“I’d started to suspect you of delaying for poor reasons.” Yang Zhao grinned as he tested the balance of his new axe. “I am glad to discover myself wrong in that.”
“With how long I was left preoccupied, I cannot fault brother Yang for honest doubt.” It had truly been far longer than courtesy demanded, between the numerous assassination attempts, Master Ho’s refreshingly unreasonable training schedule, and keeping apprised and ahead of the demands upon my contributions to the sect. “I trust it suits your needs?”
“And then some!” he grinned. “It resonates with my Lightning qi almost flawlessly. You’ve outdone yourself!”
“I’m glad to hear it. The satisfaction of a Yang is something of a badge of honor for weaponsmiths.”
“Rightly so.” He nodded without a whit of humility. “One you’ve earned today. I expect many of our juniors will be coming to you after my next fight.”
“It would be my pleasure and honor to provide arms for the Yang. Especially with our upcoming conflicts.”
“I know!” His eyes ignited with battle lust. “I cannot thank the Sect Master enough for concluding that now is the time for war. I can already taste my breakthroughs.”
I smiled warmly at his enthusiasm. “I shall cheer for brother Yang’s victories and growth. Whether I am positioned near your side or at the forge.”
His eyes locked on me and lit up with an idea. “Right! You might be thrown to the frontline by the offended Elders! Deployments allowing, stay by my side and I’ll gladly partake of your enemies!”
My heart actually skipped a beat at how earnest he was. “Deployments allowing, it would be my pleasure.”
“Actually, now that I’m thinking of it, I’ll share the idea with our Elders too. Having a comrade who attracts enemies like flies to shit would be great fun no matter who is placed near you.”
“Brother Yang is too kind!” I let myself laugh. “Even sparring with your kin has deterred enough of the foes that I’ve been quite comfortable.”
“Bah! You should have been born a Yang! You’ve the battle-lust for it!” he asserted with a thump of his axe on the table. “I cannot call your price fair. How much is this weapon truly worth?”
I blinked. “I appreciate your honesty, brother Yang. I had set the price before benefitting from Master Ho’s teachings. I have seen similar weapons charging as high as 30000 spirit stones, though I count that as inflated, myself.”
“Thirty Thousand it is!” he nodded and pulled out a pouch. “I’ll not have my blade sullied by unwarranted humility.”
I accepted his reasoning graciously. The Yang were better than most, but nobility was reliably touchy about their money sense. He left, smug and satisfied with his axe proudly resting on his shoulder like he was begging someone to give him an excuse to use it.
Like the Yang tend to.
“You could have gouged him for sixty easily.” Quan Mo, a fellow smith chimed in after a moment.
“Probably.” I nodded. “But I could not have done so honestly.”
“Sure you could have. You’re apprenticed to a Ho. That by itself makes your weapons more valuable.”
I shook my head. “I’m apprenticed to a Ho, not a pompous name-carried expert. Were my master to catch me multiplying the price with just her name, I’d receive a beating for every excess stone I charge.”
“And you think you won’t receive them for undervaluing her name?”
“What apprentice would dare claim to know all of their master’s skills in just a hand and a half of months?” I retorted with a laugh. “Even I lack the hubris to say my work is worthy of her name as yet.”
His face contorted with confusion before he shook his head and continued filing his material use. As Sect Smiths, even beginners, we had access to a wide range of materials to ensure we could advance our skills and equip the sect meaningfully. But because such an open resource pool could invite recklessness, we had to record and report every piece of material that we did not provide ourselves, so that the Master Smiths and Elders knew who to flog if supplies started running short.
Not that we’d had any problems with that lately. At Master Ho’s direction I’d been illustrating the nuances of my attunement arts for everyone else to try copying, which nicely solved most difficulties that other smiths were having with making their materials cooperate.
It also gave her a wonderful cover for mastering the back end of the arts herself so she could get working on marrying herself. Something that had not once passed my lips since that first dinner because I rather liked my head attached to my neck.
It had been remarked upon many times that our relationship looked less like a master and apprentice arrangement, and more like she was abusing her position to lay impossible demands on me at every turn. Which neither of us denied because except for me being me, that was exactly what it was.
Because I was me, however, I was able to use that wonderful excuse of a lesson plan to grow at a rate that terrified my detractors. Even before my as-yet unimpeded walk upwards in the raw power ranks that I was deliberately taking slow so I could make sure I was in full control of my might at every step, my mastery at the forge was such that it had only been eight months and I was already producing at Adept quality.
