> When you are making your way through the High Valleys between Thunder Crest and East Fury, do not be hasty or injudicious in your path. It is no exaggeration to tell you that you are, at any one time, no further than one hundred metres away from something that could kill you as easily as breathing. What will keep you alive is not your strength, or your spirit root, or your family name. It is knowing every fate-thrashed thing in this jade slab so well you can dream it backward and become the Dao Parent to its firstborn child.

Excerpt from ‘Survival in the Shadow of the Great Mount’

  ~By Ling Shao, Teaching Elder of the West Flower Picking Hunter Pavilion.

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~ SIR HUANG – MISTY JASMINE INN ~

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Awakening with a sigh, Lan Huang shifted to find Diaomei was still slumbering beside him. Meilan was sitting on the couch, reading a book and nibbling a dried stick of persis herb.

“Sorry, we should really get our own room,” he remarked drily, sitting up and gently dislodging Diaomei, who moaned softly and squirmed a bit.

“Eh… it’s fine,” Meilan chuckled. “It’s a big bed.”

“…”

Sighing, he slipped off the bed and pulled his clothes back on, eliciting an ‘awwww’ from Meilan.

“You know, if you torment Ha Yun that much, he might get the wrong idea?” he remarked wryly, recalling her behaviour yesterday.

“Eh… I think he gets it, but I suppose you are right,” Meilan sighed. “Though maybe once?”

“Just don’t,” he remarked blandly. “I know he goes to various places, but his father is a clan lord and you’re his elder sister in the same sect. It’s just asking for trouble.”

“I know,” she sniffed. “Don’t belabour the point.”

“So, what’s the plan for today?” she asked.

“Same, basically,” he mused. “I should probably go see how many of them are able to get out of bed though. They may require more than ten minutes in the baths.”

“Not a bad idea…” Diaomei mumbled from the bed, before rolling over again.

“Come on, you didn’t even go out there,” Meilan pouted.

Diaomei rolled back again and sat up, scowling.

“Good morning,” he said, going over and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Mmm… yes,” Diaomei replied.

Shaking his head, he quickly left and made his way to the stairs… then paused, keeping still in the shadows.

Looking on, he saw two people quietly standing at the base of the stairs – Ha Fanjing and Ha Ji Bofan.

“Look, I told you…” Ha Fanjing hissed.

“It was worth checking…” Ha Ji Bofan replied.

-What are they up to… he frowned.

“Maybe, but what if…?” Ha Fan Jing murmured, then paused.

Given he hadn’t moved and was very confident in his hiding, he was sure it wasn’t him that had spooked them, as they both looked up the stairs, then towards the common room.

“…”

He remained there silently until both turned and headed into the baths.

“…”

Narrowing his eyes, he looked around carefully.

His soul sense might be non-existent, but a cultivator of his realm had a lot of methods at his disposal, and reading qi residues was something he was quite good at. The pair had stood down below, but had actually come from this floor, based on the faint shadows of qi decaying in the surroundings, and stopped by the door to Meilan and Diaomei’s room…

“…”

Considering the exterior, he was pretty sure that nobody had peeked on the wards, because he had put them up himself, and they were based on a Dao Eternal grade talisman that so long as it was fed qi was basically impregnable to anything short of an ascendant weapon, even up here.

-Ha Ji Bofan was the one who tried to proposition Meilan before… he mused.

Turning, he traced the trail back to the stairwell and up to the third floor, where they had paused by Ha Yun’s door.

They hadn’t done anything, as far as he could tell, just stood there for a few moments, by each door, but it still made him wonder…

“…”

-Don’t tell me they thought he was sleeping with Meilan? he pondered.

In a sense, that was kind of funny, but at the same time, he was under no illusions as to the potential qualms or lack of that some experts could have if they felt consequences would not fall back on them.

Considering Ha Yun’s door, he banged on it quietly.

“Who…” Ha Yun called out, sounding a bit annoyed.

“Me, Huang,” he replied.

“…”

A moment later a very tired looking Ha Yun opened the door and stared at him blankly.

“You are going to want more than a dip in the bath,” he said.

“…”

Ha Yun stared at him and then nodded.

Leaving Yun to sort himself out, he went down the hall, waking all of the other six up. Only Leng and Jiao actually opened their doors first time, but after a few minutes he had all of them awake and sent off to the baths to make use of its invigorating waters. By that point, Jun Arai and Jun Sana had also gotten up and were looking at him a bit reproachfully from their doorway.

“You know that this hour is the only time we can enjoy the big baths?” Jun Sana muttered, glaring at him.

“Sorry,” he replied, giving them an apologetic grimace.

“It’s not that the ones in the shrine are bad; it’s just that it’s not as nice,” Arai sighed.

He watched them slope off, catching Arai mutter softly, “Oh well, it’s just another tax on my sanity, courtesy of the Ha clan…”

“…”

Their grievance was not hard to grasp really. Probably they had no qualms sharing a bath with Duan Mu or Han Shu, probably not even the beast hunters, but all of those people were… to put it simply, not horny idiots whose default approach to a pretty girl their own age was kiss, grope or flatter. Before the Ha group showed up, he was pretty sure this place had run like a finely artificed mechanism.

Heading downstairs, he went into the baths and found that Ha Yun’s group were now chatting with Ha Fanjing and Ha Ji Bofan.

“So Yun… you tried to get some alone time with Fairy Meilan, I heard…” Bofan was asking.

“Look, she came in while I was in the baths. That’s all there was to it,” Ha Yun grumbled.

“Well, she is a dancer,” Ha Fanjing remarked.

“She is also your senior,” he added, stopping by the edge of the pool above them. “Both here and in the Ha clan.”

Having hidden his presence somewhat, nobody expected his abrupt arrival, there was a degree of shock and splashing. Ha Fanjing just scowled at him.

“My senior? Her?”

“Are you doubting my words?” he asked, crouching down to be closer to Fanjing’s eye level.

“…”

Fanjing stared back at him and just gave a slight, dismissive laugh.

“You are just an elite as well, compared to me, who is related to Elder Quanbo and Patriach Dongfei, you think you can order me about?”

“Fanjing…” Bofan coughed.

“If I say you did something to me, do you think the Ha clan will stand by?” Fanjing added, leaning forward and grinning. “If you do something to me, you will never cultivate another day once you leave this place…”

It was tempting to grab him by the hair and break his face on the stone right then and there, but he resisted and just stood up again.

-I should have Diaomei absolutely keep an eye on him, he sighed. Later, I can come visit his family as my personal self and explain that he has insulted my ‘grandson’… that should be a funny play.

“Breakfast will be in thirty minutes,” he told Ha Yun and the others. “We will be leaving very promptly this time.”

“Yes, Sir Huang…” Leng groaned, while Ha Yun just nodded. The others all still looked a bit comatose, but at least they were there.

Shaking his head, he left the baths again and headed back to the common room to actually start breakfast. Technically it was Meilan and Diaomei’s joint role, but that didn’t really bother him.

It took about twenty minutes to quickly prepare some nutritious spirit food – fried noodles, fried bread, deep fried fish and grilled serpent meat, along with a large bowl of rice porridge. Taking it out, he found that the rest of the Hunters had appeared at this point.

“Sir Huang… you didn’t need to do that,” Kun Juni muttered, as he put the food down.

“Well, it seems Meilan deserved a rest after yesterday,” he replied. “I was up anyway.”

“…”

The Hunters all gave him sideways looks, which was somewhat amusing really. His goal was not entirely altruistic, it had to be said. The relationship between this bunch and ‘his’ Ha clan bunch, as he was starting to think of them, was not good. If they at least respected him and understood that he and, by extension, the Cherry Wine Pagoda group were not here to cause problems, everything else would go more smoothly. Bridges would not be rebuilt in a day, certainly, but at least the Hunters would be less concerned about trusting him in critical moments.

Ha Yun and the others appeared a few minutes later and, in part two of his small plan, ended up having to share the table with the Hunters, which was a darkly funny exercise in seeing two groups who had decidedly ambivalent feelings regarding the other try not to openly insult each other over the first meal of the day.

“You are all up early…” Lianmei remarked, coming in from outside and shaking off her umbrella.

“Says you,” Juni replied. “Do you actually sleep?”

“Aiie… respect is dead,” Kun Lianmei murmured, pretending to be offended.

“…”

Juni rolled her eyes.

“Actually, I bring tidings. There will be a new group coming early in the morning, which probably means within the next thirty minutes as they are excelling in being ‘ahead’,” Lianmei said.

“The group we spoke of yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“So you want us away before then?” he added.

“Hmm… if it’s possible, the three teams we had yesterday, yes,” Lianmei said.

