CHAPTER

37

TO BE RID

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Early the following morning, Jieyuan got an alert from the inscribed field around his residence of the presence of three people nearby and getting nearer.

The next thing he knew, Daojue was batting his thrust aside, and stabbing his spear through his gut. Jieyuan felt the spear dig into him, saw it sink into his stomach. Wet warmth bloomed around it, and the cloth of his robe where the spear disappeared into his body was quickly darkening. Then Daojue pulled his spear back, effortlessly, and Jieyuan felt the blade scrape his insides as it left his body.

Gritting his teeth, Jieyuan cut off the Command. Daojue immediately vanished, and so did the pain. His robes were also suddenly pristine, no signs of blood or Daojue—or rather, the illusion of Daojue—had just inflicted on him.

Jieyuan gave himself a moment to wash off the shock, then turned around, striding out of his yard and back into the house.

He’d spent much of the previous day figuring out Huaxin’s abilities with Maeva. Huaxin had cooperated, mostly, and they’d managed to figure out the names of the skills, as well as what two of them—Fatebloom Sacrifice and Fatebloom Regeneration—did. The other one, Fatebloom Intuition, was still mostly unknown. He’d spent the rest of the day harvesting and imbuing chroma to top up his reserves. This morning, he’d figured he’d get some sparring in. That had mostly served to remind him, again, and again, and again, of how much above him Daojue still was.

He made straight for the entranceway door, opening it. On the other side, he found a woman in a lightcoat and the sapphire robes of a core elder. Standing behind her were Meiyao and Daojue—the real Daojue. Meiyao closer, Daojue farther away. Daojue had Gleaming End in hand, gear-shrouded.

Jieyuan recognized the woman. He’d seen her once before, at the entrance of the Gleamstone Valley, right before the start of the Gleamstone Hunt. Tall, slender, fine-featured, with burning orange eyes. Topaz eyes. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Liangshibai Yuyan. Wife of the sect leader, and Meiyao’s stepmother.

The woman smiled at him, extending her hand. “I’ve heard much about you, Jieyuan. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Yuyan.”

Jieyuan shook her hand. Her grip was firm, strong. Her smile seemed genuine. “Likewise.”

She drew her hand back, and stepped to the side, nodding back to Meiyao and Daojue. “I’ll be taking you three to Topaz Square, in the Inner Court. That’s where the sect’s delegation for the Radiant Gold Summit is gathering. Also.” She reached into her robe, and produced a second-sign glyph-stretch pouch. She handed it to him. “Your rewards for the Outer Hunt. A thousand shards. Congratulations on first place.”

Jieyuan deposited the pouch inside his own. “Thank you.”

“I’m just doing my job. And if you find more than just shards there… Say, a talisman or two… Well, resource allocation is a rather challenging task, and sometimes people make mistakes.” She gave him a rather obvious—and deliberately so—wink.

Behind her, Meiyao rolled her eyes. Dramatically. But she had her lips just slightly quirked up in a smile that she seemed to be fighting back.

“I come from a family of merchants. Trust me, I perfectly understand.” Jieyuan winked back, for good measure.

Yuyan gave him a knowing nod, looking satisfied. Then, taking another step back, she extended her arm, and a cloudcraft billowed out of her sleeves, taking form in front of her. “Hop on.”

Jieyuan jumped up onto it, taking a position near the back, beside Daojue. Meiyao was a little further ahead, and Yuyan took position at the front. The cloudcraft then began rising.

Aura-lashed, Jieyuan readied himself for the sudden acceleration—but it didn’t come. Once they were high enough, a couple of hundred feet above the ground, Yuyan flew the cloudcraft forward, but not nearly as fast as it could’ve been. Only just barely faster than the massive cloudcraft that had taken them to the Gleamstone Valley had moved.

He glanced down at the ground, watching as they left the houses of the residential area behind and delved deeper into the Outer Court. He could clearly make out everything below, no signs of blurring, and he wasn’t soul-stilling right now. If he were to run at full throttle while soul-stilling, he might even be able to match their current speed.

Yuyan clearly wasn’t in much of a hurry. While she was facing ahead most of the time, every once in a while she’d sneak a glance back, at Meiyao. For her part, Meiyao seemed to be trying her hand at a Daojue impression and ignoring her stepmother. Yuyan didn’t say anything, though it was clear that she was holding herself back.

Ruby Arch appeared in the distance, and Yuyan even lowered their cloud a little so that they crossed it from inside. They then overflew Ruby Square, before flying through Topaz Arch. Putting them in the Inner Court.

Jieyuan took the opportunity to look around. All the previous times he’d overflown the Inner Court, he’d been traveling either too fast or too high to make any details out.