Something that often took upwards of a decade for people who didn’t have the ability to define themselves as a blacksmith.
I’d made practical use of my Identity Core’s flexibility, and had five foundation-identities that I found trivial to strengthen apace of one another. Wancan - Dinners, Duanzhao - Forge, Moshui - Ink, Fei Jiao - Flying Foot, and Nongmin - Farmer.
The last one also doubled as ‘troll’ or ‘jackass’ because as a cultivator, calling myself a farmer with the same word used to refer to peasants pissed everyone off.
Not that I made a point of using my empowered epithets in common interactions. Not only would that be needlessly pompous, I’d explained -at length- the risks presented by my path and all the Elders agreed that it was not a teaching that should be shared with anyone weaker than the Divine Core realm. Above that strength, they argued that cultivators ought to be able to survive the Earth’s rage without restrictions from Heaven.
The fact that they -one and all- believed that I was special in not having heaven hate me was mildly frustrating. But given that they were running a seedbed of poisonous teachings, I supposed it to be fair.
The schism war was simmering to obviousness, much to my irritation. It was well understood that weakening our neighboring sects was important before turning on each other so, other than a barely-hidden bounty on my head, the ordeal was still at the ‘making allegiances and planning betrayals’ stage. Which included a lot of people joining me for dinner. Either to try to poison me or to actually negotiate.
Pro-tip when trying to poison a cultivator. Make sure that their qi-control can’t neutralize your qi poison. It works so much better than watching him drain the goblet like Rasputin and smile at you.
Not that I’m really complaining. I rather like not dying. All available data says there’s better food this side of that transition. And some of the subtler poisons are wonderful fine control training aids on top of being able to weave the conceptual art ‘cannot be poisoned at dinner’ into my Wancan foundation. It’d take a long while to anchor properly, but with how easily I make enemies, it’s bound to pay off wonderfully. Even more so after it starts working into the ‘domain’ of my nature as Wancan, where it’d start protecting others as well.
Incidentally, having taken note of how Tong Kai wove himself into his Flowing Dragon Realm technique, I was well on my way to replicating the effects. Much to the aggravation of the Tong family and the martial brothers who concocted insults so that they could declare honor duels against me. It wasn’t complete yet -Tong Kai’s hadn’t been either, to my estimation- but even being able to shift ever so slightly without actually moving was an amazing advantage to add to my already erratic battle style, and I was never lacking for practice.
I finished my own work for the day, mostly trivial resource production after the exertion of finishing Yang Zhao’s axe, and started walking back to my house. The Elders who were openly trying to force me into censure had managed to argue my contributions into excessive amounts, but had failed to argue that I should be charged with things I was not known to be proficient in. So I often spent entire afternoons refining enough qi-infused metals to keep a dozen brother smiths working for a week.
After the second time that my tamper-evident seal had been broken and the metals replaced with poor quality stuff, I’d started adding a ‘tag’ feature to the seal and the ingots, and Brother Kong was flogged mercilessly when he was caught with my metal stashed in his house. Nobody had yet returned to that attempt at pulling me down.
Senior Go personally appraised all of my herbs and Intent scrolls, so there had never been an opportunity for anyone to tamper with them.
No, rather, nobody thought their life was worth tampering with Old Go’s storehouse. He was apparently infamous for providing wounds that only the most senior medics could treat properly.
Truly an inspiration to us all.
My talismans were evaluated by Elder Raka, to his amusement by all appearances. Initially, one of the other talisman experts had been in charge of it, as the armory was kept separate from Old Go’s storehouse for reasons hilariously outdated.
The talisman expert had tried on several occasions to declare my contributed ones to be substandard, and had failed to account for my having energetically ‘signed’ each of mine. Which was understandable to a degree. Most talisman creators allowed for their handwriting, word choice, and preferred meter to be the proof of authorship, as even superficially replicating even the handwriting style of a cultivator was profoundly difficult. So nobody had to bother with deliberate signatures.
Y’know. Nobody who trusted people to leave their work and reputation alone.
After the lesser talisman expert was found to be not only willing to risk their Face, but inept enough to get caught doing so, Raka very eloquently verbally ripped the other man’s ass open wide enough to make a hat and shoes of it and volunteered to handle the matter himself.