“We can be ready to go in five minutes,” Juni said. “All we need are herb pots, but you can send those later. There were an excess of them left at the plazas yesterday.”

He considered the still slightly jaded-looking Hunters and frowned.

“In that case, I’ll go grab Caolun, Teng and Cao and one or two others…” he said, standing up.

“What about Meilan?” Kun Juni asked him.

“Go check with her, see what she wants to do,” he called back, heading for the door.

Outside, he walked past the door to the storehouse, nodding to Wentai and Shun, who were chatting outside, and went into the Ha clan annex.

“Morning, Sir,” Ha Jiao, said, giving him a slightly tired salute.

“Any issues?” he asked, looking up the shuttered windows around the courtyard.

“Not really, they had a drinking party, played some recordings of much better music than any of them can play.”

“I saw Fanjing and Bofan were both up early,” he mused.

“Dunno about that, sadly. Ha Bo was the one out here earlier; I just swapped with him so he could go freshen up,” Jiao replied apologetically.

“…”

“Well, I’ll…”

He trailed off as Ha Ji Wufan and basically his whole bunch of cronies started to filter down the stairs.

“I see you are feeling better?” he remarked to Wufan.

“Y-yeah…” Wufan grimaced, giving him what probably passed for a salute.

He watched them filter past, a few saluting them, but mostly ignoring them.

“You would think we were furniture,” Ha Cao Cao muttered, coming out of the group of rooms that the experts shared on the ground floor.

“Expensive furniture that they can sic on anything,” Ha Jiao grumbled.

“I wonder what got them all up early?” he added, glancing at the stairs up to the upper level.

“Who can say?” Ha Cao Cao sighed. “Shall I go get Caolun? I take it we will be going earlier today?”

“That is the plan,” he confirmed. “So yeah, let’s go get…”

Up above, Ha Caolun, along with Ha Pei Quan, Ha Fanbo and Ha Cao Taifan, had just traipsed out of the door onto the upper level, heading for the stairs down…

“Ah, Senior Brother—”

He turned to find Faolian had come into the courtyard behind him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Two problems,” she replied. “There is an…”

Before she could even complete what she had been about to say, the teleport platform thrummed. The misty rain twisted and scattered outwards in a spiral in the pre-dawn gloom. When it settled, there were some twenty people in two groups standing on the teleport platform under umbrellas, looking around with curiosity.

The ‘Ha group’ numbered eleven in total. The four in the front all wore robes with Jade Gate Court or Din clan insignia on them, while the other six, standing behind the elder in Ha clan robes, were evenly split between the Ji and Cao, based on their attire.

The second group was split fairly evenly between a further group of soldiers wearing Ling clan armour and a gaggle of juniors in bright robes who were certainly the ones the Ling clan had wanted to send up here for the trial. They were accompanied by the Elder he recalled from Ling Tao’s estate… Leng.

“Incoming teleport?” he completed sourly.

“Yes…” Faolian grimaced.

“…”

“Well, that explains why that worthless lot crawled out of bed,” Ha Jiao said drily.

“Yes… it rather does,” he agreed, heading back out of the annex, the others following him.

Lianmei and Diaomei had both stalked out of the inn, holding umbrellas, while the seven Hunters who had now come outside and had presumably been preparing to teleport themselves, were now being supplemented by the Ha groups, both those who had been at breakfast and those who had just ‘gotten up’.

“Caolun,” he called out, grabbing the youth by his shoulder as their group existed behind him.

“The communication just came through, like… ten minutes ago?” Caolun muttered.

“If I check the jades, will it actually be that?” he asked, his tone dropping fractionally.

“…”

Caolun, who, despite having some quite credible attainments in the Dao of Being Shameless, was still only a junior, had to look away after a few moments, squirming.

-That’s what I thought, he sighed, surveying the groups who were leaving the platform.

“Ha Botan…” Lianmei remarked sourly, addressing the man walking respectfully beside the four Din clan scions.

“This is quite the reception committee,” the tall man declared, looking around, before adding: “Ah, watch yourself, Young Lord Din. It is slippery.”

Off on the far side, he could see that Senior Ying was now standing in the shelter of the shrine porch, barely lit against the lantern light, also watching.

“So this is Misty Jasmine Inn… It’s not what I was expecting,” the youth addressed as ‘Young Lord Din’ remarked blandly.

“It is not up to young lord’s standards, I am sure,” Ha Botan said, ushering him up the steps to the paved area before the inn, “But up here, it is quite luxurious…”

“You were not meant to arrive for another few hours,” Lianmei said, her tone rather neutral.

“It was held that this is the auspicious hour for us to depart,” Ha Botan said with a faint smile. “Is that not right, Elder Leng?”

“Indeed,” the Elder who had met them when they first went to the Ling clan estate said blandly. “Young Lord Din here and his companions were most eager to set forth.”

“…”

“We meet again, Elder Lianmei,” Din Kongfei said, stopping in front of her.

“So we do,” Lianmei said with a bright smile that would have had him reaching for a weapon in other circumstances. “And Din Jian Fuhao, I hear you are both the toast of our West Flower Picking Town’s young ladies.”

“You are too kind,” Din Jian Fuhao replied with a slight smile. “Just as its name suggests, West Flower Picking Town is indeed quite the flower garden...”

“…”

Off to the side, Kun Juni, Jun Arai, Jun Sana, Mu Shi and Lin Ling, who had been caught by his sweeping gaze, had inscrutably glassy expressions before he focused again on Lianmei and Diaomei.

“I don’t believe I have been introduced to your friends?” Lianmei added.

“Din Ji Jiaofang,” a youth in a grey and green robe with a sword slung across his back said blandly, giving her a very slight salute. “It is my honour to make your acquaintance, Fairy Lianmei.”

“Din Ouyeng,” the youth in a blue and gold robe with chrysanthemums in white inlaid across the panels said. “It is indeed, an honour.”

“We are here at the invitation of your elder, Ha Ji Fanguang,” Din Ji Jiaofang added.

“And Young Lord Kongfei here was moved by Elder Cao Quanbo’s entreaty to look sympathetically on our plight,” Ha Botan added, to which Din Kongfei just nodded.

“Our Din clan and the Jade Gate Court are the Righteous Gate of Easten Azure,” Din Jian Fuhao continued. “In the face of the tyrannical attitude of the Sheng clan and those distant villains on Shan Lai… oppressing our brothers and sisters across the water… how could we possibly sit silent?”

“…”

“Well, why don’t you all come inside, out of the rain?” Lianmei said with an almost painfully bright tone. “It is a little early for breakfast, but I am sure we can find some wine while we all discuss matters?”

“Caolun, you are coming with us again, today,” he added to the youth, who he was still holding by the shoulder.

“But…” Caolun stared at the Din group entering the inn.

“Let me put this a different way,” he murmured. “You have seen Din Kongfei’s style when it comes to fighting a single Tetrid Queen… Would you rather be with us, or them?”

Ha Caolun stared at him, then at the Din group, and grimaced and went back the way he had come.

“That was quite smoothly done,” Cao Cao remarked as Jiang Teng and Ji Erbei both joined them.

“Seeing is believing, and Caolun, for all that he is enamoured with this trial, is not that stupid… probably,” he mused.

“Did that Din Kongfei really kill a tetrid queen?” Ha Ji Erbei, another of the elites with Wufan, who had now come out as well, asked.

“A weakened one, that had fought a hard battle against bandits for quite some time,” Faolian answered for him.

“I have to say, I don’t like this,” Ling Shun muttered, eyeing the Inn.

“Too many people makes for unpredictable problems,” he agreed.

“—Sergeant Shun!”

The leader of the Ling guards had come over at this point.

“Sergeant Hwan,” Ling Shun saluted him.

“This is a sorry mess,” the sergeant sighed, looking over at the inn.

“It is,” Ling Shun said. “What happened?”

“Elders happened,” Sergeant Hwan replied. “I can’t say any of us truly know what’s what, but the Imperial Court has been making a lot of assurances to back up the ‘clans’ in the face of the tyranny of Shan Lai.”

“Wentai, take Sergeant Hwan. Show him what’s what,” Ling Shun said to Qiu Wentai standing next to him.

“Sir,” Wentai saluted, then turned to Sergeant Hwan. “If you would follow me, Sir?”

Sergeant Hwan nodded, waving to the five who had come with him to get their kit and follow him.

“…”

“Oh… what was the second problem?” he asked Faolian.

“The Rising Dragon Gales…” Faolian grimaced.

“Don’t tell me they are coming back?” he groaned.

“Worse,” she replied. “You know how it was disrupted before?”

“Uh-huh?” he confirmed, having a bad feeling about this.

“Well, that gale moved south… towards the Seven Sovereigns…”

“Oh no…” he groaned, wondering if it was okay to sit down. “They sent it back?”

