

Chao had better ideas.

He drank another vial of elixir and felt the blood in his veins slowly churn. Each drop of the elixir was digested and assimilated at speeds that would leave geniuses in shame. If there were other people present, their jaws would pop at the sheer sight of an unawakened mortal healing faster than Imperfect Heaven median stage Blood refining cultivators.

Chao stood up, his joints cracking like thunder. He concentrated on the feeling leading him to whatever called him again and peered down the cliff. He wished he had brought ropes and hooks.

Exhaling deeply, he gripped a thick, sprawling vine snaking down the cliff. He scrabbled for a foothold, his boot finding a scant ledge in the rough cliffside as purchase. With a tentative first step, he began his descent, sliding cautiously down the vivid blue serpentine foliage.

A few steps swiftly turned into dozens, then hundreds, and before he knew it, a thousand steps had been made. The pace was steady, the progress relentless.

But it wasn't to last.

"Screeeee!"

An abrupt, ear-piercing cry split the air.

Halfway down, a flying fiend spotted him. Its screech attracted others, and soon Chao found himself defending against aerial beasts coming at him from all directions.

"For the love of!" Chao roared. He grabbed the vine tightly with one hand and with the other, brought out the sword. This fight would take finesse.

The first beast, shaped like a bird with four wings, clawed at his eyes. He ducked and sliced off its head.

"Screeeeeeeeeeeee!"

This only enraged the others, who were already at his flanks. Chao jumped slightly backward and loosened his grip on the vine. He rappelled down five feet at the last moment until his feet found purchase again.

Above his head, three of the fiends crashed into each other. Chao did not miss the chance and spat out a poison pellet. It hit the three flying fiends the moment they impacted, striking the tangled mass of creatures into a corrosive mess of flesh and bones. The acid finished the job as the the fiendish death cries echoed off the stone.

However, some of the acid also splattered onto the vine that Chao was clinging to, the only thing standing between him and a deadly plunge. And within mere seconds, it rapidly corroded the tough, fibrous foliage.