Truth be told, Raka was a wonderfully pleasant man to interact with. His criticisms were all very well reasoned, based on clearly understood principles, and delivered in a polite tone regardless of how emphatic the rebuke was.
Frankly, in company with any decorum, he wouldn’t need the insidious speech techniques that he lined his tongue with. Except for his position being that I was a threat to what he valued of the sect, we got along rather well.
He and Tong had invited me for tea several times, and while they rather emphatically wished for me to sacrifice myself for the stability of the sect now that they recognized that I couldn’t be manipulated with their arts, I had started to count them as people instead of merely obstacles. And a person wanting me dead was nothing to write home about.
“Hello senior Ling!” I called out to a tree that had wisps of killing intent and a much more telling frustration about it. I couldn’t pick out her body or her Shen - the innate radiance of one’s qi- but overexposure to ambushes whenever I stepped past the sect boundary had helped me hone the natural sense for killing intent that most cultivators eventually developed. And while the Ling family arts did a wonderful job of concealing their shen and muting their emotions, their minds still radiated in the same way that a mortal’s would.
Not nearly enough to go on in a fight, but picking out a frustrated woman’s fuming as she stalked me looking for weaknesses was within my ability.
And according to the flare of said frustration, I was accurate enough to be smug about.
The Ling were a bit of a hassle. Not only were they professional assassins, which meant that my best training preparation against them was how used to taking and returning blows I was -not an ideal method at all- but they also moved in squads, secure in the surety of each others’ stealth arts that they could gang up on me without worry about attracting attention as long as they were each within a tier of me.
They’d actually nearly managed to do me in twice. With only the erratic motion of my knockoff Flowing Dragon Realm allowing my vitals to avoid their killing strikes long enough for me to flee to somewhere they’d face Face damage to finish me off, and my extensive familiarity with the medic arts allowing me to field-patch myself.
Senior Sung, having been involved in my second near-death, explicitly forbade me from leaving the sect grounds without informing him. He’d tried to insist on me using the good sense of staying under the Sect Master’s aegis by just not leaving at all, but I pointed out that letting would-be assassins practice on me within the gap in the protections would maintain the peace longer than acting like I was afraid of the inevitable war. And the longer the peace lasts, the more my allies will outpace my enemies.
I did not bother stating that the longer the peace lasts, the longer I have to figure out how to flee before the rules and Face traps I’m hiding behind expire and I’m getting my bones ripped out by an Elder.
And that outpacing my enemies was finally becoming visible in full. Several of my noble-born followers were having great success in their climb through to Soul Core, and the common-born horde behind me was starting to enter the Qi Condensation tier.
To the immense relief of our enemies, they did not then jump straight through to Soul Core like I did, but they were making visible progress in only the eight months they’d had which caused our enemies to worry greatly.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Contrary to my initial plans, this worry was translating to action against me specifically instead of being spread out amongst the group. From what the house servants and other spies I had could glean, the reasoning was of two parts. The first part was that if I was constantly either fighting for my life or recovering or being kept busy with excessive demands on my contributions, that I’d have less time to guide my friends and followers. With a corollary note that if they failed to kill me first, I could just create more commoner ascendants at will.
The second, and far larger, part of the reasoning was that I had insulted all of them so many times and gotten away with it that it was actively hindering their cultivation.
Yeah, one of the critical flaws in Face-defined identity modeling for cultivators is that, as a cultivator, one has to cultivate the sense of innate superiority that they are qualified to speak to Heaven itself and tell it to get bent.
I was no exception despite taking a more civil tone. I would not have been able to sit across from Heaven’s authority and casually tell it that I wasn’t taking its shit if I didn’t believe, deep in my essence, that I outranked it.
Face culture seems at a glance to be an embodiment of this mentality. ‘You dare look at me wrong, I have the authority to destroy your bloodline’ and all that. But it’s not. And it can’t be. For the simple reason that Heaven has no motivation to give cultivators Face. Much the same way that nobility had no motivation to give disobedient servants Face.
There, I was an exception. And I suspected that several of my followers would be afforded at least a little Face simply for trying. Likely not much, but a little Face from Heaven is still more than most can claim to receive.
But even more than Heaven having no reason to do anything other than just force the new batch of mandates upon a cultivator to make them fit in the liminal space of being only partially immortal, Face culture allowed an insidious poison to infect a cultivator.
