Chen Fei knelt next to the corpse of a beast that was easily half again as large as she was. The bear-skin mantle she’d taken to wearing hung from a nearby tree branch along with her outer coat. On the one hand, it made it hard not to look at her, as from the waist up she only wore her moxiong. On the other, she was up to her elbows in blood.
It was finally the squelching sound from the beast’s innards that won out and caused He Yu to look away. Harvesting cores was one thing. He could just cut it out from the beast and that was that. But whenever Chen Fei hunted, she processed the entire carcass. At least she would first drag it to a stream or similar, so she could wash up after.
She had laid out the hide a short distance away and was currently separating the various parts that—according to her—could be used by refiners in creating various pills and elixirs. Apparently, hunting was her primary source of income these days. Although it didn’t generate contribution points, selling a Third Realm beast could fetch a mountain of spirit stones. The cores alone could sometimes even fetch a few mid-grade stones, depending on their aspects.
“You should just talk to him,” she said, pulling out another unidentifiable organ.
He Yu stared off across the mists that blanketed the Shrouded Peaks. If it were that easy, he wouldn’t be here talking to her about this. He’d worried over it for days and had come no closer to figuring out the problem on his own. When she’d stopped by, she could immediately tell something was off, and invited him on the hunting trip.
For the first several hours, she was simply content to let him stew. She didn’t push the issue and didn’t pry. For that, he was grateful. Eventually, though, it had grown to gnaw at him and he couldn’t stay quiet about it any longer. As he dumped all his worries on her, she simply listened as she worked, pulling apart the dead spirit beast that lay on the ground before her.
“I don’t even know what to say,” he muttered after a while, still gazing out over the landscape.
“I suppose simply asking him is out of the question.”
This finally caused him to look back in her direction. He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or not. She seemed absorbed in her work still, so he assumed it was the latter.
“What would I ask? I’m not good at this sort of thing. I didn’t really have any friends back home.”
“You’ve mentioned that before,” Chen Fei said.
“Besides, I’ve stopped by his home several times since I’ve gotten back, and he’s always busy. Or at least he says so. Anyway, what about you and Tan Xiaoling?” he asked. “Has something like this ever come up between you?”
Chen Fei hummed and then fell silent. After a few more moments, she answered. “I don’t think the situation is the same there. I don’t know how much I should share, but I think she’s just happy to have a friend. She seemed really lonely when I first met her.”
That didn’t exactly help. Li Heng had seemed perfectly outgoing. He had mentioned that his only real companionship at home was from his father’s retainers, but he’d always struck He Yu as the type who could at least make acquaintances easily enough. Tan Xiaoling always came across as at least a little stand-offish. Whether that was due to her cultivation, or status, or just something else about her personality, he couldn’t say. If this entire ordeal had taught him anything, it was that he was still pretty garbage at dealing with people.
“Then again,” Chen Fei added, “I don’t think she has to worry about me surpassing her, either.”
He Yu sat up, turning back towards her. “Wait, do you think that might be what’s bothering him?”
“I mean, it might.”
With a huff, He Yu fell back against the tree he’d been sitting against. If that’s what was bothering him, it was hardly fair. Li Heng had come to the sect with every single advantage that He Yu lacked. It was hardly his fault that he’d reached peak Body Refining before Li Heng had.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about those noble types since coming to the sect, it’s that they have their pride,” she said. She wasn’t wrong.
Basically, all of He Yu’s problems so far had come down to someone’s injured pride. From Sha Xiang to Da Ning to, now apparently, Li Heng. He thought back to when Tan Xiaoling had come to him before the final round of the tournament and offered him a way out. A way out that would allow him to keep his pride.
It was a bit silly if he were honest. What use was pride, in the end? As far as he could tell, it just made people foolish. Made them throw themselves at opponents they had no business challenging and seeded grudges that just wasted everyone’s time. Maybe if all those nobles worried less about their injured pride, they could actually get some cultivation done.
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“Is that why he tried to take on Sha Xiang and Da Ning by himself?” He Yu asked.
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
He thought back to all the times Li Heng would talk about his duty. It was his duty as a noble to protect those weaker than him. To stand up for the laws of the Dragon Emperor. To be just. Did that mean throwing yourself into a hopeless fight just to prove something? He Yu didn’t think so. What good were you if you broke yourself against someone beyond your capabilities?
Not as if he were one to talk, though. Especially not after what he’d just been up to out in the hills with Zhang Lifen. Or after standing in the arena with a shard of his shattered weapon facing down Tan Xiaoling. Or stepping onto the stage back in Shulin.
