> When we arrived in that place, it was as easy as stepping through the doorway to this room. However, once inside it was hard to say what was real and what was false, for the rules made a mockery of everything we understood of the world around us and death had no consideration for mighty or meek. To leave was more fraught than seizing good fortune from the heavens themselves... and all we got for the experience was a bunch of stone jars and a grade eight herb.

Excerpt from an ancient written account of an anomaly in the Inner Valleys to the Hunter Bureau.

  ~By Immortal Valiant Lion

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~ HA YUN – LING CLAN ESTATES ~

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“—That was some meal…”

“—Yeah, though I wish they didn’t have us cooped up in here…”

“What do you think about the Trial?”

“—eh, we know next to nothing about it…”

“—I mean, what even is a ‘Trial of Exploration’?”

“—I asked my older cousin and he said it’s basically a massive competition where the Imperial Court hunts for the best talent in a region…”

“—I heard that they are offering places as core disciples of various influences…”

“No way, where did you hear that? You’re still drunk!”

“No, really…”

“Brother Jiao… are you the Jiao who got the Acknowledgement?”

“Brother Caolun, what do you think?”

“—Nope! He just has the same name… just like Brother Quan here!”

“—Hey, leave me out of this!”

“Brother Yun here has been rather distant, since we got here…”

“—Yun?”

“Maybe he is still hung over… it was a great party Brother Kongfei put on…”

“—Oh, it was… and those beauties, Aiiieehhh…”

“YUN!”

“…”

Giving himself a shake, Ha Yun looked up from reading the book he had been aimlessly reading, a rather trashy adventure novel called ‘The Curse of the Jade Rod’, about a valiant hero who was cursed to be admired by lots of beauties, none of whom got on with each other, to see who had spoken to him.

The rest of ‘his’ group were scattered around, chatting to others for the most part and enjoying the early morning sunshine. Leng had gone off to read a book away from the chatter, while Mao, and Ding were playing a dice game, with Fang and Jiao looking on, and messing with those who were wondering if they were part of the group who had got the Imperial Acknowledgement, something Caolun kept being forced to repeatedly deny.

“Oh, Yufan… what is it?” he asked Ha Shi Yufan, who had come over and apparently been trying to get his attention.

“I asked if you knew anything about this trial…” Yufan repeated.

He stared wistfully at the shimmering illustration of ‘Fairy Miaomiao’, one of the heroines of the story, then put it aside.

“Nope, no idea,” he replied drily, looking around at the others who were sitting in the pagoda by the lake. “No more than you…”

“Aiii….” Yufan grumbled, sitting down on the other end of the bench.

“So, what do you think about this task?” Yufan added, clearly determined to talk about something. “Half of those here still agree with Mao, that they are just going to have us sit around and be useless…”

“Yes, useless here…” he agreed, waving a hand absently around the rather nice garden. “Do we really want to be in a hurry to rush up there?”

They both paused to watch the others from the various groups chattering away on the far side of the pagoda. Mostly they were talking about the trial, the grand show that Din Kongfei had provided at the party, or the dinner from the previous night.

“—Ohh… ohh… I recorded Fairy White Jasmine dancing the other night!” one of the youths with Caolun was saying…

“Rather than her, I’d like to see an actual noble daughter dance…”

“—Oh yeah… but then her older brother would likely come and make you dance…”

“I guess they are just trying to distract themselves from thinking about it…” Yufan muttered, drily.

“Duh!” he agreed. “Would you much rather be here, for all that this is quite boring, or up there, in the aftermath of whatever hellish chaos this beautiful weather being unleashed on us has spawned?”

“When you put it like that…” Yufan agreed, looking at the scattered members of their clan, now admiring the swirling image of the scantily clad courtesan, and sighing.

“…”

That said, his views on it were not quite as clear cut as he was implying.

Certainly, he was quite happy to be down here, rather than up in the mountains, but at the same time, the words his father and uncle had spoken, and their genuine concern over the circumstances around why they were here was not lost on him. In the long hours of not having much to do since the dinner the previous evening, it had also occurred to him that if the Ha clan could push for involvement in this, so too could the Ling clan string them along. Especially if the politics playing out was focused more on Blue Water City than West Flower Picking Town.

-What if Mao is actually right… just not in the way he thinks?

“I don’t suppose you have any idea where we are going to go?” he asked Yufan, recalling that he and Leng had gone with Sir Huang before.

“No, actually, they have not said a thing,” Yufan replied, making a face. “In fact, they have not even given us equipment yet, unless they expect everyone here to already have brought what they need.”

“…”

That was also true, though he suspected that the Ling clan was either going to ignore it, or was, perhaps, waiting for someone to ask. It was something he would have been more concerned about, really, had his father not already given him quite a bit in the way of resources for his ‘group’, before Yufan and the rest arrived. That none of the others had obviously mentioned it either, probably meant that they had been given supplies already as well. Given most of them were here more for the trial, and to exploit the opportunities of others, nobody was going to say what they already had.

He was just about to say something to that end, when he spotted Sir Huang making his way into the gardens, from the entrance to the main estate. The other experts, who did not seem to be able to come and go as he did, who were sitting around talking quietly by the entrance all stood at his arrival.

“Sir Huang is back,” he said, nudging Yufan.

“Ah… maybe it is time, at last,” Yufan murmured, standing up.

“EVERYONE!” Sir Huang’s voice echoed across the garden. “Play time is over. Get up and get moving.”

There were various groans from the assembled groups, though he noticed that only Ding and a few others actually started moving at Sir Huang’s words. Most of the Ha Cao and Ha Ji groups looked to the four other experts first.

Shaking his head, he also stood and set off after Ha Ding, Ha Chu Fang and a somewhat glum looking Ha Shi Mao.

He caught up to them at about the same time Leng did, meeting Sir Huang on the pathway just beyond the small bridge that crossed over the lake on the path from the pagoda.

“They are keen,” Sir Huang remarked drily, watching the others slowly start to get their act together.

“—They are,” Sir Teng, who had also come over, agreed.

“Ah well,” Sir Huang shrugged.

“Are we departing?” he asked.

“We are. Within the next thirty minutes probably,” Sir Huang mused, as they started walking on along the path again. “The plan is to teleport us up there with two other groups of experts and some supplies. Otherwise, I think we would have left at first light and been hiking to our destination.”

“Looking at that lot, that might actually have been the better strategy. They are wetter than the forests we are going to be clearing,” Sir Teng grumbled as the rest of the group fell in behind them.

“Well, if it’s a matter of acclimatization once we get up there, there are workarounds,” Sir Huang replied, sounding more amused than concerned. “And those that don’t like it, will learn rapidly.”

“You know half of them are gonna be pill junkies by the end of this,” Sir Teng added.

Something about the way the two elites grinned at that made him a bit uneasy.

“Whereabouts in the low valleys are we going?” Yufan asked, frowning.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, the Ling clan has not been very forthcoming,” Sir Teng replied drily, though not loud enough for the others in their group, who were chattering away behind them, to hear.

“…”

-Could it actually be that even they don’t know? he wondered, mulling over that non-answer.

The sideways looks Yufan and Leng were giving him suggested that they were having the same thoughts there.

“Where are we going to be going?” Ha Ji Wufan, who had also caught up at this point, asked Sir Huang pointedly.

Sir Huang gave him a sideways look and just kept on walking, clearly not feeling compelled to answer.

Ha Ji Jing, the lead expert with Ha Ji Wufan, looked pensive for a moment, then sighed.

“We don’t know yet, Young Master Caolun,” Sir Cao, the expert with Ha Caolun, replied patiently, seeing Caolun was also looking restless.

“Rest assured, Young Master Wufan, when they tell us, you will be among the first to know,” Sir Jing agreed.

Ha Cao Caolun and Ha Ji Wufan both looked a bit put out, but could only shrug and accept what was said.

Faolian just shook her head, looking amused.

They walked on to the entrance of the garden, where they were met by an official in the silver-striped robe of a seven-star official.

“If you would all follow me,” he said, ushering them out of the gate.

The trip back to the Ling estate was brisk, with the official leading them at a near jog through empty courtyards and streets between complexes until they finally arrived back at the teleport platform they had come in on.

“Sir Huang, Fairy Faolian, Sir Teng, Sir Cao, Sir Jing… Sir Feilu, Sir Bo?” Elder Leng spotted them immediately and came over. “Good morning to you all. I trust you have all completed your preparations and that you are well-rested?”

“Uhuh,” Sir Huang confirmed as the others all nodded.

“The stability of the connection has already been tested,” Elder Leng added… “So you will be pleased to know nobody is going to arrive with more than their breakfast disturbed. We can go as soon as everyone is on the platform.”

“Okay,” Sir Huang replied, nodding before looking around.

The platform already had almost a dozen crates of what appeared to be herb jars stacked in the middle, along with water and other sundries. Off to the side, a group of six youths, wearing light armour, had walked out of a building and were also coming over, carrying several more large, sealed crates between them. As he watched, they put them down in the middle of the circle and took up stations there.

“I guess they really don’t want any mishaps,” Leng muttered as he fell in beside him as they walked up the steps.

“Oh?” he asked softly.

“Those are elite guards from the Ling clan’s household. They are wearing Lady Tao’s personal motif on their robes.”

Looking at the nearest guard, he saw that Leng was indeed right.

“EVERYONE CLEAR OF THE EDGE?!” the old man outside yelled.

“I guess you lost your bet after all,” he muttered to Ha Shi Mao standing across from him.

“Oh well,” Mao shrugged, unconcerned.

Ha Ding just sighed, looking a bit nervous at last.

He hid a grimace, because actually, he was nervous as well, but there was no way he was going to show it openly in front of everyone here.

“ALL CLEAR!” Faolian called back.

The old man acknowledged, then yelled back: “Teleport in FIVE!”

“Four… three… two…” Leng muttered beside him as the formation on the platform started to power up.

“You might want to put a hat on,” Sir Huang remarked, glancing over at him.

Nodding, he took out a broad brimmed hat, as did Leng and Yufan. Seeing them do so, Mao, Mun and Ding also followed suit, though basically nobody else did.

“One…” Mao added cheekily.

“…”

“Zero?” Ding added, when nothing happened, beyond the formation still continuing to charge.