Immediately around Topaz Arch, there wasn’t much to be seen, just some rolling plains of grass. Further ahead, they overflew a sprawling group of white buildings, but after that, they were back to hills and grasslands. Looking to the sides, observing the surrounding mountains, he noticed a couple that seemed to have buildings, in the distance, but they were few and far between.

Some time later, he sighted a massive white blotch peeking out from a group of mountains. The tower, from the Justice Bureau. It soon went out of sight as another mountain blocked it from sight. Further away, he sighted a massive, topaz-colored archway, and further beyond it, an even bigger, blue-colored one.

The Inner Topaz Arch, marking the end of the Inner Court, and the Outer Sapphire Arch, marking the start of the Core Court. As they passed through this second Topaz Arc—which, as far as Jieyuan could tell, was identical to the one at the boundary with the Outer Court—Jieyuan saw Topaz Square, sister to the Outer Court’s Ruby Square but even larger, and made from orange tiles.

There were people spread out on it, most of them wearing topaz or sapphire robes. About one in four had a lightcoat on. Inner and core disciples and elders. He also sighted two people in yellow—citrine robes—and neither wore a lightcoat. Both prime disciples, then.

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But what really drew his attention was the group at the center of the square. A man in emerald robes—the sect leader’s robes—surrounded by a couple of cultivators in amethyst robes, the robes worn by the high protectors, the most influential of the core elders, the men and women who really controlled the sect.

Also there was a woman in pristine white robes and a lightcoat—and among the sea of colored robes, hers couldn’t have stuck out more.

Yuyan lowered both their speed and altitude as they overflew Topaz Square, and she seemed to be heading straight to that group at the center. Jieyuan caught a sharp inhale from Meiyao, followed by a grumble he couldn’t make out. Yuyan shot a quick glance back at her, frowning, but didn’t steer the cloudcraft away.

They landed right at the center of the square, in front of the group with the most powerful people in the sect.

“Yuyan.” The emerald-robed man—the sect leader, Junjie—was at the front. Jieyuan had seen him twice before, once when he was inducted into the sect, and again before the Hunt, on Ruby Square.

The man was tall, as cultivators tended to be, and handsome, but in a cold, detached way, with thin lips set in a hard, straight line.

The man looked past Yuyan—his wife—and his gaze landed on Meiyao. Something tightened in his expression, and he looked past her, to Jieyuan and Daojue. He gave them both brisk nods. “Good. You’re all here.”

Yuyan jumped off from the cloud and approached the man in two quick steps. Hugging onto his arm, she leaned closer to him, whispering something in his ear. The man leaned back, but he remained impassive otherwise. Jieyuan couldn’t hear what they were saying, but after a short while, the man shook her hand, and Yuyan turned to look back at Meiyao—who was pointedly looking away—before she slumped, dejected.

Another man, this one in sapphire robes, approached, putting a hand on Yuyan’s shoulder. Another Liangshibai, except his eyes weren’t red or orange like that of most Liangshibai, but yellow, citrine.

He was looking at Meiyao, hard, like he was trying to catch her eye. Jieyuan remembered him. It was the core disciple he’d noticed Meiyao looking at in Ruby Square, after their encounter with Qingshi and Yunzhu. Jieyuan was pretty sure he knew who he was. Yongyi, Junjie’s son with Yuyan. Meiyao’s half-brother.

Meiyao was the first to get off the cloudcraft. And as soon as her feet were on the ground, she turned her head forward for just a moment to send a baleful look Junjie’s way, before she spun on her feet and stormed off without a word.

Daojue and Jieyuan got off at around the same time. Daojue just stood there, silent, statue-like as he usually was. Jieyuan, meanwhile, glanced from the group to Meiyao, who’d gone to a mostly isolated spot of Topaz Square, her back to them.

Yuyan and Yongyi were both also looking at Meiyao. As for Junjie, he’d resumed talking with one of the high protectors. There were five of them, three women and two men, and all but one of them had the gemstone eyes of the Liangshibai.

Three of the Liangshibai high protectors had topaz eyes, but one of them—an older man, middle-aged—had citrine eyes like Yongyi. He was also staring at Meiyao. Unlike the other high protectors, the man also wore a white sash around his waist, like Junjie. Meaning he wasn’t just a high protector, but the chief protector. Liangshibai Zhaoyong, the most powerful man in the sect, and Meiyao’s surrogate grandfather.

“Daojue!” a voice called—bright, cheery, not the kind of voice you’d expect from a cultivator.

A shiver ran down Jieyuan’s spine. And sure enough, Yunzhu stepped out from the group, beaming, waving, blood-red eyes locked on Daojue.