“Yep. Sect Mistress Meng Yang personally complained to the Imperial Court about the actions of Dun Fanshu. The whole storm front was repelled after it hit the coast at Meng City. Four Dao Ascendant Old Masters worked together to do it. The prognosis is that it will wash back over the coastal regions of the province in the next few hours, and last for maybe a week or more.”

“So that is why they sent this lot up now?”

“I would guess so,” Faolian grimaced. “When it hits, the rains are going to resurge again as well, aren’t they?”

He stared up at the sky and nodded. “Which means really sketchy teleports…”

“And little talisman communication,” Faolian agreed.

“So… what do we do?” Jiang Teng asked.

“Start getting pots out; we will go as soon as we can. Does Lianmei know about this?”

“She does. I told her first,” Faolian confirmed.

“…”

He watched Jiang Teng and the others hurry off to the storehouse and sighed.

-What a morning, he grumbled, stalking back towards the inn.

It was moments like this that made him regret he was not ‘himself’, if only briefly.

Inside, the new arrivals were being obsequiously fawned over by half the Ha clan scions, the Ling group were standing off to the side, watching with amusement, and everyone else looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.

It was hard to blame them, really. When it came to ‘status’, even a minor scion of a clan like the Din was a big problem. Just their presence up here was suddenly a huge target over everyone else’s heads. If something happened to some Din scion here, there was no telling if some senior brother or sister, or a clan elder or something would come and seek restitution, for example.

Of the Hunters, only Kun Juni had the background to remotely resist that kind of pressure, and the Kun clan would likely turn around and ask if the Din clan was interested in marrying her to make amends instead, from what he understood of her situation.

“I was expecting one… but four?”

He turned to find Priestess Ying had come to stand beside him. Unlike before, she was now wearing a proper gown and veil that clearly marked her as an ordained priestess of the Queen Mother, not in her specific capacity of a cardinal direction, but as her supreme and official self, second only to the Grandfather of Heaven.

“It is hardly ideal,” he conceded.

“It is not,” she agreed.

“Are you coming with us?” Kun Juni, who had also slipped away from the main group, asked Priestess Ying.

“Yes,” Priestess Ying said drily… “If I stay here too long I may end up stabbing someone…”

“…”

In the end, the whole ‘reception’ took about thirty minutes, at which point Kun Lianmei skilfully sent them off to bunk up in the same complex as Caolun and Wufan’s groups.

“You heard about the gales?” Lianmei said as they made their way back outside to check on the progress with the teleport preparations.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I give you two to one odds that they disperse it a second time, because it’s the Seven Sovereigns School.”

Lianmei stared at him for a long moment and then sighed deeply.

As a reaction, it was hard to fault. If you were talking about problems you should never annoy, the Seven Sovereigns Imperial School was absolutely up there with the very best of them. In fact, even in spite of its influence waning thanks to the influence of the Kong and Huang clans, it probably was the very best of those old hegemonies, given the old dragon of the Moon Tomb Gate had not been seen in over a hundred thousand years and the Shu Pavilion’s four ancient ancestors were the definition of aloof.

Just like those other two, it also had its roots in an era so long ago that most just didn’t believe the stories, and its founder was… a monster of untold means, for all that she had been remarkably quiet in the last few centuries.

-Saintess Meng Fu… Fairy Heavenpyre…

It was a name to evoke dreams and a title to conjure nightmares, for the Dun clan and for Shan Lai.

The Seven Sovereigns also had quiet, lingering attachments to Yin Eclipse. Although unlike others, their allotted interest had always struck him as… paranoid. They rarely took overt action, but when they did, it was usually decisive and the outcomes were entirely opaque.

“…”

“—Ah monkey balls…”

He was stirred out of mulling over the potential involvement of another worldly power in this mess as he found Din Kongfei and Din Jian Fuhao standing by the teleport platform with a rather embarrassed Caolun, Ha Pei Quan and a bored looking Ha Fanjing.

-Shit, I should have just kept him in my hand, he groaned.

It was hard to blame Caolun, really. Likely his friends had started talking and before he could refuse, both scions were inviting themselves along.

“Well, that sorts the day’s groups out,” Diaomei, who had come back out with them, remarked.

It rather did, somewhat annoyingly. He had quite enjoyed working with Kun Juni and Xiang Meilan, as well as the opportunities it afforded to give Yun, Leng and Caolun a few small pointers here and there. But Juni would certainly go with the other hunters now, along with Priestess Ying.

-Well, I did come here because we were worried about the Din clan, he reflected glumly.

“You are coming out with them?” Lianmei asked blandly, looking at the group.

Off to the side, he saw Ha Botan, the associate official, standing in the doorway of the Ha clan annex watching with an inscrutable expression.

“We are here to make a contribution, Fairy Lianmei,” Jian Fuhao said giving her a bright smile.

“Do you know anything about him?” he asked Diaomei softly.

“A bit… he is someone who came through after the Blood Eclipse,” she murmured. “Became a beast hunter, but then left, and the Ha clan purchased him an associate official’s rank. He is associated with Ha Cao Quanbo’s household.”

“I don’t recall him,” he frowned.

“I would be surprised if you did,” she replied. “I think he spent much of the time between the Blood Eclipse and the Three Schools conflict on the Imperial Continent, working for the Ha Cao there.”

The discussion between Kun Lianmei and the Din pair had basically finished at this point, ending as he expected, with them just continuing to insist that there was no issue with them accompanying them. Despite being an Elder, there was actually not much Lianmei could do in regards to any of those four. Probably they would play by the rules, but the question was how they interpreted them. They were certainly addressing her politely, but not once had she been called ‘Elder Lianmei’, it was always ‘Fairy’ Lianmei’ or ‘Lady’ Lianmei.

“Will they start playing games with the Blue Morality?” Diaomei added.

“I doubt it,” he remarked drily. “We are not their elders and they already know they are ‘in control’ here, in many respects. The juniors of the court only fall back on that if they need to work from a position where their own influence will not work.

“Really, If we could convince them to sit around and drink tea politely all day that would be wonderful, but I suspect that they will want to start poking around for shiny things in relation to this trial almost immediately.”

“Let’s hope they are impressed enough with this ruined town that we can just get on with things, then,” Diaomei agreed.

“Yes… that would be for the best…” he murmured.

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~ HA YUN – PORTAM RHANAE UPPER TOWN ~

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“This is amazing…”

“To think there was a place like this here…”

“Who do you think she was?”

“Clearly some ancient expert… you would have to be powerful to make a town here…”

“Do you know what the text says, Brother Din?”

“…”

“Welcome to the new day, same as the old one…” Ha Leng muttered, standing next to him.

“Yeah,” Ha Yun agreed, as he watched his friends, Caolun’s group and the Din group all mill around admiring the grand shrine and its collection of beautiful statues.

Even the experts like Sir Teng were impressed, which made him feel a bit odd that he… wasn’t for some reason.

-Is it just that we saw them yesterday? He wondered.

Han Shu and Duan Mu were standing by the entrance with the expressions of people wondering if their entire day was going to be just standing around watching others admire statues.

-I suppose that would not be too bad, either, he conceded to himself.

“On the bright side, probably we will spend a lot less time holding formation cores…” Leng added.

“That is true,” he conceded.

If there was a bright point, likely they would be doing a lot less of that today.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Meilan remarked, coming to stand beside both of them.

“How do you mean?” Leng asked, before he could.

“Bigger formations,” Meilan murmured. “With those two alchemical bombs here there is no way anything can be left to chance.”

“Oh…” he sighed, following her meaning.

“If anything happens to them we will be the scapegoats?” he guessed.

“And all our successes will belong to them,” Meilan agreed, rolling her eyes. “This is how Young Lords from the Imperial Continent work. Whatever you thought your status was, as an heir of a Clan Lord in his province, forget it, today, you are actually worth less than the six hunters not from the Kun clan.”

“…”

When she put it like that, it was really quite unpleasant to hear. Even more so, because he knew in his heart she was not wrong. Even back in West Flower Picking, at those parties in the teahouses, they had been ‘in his name’, but also he had usually ended up fitting bills for them far in excess of the actual parties.

Thankfully he had not yet had to explain to the estate seneschal, or his mother, why the Ha family estates were paying to buy out whole teahouses for evenings, but that was only because he had ended up persuading several owners to see it as a favour to the Ha clan, for the prosperity of the town. Those that had not been persuaded, he had mostly covered by spending money the Ha family would not ask too many questions about.

“—I hardly think you need be that pessimistic, Fairy Xiang,” Din Jian, clearly having caught some of what she said, added, walking over to them. “Brother Yun here is a hero of the hour, a champion of Patriarch Dongfei’s tournament and someone with great prospects, who our Din clan has taken a special interest in.”