There was silence on the platform as the formation kept charging, the seconds counting past zero…

“Uh…” he looked nervously at Sir Huang, because this was not normal. “What is—?”

A raindrop hit him on the face, from nowhere, followed by another, and another…

“Rain?” Ha Chu Fang muttered, even as others also started to notice.

Confused, he looked up, which turned out to be a terrible mistake, as in that same instant, everything spun unpleasantly as his view of their surroundings and the sky above occluded itself and then snapped back together—

With a grunt, he stumbled, his stomach twisting, dropping his hat in the process.

“Oh fates…”

“Urrrrk—!”

“—Mother…”

“By the Celestial virgin’s tits—!”

Their surroundings stabilized, revealing buildings in a gorge. The sun above was gone, replaced by misty cloud and drizzle. All around him there was cursing and complaints as others suffered the same effects. Putting a hand over his mouth, he tried to stop himself vomiting and just about succeeded, only puking up in his mouth as he dropped to one knee. Ding, next to him was not so fortunate, doubling over and retching his breakfast on the wet stone below them.

“You must be Sir Huang,” a familiar woman’s voice cut through the hubbub. “I am Kun Lianmei, Elder of the West Flower Picking Town’s Pavilion.”

“I am,” Sir Huang nodded, apparently not affected in the slightest by the effects of the teleport.

Caolun and Wufan were also unaffected, he noted, which a part of him felt was grossly unfair.

“They ate stabilization pills before we left,” Leng, who had put a hat on, muttered, helping him up and passing him back his own.

“Okay folks, start getting that stuff off the platform!” Lianmei called out authoritatively.

The soldiers who had come with them grabbed the crates they had been escorting and started to move the others out of the way. Caolun was already leaving the platform, as were most of his group, conspicuously not following Elder Lianmei’s instruction.

“Go grab a crate,” Faolian said, poking Ding in the back of the head. “Don’t be like them.”

Grimacing, he nodded and walked over, his legs still a bit wobbly and took one side of a pallet of herb jars. Leng took the other and between them, they lifted it, grimacing at the effort.

Off to the side, Jiao was helping a pale Fang up as well.

“Where… are we?” Mao asked, looking around at the gorge with its buildings and fortified walls. “How come I have never heard of a place like this in the Low Valleys…?”

“Because we are sensible and avoid doing stupid missions here?” Ha Jiao added, walking over with Ha Fang.

“Low valleys?” one of the guards, who had already come back, remarked in passing, looking at them with amusement. “You think this is the Low Valleys?”

“Where are we then?” Ha Mun asked, frowning.

“Misty Jasmine Inn,” a second soldier replied, while his compatriot laughed as if this was a great joke.

“And where is that?” Ha Mun asked a bit more testily.

The pair of soldiers just stared at Mun, then at the rest of them, and laughed, effortlessly picking up a water jar each and departing again with them, just shaking their heads.

“That’s not at all ominous,” he grumbled as they made their way past the scowling Mun and down the ramp off the platform to where stuff was being temporarily placed.

“—Where is this?” Ha Caolun, also sounding slightly perturbed, was asking, off to the side.

Elder Lianmei glanced sideways at Caolun as they walked past her. In passing he caught her mutter: “—Shit, they really did send their ‘best’, didn’t they?”

“Yep,” a bearded man in light armour and a blue robe next to her agreed, shaking his head.

That their gaze also included him and Leng made him feel a bit aggrieved, given his problems with the pavilion were largely of its making, not his own.

“Over there,” Leng commented, as they moved on, indicating a free spot to put down their surprisingly heavy burden.

Nodding, he staggered over, his arms already starting to burn a bit, and put the crate down on the ground with a grunt. Standing again, he stretched and stared up at the sky.

The gorge they were in was indeed heavily fortified. The sky above was just a swirling mass of low cloud, the cliffs above vanishing into overhanging greenery. There was a sort of subtle weight to the rain as well, a reality to it that seemed to completely ignore the light enchantments woven into his robes intended to keep the weather off.

“Is there no one else here other than Elder Lianmei?” Mao groaned, staggering over and depositing a crate. “And what is in these anyway, lead bricks?”

“You two, open that up and check it!” the soldier next to Elder Lianmei called over to them.

Leng nodded politely and pulled the seal off. Mao, still curious, took the lid of and then stared.

“This…” Mao goggled.

“…”

Leng just gulped.

The box was full of spirit jade cubes. There had to be almost a heavenly jade’s worth of elementally attuned spirit jades in it.

“Why are they not being stored in storage?” Ha Leng frowned.

“Because their feng shui has to remain unattuned,” Faolian said, stopping beside them. “You lot continue taking stuff off the platform. Leave this to me; you don’t have the eyes for it.”

“…”

Not bothering to complain, because she was right, unfortunately, he followed Leng and the others back to the platform and got another herb pot crate. This time, the four of them carried it and made much quicker work of it.

In the end, it took them about ten minutes to unload, with even Caolun being forced to help in the end, after he and Wufan were explicitly told what to go pick up by Elder Lianmei.

“OKAY EVERYONE!” Elder Lianmei called out, her voice cutting through the hubbub and complaints about the rain. “I suppose some introductions are in order. In case you don’t know who I am, which is possible, maybe… If you have just drifted through your time in the Hunter Pavilion, leeching off others, I am Kun Lianmei. I am your boss while you are up here.

“Now, some of you may be wondering where we are, others are no doubt wondering what you are to do up here, and a fair few of you, I suspect, think you are up here to do as you like…”

“…”

As much as he wanted to refute that, it was a rather accurate reading of matters.

“—We are here because the Ling clan asked our Ha clan for assistance,” Ha Ji Wufan said superciliously. “I hardly think this is the tone a mere official—”

“Ha Ji Wufan huh…” Lianmei focused on him, then shook her head.

Beside him, Leng and Yufan both winced at her tone.

Knowing what he did about how Elder Lianmei treated those who annoyed her, he was torn between going over and putting his hand over Ji Wufan’s mouth himself in case he implicated all of them, or laughing hysterically. Ha Caolun, stood off to the side had a somewhat sour expression as well.

“Caolun is already on her shit list for our trip to Jade Willow…” Leng muttered in his ear.

“So you do—” Ha Ji Wufan started to say.

“Be quiet,” Sir Huang said flatly, his voice making Wufan turn pale. “Apologies, Elder Lianmei. It seems some of those here do not understand.”

“Thank you, Sir Huang,” Lianmei said with a slight smile. “It is to be expected; I don’t imagine the Ling clan told anyone much of anything. Politics and all that.”

“No… they were rather clandestine,” Sir Teng agreed.

“Well, first things first,” Lianmei said with a bright smile. “This outpost is Misty Jasmine Inn, gateway to the Inner Valleys!”

“…”

“The… Inner Valleys?” Mao actually scoffed beside him, looking incredulous.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Most of the scions around them were either smiling or laughing now.

“Yeah, I don’t think she is joking,” Leng muttered.

Looking around, he had to agree. It also led him to wonder, in that moment, if that was the real reason why nobody had said anything, and whether or not Sir Huang and the others had just been stringing them along earlier. If he was in their position, he had to admit he would have been sorely tempted to.

“As to why you are here, you are here to clear valleys. We will supply the formations materials, you will go in teams, block sweep with them, seal up every herb you can, and bring them back. Nothing more, nothing less. We have Beast Cadre experts, so you will be protected.”

“Manual labour?” Ha Wufan sneered. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, and if you don’t like it, you can take it up with the Ha clan?” Elder Lianmei said simply.

“Do you have anything to add to this, Caolun?” Wufan turned to Caolun, presumably looking for support.

“…”

Ha Caolun looked decidedly awkward, in that moment, his previously aloof façade cracking a bit as Lianmei just ‘looked’ at him.

“This is going to go well,” Ha Yufan muttered behind him.

“Isn’t it,” Leng agreed.

In the end, Caolun said nothing and Lianmei just shook her head.

“Well, if there is good news, it’s that you will spend today acclimatizing,” Lianmei went on, addressing everyone again. “The buildings behind us have rooms on the top floors, or if you wish you can pick one of the others that is not in use. There is a bath and meals are provided in the morning and the evening courtesy of Xiang Meilan and Fanqing Diaomei…”

As Elder Lianmei spoke, five others, three women and two men, had also come out of the inn.

“Wait… aren’t they…?” Ha Ding murmured, staring at the pair of beauties, standing under their umbrellas, with interest.

He had to admit he was surprised as well to see them here. Both Xiang Meilan and Fanqing Diaomei worked at the Cherry Wine Pagoda, directly for the proprietress. Xiang Meilan, with her golden-brown hair and athletic beauty, was a dancer usually, though of the more respectable kind, while the auburn-haired Diaomei played music mostly, or escorted important guests.

-Is that what father and uncle meant by having ‘fortuitous connections’ to all this? he found himself wondering.

“I see you got sent to join us, Junior Sister!” Xiang Meilan called over, giving a cheerful wave to Faolian, all but confirming that supposition in his eyes, even as he made it.

Diaomei simply swept her gaze across them, looking largely indifferent, though he fancied that she did linger on where their group was standing with Sir Huang.

Ha Faolian rolled her eyes, but did give them a small wave back.

“This is Ling Mo Shun,” Lianmei went on, gesturing to the tall, martial man in light armour, who was standing next to Xiang Meilan. “He is the leader of the Ling clan’s elites who are guarding here. His word is second only to mine.”

“SIR!” the soldiers who had come with them all saluted promptly.

Ling Mo Shun nodded politely to them.

“The final person to introduce you to is Senior Ying,” Lianmei added, gesturing to the sandy-brown haired woman who was now leaning against the wall. “She is a resident of this place, and its caretaker in the off seasons. She is also the priestess of the shrine here.”

“So she is actually a nun,” Ding remarked drily.

“Did she just say that she lived up here?” Jiao muttered.

“Thank you,” Senior Ying murmured, her gaze drifting across them.

“If you need to access the storehouse on the right, speak to the guard outside. Items within have to be signed out. If you need a briefing on that, ask Hunter Mo Shunfei here,” Lianmei went on, gesturing to the man in the grass hat, puffing on a pipe. “He is the senior member of the West Flower Picking Beast Cadre here, after me, and also the administrator of that side of things.