Because if one defined oneself based on Face, then even a small child of no might could fail to See the Face, and that would be a seed of doubt in the cultivator’s soul. After all, if a measly mortal child could fail to recognize your greatness, how could you expect a fellow cultivator to see it? Or the world itself? The Earth? Heaven?
The short of it: Face culture only rewards cultivators who are surrounded only by toadies and corpses.
So with me using Face culture as a shield while openly declaring the Elders as foolish children in my Eye, I’ve poisoned all of their cultivations with the truth that they have no authority that the world could acknowledge.
The fact that my cultivation was unimpeded by their own disdain appeared -to their eyes- as proof that the world bowed before me because it saw my Face where their eyes were blind. Which was driving them to unpredictable insanity in good order.
Part of this insanity, to my great amusement, manifested as trying to plant spies in my ‘inner circle’. Something that everyone who could be mistaken as a part of my inner circle found hilarious.
Brother Tun and Sister Fan had been taking pity on the poor would-be spies and explaining that I was my inner circle and that they, some of my favorite consultants for my more intricate plans, didn’t even know how many plans I was using them for at any given time.
Brother Kesa and most of the others, meanwhile, took after me in messing with the spies while sharing helpful insights. They found it great fun, and checked in with me to make sure I knew what nonsense they were feeding the Elders through the spies.
The excavation to the ‘Grand Ink Temple’ that Sister Fu concocted was an amazing shitshow, as she also leaked the rumor to Red Fist on my suggestion.
Nobody died on either side, but everyone was suitably embarrassed by the ordeal of trying to ‘cat dance’ to open the temple I draw my heavenly authority from.
She’d been fending off challengers over that with enough aplomb that some of the juniors were calling her the Singing Beauty now that she’d finished the Body Refinement process.
I blinked as I reached line of sight to my house and one of my servants was waiting for me at the door. I wasn’t expecting any guests to be waiting for me today.
“Honored Immortal.” he bowed at my approach. “Honorable Elder Lee has brought a guest to meet with you.”
“Thank you, Shi. How have they taken hospitality?”
“Elder Lee has taken the delay well, as he usually does. His friend has grown moderately restless in the quarter hour they have waited.”
“Tea is ready, I presume?”
“Indeed. As well as a light meal.”
I nodded and quick-changed to formal robes instead of my work ones as I steered myself to the meeting gazebo instead of my writing quarters. Having the trio of mortals attending the menial upkeep of the house had been the only way I had any leeway in my schedule, and they were benefiting from my indulgence as well.
“Disciple has been discourteous in being held up.” I announced myself to my guests with a bow. “Elder Lee, it is a great honor to be surprised by your visit.”
He waved the formality off with a chuckle. “I know well how full your schedule is, Guang. You need no explanation to me.”
I nodded my gratitude before turning to the stranger. “And how should I call you, honored guest?”
“You may call me Kang.” he answered with a sneer. “From how Lee speaks of you, I suppose I should be grateful you weren’t carried out here on a stretcher.”
“Junior has been trying to break himself of the habit of having his bones broken, but the concern remains valid in large part, yes.” I answered the backhanded comment. “May I offer seniors a cup of tea?”
“Lee insists it would be worth my time, even.” Kang’s lips twitched slightly. Likely at how accurately Lee would have probably described my manners.
My attending servant provided the tea set and leaves before making himself scarce, and I set about the fine arts of an informal tea meeting. Not to be mistaken for a formal tea meeting or a proper tea ceremony. Nor for the basic hospitality of offering a guest a refreshment.
After all, Lee had waved off formality, but Kang was very clearly not here frivolously.
“You have servants but set the tea yourself?” Kang sneered an honest sounding question.
“I am in the process of teaching them the art of it, but they are not yet skilled enough to offer their hand to distinguished company.” I answered easily. “And while they are but mortal servants, I find it wasteful to sacrifice the time I’ve spent teaching should they offend with a slip.”
“And you find yourself in the Fang?” he scoffed as he accepted his cup. “I’d thought you were all battle fiends like the Yang.”
I silenced my panic before it could reach my face and smiled easily as I sat. “One can enjoy the taste of fist and the taste of tea without conflict, I’ve found.”
A slight lift of his eyebrow told me that it was not a novel thought to him, but also not one that he was expecting to find at this meeting.