“…”

Usually, he saw no harm in having someone else sing your praises, but the way Din Jian phrased it, it was almost like an insult. That last bit was also somewhat… concerning.

-What do they mean by ‘taken a special interest in?’

“Thank you for your kind words,” he replied, trying to pitch his reply as somewhere between amused and grateful without letting his inner annoyance seep out.

Xiang Meilan just gave Din Jian a politely neutral smile.

In the end, they spent almost an hour there, before everyone was convinced that the statues were… just statues, and that there was no special hidden secret locked away in that room, akin to the statue in the Queen Mother’s shrine in Blue Water City.

By that point, Priestess Ying and Kun Juni had set off, their ‘group’ slipping away while the others were still admiring the ruins.

Han Shu and Duan Mu, who had hung around until the others grew bored of the shrine and exploring its immediate surroundings, then set off with Ding and the others to continue working their way up the forest valley.

That left Din Kongfei and Din Jian, who ended up with a full guard of Sir Huang, Sir Teng, Sir Cao and Xiang Meilan. That group was rounded out by him, Leng, Caolun, Pei Quan and Fanjing.

They investigated the immediate vicinity outside the temple – it was hard to call it a shrine at that scale – then after some consultation, basically continued doing what they had done yesterday, but in the upper area of the town.

Like that, they spent a whole morning… basically going from one block to the next, setting up a formation, channelling it for thirty minutes and then going in and seeing what was caught.

“If you told me that the biggest danger here was not the spirit herbs but things coming to see what we are doing… I would not have believed you,” Leng grumbled as they both stood on top of a ruined wall taking in the aftermath of a short skirmish with a five metre long serpent that had come to bother them.

“This is also why we were being so low key, yesterday,” Meilan added, dropping down from the floor above, where she had been shooting arrows at it moments earlier.

“Noise begets noise,” Leng murmured.

“It does,” Meilan agreed, looking around at the tangled greenery and dripping trees that wound through everything.

“If you told me yesterday, that today I would take that, over this, I would also have not believed you,” he muttered, gnawing on a piece of roast serpent meat to try and replenish a bit of his qi.

“Do they not know that bombing a whole formation with artefacts is… draining?” Leng added, taking a deep drink of water.

“Of course they do,” Meilan replied as they continued to survey their surroundings warily. “They just don’t care.”

“It doesn’t help when you put it like that,” he complained.

“You must accept the circumstances in which you find yourself, before you can move beyond them,” Meilan remarked rolling her eyes and giving him a playful elbow in the side

“…”

Not really sure what to say in reply to that, he just went back to scanning the surroundings, while Leng kept half an eye on the compass in his free hand.

“So… are we taking a break for lunch?” Leng asked after an uneventful minute had passed.

“I’d eat it here,” he suggested, passing Leng a parcel of fried bread and roasted serpent meat with a spicy sauce on it.

Leng accepted it and took a bite—

“Yb pud alud ob hut sauz,” Leng complained, making a face.

“…”

-Oh, he has a low tolerance for spicy stuff...

“Sorry,” he grimaced feeling bad for having forgotten that in the moment, “I was just trying to not have it taste of… well, fried snake.”

“Ibb fine,” Leng sighed, wiping his running nose with the back of his hand and sniffing.

“WE ARE MOVING OUT!” Caolun called up from below.

“…”

Meilan sighed and hopped off the wall to land in the water below. Leng stored away the rest of the food and followed after, with him bringing up the rear.

By the time they actually got back to the others the serpent had been teleported and Pei Quan and Caolun were putting talismans on a dozen herb jars.

“What did we gather this time?” he asked, having basically seen nothing of whatever it was.

“Some ferns, a strange moss, a few small lingzhi and a fire flower vine,” Caolun remarked with a grimace.

“A fire flower vine? Here?” Leng asked dubiously.

“It’s a Yin mutate,” Pei Quan supplied, as if that clarified anything. “The Din pair also claimed the beast core…”

“Where are they now?” he asked, not seeing them.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“They have already moved on with Sir Huang, Sir Cao, Sir Teng and Sir Jiao to scout the next building,” Pei Quan muttered, looking a bit annoyed as well at this point.

-So even Caolun’s friends dislike this pace? he mused, finding that that did brighten his mood a bit.

“…”

“Who is doing the mapping?” he asked after they had watched in silence for a few moments, munching on some much needed food.

“Me,” Meilan said. “It’s easy enough to keep track of, given they are still going slow.”

“This is slow?” Caolun muttered, glancing up from where they were finishing putting talismans on jars.

“Oh yes, don’t mistake keenness for competence,” Meilan chuckled. “The hunter team could have done twice this already. We are wasting a lot of time shooting qi beasts that could have otherwise been left alone if we were not being quite so blunt.”

“…”

“Teleporting…” Quan called over.

“One moment…” Meilan, who had the communication talisman said, holding up a hand.

“…”

“Okay, you are good to go,” she added, presumably confirming that they weren’t about to send herbs through when the teleport was already active or something.

Stepping back a bit, he watched as the dozen pots and the serpent corpse vanished in a crack of light and scattered raindrops.

“They have arrived safely,” Meilan confirmed a moment later.

“Well, let’s go catch them up,” Caolun muttered, giving the courtyard a final look around.

“Yeah…” he agreed, finishing the last of his own spicy snake wrap.

By the time they got to the next building, Sir Cao and Sir Teng were waiting for them at the entrance.

“One of you take a formation core for this entrance, in the hall inside,” Sir Cao said without much preamble.

“That will be me,” he replied, having gotten used to taking ‘east’ on the ‘Four Gates Empyrean Cage’ formation they were using to suppress the buildings.

“I’ll stay here then,” Sir Teng said.

“I’ll take Leng and Pei and go start the scan again,” Meilan added. “I assume Sir Jiao is on west side?”

“He is, you can drop one of them off there,” Sir Teng affirmed, nodding to Leng and Pei Quan.

He watched them go, Leng, Pei Quan and Meilan to the west and Sir Cao to the north with Caolun, then took out his compass and stared at it, pacing back and forth. It took him only a minute or so to get a good fix on an auspicious point for the formation, which made a pleasant change from the last two places at least.

Putting core down, he fed three spirit jade into it, sighing at how easy it had become to do that without even hesitating.

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

~ JUN SANA – PORTAM RHANAE, RIDGE DISTRICT ~

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

“Well, I must say, when we started in this direction this morning, I did not think we would find a second giant shrine,” Sana found herself remarking as they stood at the top of a winding flight of the winding path up from the town below them, considering the quite spectacular scene they had found.

They had spent much of the morning making their way through the portion of the town on the ridge-side of the river. They had not really gathered much, beyond a few really obvious spirit herbs, but rather devoted most of their effort to marking and mapping as they explored the extent of the town. That was how they had ended up here, in the end.

The whole town on this side effectively funnelled you towards the gap within the ridgeline, which held the vast complex of buildings arrayed before them. The cliff at the rear was shrouded in a vast waterfall, which the buildings of this place had engineered so that it tumbled down the vegetation blanketed cliffs into broad pools that flanked a large statue of a golden haired woman in a white gown seated on a throne.

In one hand, she cradled a drum and in the other a broad bladed spear. At her feet lay a clay mask, a bow, a quiver of arrows and various other tools she associated with hunting.

The inscription on the massive statue read Artemisia Rhanis, close enough to the name of the town to leave little doubt that this was the person it had been founded in honour of.

“Well, if ever there was an explanation as to why this place is called ‘the gate of rain’ this is it…” Arai agreed, taking in the swirling maelstrom of mist from the waterfalls that drifted down all around them.

“You mean beyond the bit where it just rains non-stop?” Lin Ling remarked drily, wiping water from her face.

“Beyond the fact that this is spectacular, I find it concerning that this ridgeline to the north looks like it’s actually a spur of the mountain to the east,” Mu Shi interjected.

“It does have that look,” Juni agreed.

“Even when there isn’t rain, the heights here are shrouded in cloud, so it’s not that surprising it’s passed unremarked until now,” Senior Ying conceded. “I suppose this means any path through is going to take us… back north west?”

“The question is, how do we even get there?” Arai said with a sigh. “Do we try to see if there is a path up?

“There looks to be openings high in the cliffs…” she noted, pointing out a few on the western side.

“I guess…” Arai trailed off, touching her breast where her hunter jade was…

*Chime*

Her own jade resonated and gave a faint sense of chill almost at the same time.

“Huh…” Lin Ling also pulled hers out.

“All of us got that?” she asked, pressing her thumb to it, watched as a glittering scroll and a seal appeared above her talisman.