“Ha Faolian, I understand you will be helping with that, at least until the Ling clan sends someone else?”

“Yes, that is her role in the Pagoda,” Fanqing Diaomei said, speaking up. “Junior Sister Faolian handles logistics.”

“Yes,” Faolian confirmed, stepping forward and saluting politely.

“Very good. In that case, I will let Shunfei bring you up to speed,” Lianmei said, before turning back to look at the rest of them.

“Sir Huang, Sir Teng, Sir Cao, Sir Jian?” Lianmei addressed the four most senior elites of their group. “Perhaps we can have a chat over some wine, with Fairy Diaomei joining us, while the others get sorted out?”

“Of course,” Sir Huang agreed, while the other three nodded politely.

“—Oh yes!” Lianmei added. “One other important thing… There are monkeys here. Do not annoy them.”

“…”

Xiang Meilan leaned over and whispered a second thing to Elder Lianmei, who just shook her head wryly.

“In terms of what you do today, that is up to you,” Lianmei concluded. “This is a ridgeline and this settlement is safe from qi beasts. However, I will stress that you should not go out beyond the walls at either end of the gorge unaccompanied. The guards will stop you… now, who has questions?”

Almost immediately, Wufan stepped forward, still looking annoyed.

“We are in a ridgeline?” Ha Mun murmured, looking up and down the gorge.

“It is certainly… impressive, in a rugged kind of way,” Mao agreed.

“Yes, this is one of the old fortifications, from several thousand years ago,” Sir Huang said, by way of explanation to them.

“How far in are we?” Jiao asked, frowning.

“About sixty miles from the edge of the suppression, as a very nervous bird might fly,” Sir Huang said with a wolfish grin. “But if you were to walk out, it would probably be a four day hike and a third again that distance.”

“So leaving is not an option,” Yufan muttered, looking around nervously.

“Indeed, the best way in and out is to stay on good terms with Elder Lianmei,” Faolian added with a smirk.

“Indeed,” Sir Huang agreed, rolling his eyes. “But so long as you don’t do anything stupid and remember what you were told before, it will be fine.”

Somehow, he got the distinct impression that was aimed at him, which made him feel a bit aggrieved.

“Oh don’t worry on our account,” he muttered.

“Good,” Sir Huang chuckled, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Right, while I speak to the good Elder about what is what, why don’t you lot all go in with Faolian, and grab some good rooms? Yun, I will speak to you later, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded, as did the others.

“Uhuh,” Faolian nodded, waving for them to follow her.

“We should be quick about that,” Leng muttered, giving him a nudge. “Do you think that Caolun and the others are going to be at all considerate once the shock wears off?”

“That is an excellent point,” Fang agreed, glancing over at the other dozen or so cultivators who were clustered around Lianmei, Wufan and the gloomy looking Caolun, demanding various explanations.

Not needing to be reminded at all, he quickly hurried after Faolian, Ding, Leng and Fang, up the steps and through the door she had vanished into, the others following behind.

“Uh…” Ding nearly stopped dead in the doorway ahead of him.

“Come on, don’t stop there,” he muttered, pushing his friend ahead of him… then nearly stopped himself, because the interior, it was safe to say, was not what he had been expecting.

“This… it is actually an inn and teahouse?” Ding said dully, moving to the side so the others could come in.

“Amenities are important up here, considering the effect suppression has on people,” Faolian said blandly. “It’s been quite some time since I was here though. They have fixed the walls up a bit, it seems.”

“You have… been here before?” he asked her, still taking in the quite comfortable interior.

“Yes,” she replied. “A few hundred years ago, back when the exploitation of these valleys was a lot more lucrative. It was not uncommon back then for the Cherry Wine Pagoda to send us up to places like this, both as training and to help out the Beast Cadre. Do not mistake the fractious politics of the last century and a half for the status quo.”

“Indeed,” Diaomei, who had now also come in behind them, agreed. “The best rooms are on the front side, though you will find over half of them taken already. Don’t take rooms already marked.”

“Where is everyone?” Leng asked. “We sort of expected… more?”

“Out, doing useful things,” Meilan added, rolling her eyes.

“Thanks to the rain, spawned by that fates-accursed decision to give you all wonderful unseasonable weather down below, we lost quite a lot of time,” Diaomei muttered.

“Was it bad?” Faolian asked, as Diaomei led her away.

“Five or six times worse than at the end of the year,” Diaomei grimaced.

“…”

“Five or six…” Yufan shuddered.

“Ew…” Ding grimaced.

“If you would like to follow me,” Xiang Meilan said, waving for them all to follow her, “I’ll show you upstairs.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, giving himself a small shake. “Lead on, Miss Xiang. We can always take stock afterwards.”

“Yeah,” Leng agreed.

Meilan led them quickly up to the second level, pointing out where there were two private dining rooms, now used as a meeting room and a map room, before finally leaving them at the stairs up to the third level.

As Diaomei had said earlier, the rooms on the front were already taken, by and large, familiar names scrawled on the doors.

“The Jun sisters… Kun Juni… Lin Ling, Mu Shi…” Ha Ding murmured as they walked down the corridor, reading off the names.

“If there is a perk to this, at least we will get to see lots of beauties in wet robes,” Ha Mun chuckled.

“Mmm… yeah,” Ha Ding agreed, grinning.

“Guys, this really isn’t the place for that kind of attitude,” Leng muttered to the pair as they passed Duan Mu and Han Shu’s rooms.

“…”

“Seems there are five rooms,” Yufan mused, looking at the remainder of the corridor along the top floor of the inn.

He opened the door next to Duan Mu’s and took in the rather spacious room inside with its wide bed, spirit wood table, a few bits for furniture and a double width screen window to the outside. Going to the next one, he checked again and found it basically the same.

“I’ll take the one here then,” he said, patting the second door.

“Some of us will have to share,” Mao mused, “Roll for it?”

Shaking his head, he took out a talisman and slapped it on the door, imprinting his name on it and left them to it. Inside the room, he went over and sat on the bed, finding, somewhat to his surprise, that it was nice and comfortable, the wooden frame on the corners extending to the ceiling, with points where a net could be tied if required.

-Do they even get bugs here? he wondered, walking over to the window and opening it to look out.

The view across the gorge from the top story was what it was, especially in the rain. Down below, he could see Caolun and the others still talking at length with Lianmei and a second Hunter he half recognised.

-I suppose if we are here for a week or two, this might not be quite as onerous as it first appeared, he mused, turning back to look at the room.

…

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

Ha Yun refocused on his surroundings, the immersive scenery of the story panel from the ‘The Curse of the Jade Rod’ fading back into his room, wondering who the fates wanted to talk to him that urgently.

-Hopefully it’s not that someone has…

“—Yun, you here?”

Ha Ding’s voice crushed his brief flash of worry, transforming it into annoyance.

“Oh, Ding, what is it?” he asked, closing the book regretfully as the scenes of Fairy Miaomiao and Saintess Lijuan chasing each other around a bedchamber vanished.

“You have got to come look at the storehouse!” Ha Ding declared, pushing the door open.

“I do?” he asked, not bothering to hide his lack of interest as he swung his legs off the bed.

“Oh, you do,” Ha Ding grinned. “I won’t spoil it.”

“…”

Walking over to the wash stand, he splashed some lukewarm water on his face and sighed.

“Oh, you have the latest volume of that…” Ha Ding remarked, spotting the book. “Is it any good?”

“Yes, it is,” he replied, and then, because he was still a little put out. “And no, I am not lending it to you…”

“…”

Ha Ding gave him a slightly accusatory glance, which he ignored as he snatched his hat from the wall.

“Well, I suppose I should go have a look around. Lead on, ‘Brother Ding’…” he muttered, pushing Ding back out the door.

“This place is surprisingly cool,” Ha Ding added as they walked back downstairs. “It has an actual bath house, and several of the abandoned buildings appear to just be stacks of salvaged statuary.”

“Since when did you care about pottery and broken bits of rock carving?” he asked.

“I don’t,” Ha Ding chuckled, “but I heard from cousin Juhan the kind of prices ignorant idiots were paying for legitimate stuff like that off the back of that auction. I bet with this trial it’s only gotten to be more expensive—”

“And how do you plan to get it out of here, without someone else cottoning onto that great ‘plan’?” he interjected.

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“I am sure we can work something out, what with your father and all…” Ha Ding said, looking at him sideways.

“You want me to do it,” he replied dully.

“…”

“It would be easy spirit stones,” Ha Ding muttered. “Might as well, right?”

“I’ll think about it,” he replied, still not really seeing how the trouble would be worth it. “Anyway, what are the others up to?”

“Mao and Jiao are…”

“Oh, hey Yun!” Mao called over, pre-empting Ha Ding’s explanation as they entered the common room of the teahouse. “Want to join us for some Gu Takes All?”

“I’m off to show Yun that,” Ha Ding remarked.

“Oh… yeah, go look at that, then come back,” Ha Mao agreed.

Leaving Mao and Jiao to their game, he let Ha Ding lead him outside and along to the storehouse.

“We are here to help move things,” Ha Ding said with aplomb, to the guard leaning by the door looking a bit vexed.

“…”

The guard just stared at them both, then nodded, his expression suggesting he really didn’t believe that.

“Probably we will have to spend five minutes moving boxes, but oh well,” Ha Ding muttered once they were inside.

“Why are they moving things around?” he asked, glancing into an empty room.

“More living space. Apparently the guards will be bunking in here,” Ha Ding muttered “Clearly they trust us a lot.”

“With Caolun and especially Wufan, would you?” he added, recalling what his father had said about both those families looking to gain advantages off others' hard work.

“Nope,” Ha Ding agreed, pausing by a room and glancing in.

Looking in after, he found himself looking at several dozen crates of talismans and formation arrows. Spare bows and a bunch of blades someone was fixing lying on a table.

“That’s an actual armoury,” he murmured, quietly shocked.

“It is,” Ha Ding agreed, moving on and looking in another room. “Ah, here we are!”