Daojue stared at the approaching Yunzhu, stone-faced, tense—then he turned around and strode away, toward where Meiyao was standing.

Yunzhu’s smile slipped off her face, but the next moment it returned, even stronger. Her eyes seemed to gleam as she made to go after Daojue—and she’d have had, if someone hadn’t grabbed her shoulder and held her back. The white-robed woman was right behind.

“Yunzhu,” she said, chidingly.

Yunzhu blinked, as if she was snapping out of a daze, and turned to look at the woman. “Mother,” she said, a bit sheepish.

The woman shook her head, then turned her eyes to him. Her sapphire eyes. “Jieyuan,” she said, stepping forward, smiling widely. “It’s been a while.”

“Oh. Jieyuan,” Yunzhu said, turning to him as if she’d only just noticed him. “Hi there.”

Jieyuan nodded to Yunzhu—with Daojue away, she was normal enough—and then smiled back at the woman. “Wanxin.”

This was the woman who’d served as his proctor during the entrance trials. The woman who’d been by his side as he was transformed into a cultivator. White-robed, sapphire-eyed. Even back then he’d known she was special, someone important, but now he knew just how special and important she was.

Above the sect leader were the senior protectors, whom the sect leader answered to. The senior protectors, in turn, answered to the high protectors, led by the chief protector. Usually, that was as high as cabal hierarchies went, but sometimes there came along someone talented far beyond the norm. Such individuals were normally scouted by a higher-realm cabal. But sometimes they stuck around for whatever reason, and when they did, they were granted a special position. That of paramount protector. And around a paramount protector, even the chief protector had to tread lightly.

Wanxin was the Glistening Stone Sect’s sole paramount protector. Her eyes were the color of sapphire because the color of a Liangshibai’s eyes was determined by their heavenly affinity, and hers was fifth-order, an order above even his, Daojue’s, and Meiyao’s.

Wanxin had chosen to remain in the Glistening Stone Sect as a mere redsoul, but if she changed her mind, if she chose to transfer to a higher cabal? She’d be snatched up by the Incandescent Serenity Sect—the Yellowsoul cabal that ruled over the island—on the spot, and then it’d only be a matter of a couple of years before she became the most powerful cultivator on the island. Chances were that she’d go on to leave it, too. Join a Greensoul cabal, even a Bluesoul one.

Wanxin looked him up and down. “You seem well. I knew you’d take to a cultivator’s life.” Her smile broadened a bit. “I’ve heard you’ve gotten in quite a bit of trouble as of late, too. Somehow I’m not too surprised.”

“In my defense, I didn’t go looking for it. It found me.” Except that wasn’t true, was it? He had made the choice of sticking around Meiyao and Daojue, and he’d had an idea of what that’d entail.

“That’s not usually how it goes with Firesouls,” Wanxin said, “but in this case, at least, I guess it’s indeed not your fault. Qingshi… I always knew there was more to him, but I hadn’t expected something—”

“Excuse me,” Yunzhu said, suddenly, still cheery, but something about it seemed forced. Without waiting for a reply, she walked back toward where she’d come from, where Meiyao’s family was standing. At least she hadn’t gone after Daojue.

Wanxin watched her daughter go, shaking her head softly. “That girl. She’s still struggling to process the Qingshi situation, I think. She’d seemed pretty taken with your teammate, Daojue, as of late, but she and Qingshi have always been… close.” She gave him a meaningful look, at that last word.

Jieyuan said nothing. As far as he was concerned, all he needed to know about Yunzhu was where she was, so he could make sure to be elsewhere. Normal as she acted when Daojue wasn’t around, he didn’t feel like taking chances. He was glad to see her leave.

“Anyway,” Wanxin said. “This is it. Today should be your last day here, in the Gleaming Stone Sect. After the Summit, you probably won’t be returning. How are you feeling?”

Jieyuan looked around. From Topaz Arch to Sapphire Arc, and then past Sapphire Arc, deeper into the Gleaming Stone Mountains, where the Gleamstone Valley lay. And at the center of it, the entrance to the Gleamstone Depths, which had brought down even Yikongwei Beidao, a tenth-sign violetsoul.

And then he considered the sect itself, with the Geshihan and the Fusongshi Clans, and their conspiracy he was somehow caught up in, and their mysterious method of tracking his team. He thought of Yunzhu, and her unsettling behavior and obsession with Daojue. And of Qingshi, hiding his true soulsign. And of Taishou, and how the man very likely was up to no good.

And he decided that he was very, very glad to be leaving.

Good riddance.

“Ready,” was what he answered instead.