“…”

Her sister and Lin Ling did the same and a moment later there were three identical, almost solid looking scrolls hanging in the air. That alone marked it out as being rather abnormal; nobody local would bother with the expense of such a format just for a simple message.

> By order of his Imperial, August and Sacred Personage,

>

> A Trial of Exploration, to bring good fortune to the youth of the generation is announced.

> His August Person, blessed by the heavens, has decreed an opportunity for the youth of our Eastern Azure Great Realm. All who are eligible may partake of this great event in Blue Water City at the set date, starting the 15th of the month of the Rising Dragon, 19th millennium - 9th gen. of Dun Imperial Annals

>

> All who excel shall, at the end of this great endeavour, be judged through their contribution and those attaining renown and good fortune above all others, shall, by Imperial Authority be granted the option to join one of the great schools, or other reward befitting their status.

>

> ~Sealed~

>

> ~Emperor Blue Morality~

Staring at it, she frowned. “Well, that’s 'informative’, if bombastic-sounding…”

“So, a formal announcement that the trial is starting… which we already knew?” Lin Ling said, staring at the message.

“It would explain why the Din clan showed up today,” Arai added.

“…”

Focusing on the details of the message, the text shifted in her mind…

“Oh… I understand why they updated our talismans now…” she grimaced.

“Yeah…” Arai agreed, likely having just done the same thing.

The explanatory text that accompanied the announcement basically said that you could be issued a participation token, or use an existing authority bureau token, which also included ‘Hunter Pavilion’ ones. If she focused on her talisman now, it gave her an empty ranking listing contribution, not dissimilar to the kind used during promotion exams, although this one had a much fancier background.

“Still no update log on it though,” she added, checking that and simply finding a bunch of entries that were blank.

“Do we not get to opt out of this?” Lin Ling muttered, eyeing her talisman sourly.

“—Ah! Juni and the others are also here,” Arai noted, tugging her arm as she continued to skim the instructional text.

Turning, she waved to them and Juni waved back.

She had basically gotten to the bottom of the information in the few minutes it took the other trio to make their way over to them.

“How was that side?” she asked, putting her talisman back in her robe with a grimace.

“Wet,” Mu Shi said, squeezing out the sleeve of her robe. “Very, very wet.”

“Did you also get that communication?” Juni asked the three of them.

“We did,” she confirmed.

“As Lin Ling said a moment ago, do we have an opt-out option?” Arai muttered.

“I second that,” Mu Shi grimaced.

“…”

“What does Lianmei say?” she asked Juni.

“…”

Juni stared into space for a moment.

“Ah, you are all there, good,” a tiny version of Lianmei appeared over the communication talisman a moment later.

“It seems this was about what was expected?” Senior Ying said, speaking first. “It’s the usual pattern for these trials.”

“It is,” Lianmei agreed. “However the fact that the Elders seem to have enrolled every hunter junior in it makes my teeth hurt.”

“So, what does this mean for us?” she asked.

“…”

“Actually, very little,” Lianmei sighed. “There will be some complications with the Ha clan group I expect, and a bit of a reorganisation of power towards those who have hunter talismans, certainly.”

“Ha Yun’s group then?” Juni asked.

“Yes, which works somewhat in our favour,” Lianmei said.

“It… does?” Lin Ling asked sceptically.

“Yes, they are answerable to the Cherry Wine Pagoda, not the Ha clan, and the Pagoda aligns with our goals at a fundamental level,” Liamnei said.

“So… we are going to strike out and set up a new base?” Juni mused.

“Yes,” Lianmei confirmed. “How has your progress been so far?”

“Getting out of this valley is going to be tough,” she supplied. “The ridge beyond the town looks like it’s a genuine spur of East Fury’s peaks. We have found another huge shrine complex though, so there might be a way through…”

“Be wary of any caves,” Lianmei said.

“We will, don’t worry,” Juni confirmed.

Lianmei sighed and then the communication cut out.

“…”

“So… what now?” Mu Shi asked.

“Hmm…” Juni stared at the low cloud billowing around them and tapped her finger to her lips, looking pensive. “Let’s explore these ruins, at this point, the key thing is that we see if there is a route here, otherwise we will have to start thinking about scaling ridges.”

Turning on the spot, she looked up at the cliffs around them, vanishing into mist, with their tangled curtains of greenery and occasional jutting construction and tried not to grimace.

“We have teleport arrows and rope,” Arai pointed out.

“We do,” Juni agreed, “If you trust that they won’t displace you into the void.”

“The cloud will not help either, that high up,” Senior Ying added.

“The cloud?” Lin Ling asked, reminding her that her friend had never done a ridge running mission.

“The cloud up there drains qi. Think of this as the epicentre for the Rains from the East, up above us and to the east, among those peaks. You can run out of qi in tens of minutes, even with a mantra if you are not careful, and you get miniature weather patterns that mess with teleportation, anchors and such. Even the rocks can drain or repel qi the higher you go. One misplaced arrow might find you drained of qi or falling down a cliff with no warning at all,” she explained.

“Oh…” Lin Ling stared up at the cloud above them and shuddered.

“If the cloud rises or the rain clears up it would be another matter, but if we can get through here by means other than shoot arrows in the air, that’s what we are going to do,” Juni agreed.

On that cheerful note, the set off again, heading for the middle of the ruined complex in the first instance. Everywhere, greenery was blooming. Most surfaces were covered in moss, even the flooded ones, speaking to the recent rising water. Ceremonial ponds were just about visible thanks to the tops of reeds still being visible over the water, so those were easy enough to avoid, but they still nearly walked into two canals because the makers of this place had been entirely adverse to walls on the edges of their water-courses.

It was also clearly not a ridgeline. Many of the ponds had spiritual lotuses growing in them, while two of the plazas they walked through contained spirit trees with unripe fruit. Carefully cutting one down, she tested it and found it was a kind of plum and probably close to being Dao Seeking grade fruit.

They had just crossed their third canal, this time by bridge rather than a teleport arrow, and were pondering where to go next, when Lin Ling who was walking beside her gave her arm a tug.

“Look, up there!” Lin Ling told her, pointing off to their left.

Turning her attention from the lotuses in the waterway which were… oddly familiar for some reason, she focused on what Lin Ling had spotted.

On a spur of the rugged cliffs to their left, was an area that would once have been walled off, accessible via steps. The wall had since collapsed due to subsidence, revealing a broad garden beyond it dominated by a bunch of myrtle trees.

“…”

“That…” she squinted through the rain at them. “Myrtle trees?”

“Listen…” Lin Ling hissed.

Pausing, she did as Lin Ling instructed, but got nothing beyond the sounds of falling water, lapping water and a gentle sighing sound that ran…

She focused on the ‘sighing’, and found herself slightly calmed.

“You hear it?” Lin Ling said.

“I… think so?” she replied, because it was very faint and the prevalent breeze from the waterfalls was not helping.

“What is it?” Juni called over, the others had stopped now to see what was keeping them.

“There is a garden with Myrtle over there,” Lin Ling pointed towards it.

“Myrtle, up here, are you sure?” Mu Shi asked, wading over.

“It does look it…” Arai conceded.

“Well, it’s something,” Juni said, “and not standing in water for a bit appeals…”

“Yes, it rather does,” Senior Ying agreed.

It took them maybe ten minutes in the end, to cross over and make their way up to the formerly walled off terrace. Standing in the gateway, they took in the tangle of greenery enmeshing the myrtle trees which were surviving at the edge of a square ornamental pond pensively.

“Well, they are certainly ‘whispering myrtle’,” Senior Ying concluded after they had observed the overgrown maze for a bit.

“Well, at least one is,” Juni said.

“You say that… but my compass is telling me there are quite a few herbs in here,” Mu Shi muttered.

“There will certainly be a few in the pond… a myrtle, and… that’s a jasmine…” Arai observed, pointing to a flowering plant covering one of the myrtle trees.

“That’s an earth rose…” Senior Ying added, drawing her attention to a tangled tree that was winding its way through the wall to their right.

“There is no question regarding marking this,” she said decisively, looking around.

“Yep…” Mu Shi agreed.

“Hold up on that thought,” Senior Ying, who was still surveying the garden, muttered.

“Obviously we check for threats, first,” she added.

“No, that’s not it…” Senior Ying murmured, “There is a shrine here…”

Following where she was pointing, she saw that the priestess was right. The cliff side of the garden terrace held a colonnaded shrine, almost lost to the vegetation. Making their way carefully through the tangle of greenery, they arrived at a semi-circular set of steps that led to a crescent shaped raised platform holding an altar, now overshadowed by the trees growing out of the cliff above.