Following Ha Ding into the lantern-lit room, he stopped dead in the doorway. The qi in the room was pure enough to make his skin prickle, even with the talismans that had been put up, presumably to give it some sense of containment, but that wasn’t what was shocking. It was the lingzhi in the middle of the room, which was easily the largest he had ever seen.

“Oh, Yun…”

Having not actually noticed anyone else in the room, he flinched to find Ha Leng was crouched down by a large bowl of water, holding a lotus plant, looking a bit peeved.

“Where the fates did they find that?” he asked, walking over to the trunk and staring at it in awe.

“No idea, but can you imagine what that would sell for?” Ha Ding sighed.

“Less than you would like,” Leng muttered. “Do you think you can walk that out of here?”

“Spoilsport,” Ha Ding grumbled. “Let a brother dream for ten seconds, Leng.”

Leng snorted and went back to examining the lotus.

“So what are you doing here anyway?” Ha Ding asked Leng.

“What does it look like? I am doing an actual task,” Leng replied, standing up with a sigh and wiping the water off his hands. “These all need to be checked three times a day, apparently—”

“—Oh, this is indeed marvellous!”

He and Ding turned to find Ha Caolun had appeared, with one of his cronies in tow.

“Oh, Yun, you are here as well,” Caolun noticed the three of them, belatedly. “Fanbo, go tell that Shunfei that I, Caolun, am happy to volunteer—”

“Yeah, I don’t think that will go quite how you—” Leng muttered.

*Ahem*

Ha Fanbo, standing beside Caolun, gave him a solid poke in the side, which was all the warning any of them got as to the arrival of Mu Shi… and Elder Lianmei.

“…”

“Why am I not surprised to find all of you here?” Elder Lianmei said blandly, looking at them in turn.

“Yeah, I wonder,” Mu Shi murmured, casting a fairly withering gaze across all of them, lingering on Ha Ding, who had shuffled behind him slightly.

“Leng is meant to be here, because he has actual competence… Yun, Ha Huang and Ha Faolian were both looking for you,” Lianmei murmured. “The rest of you… we need people to organize herb jars; go report to Shunfei. I will check.”

“…”

Ha Ding, Ha Caolun and Ha Fanbo all grimaced, but, not really able to worm out of it, shuffled out past Elder Lianmei into the corridor.

“How keen of them to make themselves available, so readily on their rest day,” Mu Shi remarked drily. “I am in awe of their dedication.”

“Where is… Sir Huang?” he asked.

“Outside, looking at the perimeter,” Lianmei said. “Faolian is in the main inn somewhere.”

“I mean… if you want to stay and work on replacing spirit stones,” Mu Shi added, “feel free though. As a five-star ranked hunter you should be able to use the Han Manual and read basic alignments, right?”

“…”

“I’ll go see what Fairy Faolian wants,” he replied, giving the room and its treasure trove of qi-gathering spirit mushrooms and herbs one last look.

-Ha Ding was right; it is indeed something. If you could cultivate here…

Mu Shi shrugged, and went over to a pile of moss on a rock and started carefully inspecting it.

“…”

Hiding a grimace, he took the hint and left again; however, before he had gone five paces, Lianmei caught him up.

“As you are going back to the inn, go grab a crate of pruned spirit vegetation and take it with you,” she said, pointing him back up the corridor towards the main hall of the complex of buildings.

-Shit, I should have just told Ding to bog off, he reflected sourly.

Not really having any other option, he turned and went the direction she instructed, back along the corridor and out into the main hall.

Caolun, Ding, Fanbo and two others from Caolun’s group were being ordered around by Mo Shunfei and Duan Mu, moving fifty litre pots from one side of the hall to the hall into organized stacks on the other.

“Are you also here to help?” the Beast Hunter asked, striding over, his tone not sounding hugely enthused.

“I am here to pick up a crate of spirit vegetation,” he replied quickly, looking around for them.

“Oh, over there,” Mo Shunfei pointed to three wooden crates to his right. “If it’s for the kitchens, you might as well take all three and sort them; it will be a good job done.”

“…”

Seeing a rather annoying pattern developing already in this, he nodded and walked over to the boxes, experimentally lifting one. Finding it not too heavy, he stacked two together and quickly left again, before something else could be found.

Returning to the ‘Inn’, he took the two crates to the kitchen and dumped them on the ground, slightly regretting the decision to take two.

“Ah, Yun, what are you doing with that lot?” Faolian, who was sitting on a table, chatting to the other two Cherry Wine Pagoda members, asked him almost immediately.

“I was told to bring them through…”

“Ah, you volunteered to sort those out. Wonderful, that saves us a lot of time,” Meilan said, clapping her hands together brightly.

“…”

“You think it’s beneath you?” Faolian added, leaning towards him with a quite ominous smile, “‘Junior Brother’?”

-Shit… he groaned, suddenly seeing where this was going.

“Junior Brother?” Meilan blinked.

“Uhuh,” Faolian grinned, putting her arm around his shoulder and kicking the door between the kitchen and the common area of the teahouse shut. “Our newest recruit, this little junior brother, is a genuine person of status. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“I am in awe, positively,” Meilan deadpanned.

“Already I feel myself succumbing to the charms of a young master,” Diaomei agreed with a smirk.

“So, grab that crate of scavenged greenery and get sorting. Soup for lunch and dinner will not make itself, sadly,” Faolian added, giving his shoulder a further squeeze.

“Are we still working with crab?” Diaomei asked.

“Uhuh, going for the ‘sextuple distilled spicy combo’,” Meilan grinned.

“What’s this?” Faolian asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, they killed an immortal razor crab the other day, down by the lake, when they brought that monster lingzhi in.” Meilan explained.

“—An… Immortal realm qi beast,” Faolian repeated, raising her eyebrows.

“Very first day would you believe?” Meilan added.

“…”

“However, in the breaking news of the century, it’s actually quite hard, even up here, to eat an entire qi-beast that size in only a handful of meals,” Diaomei added, waving her hand around the kitchen. “And preservation up here is… well, you see…”

“It’s honestly much better than I recall,” Faolian muttered, looking around. “Remember I was up here before?”

“Oh, yeah, you were,” Meilan mused. “What was that like?”

“Back then we were literally storing things in tubs of icy water. It cost a fortune in spirit stones,” Faolian deadpanned.

“So uh…” he tried to speak up. “Kun Lianmei said you wanted to see me for something?”

“…”

“Oh yeah, I did ask her where you had vanished off to,” Faolian nodded, quite shamelessly. “Well you are here now, thanks to the supreme skill of Ha Huang, so it’s all good.”

“—As a wheeze though, that is hilarious,” Diaomei giggled.

“A… wheeze?” he asked, not following.

“Ha Huang suggested we let a bunch of you morons go in and look at that lingzhi,” Faolian snickered. “And now, because Caolun and Ding just cannot help but run their mouths off, well over half of you are actually doing something productive. I am in awe at Ha Huang’s skill there, frankly.”

Staring at her, he found that his mouth had fallen open.

“I know…” Meilan agreed, adopting an almost theatrically dreamy expression.

“A master at work,” Diaomei sighed, sounding wistful.

“…”

Listening to them, he groaned, wishing he had indeed just told Ding to bugger off earlier. If he had, he would still be in his room relaxing.

----------------------------------------

~ KUN JUNI – MONKEY VALLEY, YIN ECLIPSE ~

----------------------------------------

“Look out below!”

Glancing up, Juni grimaced and pushed herself flat against the precipice the five of them were currently scaling as an unfortunately placed slab of rock about the size of her tumbled down into the haze below, its impact below unmarked in the dull roar of the waterfall.

“Sorry!” Sana, who had been taking her turn at the lead of the ascent, called back down. “Everyone okay?”

“Yes!” she called back.

“Yep!” Arai, who was a few metres below her, added.

“YES!” Han Shu, below Arai, yelled up.

“YES!” Jiang Wushen, who was above her, echoed.

“Yes…” Lin Ling, who was somewhere above Wushen echoed, her voice barely audible in the ambience of the gorge.

Pausing to wipe water from her face, there were no hats here, due to the need for excellent peripheral vision, she took stock of their location and progress.

“Good!” Sana called down. “There is a ledge up above where we can take our breath, now that I’ve worked out which rock is no good!”

Above her, Han Shu shook his head, but nobody complained. If dislodged rocks were all they had to worry about, she would consider it a day worth celebrating.

Their trip back to ‘monkey valley’ had turned into a trek, largely thanks to the teleport formation in the gully not being able to return a stable connection. Why was unclear, but the likely culprit was the rain sapping it. Early progress back across Western Falls Valley had been quick at least, taking only an hour thanks to a few judicious teleport talismans and a better idea of the extremities of the flooding, but the ascent back to the ‘monkey valley’ itself…

“Rope coming down!” Wushen called.

Moving to the side, she watched the length of rope tumble down, then reached out a hand and caught it, giving it a tug to tell those above that she had it. Looking around, she found a suitable fissure and, taking out a specially designed spike from her storage talisman, wedged it into the rock, twisting the clever mechanical contraption to force it to expand and grip the rock. Satisfied it would not move, she looped the rope through the u-shaped section at the end, giving it a further tug.

“Secure!” she called up.

“Secure!” Arai called from down below, before adding, “Coming up!”

Holding onto the rope for stability, she peered down the wet rock face and watched as Arai slowly hauled herself up from the water-drenched slab below them, using it for handholds primarily, to arrive at her location.

“Do you want to go up or shall I?” Arai asked her, pausing to catch her breath.

“You go,” she said, not minding being the last one up.

Arai nodded and kept on climbing, past Han Shu, and then into the misty haze.

She crouched there in silence until at last the rope was tugged three times and Sana called down that it was clear. Looking up, she saw Han Shu had started to climb so rather than wait on the rope, she hauled herself up the next slab, taking care to avoid the skin flaying moss that they had inadvertently discovered. Several bloody hand-prints belonging to Lin Ling were still evident on it, a reminder that no matter how careful you were, there was always something lurking to catch you out.

By the time she finally got to the top, making the last portion of the ascent on the rope, the others had started to consult the primary map, which was now in Lin Ling’s possession as to what the final route up should be. Off to the side, she could see the fresh fracture marks where Sana had inadvertently found a hidden weakness in the rock, now revealed to be caused by algru, based on the pitting.