He Yu thumped his head against the tree trunk. “Idiot,” he muttered.
“That’s not very nice,” Chen Fei said.
He Yu cracked open one eye and saw her frowning at him. “Couldn’t tell you who I was talking about exactly,” he said.
“Still think you should try and talk to him,” she said, returning to her work.
“Why can’t he just be happy for me? I mean, he had to get me out of trouble so many times back when I was still First Realm. You’d think he’d be happy that I can stand on my own now.”
“Maybe he needs to feel like someone needs him?”
“Does he?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I can tell you that even Tan Xiaoling has some notions about what’s expected of her that I don’t really get, if I’m honest. Hers are a bit more violent than that, but I think it’s the same idea. Seems to me like all these nobles have a lot of pressure on them. They’ve got families that expect them to act in a certain way, and if they can’t live up to that, they’re basically failures. Sounds like a lot more trouble than it’s worth, if you ask me. I mean, both of us have done well enough for ourselves without all that, right?”
“That can’t be it,” he said. “Maybe I’m wrong, since I don’t know Tan Xiaoling nearly as well as you do, but she doesn’t seem like that. I mean, do you really think that if she didn’t have her status weighing down on her, she wouldn’t be the same sort of monster she is now?”
“I guess,” Chen Fei said. “Like, sure, without the resources, she wouldn’t be as far along, but I think you’re right. She’s driven in a way that's closer to you, I think.”
“I’m not driven,” he said. After a few minutes of silence, he looked over at her again. She was staring with her mouth half open and a bloody lump of viscera in her hands.
“You can’t mean that,” she said.
“What?”
“You were the weakest disciple by far back when we joined the sect. And by the end of the first week, you’d already advanced a stage.”
“Anyone could have done that,” he said. “Especially given where I’d come from. The Southern Forest is practically devoid of natural qi. Probably the whole reason Dong Wei couldn’t even make it past Foundation.”
“Okay, fine,” she said, dropping the bloody lump in her hands with a splat. “What about reaching Foundation? You did it in half the time you had to. And then what about Body Refining?”
“I was half a step into Body Refining when I came back because of Old Guo. I told you that.”
“Do you seriously think a Sixth Realm cultivator would have wasted his time on you if he didn’t think you had something worth nurturing?”
“I think Old Guo expected payment from the sect, which, according to Zhang Lifen, he got.”
“And now you’re at the peak of Body Refining, and half a step into the Fourth Realm from what I can tell. Before you’re even twenty.”
Finally, he had nothing left to say about that. Since returning from his time away with Zhang Lifen, there had been a noticeable shift in the way the other inner sect disciples treated him. Although he hadn’t been issuing any challenges and was still ranked six hundred third among the inner sect disciples, he hadn’t failed to notice the distance the other disciples had been giving him. Nor had he failed to notice respectful salutes, or the envious whispers, as he passed by.
Nor could he really deny that he felt half a step into the Fourth Realm. It was hard to pin down in words, but as the season turned from spring to summer, he turned more often to the peaks to the north. There was an anticipation deep in his spirit, similar to the feeling he got when he saw thunderheads gathering on the horizon back home. There was also a pressure in his dantian similar to what he’d felt before advancing to Body Refining, but different in its intensity.
Never mind that he’d been practically stuffing himself with elixirs since his return. His cultivation base had become more potent than ever, and his presence had likewise increased. Meditating on the insights he’d gained from his fights in the hills and from Zhang Lifen’s discussions had deepened his connection to his Wayborn Seed, and thus his greater Way. He may not be any closer to really knowing what it meant to actually be a hero, but he was moving towards it, regardless.
“Anyway,” Chen Fei said, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Just try and talk to him. Whatever’s bothering him, I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that he actually values your friendship. Whatever silly notions of pride are getting in his way, are secondary. You said so yourself that he stuck up for you when nobody else did. I don’t think that’s nothing, you know?”
He Yu mulled over what she’d said, and couldn’t really find any reason to disagree. She left him to his silence while she finished packing away the last bits of her kill. Then she went to the stream and finally washed up. The brook turned red, and He Yu shook his head in disbelief. She still didn’t like the idea of fighting other disciples, which was why she spent so much time out in the sect’s territory hunting beasts. But somehow, being covered in blood didn’t bother her.
When she finished up, she donned her outer coat and bearskin mantle. As they made their way back to the sect, He Yu was at least grateful that she didn’t seem to resent him for advancing as quickly as he did. And that she was so much better at the interpersonal stuff than he was. At least that way he had someone to talk to about all this.