We each took a sip of the tea while allowing our thoughts to sort. For me, that was a process of trying to figure out which other sect Kang was from and why the fuck Lee would invite a foreigner to meet with me specifically.
“Ah!” Kang broke the silence first. “You live up to Lee’s praise, Guang. I’d thought him to be exaggerating.”
“When have I exaggerated about tea?” Lee laughed in faux offense.
Kang paused for a moment before inclining his head “Fair point. I haven’t caught one of your lies regarding drinks yet.”
“Nor shall you! I keep my lies well away from the matter of drinks on principle!” Lee laughed again, betraying no worry over having his friend in such a politically charged position.
“If only you had such principles about other matters too. You could make alliances to benefit your family if you could be known as worth trusting.”
“Whence comes the bile, old friend? I haven’t lied about anything of import in months.”
“I asked if you could set me to meet the man responsible for the Fang’s sudden shift in stance this last year. Not some tea expert halfway through Soul Core.”
I froze to avoid spitting a sip of tea out, swallowed carefully as Kang’s attention turned back to me with incredulity, and put a civil smile on. “Were you looking for the Sect Master, who decides our stance, then?”
Kang looked over to Lee who was wearing a shit eating grin and nodded once at his friend who was catching up. Then he turned back to me. “You are the one who inspired the change?”
“I cannot claim full credit by any measure, but I receive a lion’s share of it in most eyes, yes.”
“Lee tells me that he knows only that you are the one who did it, but not how.” His eyes narrowed slightly with a glint. “How did you manage that?”
“In large part, by doing most of it on accident.” I admitted. “Elder Lee’s informants are excellent, but they prioritize the collating of deliberate action with planned effects.”
Kang’s eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise before he grinned. “It seems I doubted you wrongly, old friend.”
“You asked after little Guang here.” Lee laughed. “I’d worry if you didn’t doubt me!”
“It really is the sensible action.” I nodded. “Elder Lee is one of terribly few who accept that I don’t plan my impact, and he chooses to count himself and most of his family as allied to me.”
“You may not plan it, but you predict it well enough to put my peers to shame.” Lee chuckled. “Which is good enough for me.”
“You gave Lee the insights that he brought to the Auction House, then?” Kang asked with the same narrowed eye.
“I do recall one of our conversations turning to the likelihood that armors and protective talismans would see a run of panic purchases as the Elders and Masters of the various rival sects notice the demeanor shift, yes. I posited that if he were to provide a few good quality defensive artifacts while looking for that price spike, he could expect aa significant profit.”
Kang raised an eyebrow. “I fail to see how such an obvious insight could have caused his profits of late.”
“I imagine he took the rest of the principles of price gouging to heart as well after he asked about them. Spreading rumors to the most panicky houses that wondrous life-saving artifacts would be for sale, making sure their equally panicky rivals are seen hearing the same rumors so that they bring out all of the funds that they can afford to spare, if not more. Having an agitator outside drunkenly declare his hopes lost upon seeing them, stoking their egos to recklessness. Little things that pry money from the clutches of most any wealthy man.”
“I see.” Kang started to grin as Lee smirked. “You have studied the matter deeply to guide a fool like Lee to profits.”
“I only answered a few offhanded questions provided by an honored Elder. Regardless of the credit he honors me with, he walked the path himself.”
Lee laughed. “Don’t worry about saving me face in front of this old bastard, Guang. He’s been drinking with me too often for that to matter”
“Elder Lee,” I smiled. “Has disciple given any indication of suddenly caring for unearned Face? I’m simply stating what you’ve earned, to my knowledge.”
Lee was known to most of the other Elders as a powerful layabout. To me, however, he was the only one who was honest about his hedonism. Not precisely laudable, but still less self-crippling than his ‘dignified’ peers.
And his information network was truly impressive. We’d actually met as I was having people infiltrate it.
“So. You have a sense of what your actions will bring upon the Auction House, yes? I should like to hear your thoughts.” Kang asked with an air of false indifference.
I collected my thoughts and the data I had about the people who would likely shape the coming months. Now that I was fairly sure I knew who Kang really was, I was already working him into my plans on reflex.
“The concerns over the Fang’s actions will likely keep growing the longer we remain on our path, as rumors are harder to bury than truths.” I started, carefully not confirming that the plan was war and then schism. “With the way that the Fist and the Spire have long feared the Fang’s potential for belligerence, that will see not only defensive artifacts, but weapons and cultivation aids climbing in demand, and therefore price. If I’m correctly informed about the demeanors of the other sects’ families, this will also create a friction as they assume each other to be hoarding goods to survive whatever they assume the Fang is going to do.