“How much farther to the top, do you reckon?” she asked Sana, who was sitting on a nearby slab, wringing out her hair.

“Seems like it should be another hundred metres or so,” Sana mused, looking upwards through the scattering mist.

“Yeah, this should bring us out at the main floor of the gorge,” Lin Ling added, glancing up from the map.

Looking over, she watched as Ling traced a route on the projected image, her finger leaving a red line across it.

“This route should take us straight across the south side of the ravine floor, all the way around to the fault running through the ridgeline where we put the teleport formation,” Ling continued, expanding the image so they could all take in the theoretical route.

“It’s depressing how little work that appears to be in a projected image,” Arai groused.

“That is the way,” Jiang Wushen agreed.

“How are your hands, by the way?” she asked Lin Ling, noting the skin there was still red and inflamed.

“Eh… I took a purification pill and it’s fine now,” Lin Ling replied, flexing her right hand. “Could have been worse.”

“In that case, ten minute break to recover and then we push on for the final bit?” she suggested, looking around at the others.

They all nodded, quite eagerly, taking out various bits of food or just sitting down near the rock face, where the spray from the waterfall was marginally less.

-What next? she mused, looking around. Ah… communications…

“Any communications from the inn?” she asked, turning to Jiang Wushen, who currently had the receiving locus, which was the only thing robust enough to make the connection in this weather.

“Somewhat,” Wushen replied, rolling his eyes. “The ‘help’ has arrived.”

“Oh,” Lin Ling, remarked, pausing from unwrapping a parcel of fried bread and fish. “How bad is it?”

“Twenty odd scions from the Ha clan, all of them juniors. They gave them the day to acclimatize,” Wushen mused. “That said, someone in the Ha clan clearly does care, because the experts who came with them are all solid, reputable people, or members of the Cherry Wine Pagoda’s old guard, it seems.”

“That’s something, at least. Who did they send?”

“Ha Faolian and Ha Jiang Teng are the names I recognise,” Wushen replied.

“Jiang… some relation of yours?” she asked.

“A second cousin,” Jiang Wushen clarified. “He is an Elder in the Green Fang Pagoda, married into the Ha clan. We are not particularly close, but he would not have got that post without impressing the Blade Fairy.”

“That’s something at least,” she conceded, somewhat relieved.

“What about Senior Ying?” Han Shu asked, after passing Wushen a vine leaf wrap of rice and crab meat.

“Shunfei said she plans to join us on the next leg, though that depends on what the deal is with the teleport formation, I suppose,” Wushen said, accepting the food gratefully. “Do you want me to send back a reply?”

“Might as well do it when we get to the top,” she answered, craning her neck to look up through the misty haze.

“In terms of getting up the last bit…” Sana asked, between mouthfuls of her own food. “Are we going to shoot arrows again?”

“That… should be possible,” Han Shu mused, looking around. “We seem to be past the worst of the stupid overhangs. Could we put an arrow in that koppi tree?”

“About a hundred metres up, on the left?” she asked, to check they were looking at the same thing as she followed where he was pointing.

“Uhuh,” Han Shu nodded.

“That seems okay,” she agreed. “I’ll sort the arrow for that out then?”

“Eh… I can do it,” Arai interjected. “You shouldn’t do everything, Juni…”

“I don’t do everything,” she grumbled.

“You were sweeping leaves off the teleport platform yesterday…” Sana remarked, giving her a sideways look. “Sweeping leaves…”

“Sweeeping the leaves,” Lin Ling echoed, doing a very creditable impression of Ling Yu.

“…”

In truth, she had mostly been doing those menial tasks because they were menial yet also surprisingly important. It was very easy to slip into the mindset of ‘I lead, therefore others do…’ as well. While things like sweeping the leaves off the teleport platform, or swapping out spirit stones in the lamps, were the simplest and most boring jobs around, they did need to be done, and the occasional demonstration that nobody was above any job hurt no one.

-Maybe she does have a point though, she reflected with a sigh, before nodding. “Okay, Arai, your turn to shoot anchor arrows into tree branches!”

“Yay!” Arai giggled, doing a fist pump. “Responsibility, ho!”

“Oh give over,” she muttered, pretending to pout as the others laughed.

While Arai sat down and prepped a bunch of anchor arrows, attaching talismans to ropes and checking that the arrow heads would not just bounce off the tree, they snacked on spirit food and chatted away for a while longer. Han Shu and Jiang Wushen also did some basic divinations in regards to the tree, and updated the map a little.

“Okay… let’s do this…” Arai declared at last, taking her bow and nocking an arrow.

“A spirit stone says she anchors the cliff, not the tree,” Lin Ling giggled, putting the last of her food aside to watch.

“…”

Arai shot Lin Ling a sideways look, then drew the bow and sent the first arrow hissing through the misty drizzle, burying it half its length into the branch of the selected tree—

The distant branch ruptured in a cloud of rotten splinters, half of it tumbling into the gorge, scattering a small halo of flying ants as it went.

They all stared dully at the distant, ant-infested tree.

“Ahahahahaaa….” Sana nearly slipped off her rock as she burst into hysterical laughter, followed a moment later by Lin Ling.

Arai just lowered her bow, shaking her head.

“Oh come on, I divined that tree and everything,” Han Shu muttered.

“It happens,” she said drily, watching the swarm of flying ants drift around their disturbed nest, looking for the perpetrator of their unexpected calamity.

“Look on the bright side. We found this out now,” Jiang Wushen observed, patting Han Shu on the shoulder.

“Very true, very true,” Han Shu sighed.

Squinting through the rain, she could actually feel the intent of several of the larger flying ants, which were about the size of a child’s hand. That would, indeed, have not been a pleasant discovery to make when trying to climb the usefully placed tree.

“Want to try that tree?” Lin Ling pointed to a gnarled, mossy specimen, a bit further up the rugged cliff, directly above them.

Arai nodded and selected another arrow prepared with an anchor talisman.

This time, the arrow hit a branch and didn’t cause some minor cataclysm for the local fauna, and within a few moments they had a rope attached to it, courtesy of the paired talismans. As the lightest of them, Lin Ling scrambled up first and cheerfully declared the tree clear of problems, and so they set off again.

Three arrows and some rope climbing later, and they were finally at the level of the top of the waterfalls, which was a relief, because she felt, in her heart, that they had wasted far too much of the day just getting back to where they were before.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” Wushen muttered, taking in the mossy boulders, tangles of ferns and swirling white water rushing between everything.

“We have line of sight,” Sana noted, pointing along the edge of the gorge. “We could just use some more arrows and teleport talismans?”

At another time, she would have regarded that as a waste of expensive kit, but looking at the flooded chaos ahead of them, she had to admit that Sana’s suggestion was rather appealing. It was not like they were at all short on talisman or formation arrows either.

“I second that,” Lin Ling agreed, absent-mindedly flexing her still slightly red hand.

The others turned to look at her.

“Okay, it will save us time,” she conceded. “And we have spent enough time walking back already.”

-The Elders did say it was more important to be fast and safe than economical anyway, she reflected.

While Sana and Lin Ling worked together to sort out some arrows and a talisman anchor, she looked around and then took out her own jade tablet and set it to record their surroundings to help with the mapping.

“You see those fresh boulders over there?” Jiang Wushen murmured, giving her a nudge.

Following his gesture, she found the large, rather fresh-looking slab he was indicating, wedged in a channel about thirty metres away, white water breaking around it.

“…”

“There are quite a few… aren’t there?” Han Shu mused, also seeing what she was, apparently.

“And a gravel bar over there,” Wushen added.

“You think there was a flash flood with the renewed rains?” she suggested, noting in the corner of her eye that Sana had finished her preparation and was putting a jade disc down as the focal point of the teleport itself.

“Could be,” Wushen nodded, “I didn’t mark anything like it when we made this ascent the other day either… did you?”

“Nope,” she agreed with a grimace, looking up at the swirling mists and grey clouds scattering their perpetual light rain.

Their path up above had been too high to see the detail of the U-shaped gorge clearly, and they had been more preoccupied with the upper path and potential hook-bat holes.

“—We are good to go!” Sana declared, drawing her attention back to the moment.

“How’s the mapping going?” Arai asked her as they watched Sana send an arrow arcing about two hundred metres further up the gorge, embedding it in a bunch of water ferns.

“…”

“Half done,” she replied after glancing at the jade tablet, before adding “Send something through first, Sana,” to Sana, who just rolled her eyes and nodded.

Lin Ling withdrew an empty clay pot from the storage ring they had with them, put a teleport talisman on it, attuned it to the jade, and then stepped back.

“Three, two… one…” Sana murmured, poking the jade talisman—

There was a ripple of displaced space and the pot twisted out of focus and appeared on the distant slab almost in the same instant. Nothing horrible rushed out of the ferns or jumped out of the water.

“Alright… who goes first?” she asked.

Five pairs of eyes turned to her, making her sigh.

“Fine…” she grumbled, passing the tablet to Arai. “Perks of…”

“I’ll go,” Wushen cut in, with a chuckle, taking a talisman out of his own storage ring.

She watched, admittedly a bit nervous, as he attuned it to the jade, then vanished in a twisting shimmer of light. A moment later, to her relief, he reappeared, landing on the slab, quickly positioning himself away from the ferns, then gave them a wave.

Once Wushen had confirmed nothing was lurking near the slab, Lin Ling went next, then Arai. By the time Han Shu went, the recording had finished, so Sana, as the last one bar her, took the tablet, to set it up again at their destination. As the last person, rather than use a secondary talisman, she used the jade itself, pushing her qi into it—

Her surroundings wavered in a way that made her stomach twist, then she landed on the rock, which was now cleared of ferns, only skidding a foot or so on the slick, slightly qi-repelling surface before Han Shu and Arai caught her by each arm.

“Thanks,” she murmured, steadying herself.

“Again?” Sana asked, looking up from where she had been placing the tablet to map this part of the gorge.

“Yep,” she nodded, looking around and noting quite a few more fresh boulders scattered about.

“Do we try it in one arrow or two?” Sana added, holding up her hand.

“Two, I think,” she replied, considering the breeze that was working against them. “It’s not like we are short of them.”