Behind it, there was not one, but three statues. The left hand one was clearly the woman from the grand shrine, while the right was similar in her appearance but more… sensual in subtle ways. The middle had the vibrancy of a young girl, maybe a year or two older than Lin Ling in her appearance.

Comparing the three, who were all depicted with golden hair in various shades, it was almost like looking at the same person, in different stages of their life. A matronly beauty, a sensual young woman and a vivacious teenager. The main difference, beside their age and their figures, was their eyes. The eldest had green eyes, the youngest silver and the middle one piercing blue.

“Before you ask, they all have the same name,” Senior Ying remarked drily. “Reads roughly as ‘Potnia’ which is possibly a transliteration as I have never seen that word in Ancient Easten before and I was pretty sure I was fluent in it, thanks to my teacher being an eccentric b…”

She trailed off, and sighed wryly.

-Did she nearly just call her teacher an ‘eccentric bitch’? She wondered, giving Senior Ying a sideways look.

“The stylings do look different though,” Juni remarked, having walked over to the older woman, holding the dove in one hand and bunch of red poppy flowers in the other, to look at the inscription below her more carefully. “This one here… doesn’t it mean ‘house’ in wind script?”

“Wind script…” Ying stared at the word Juni was pointing to. “Mother… no, Mistress of the House?”

Senior Ying turned to the other two… “Then the middle girl, holding the spear and the bow is ‘Mistress of the Animals’—”

“And the right hand one is ‘Mistress of the Heart’?” she added, feeling a bit left out at this point.

“You… know wind script?” Juni blinked.

“Enough to read the Ling clan’s divination manual,” she replied blandly. “Heart is the cardinal symbol for the ascendant east.”

“That it is,” Senior Ying mused, giving her a long look.

-Ah, crap, she grimaced, hoping she had not gotten Ling Yu in trouble, though in fairness, if it was not suitable, she was sure Baisheng would have stopped her friend from showing her that text.

“So, it’s a garden protected by all three of these figures?” Juni mused.

“Or in honour of them…” Senior Ying said. “Note that all of them have some affiliation with plants. The green-eyed one is holding poppies and a dove, the silver-eyed one pigweed and a spear and the blue-eyed one a rose and also a dove for some reason. All three have crowns of myrtle leaves and flowers… and symbolism suggesting their Dao Paths are heavily influenced by ‘life’ in various ways.”

“So they do…” she mused, looking from one to the other.

“What’s pigweed?” Lin Ling asked, after a moment.

“The broad leafed plant over there…” she quickly scanned the surrounding environs to spot it, in one of the more open areas visible near the lake from their current vantage point, and pointed it out to Lin Ling.

“Oh, ‘sage grain’,” Lin Ling exclaimed, looking where she was pointing. “I’ve never heard it called pigweed before.”

“It has a bunch of names,” Senior Ying chuckled. “In ancient Easten I believe it is actually called Amaranth. We called it pigweed when I was young because pigs eat the stuff like crazy.”

“They grow it down by Blue Cliff Town as well, for livestock fodder,” Mu Shi added. “Although it looks a bit different again.”

They stood here in silence, taking in the terrace garden again for a bit. It was quite nice just to be out of the rain, especially since they were all eschewing hats at this point for visibility purposes and cloaks for mobility.

“So… how are we going to go about this?” Arai asked at last, breaking the moment.

“Well, so long as we don’t wreck the harmony of this place, I see no reason why we can’t take most of what we need,” Juni mused. “The main concern is whether any of the herbs here have awakened—”

“And whether this place already has a minder,” she added, looking out at the lush greenery. “This many spirit herbs in one place has to have a catch.”

“You know,” Mu Shi remarked. “It might be that we are overthinking this?”

“Oh?” they both turned to her.

“Well, whispering myrtle is like the foxglove, just much, much better at its job,” Mu Shi pointed out.

“…”

“Indeed,” Senior Ying mused. “My concern with harvesting this is less to do with the herbs and more in regards to the feng shui of the shrine, but as Juni notes, we just have to avoid breaking the already existing balance here.”

“That’s… manageable,” she mused. “We start with the ones that are already putting stress on the natural harmonies and work backwards?”

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

~ SIR HUANG – PORTAM RHANAE, UPPER TOWN ~

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

Sitting in the square, in the heart of the upper portion of Portam Rhanae, its shadows now growing long in the dusky light, Lan Huang watched Yun and the rest put the finishing touches to the talismans required for the dozens of spirit herb pots sitting in the square to be transported back.

“This is… not a terrible haul,” Sir Teng remarked, coming to stand beside him.

“If you pretend not to think about how many spirit stones died to get it,” Sir Cao muttered.

“Quite,” he agreed.

“On the other hand, nobody is dead,” Meilan added, taking a deep gulp of whatever she was drinking.

“How are Yun and the others holding up?” he asked her, having not had as much of a chance to keep an eye on either thanks to needing to keep a full eye on both Din scions and Caolun’s bunch.

“They are walking, and just about talking, but a full day of using immortal grade formations is taking its toll,” Sir Teng said. “I must admit, I misjudged both Yun and Leng in terms of their foundations…”

“Yes, that is a problem,” he sighed.

-At this rate, someone, like the Din bunch, are going to do some sums on their performance and realise that they have higher grade foundations than the Ha family or the Erlang family might want to advertise… he reflected.

“Yes… I think that Din Jian already has his eye on Ha Yun at least…” Meilan mused.

“Oh?” he frowned.

He had noticed the pair have a few interactions with Ha Yun, but mostly they had stuck with Caolun’s group, who were happy to play second fiddle to them, with the exception of Pei Quan, who had seemed to share Ha Leng’s issues with the breakneck pace of the sealing.

Pei Quan was another surprise, because he was holding up almost as well as Yun, Leng and Caolun, in terms of his resistance to qi-exhaustion.

“This is all done!” Ha Yun called over.

“Can we start teleporting things back?” he sent through the talisman to Ha Faolian.

“…”

“Yes,” Faolian confirmed. “How has the day been?”

“Tiring…” he sent back. “What about the other groups…?”

“Han Shu and Yun’s friends are still out,” Faolian replied. “They messaged to say they are on their last quadrant about twenty minutes ago?

“Priestess Ying’s group… Well they are still out as well, you will want to see the things they sent back earlier…”

-That’s not cryptic at all, he mused, but didn’t pry, because sometimes it was nice to be surprised.

“Any news on that talisman update front?”

“None beyond the obvious,” Faolian said, after a short pause, which was about what he expected. “The groups here that we did manage to send out into Western Falls Valley with Jiang Wushen and Kun Ji are… a bit miffed, and the Din clan bunch are smooth as a baby’s bottom. I imagine that is going to blow up when Ha Yun and company get back.”

“…”

“You can start teleporting it!” he called down, finding that Yun and the others were still waiting on his reply.

Yun and Leng both waved in acknowledgement as Leng started to feed jades into the formation circle.

“We will send the herbs through first,” he added, to Faolian. “There are quite a few, in spite of what we were sending back earlier.”

“Got it, I’ll let you know when they are clear,” she replied, ending the connection.

“FIVE! Four, three, two… one…”

He watched as Leng counted down, checking everyone was clear, and the last of the day’s endeavour was sent back to the inn in a coruscating swirl of mist and scattered qi.

“You were not joking…” Faolian sent back. “We should be good for you to teleport in five minutes.”

“Okay,” he confirmed, then hopped off the stone platform beside the shrine steps he was sitting on and made his way down to Yun and the others.

“—I understand that there are more ruins up the cliff?” Din Jian Fuhao was asking as he came into earshot.

“Yeah, we haven’t been up there though,” Caolun answered.

“The talk was that there are tombs maybe?” Ha Fanjing added. “But the hunters explored those and haven’t talked about it…”

“Oh?” Din Jian asked.

“Yeah, they also got first crack at the shrine up the steps,” Fanjing sighed. “Who can say what they found.”

“Probably more of what we found in the town,” Leng muttered. “Poisonous spirit vegetation and scavenging qi beasts.”

“Yeah, but—"

“…”

“—Oh, Sir Huang,” Pei Quan glanced up and then gave him the barest of salutes.

“Good work today, Brother Huang,” Din Kongfei said with a slight smile. “I have to admit, I did not expect much from such a small local sect, but clearly the Ha clan has some capability.”

“Why, thank you,” he replied smoothly, not letting any trace of his inner derision at that comment slip out.

“Fairy Xiang is also very talented,” Din Jian agreed, giving her a slight smile, as she followed him over. “Both as a dancer and as a feng shui expert.”

“Why thank you,” she replied, echoing him. “Today I have certainly had a chance to see the style of the Din clan.”

“…”

Fanjing and Pei Quan both looked at her sideways, but neither Din clan scion seemed to take her comment as anything other than praise for their efforts.