“If the current unease lasts more than another five months, I expect that the tensions will start to create internal conflicts despite fear of the Fang, at which point I would expect disregard for the Auction House’s Face to start arising in earnest. Likely starting with a young Spire Genius. If the Auction House retaliates, it will likely face retribution that it’s ill-equipped to handle, despite its alliances and protectors. If it accepts the insult, it can expect to be subsumed by whichever sect survives the unease in the strongest position.”
Kang tried to keep the scowl off his face, and did a damn fine job of it, objectively speaking.
“However, if the Auction House is alert to the possibility of some trumped up punk trying to weaponize their neutrality and exposes the ploy to everyone in attendance instead of allowing it to proceed, that would help solidify their position and strength even without throwing a punch. If they continue to navigate the political turmoil thusly, they could likely remain independent even should one of the three sects they border successfully destroy or subsume the others.”
“Simply exposing the ploys? How would that not invite ire from the offending Sect?” Kang asked, forgetting his decorum slightly.
“Because a ploy exposed is recognized as personal incompetence. The sects each recognize that responding as a whole to a slap to one man’s Face is a statement that they belong to that one man. Where an insult to an Elder can invite censure or destruction, revealing the ploy of a disciple will, at most, invite their family to respond. And any family that strikes against the Auction House will quickly find the rest of their sect staying their hand, especially if the Auction House maintains its impartiality. Neither of the smaller sects will be willing to risk being cut off from the armors and weapons that go through the Auction House over what amounts to one genius screwing up an attempt to insult someone.”
“Ah! I see.” his eyes lit up. “The Auction House’s strength is that everyone needs it, so if it wields that strength as a shield without raising a sword, it can weather the upcoming war with ease.”
“That is my understanding, yes. Turning each sect’s need for its services into a motivation to stay their hands keeps the power of the Auction House entirely in its own hand, where relying on the sects fighting each other off would give power to whichever sect can claim it.”
Lee froze and looked at me. “Guang.” he politely demanded. “Did you tell me how to profit off the armors so that the Auction House would have goods that the Fist and Spire are desperate for?”
I smiled at the way he thought I planned things like this. “I merely answered your questions at that time, Elder Lee. The Auction House’s benefit from your trades is simply a matter of their exemplary business acumen.”
“You did!” he exclaimed his conclusion with a laugh. “You sly devil!”
Kang’s eyes narrowed as he tried to conjure an explanation for why I’d want to keep his Auction House independent and strong.
After a moment he caught that I didn’t care about the Auction House itself and nodded. “The Fang won’t be trying to subvert the Auction House, so your advice will only weaken your enemies. And the Auction House itself benefits immensely, so there is no reason they wouldn’t listen. And for the life of me, I can’t actually tell if you planned this or not. No wonder you have Lee dancing to your tune.”
“Junior is flattered by Senior Kang’s praise.” I smiled. “I am just answering questions with my meager understanding. If it clarifies anything for Senior’s path, that is a testament to Senior’s greater comprehension.”
Kang chuckled. “Whatever your motivation, I do appreciate the perspective. I confess, I arrived with the concern that you counted the Auction House as an enemy after the way Lee described your sabotage of so many of your foes.”
“Not in the slightest.” I shook my head. “The Auction House provides an invaluable service as a place my goods can fetch an honest price. Even if circumstances have prevented me from availing myself of the rest of its services.”
“You’ve had someone selling your goods for you, then?”
“Indeed. Less so this past year, but I’ve had less tempting targets among my peers taking some of my lesser works to collect funds from the other sects and travellers.”
He nodded in understanding. It wasn’t exactly common protocol, but I wasn’t in a common position.
“Lee, how long were you going to neglect to offer your insightful junior to come with you when you come to waste your money on frivolities?” he finally selected his words, catching Lee by surprise. “If nothing else, he could likely advise you on which drinks are worth your coin.”
“Oho! That’s a fine idea!” Lee agreed with the obvious plots without a second thought. “I’ll stop by next month on my way out, how about that little Guang?”
“Disciple will attempt to have the day free.” I smiled agreeably.
Freedom to plant plans in the most trafficked city in the region. That was a wonderful harvest for my efforts.