“True, we are not,” Sana agreed, taking out another arrow. “That slab about sixty metres to our right?”

Following where Sana was pointing with the arrow, she considered the slab, which was a fresh one, and frowned.

“Problem?” Sana asked.

“No… just thinking there are a lot of fresh boulders down here,” she replied, shaking her head. “There is not much for it to gain purchase on.”

“Mm….” Sana nodded, then pointed to another, ten metres beyond it, with a scrawny tree growing out of a fissure beyond it. “That one?”

“May be better, yes,” she agreed.

…

In the end, it took them three more hops to reach the chasm through the ridgeline, mapping as they went. The boulders were not without their perils, it had to be said. The gorge, which had appeared deceptively navigable from above, held an annoying quantity of algru and enough of the skin-stripping moss to be genuinely annoying in places, and that was with them avoiding most of the hazards. The biggest issue though was the lack of things to reliably affix arrows into, which led to two being lost to white water.

The gorge itself was choked with freshly deposited boulders and gravel as well, to the point where the previously quite constrained river running through it had spread out to a treacherous sheet of fast-flowing water.

“I have to say, only losing two arrows on this is quite a feat when you consider how treacherous that is…” Sana muttered as she clambered up beside her onto a prominent slab to look at the lay of the rapids as they took stock.

“Yeah,” she agreed, watching Arai and Han Shu work their forward up the rapids while Jiang Wushen and Lin Ling held their safety lines.

“There was enough of that moss out there to be genuinely annoying as well,” Sana added. “I gathered some, incidentally, just in case it turns out to have some actual, useful property once it’s identified.”

“SHIT!” Arai called back, all of a sudden. “PROBLEM!”

“WHAT IS IT!” Lin ling yelled back.

She squinted through the mist as Arai resorted to signing.

“Teleport anchor won’t settle?” Sana frowned. “Could that be related to why we can’t get a fix on the main formation?”

“Possibly,” she agreed.

“HOW IS THE SCAN?!” Han Shu called up to her.

“Another minute or two!” she called back, a bit irked that it was taking so long, really.

“Okay!” Han Shu called back. “Do you want us to push on and see what’s what with the teleport in the gorge?”

“…”

She glanced at Sana, who shrugged.

Taking out her talisman, she tried to connect to Arai and sighed, because that was out a well.

“Seems even short range communication talismans don’t work here,” Sana remarked, looking at hers.

“Yeah,” she nodded, then waved her arms to get Arai’s attention, before signing for them to fix a line for them.

Sana took a talisman out of her wallet and attached it to the twisted tree behind them, adding a spirit stone, then signalled her sister.

Nothing happened.

“…”

“Looks like something has totally twisted the local alignments,” Sana mused, putting a second spirit stone into the talisman.

“I guess we have to do it the old-fashioned way,” she sighed.

“Give me a moment,” Sana said, taking out a long length of knotted rope and affixing it to a length of thin cord. “Tie that to the tree would you?”

She did as suggested and watched as Sana aimed high with the arrow and then sent it arcing over to land a distance behind Arai and Han Shu, who had now reached the top of the rapids. They watched as Arai recovered the arrow and pulled across the actual rope, tying it off to make an easy… well, relatively easier route across.

“Should I send over a second one?” Sana asked. “It’s just rope and arrows, so there is no issue of recoverability, and someone might need to do this again…”

“Yeah, that’s maybe not a bad idea,” she agreed. “We can tie them as we go across.”

The repetition of the exercise was a bit tedious, but by the time they were done, the scan had finished, so that was something at least. Sana made her way across first, lashing the ‘guide rope’ at suitable intervals to make a crude bridge that while a bit springy was fine for a cultivator of their reflexes to navigate easily enough.

Following Sana across, she arrived at the top of the rapids and took in the gorge itself, while Lin Ling and Han Shu made their way up secondary lines and rejoined them.

“Well, I guess this explains a lot,” Sana remarked, taking in the devastation of the gorge itself as she hopped off the rope bridge to land beside her.

“…”

The gorge was indeed… very different. Gone was the rock-cut channel, except in a few places, if you knew where to look. In its place was a vast swathe of boulders and gravel, quite a few fallen trees and even, from her limited vantage point at the entrance, the carcass of a dead spider the size of a small cow.

“Does that have a core in it?” Han Shu asked, pointing to it.

“…”

Jiang Wushen squinted at it, then withdrew his own bow and took aim at it and sent an arrow hissing into the corpse. A moment later, its abdomen exploded in a smear of ichor.

“Better safe than stabbed,” Wushen remarked drily.

“…”

Once they had checked the spider’s mortal remains, recovering a Nascent Soul quality, five-star grade core in the process, they set off up the gorge without much preamble. Despite appearances, navigating it was not that bad, at least once they bypassed the initial sections of rapids.

“We are going to need more rope,” Lin Ling observed after they had gone about two hundred metres, stringing a guide line as they went.

“We are, but that is easily solved once we work out what the deal with the teleport is,” she agreed, as they waited for Han Shu and Jiang Wushen to join them from checking another qi beast corpse.

“Assuming it’s not buried under metres of gravel,” Sana muttered, looking up the gorge ahead of them.

“…”

“I was trying not to think about that,” she grumbled. “We are well over halfway, anyway.”

“Certainly, it’s a good thing nobody stayed overnight,” Sana added.

“Yeah…” Lin Ling agreed.

“—That one was just Golden Core,” Han Shu declared, hauling himself up to join them then offering Jiang Wushen a hand.

“Woo, so we recouped one hundredth of what we spent in the last hour!” Lin Ling remarked sarcastically.

When it was put like that, she had to admit, it was kind of farcical really.

“Indeed, but that doesn’t mean we waste it. What if it was some rare mutate?” Wushen chuckled. “Last year we found a random centipede like this, and it turned out to be a ten-star grade critter. Dead from a flood. That was the easiest dozen earthly jade I think I’ve ever made.”

“Even that centipede would barely cover it,” Lin Ling muttered, although more to get the last word, she suspected, than for any other reason.

Jiang Wushen just rolled his eyes.

“How is the progress on mapping going?” she asked Sana, to change the topic.

“A third. It’s slow going here, with the water,” Sana replied.

“Do you want to push on, while we stay here and continue mapping this?” she suggested to Wushen, pondering the best use of their time. “There is no point in all of us sitting here whistling while this generates points.”

“Sure,” he nodded. “I’ll take Arai, Ling and Shu and push on to see if we can’t find the formation.”

…

For the next thirty minutes, they slowly made their way on after the rest of the group, periodically pausing to continue mapping the gorge. By the time they caught up, the others had arrived at the sinkhole and were already busy excavating a gravel bed.

“Ah, you made it without mishap!” Jiang Wushen, who was keeping watch, called over as they waded through the last bit.

“Yeah,” she agreed as they picked their way over to Han Shu and Lin Ling, who were levering a boulder away between them.

“Just a bit slippery, but that is hardly news at this point,” Sana added.

“So the problem is as expected?” she asked, looking around at the swirling water which was up to their shins currently and covering a good third of the space.

“Yep,” Wushen agreed, hopping down off his rock to join them. “The flood seems to have buried it, and at least one of the nodes is properly compromised. That seems to be what has messed with the alignments, compounded by the natural instability of this sort of environment.”

“I suppose we should be thankful the problem is this innocuous, really,” she mused. “I guess this was an erosion channel cut out by the river when it was higher?”

“Seems… that way,” Jiang Wushen agreed. “Likely the whole thing was carved out by gravel and boulders doing just this, over millions of years.”

“Well, I guess it means we are looking for a new spot for a teleport circle,” Han Shu added.

“Probably yeah,” she agreed, looking at the fractured faulting in the rock in the direction they had just come from and the overhangs.

“Though whether this is a once in a generation flood, or, knowing how stuff grows back up here, just a random week in the wet season…” Jiang Wushen shrugged. “I want to say that this flooding is exceptional, but honestly, this is the first year we have been stationed up here regularly, and we didn’t see the last wet season…”

“That is the question,” Sana agreed, running her hand across a freshly shattered rock. “I suppose we will need to scout the valley and see what the damage is there?”

“Almost certainly,” she nodded. “I suppose there is no chance of messaging out of here?”

“None whatsoever,” Wushen sighed.

“Well, I guess this is the next half an hour sorted,” Lin Ling declared, leaning on her own shovel.

“Please don’t say that,” Arai groaned, splashing some water at Ling with her own mattock which she was using to lever up another rock. “Now you have condemned us to spend the rest of the afternoon digging for this!”

Shaking her head, she looked around again, mulling over what should be done.

“What do you think?” she asked Wushen. “Should we focus on digging this out, or split up, with some of us going out to look at the valley and set up a new formation, somewhere else, temporarily?”

“Hmmm…” Wushen folded his arms and stared critically at the spot where they were digging. “The formation should not be buried that deep, and having it malfunction like this is causing all sorts of headaches… If we were not intending to stick around here… I’d say just abandon it, but…”

“But as it is, it’s a huge headache and there is nothing to say it won’t interfere with other nearby teleport formations,” she conceded.

“Yep,” he agreed. “That would be the main worry. Broken ones exert a pull and we put a lot of spirit stones in this before we left…”

“In that case… why don’t you take someone and go at least give Shunfei and Lianmei an update on our progress?” she suggested, wondering who to ask to go with him.

“I am happy to go,” Arai, who had been taking stock of stuff off to the side, spoke up.

“That’s easily solved then,” she said. “Do the two of you want to go do that, then re-join us?”

“Okay,” Wushen agreed. “We will probably be back in… an hour, tops? If we are longer than that, come look for us.”

“Understood,” she confirmed.

“Good luck, Sis!” Sana added.

“So, what do the rest of us do?” Han Shu asked her as Wushen and Arai started off, further up the gorge.

“Well, we know roughly where we are digging, so the three of us work on that. Sana, do you want to start making some soup and keep a look out?” she suggested. “We can always rotate out, depending on who needs a break.”

“Why does Sana get picked first?” Lin Ling asked, pouting theatrically.

“Because she can cook, and delicious food is going to be important after we have finished pretending to be quarry-workers!” she replied brightly.

“I can cook,” Han Shu muttered, giving her side eye as well.