“It is a shame that it is going to be dark soon,” Din Kongfei mused. “I would have liked to go up the cliff and see some of these other ruins.”

“…”

“Perhaps there will be an opportunity,” he said blandly.

“Of course, of course,” Din Jian agreed magnanimously. “If the opportunity arises, perhaps Brother Caolun and Brother Yun could show us tomorrow?”

“Perhaps,” he conceded noncommittal. “Associate Ha Botan will agree to escort you?”

“Between us, Ha Botan is a bit annoying,” Din Jian muttered. “He is more interested in the Din clan’s long shadow than the opportunities in front of him.”

-You are not wrong there in all likelihood, he agreed to himself.

Any elder with a modicum of perspective would care little for either of these two, and be much more interested in making a good impression with those keeping an eye on them. It was already interesting that no minders from the Din clan had come with them, unless one of the other two was one of their more experienced Senior Brothers or an elder just playing pig before any tigers.

“What kind of dangers do exist up here, after dark?” Din Jian asked.

“Hook bats, primarily,” Xiang Meilan said.

“Bats?” Ha Fanjing frowned.

“Yes, roosts were found in a gorge to the south, and on the heights of the far side of the valley,” Xiang Meilan replied. “Even the weak ones are at golden core and a single roost can have several hundred. How confident are you that you can fight off hundreds or thousands of predatory, nocturnal flying qi-beasts in this weather?”

“That does sound rather vexatious,” Din Jian agreed.

“Also, the suppression gets worse at night,” Jiang Teng added.

“—You can teleport at your convenience,” Faolian murmured through the talisman, interrupting his thoughts on that.

“It seems we are good to go,” he said brightly.

Leng, who had been quietly refreshing the teleport formation while they talked, started handing out talismans to everyone to use. Taking his, he put his qi into it and waited.

“Everyone good?” Leng asked, looking around.

There was a chorus of affirmative nods, but he still did a surreptitious check himself in case, in their tiredness anyone was standing on the edge of the formation. That was an unpleasant way to nearly kill yourself at the best of times. Up here it probably would kill a sub-immortal cultivator outright, just due to the way the suppression worked.

“Three… two… one…”

Leng triggered the teleport and their surroundings twisted and distorted. The darkening valley and ruined town melded into the shadowy gloom and lit lanterns of the gorge.

“Ah…. Back again,” Xiang Meilan sighed, once their surroundings had stabilized.

“Welcome back,” Ha Faolian was standing by the steps, watching as the Ling clan guards sorted through herb pots.

“How come they are doing that?” he asked, mostly out of habit rather than any expectation that the answer would surprise him.

Ha Faolian’s level look told him all he needed to know there.

“All of you, good work today,” he said to the others, though mainly Yun and Leng at this point.

Both gave him wan smiles as they trooped off the platform.

“Indeed, Brother Huang, Brother Teng…” Din Kongfei replied breezily.

“Go get cleaned up and rested,” he added to the juniors. “I guess you can amaze Brother Kongfei and Brother Fuhao here with the baths.”

“I must admit, I am curious to see them,” Din Jian agreed.

“Of course,” Ha Caolun agreed, before Fanjing could do so. “They almost make this place worthwhile.”

“Peer pressure is a terrible thing,” Xiang Meilan observed as they watched the whole group head off.

“There is hope for Yun and Leng,” he noted watching Yun and Leng grab a herb pot apiece and shuttle off to the storerooms.

“…”

“Huh…” Meilan Xiang grunted as Din Jian and Din Kongfei also paused and took a pot each from where the Ling guards were organizing them.

“Don’t be surprised,” he said drily. “Their play is not as simple as it looks.”

“Evidently not,” Meilan Xiang murmured.

Ha Faolian was also frowning. Certainly with her experience, she would be familiar with the sort of play unfolding. Meilan was as well, truth be told, but it was hard to see past the outward perception of the ‘elites’ from over the water, especially if they had been built up as a very obvious problem.

“You said the Kun Juni and Priestess Ying’s group brought some stuff back?” he added, curious about that.

“Oh, festering monkeyshit!” Ha Faolian cursed, staring at Din Kongfei and Din Jian and the others vanishing into the storehouse.

Off to the side, the small monkey, who had been watching, frowned and intimated that ‘all shit festered, not just that belonging to superior simians’

“You left it out?” he asked.

“…”

“Mo Shunfei has just put them away,” Faolian sighed, having presumably spoken to him through a talisman. “I’ll show you later, when that bunch of magpies are not poking about.”

“In that case, I will go get freshened up,” he said. “How are the Ling group?”

“Two scions, Ling Tengfei and Ling Beifan, along with a youth from the Qing clan, Qing Aofang, and two from the Bai clan; Bai Cheng and Bai Laofan,” Faolian said, starting to walk with him and Meilan Xiang across the plaza towards the inn.

“Don’t you know the elder?” he added.

“Ah, we do have some acquaintance,” Ha Faolian conceded. “Ling Leng Dushan, he married a daughter of Leng Fei and left the Hunter Bureau a decade or so before the Three Schools Conflict. He is competent enough as I recall. Likely his impression of me is greater than mine of him.”

“Ah, it’s like that,” Xiang Meilan observed with some amusement.

Ha Faolian just shrugged, before continuing. “What I did gather is that the Ling clan are intending to send another group through. That is why Ling Dushan came with this bunch and not just because of Ha Botan and that group.”

“How have the other two Din scions been?” he asked, as they entered the inn proper, which held about ten people at this point, at various tables.

“Quiet? Polite? For their ‘status’ at least,” Ha Faolian sighed. “Though they barely have to do anything anyway, the Cao and Ji juniors are so eager to make a good impression.”

“That is the way it goes,” he reflected. “Usually, ‘Young Nobles do not… threaten. They visit, they talk, they admire beauties, they drink wine and they feast, and miraculously those whom they visited always come out on the same page afterwards’.”

“Who are you quoting there?” Ha Faolian chuckled. “Seng Mo?”

“No, an old fellow called Lan Huang,” he remarked drily. “He wrote a snarky polemic on the ‘philosophical outlook’ of the ‘young noble’ some millennia ago after a few events at his school in the western continent. It was quite famous for a while.”

“Your old ancestor…” Xiang Meilan giggled.

“Ah… Hah…” Ha Faolian half laughed.

The three of them chatted away for a while longer, until Ha Faolian was called away to see to the returning group of Yun’s friends, at which point both he and Meilan relocated to the kitchen, where Diaomei was preparing dinner, helped by one of the guards, Ling Zhan Bei, who was cutting up fish.

“Based on the fact that Zhan Bei is the one helping you, it seems I am going to be back here tomorrow, aren’t I?” Xiang Meilan said with a sigh.

“Yes,” Diaomei said, putting her hands on the counter and sighing.

“Oh, we have been doing quite well today,” Zhan Bei said companionably.

“Yes, we have,” Diaomei conceded, “however this is hardly your job, Corporal Zhan.”

“I cannot disagree there,” Zhan Bei agreed, finishing slicing up his fish. “However, it does make a nice change from sitting in a watch tower listening to birds complain about the rain and seeing strange patterns in the low cloud.”

“Can I help?” he asked, looking around.

“Hmm… yes, fry me noodles,” Diaomei said blandly, “Though you might want to change first. I doubt our exalted guests want their dinner to taste of silt and beast blood.”

“…”

Rolling his eyes, he headed back out of the kitchen, followed by Meilan.

“If I want a bath I think it will be in the shrine,” Meilan mused, looking critically around the common room.

“Probably not a bad idea,” he agreed, before adding more quietly, “If anyone bothers you, make it clear that that bath is for women only. Wave the Blue Morality under their noses as well if they disagree.”

“Hah… you don’t need to tell me that,” she murmured.

He watched her head off, back out into the rain, then turned and headed for the actual baths, again feeling quite a bit of sympathy for the female hunters and experts. At this point, almost three quarters of those here were male, and most of them gave little, if any, consideration as to the circumstances of their ‘fairer’ compatriots, unless it was to joke with, flatter or outright pester them.

The baths themselves had a few of Ha Wufan and Ha Caolun’s cronies already there, laughing crudely and drinking wine. None of them gave him more than a cursory glance as he came in, which in this case was fine, because he had no interest in them either. Stripping off, he slipped into the main pool at the far end and simply sat cross-legged, doing breathing exercises for a while, examining his condition.

At this point it was difficult to even think of it as a ‘puppet’. It felt absolutely no different from his real self. The few knocks and scrapes he had taken, some rather deliberately, were still superficially present, but none of them hindered him in any way at this point.