“We are taking turns anyway!” she retorted, waving her arms in the air in mock frustration.

“I know…” Lin Ling sighed. “We are just messing with you…”

“…”

“…”

Sighing herself, she waded over to roughly where she recalled the northern node of the teleport formation had been and started to shift rocks.

“I’ll see if I can’t get some kind of fix on it with a compass as well,” Sana added from where she was making her way over to a surprisingly level slab that had washed into the gravel bed a few metres away.

“That would be helpful,” Ling agreed, looking around with a grimace. “How deep do you think this is buried anyway?”

“Can’t be more than a metre,” she mused, looking around. “That erosion line on the wall is a good guide… Anyway, less chatter. These stones will sadly not excavate themselves!”

…

Like that, the next forty minutes passed with what she could only call drudge-like monotony. Clearing out the initial gravel bed did not take that long, but once they did, all it uncovered was larger slabs, likely washed out from further along the gorge, which were much more annoying to move. The whole experience served as rather tiring reminder that ‘exploration’ of Yin Eclipse was about much more than just going up and sealing herbs for a profit.

Eventually, though, they got down to something equating the old level of the sinkholes floor, though it was not without its complications. Divination just about told them that the formation was still where it had been, but the chaotic state of the alignments and the fact that they were excavating, now in waist-deep water, just made everything that bit more tedious.

“Mining, mining, mining! It’s a miner’s life for—”

Han Shu ducked, pausing his shovelling of gravel, as Sana splashed water at Lin Ling, who was swinging her mattock far too cheerfully even for her liking, as she cleared loose gravel away from one side of a slab of rock.

The slab in question was the last real obstacle between them and the old teleport formation, near as any of them could tell. In a way, that was the problem, really. The end was frustratingly in sight, and yet the fate-thrashed slab just refused to manifest an edge that could be undermined in the water.

It did not help, either, that half the river gravel was turning out to be mildly qi-absorbent and most of it refused to store, given its exposure to the broken teleport formation.

“—Oi!” Lin Ling ducked herself and stuck her tongue out.

“Would you two be marginally more serious?” she said, slipping off the rock where she keeping an eye on both the simmering soup and the progress of the tablet mapping everything, and wading over to them.

“How are we progressing anyway?” she asked.

Han Shu just sighed and gave her a rather half-hearted shrug.

“I can’t believe it’s this fate-thrashed hard to find, frankly,” he replied, looking around and giving the slab he was undermining a kick. “I mean, we know exactly where it was…”

“Yeah,” Lin Ling agreed, puffing out her cheeks. “And that is apparently not where it was…”

“You’re the one who recorded the location,” Sana added.

“…”

“The miracle of landscape rearrangement made manifest,” she concluded with a sigh of her own.

“It has been a long day,” Han Shu conceded.

“It has,” she agreed, “And the worst part? It’s only lunchtime.”

“Oh fates, do not remind me,” Lin Ling groaned.

“It’s the water,” Sana grumbled, looking around at the gently swirling pool. “This must be straight out of the depths…”

She could only nod, there. The water was the problem, in many ways, even more-so than the ‘Rains from the East’. The weather was draining enough, for a physical cultivator, but the water flowing through the torrent was like the antithesis of the baths back in the inn.

“—so let’s just get this sorted out,” she continued, grabbing a large rock and tossing it away with a splash. “That way we can at least have the option to go back for dinner later? And not have to walk out here again.”

“Yess boss!” Lin Ling agreed.

“…”

Sana just nodded and Han Shu sighed.

“Sana, do you want to go check the soup?” she added, recalling that that had been nearly done. “It is nearly done, I think.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a moment,” Sana murmured, storing her mattock and wading over to the edge of the pool.

“Maybe Arai and Wushen will find a spot where we can set up another one?” Han Shu suggested, more in hope than expectation she felt.

“Maybe… wait… ah! AH!” Lin Ling trailed off in a jubilant yelp. “FOUND ONE!” she added after a further moment scrabbling around in the water.

Standing back up, Lin Ling held up one of the stable jades that had been part of the formation, grinning from ear to ear.

“…”

“So that means the other one is somewhere on that side…” Han Shu groaned, abandoning his efforts where he had been set to digging and wading over to Lin Ling’s location.

As the person who had been responsible for working out where it now was, the entire contents of the sinkhole having moved around since yesterday courtesy of the flooding, Sana grimaced, even though there wasn’t much she could be blamed for there.

“It still has almost two thirds of its qi as well,” Lin Ling noted, putting the anchor jade on the slab. “At that rate it would have taken a week to leech.”

“In these kinds of circumstances you are cursed if you do and if you don’t,” Han Shu pointed out.

“Yeah,” she agreed, wading over, taking care not to twist an ankle on the uneven gravel bed as well.

“True,” Lin Ling agreed, tossing the jade to her. “Now, let’s hope for the second one, so we can cut this stupidity short!”

Somewhat against the flow of events to that point, they found the second stable jade and then a minor node after less than a minute of poking around under the water.

At that point, locating the others became rather academic, and, with Sana coming over to re-join them, within a further five minutes they had exposed enough of the formation to get a feel for what had gone wrong. As expected, the issue was that two of the nodes had been moved into inauspicious locations. With the predominance of Yin Qi in the water and the absorption from the rocks, it was little wonder that the broken spatial alignments had started to bleed down the whole gorge, really.

The process of disabling the formation was not quick, but thankfully, it was really straightforward, certainly in comparison to finding the fate-accursed thing. All it required was the application of a balancing formation composed of alignment disruption talismans, matched to the formation nodes and time.

By the time they had finished placing that, and finally exited the pool to sit by the cooking fire, Arai and Wushen had also returned, looking muddy and tired.

“What is the forest like beyond here?” Juni asked as the pair slumped down on rocks.

Arai just shook her head, letting her sodden appearance do the talking.

“That bad, huh,” Sana remarked.

“It’s pretty grim,” Jiang Wushen agreed. “Or at least this end of the valley is.”

“This end of the valley is now a lake, and the forest is a mud-slide,” Arai said once she had made it around to their location and sat down on a handy slab. “That said, we did set up an anchor out by the lake, because walking back out there a second time will be grim.”

“Oh… well done,” she said, feeling a bit stupid that she had not suggested that in the first instance.

“If we are speaking of routes farther in, crossing straight out of the low end of this valley is probably the better bet,” Jiang Wushen added, also taking a seat and starting to empty water out of his boots. “The ground there is higher, so it is less likely to be flooded out.”

“Isn’t that a spider hole though?” she asked, pulling up the map for them to look at, which did indeed confirm her recollection.

“It is,” Wushen conceded. “But in this weather I suspect most of them have retreated to higher caves… and those that haven’t…”

“We found in the gorge,” she concluded.

“Yep,” he agreed.

“What’s the alternative?” Sana asked.

“We go up the gorge, past the massif with its ruins on the side, and see if we can’t pass over there,” Wushen mused.

“Eyuuck!” Lin Ling remarked, rather succinctly giving voice to everyone else’s expressions.

It was impossible not to sigh and feel a bit frustrated really, for all that the conundrum was quite common to trail-blazing in the High Valleys. To call the place a maze-like ‘death trap’ was not much of an exaggeration. For every place that was not that dangerous, like Western Falls Valley, there were ten like the aforementioned spider-hole that were absolutely not places you wanted to go anywhere near.

“That leads us further into the unknown,” she mused, manipulating the map to show that portion of the wider valley regions around their current location.

“Huh…” Han Shu frowned. “I didn’t expect much… but that is…”

“Even less than you expected?” Arai said helpfully.

“Yeah,” Han Shu sighed.

“If we go up the gorge, we might find more valleys like this, or some flooded ravine…” she continued.

“—or the source of all this water…” Lin Ling remarked.

“Or that,” she conceded. “In any event, we will likely come down somewhere near the Life-Breaking Aspen… which is…”

“Here,” Arai finished for her, poking a point on the map a few ‘miles’ north west of the northern edge of the monkey valley.

“It’s just a question of whether it takes a day or two, or a week to make the trip,” Wushen muttered, looking at the large gaps in-between those two points. “From the western side… here”—Wushen pointed at the blank area towards the middle of the map—“I can tell you that those ridges are nigh impassable, basically a small mountain of a massif in their own right, splitting this area off from the East Fury Rift…”

“Which is why we need Senior Ying along,” she concluded with a grimace.

“Yep,” Jiang Wushen agreed. “Or someone who has been up here before the Blood Eclipse, basically.”

“Where is the Jasmine Gate on this?” Han Shu asked her, looking at the map.

“Oh… uh…” she frowned, realising she should probably have put the annotations on by default. “Sorry, there…” she enabled them quickly and various explanations and points of interest appeared as shimmering boxes on it.

“I had them off by default,” she muttered, apologetically.

“That is further west than I expected,” Han Shu observed, sounding surprised.

“That caught me out, too,” she agreed. “We are much closer to East Fury than you might expect.”

“The rain and the low visibility doesn’t help,” Sana added. “Usually you can at least see the Great Mount. Normally you would never come up here in the wet season anyway…”

“Yep,” Arai agreed, as they all nodded at that observation. “Actually… the Jasmine Gate is close to the middle… here”—she pointed at a dot in the middle of the map—“on the west side of the rift.

“Normally to get up to there you go to Misty Jasmine, then west, towards Rainbow Gate, then cut back, along those ridgelines and down here…” Arai paused again, to point at a twisting valley, much more visible once you changed the viewpoint to isometric. “That allows you to avoid the God Bewitching Jasmine and the Rift itself, neither of which are a whole lot of fun.”

“If you wanted to live dangerously, of course, you can just cut straight north from Misty Jasmine,” she added, recalling Old Ling’s lectures on that route, “through the God Bewitching Jasmine, through the spider holes and the cave system at the north end of the East Fury Rift. That brings you right out at the western edge of the Sky Chaser massifs, but…”

“—That’s like gambling with unstable alchemical bombs, though,” Sana added, looking up from her cooking.

“Uhuh,” Wushen nodded.

“That would take you past the Jasmine, past two spider queens, past a moon loon’s haunt, at least one Eldritch Moon Mushroom colony and through the Life-Breaking Aspen grove,” Jiang Wushen added with a grimace, tapping the map in several places. “And that’s just the dangers we know about.”

“Uhuh,” Juni agreed, sitting back with a sigh. “I mean, there will certainly be profitable things there, but getting anything out…”

“—Soup is done,” Sana interjected.

“Ohh, excellent!” Lin Ling exclaimed, immediately scooting over.

-I guess she is a bit bothered at not having much to contribute to that discussion, she mused, taking out her own bowl and waiting for Sana to serve Ling and Han Shu.

Neither waited on ceremony, immediately starting to guzzle down the food, likely because they were famished.

“It does rather creep up on you,” Wushen, who had sat down between Han Shu and her, remarked, accepting his own bowl gratefully.

“Ib… does,” Han Shu agreed, speaking through a mouthful of spicy stew.

Accepting her own bowl, she tasted it and sighed happily, because it was delicious. What could have been fairly bland soup-cake and root stew transformed into a creamy, spicy stew with actual flavours. A reminder in many ways that good food out here made a huge difference to your mental state.

Before she had even realised it, she had finished off the whole bowl, though she was by no means the fastest there. Han Shu had basically inhaled his.

“This is… delicious,” she added, to Sana.

“Oh yeah, I had fried bread,” Jiang Wushen added, putting his own bowl aside and unstoring two wrapped bundles of toasted bread slices rubbed with aromatic herbs.

“How do you think the others are getting on?” Sana asked, peering back down the ravine in the general direction of Misty Jasmine Inn as Wushen passed the bundle around.

“Knowing what I do of the work ethic of the Ha clan Hunters, and their experience up here… like a house on fire, probably,” she replied, feeling both sorry for Kun Lianmei, and also rather glad it wasn’t her having to keep them in check.

For all that it had been a very tiresome morning, there was no way she would trade.

----------------------------------------

~ HA YUN – MISTY JASMINE INN ~

----------------------------------------

“My Sage marries his son to your Saintess! I win again, Quan!”

“Bah, this stupid game!”

“You weren’t saying that when you won the last round!”

“Hahaa… no, he wasn’t!”

“Anyway, it’s not Quan; it’s Qwan!”

“Qwan, Cuan, Kwan, Quaan, it’s all Quan to meee!”

Ha Yun stared at the piles of ‘sorted’ greenery and his rather blistered hands, trying to ignore the laughter and frivolity from Caolun and Wufan’s cronies in the common area of the teahouse.

“—Oh shut up! I am dealing next…”

“They sure are in a good mood,” Diaomei, who was chopping up various spirit herbs for soup, observed, glancing towards the common area where an argument was now going on about who should deal their card game.

“Their ignorance is their bliss,” Faolian, who was currently slicing up lumps of crab meat, remarked drily. “They do remind me why I prefer doing logistics in the pagoda though.”

“—Only so much sect-disciple party culture you can take?” Diaomei asked sardonically.

“Not pining for young masters asking you to un-curse their Jade Rod,” Meilan added, affecting a very saccharine tone. “Or telling you they have the perfect cure for your Yin Constitution?”

Faolian just shuddered, then glanced over at him.

“—I’m done here,” he supplied quickly, having learned in the past few hours that being helpfully proactive was by far the Dao Path to take with his three ‘senior sisters’.

“Your ‘no idea’ pile is almost as big as your discard pile,” Meilan remarked drily, coming over to look at his work. “I would have thought your practical knowledge would be a bit more widespread than that…”

“…”

“His status in the pavilion has, in fairness, limited his opportunities as much as his mentality has,” Faolian remarked before he could say anything.

-That hardly seems fair, he grumbled, though kept that to himself. It’s not like I asked to be tossed into the pavilion as a political pawn.

“Aiii… I compare that lot out there to the other Hunters and it’s no wonder our region is in decline,” Diaomei added with a depressed sigh. “Just look at Kun Juni. Can you imagine how the Ha clan would fare with someone like her as an inheritor?”

“…”

Given he was right there, that came across as even more unfair, actually.

“That’s why that idiot Xuanhai is behaving as he is though,” Faolian pointed out. “Had she been born 200 years ago, she would be a rising star of the province comparable to Shi Lian or Lin… what’s-his-name… was before they assassinated him.”

“Uggk, don’t talk about the Three Schools Conflict,” Meilan sneered.

“Oh yeah, sorry, my bad,” Faolian murmured, wincing.

“It’s fine,” Diaomei replied with a soft sigh. “Sometimes thirty years ago seems like yesterday, then I see these brats like our junior brother here, who were not even a twinkle in their parents’ eyes back when that was happening… And I feel far older than my two hundred and fifty-three years suggests.”

“You didn’t hear that, Junior Brother,” Meilan added, giving him a sideways look.

“Uhuh,” Faolian agreed, nodding seriously. “If anyone asks, your senior sister here is thirty and always has been.”

“…”

“Of course,” he murmured. “Senior Sister Diaomei is eighteen, forever and always…” he added, lowering the number radically, on the grounds that no one disliked being flattered.

“At least your tongue is smooth,” Diaomei giggled, laughing delightfully.

“…”

“He has spent enough time in teahouses flexing that ‘young master style’ that I’d hope so,” Faolian added, giving him a slightly judging look as she started on another slab of the crab meat.

“Hey—”

He started to refute that, because while he had spent time in teahouses, and certainly enjoyed the company of beauties, she was speaking like he was Caolun or Wufan.

“—Are you two still bullying this poor lad?”

He flinched as he realised Sir Huang had come into the kitchen without him ever noticing.

“Us, bully a junior brother?” Diaomei asked with eyes so clear even he believed her for a terrifying split second.

“Neeevar,” Faolian declared earnestly.

“Give a few salient pointers, perhaps,” Meilan murmured. “Isn’t that right, Ha Yun? Aren’t our pointers really useful?”

-What do you expect me to say to that! he wept in his heart.

“Yes, senior sisters’ pointers are indeed useful and incisive,” he replied politely, falling back on the tone he usually used when required to apologize to his parents.

“…”

“So, how can we help you, Sir Huang?” Diaomei asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I was going to ask to borrow Yun for a bit, but I see you are keeping him occupied here,” Sir Huang said.

“Eh, we can spare him,” Faolian said with a shrug.

“—Oh, we have some water serpent meat and fish if you want it, for dinner?” Sir Huang added.

“Water serpent… from the trip into the flooded valley?” Diaomei asked, coming around the table to talk so she wasn’t speaking across the kitchen.

“Yep,” Sir Huang nodded.

“What realm?” Meilan added.

“Serpent is Quasi-immortal,” Sir Huang replied, looking around at what was being prepared. “The fish are only Soul Foundation, and un-awakened.”

“Sure, why not!” Diaomei agreed after a moment’s thought.

“What time do meals happen? Incidentally?” Sir Huang asked.

“Dinner or lunch?” Meilan asked, leaning back against the counter where she had been examining his efforts with the herbs.

“Either,” Sir Huang replied.

“In regards to lunch… it’s not formalized; most folk just eat at their tasks. It’s getting past it now, but there is food, if people want it,” Melian replied. “For dinner… hmmm… usually it’s been when enough people show up looking bedraggled and stressed.”

“—Has Senior Ying left yet, by the way?” Diaomei interjected.

“The hermitic priestess?” Sir Huang asked.

“Uhuh,” Diaomei nodded.

“No idea, sorry,” Sir Huang replied, giving her an apologetic shrug. “I have not seen her since we got back though…” he trailed off, frowning.

“Ah well, if you do, tell her I want to talk to her,” Diaomei mused. “She gave us some spicy, lemon-like spirit fruits yesterday, and it turns out they go really well with crab, and make quite potent flavouring in alcohol as well.”

“Speaking of that,” Sir Huang added, glancing back out at the raucous common area, “what is the rule on…?”

“—Drink?” Diaomei made a face. “How well do you think telling them they cannot drink will go down?”

Sir Huang grimaced.

“Yeah, exactly,” Diaomei replied with a deeper sigh.

“I say we see how it goes this evening, then if they are all dead to the world until lunchtime tomorrow, we work something out with Lianmei,” Faolian added with a smirk. “Learning that you cannot bounce back from a spirit-wine hangover up here like you do down below might be a valuable lesson, honestly.”

“True, true,” Sir Huang agreed.

“Wait… what?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

“What… You didn’t know that?” Diaomei asked him, looking amused.

“Uh…”

“The suppression also affects stuff like that. Unless you have a Physical Cultivator’s constitution, you will get drunk basically like a mortal does,” Faolian explained.

“—It will be worse, actually, because of the rains,” Diaomei added, before he could say anything.

“Oh…”

Considering the way his own friends, never mind the others, liked social drinking and enjoying spirit-wine, he shuddered, resolving to remind them about that as quickly as possible.

“Thank you for explaining that,” he murmured…

Both stared at him expectantly.

“Senior sisters…” he added, saluting again.

“Aii… six out of ten, could do with more ‘Senior Sister’,” Diaomei smirked, really leaning in on the admiring tone.

“…”

Shaking his head in amusement, Sir Huang turned and left the kitchen, waving for him to follow.

He barely got glanced at as they made their way through the common room. Half the cultivators who had come with them were sitting around at two tables, laughing and drinking, sharing food they had certainly not gotten from the kitchens, watching a group of four play Gu Takes All.

Sir Huang glanced at them and sighed softly, quickening his pace as he led him on outside.

“It’s still raining…” he muttered as they stepped outside.

“Get used to it,” Sir Huang sighed, pausing to stare up at the grey clouds for a moment. “This is what happens when you cancel the weather of a whole province.”

“…”

Taking a broad-brimmed hat out of his ring, he followed Sir Huang down the steps, and found that there was a corpse of a five-metre long water serpent lying in the open area below the inn, along with three largish fish.

Three of the Beast Hunters were currently working on the serpent, slowly stripping off it hide.

“Can you gut fish?” Sir Huang asked him, considering the nearest of the two metre long fish.

“…”

“I am the heir of the Ha family,” he muttered, which was about as close to a non-answer as he felt able to muster in the context.

“In that case, grab a blade and rejoice, for you are about to learn!” Sir Huang said with a grin, clapping him on the back hard enough to make him take a step forward.