“—I am surprised to see a pure body cultivator in the Ha clan…”

He looked up to find the youth from the Qing clan, if he recalled right, had come to sit near him.

“Ha Huang,” he introduced himself, having been stirred from his musing.

“Qing Aofang,” the youth replied, before adding, “Wine?”

“Sure,” he agreed, accepting a cup.

“This place is quite remarkable,” Qing Aofang added. “It is little wonder that the Ling clan intends to use it as a forward base for their participation in the trial.”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed absently, sipping the wine, which was of tolerable quality, if rather too warm for his taste.

“Oh! Aofang! Here you are!”

“Brother Cheng… you finally finished… whatever it was you went off to do?” Qing Aofang said to the new arrival.

“Ah, I ended up going and having wine with the bunch in the other building, mostly out of curiosity, they are very provincial,” Bai Cheng said blandly. “In the way of the Ha clan.”

“…”

“Ha Huang,” he said by way of introduction.

“…”

“Bai Cheng,” the dark haired youth said, not registering so much as a flicker of an apology for his earlier comment, even though it was entirely accurate in his own estimation anyway.

“Daoist Huang here is a body cultivator, quite rare to see a specialist one,” Qing Aofang added.

“I suppose I am,” he conceded, as it was not a ‘wrong’ assumption. “I wonder how you arrived at that conclusion?”

“Your recovery is better than the others here, by a massive margin,” Qing Aofang grinned, proffering his cup of wine. “I also have a body method, which is why I elected to come up here. Us fellows who follow unorthodox paths should stick together, eh?”

Rolling his eyes, he accepted Qing Aofang’s humorous toast.

“I must admit, I regret not picking up the Bai clan’s method,” Bai Cheng sighed, staring up at the ceiling, “However, you must admit, the training to get the best out of a body refinement foundation is just… time-consuming?”

“I suppose so,” he replied, amused more than anything by that failure of a justification for not learning one.

“You disagree?” Bai Cheng remarked, a bit archly.

“Sure, it may have taken me a while, but knowing one, I can rest easy that I won’t be beaten up in the street,” he replied drily.

“This is true,” Qing Aofang chuckled. “So, Daoist Huang, or can I address you as Brother Huang?”

“Brother is fine,” he said absently, not really caring how familiar they wanted to be. “What is it you want to ask me?”

“Haha… straight to the point,” Qing Aofang said ruefully. “Really, we just wanted to be sociable and I was curious given you are a body cultivator, what your experiences were up here…”

Sitting back against the edge of the pool he stared at the ceiling and sipped the wine for a moment, then decided that there was no harm in it. It also provided an opportunity to get a better idea of what was going on with the Ling clan side.

“Well, I can tell you you will save a fortune in replenishment pills, though even spiritual cultivators should avoid that up here, this pool is a fate-sent blessing in that regard…”

They chatted away for some thirty minutes, mostly about what he had been up to that day, until a weary Han Shu, Duan Mu and the rest came in. After that, he spent some time catching up on how that group had gotten on, with the Bai group listening in with interest, before finally taking his leave and heading upstairs to change into a fresh robe. Once he had fixed that, he went back to the storehouse, curious about what Priestess Ying and Kun Juni had found, only to find the door properly guarded by Ling Shun.

“Am I forbidden entry?” he asked drily, eyeing the closed door.

“Ah, no, it’s just been that kind of day,” Ling Shun sighed. “Lots of nosy people ‘meaning well’, but with ‘agendas’.”

“I can imagine,” he replied, stowing away his umbrella. “Is Faolian in there?”

“Yes, along with Shunfei and Kun Juni,” Ling Shun replied.

“Oh, they came back?” he asked, having wondered about that.

“Yes, about ten minutes ago,” Shun replied, pushing the door open for him.

Nodding in thanks, he headed inside, and down the corridor to the main storeroom, which at this point resembled a prosperous herb brokerage in Blue Water City.

“Sir Huang,” Kun Juni gave him a polite salute as he entered.

“Done with freshening up?” Faolian asked him with a grin.

“De-stressing more like,” he sighed. “It’s not easy keeping a bunch of Din scions from themselves you know.”

“icck,” Lianmei grimaced. “Was it that bad?”

“Depends,” he replied. “It’s about what I expected, whether that is good or bad for our purposes I don’t know yet. They were polite, engaged, actually quite competent, but vaguely superior in their demeanour.”

“That does sound about right,” Priestess Ying, who he had entirely failed to notice, added.

“They want to go look at the tombs tomorrow though…” he added.

“I had a pretty good look at them,” Priestess Ying said. “Unless you’re interested in the very ancient history of these ruins and who built them, there’s probably not a lot for you there.”

“Danger?” he added.

Juni shrugged and looked at Priestess Ying, who frowned and the also shrugged. “I wouldn’t disturb anything, let’s put it that way, but they are old enough that anything other than placed feng shui alignments are likely long gone in the open ones.”

“There are unopened ones?”

“A few,” Kun Juni nodded.

Grimacing, he decided that he would probably have to go with the group.

“So, what was this spectacular find that you recovered that Faolian was teasing me with earlier?” he asked instead.

“…”

“Go open that jar over by the table,” Lianmei said blandly.

Frowning, he walked over to the sealed jar and opened it… and stared dully.

“Whispering myrtle seeds!?” he exclaimed, picking a handful out and examining them.

-And they are almost Golden Immortal grade, these will grow immortal realm saplings straight from germination…

“Quasi-Golden Immortal realm, and they have provoked mutations in a bunch of other things,” Lianmei said with a broad smile. “All of which Juni’s group recovered bits of. We even have samplings of the myrtle, two chosen immortal sage grain plants… a mutated chosen immortal rock rose… and a jasmine, species yet to be determined, it might be an entirely new thing…”

“And the lotuses,” Faolian added.

“That’s… five elements?” he blinked looking around.

“Yep, and all of them are basically Chosen Immortal realm spirit herbs,” Lianmei nodded. “And all of them mutated by long term exposure to the whispering myrtle.”

“That is certainly a prize,” he agreed, impressed.

-You could set up a herb garden that grows nearly anything with that degree of alignment dampening, he mused, running a few more of the seeds through his fingers as he considered that.

“Where did you dig this lot up from?” he asked at last, putting the seeds back in the jar with a sigh.

“…”

“The far side, beneath the cliffs, there is another massive shrine complex above the upper town, several large temples, all of it currently flooded due to the excess water coming down the mountain,” Juni said after a long pause.

“We didn’t mark it,” she added.

“Wise,” he mused. “Especially now that it’s been clarified that authority talismans will be part of the trial.”

“Yeah,” Juni made an unhappy face. “Han Shu and Duan Mu have already been approached by Caolun in that regard.”

“The others who came back are just hanging out in the shrine, drinking wine and wondering whether dinner can be take-out.” Priestess Ying added with an eye roll.

“I can’t blame them at all,” he grimaced. “This is not that nice a place to be a young woman all of a sudden.”

“It is becoming rather vexatious for them,” Lianmei agreed. “That’s why tomorrow, we will probably move forward with what was discussed before.”

“Set out with the majority of the hunters to explore over the ridge?” he asked.

“Yep,” Lianmei agreed. “Probably we will need to shuttle people back at night, because there are enough tasks needing doing here that only they can do, especially in regards to the arboretum and the like.”

“Diaomei was saying she probably needs Meilan back,” he added.

“Not surprising,” Mo Shunfei agreed. “There are almost fifty people here now, not that you would know it at times.”

“Well, the good news is that there is likely a path beyond the ridge,” Juni cut in, tapping the tablet sitting on the table and projecting a map for him to look at. “There is actually a third level to the town, a ruined complex of buildings on top of the ridgeline, overlooking the next valley. That was why we were so late back, we ended up going all the way up.”

“So tomorrow you will start from there, while everyone else goes to the plaza?” he guessed.

“Yes, unfortunately, it’s not a real ridge, which was predictable really in the grand scheme of things,” Kun Juni added. “Otherwise we would probably have stayed out there to save time.”

“What do you want from the Cherry Wine Pagoda then?” he asked Lianmei.

“Up to you,” Lianmei said. “Ying, you are happy to keep helping Juni’s group?”

“Sure,” she replied “Although I can also do stuff here, like the arboretum, or sorting out the feng shui of the warehouse. We might need to use the myrtle…”

“I can also do that,” he said, casting an eye around. “As can Diaomei, if necessary.”

“Certainly, some Hunters will have to stay back to manage this,” Lianmei agreed. “Mu Shi probably, because she has experience with this kind of task. Unfortunately Sana will want to go with her sister I imagine?”

“She will,” Kun Juni confirmed.

“Any one of Yufan, Leng or Yun would be useful here,” he suggested.

“I’d rather keep all the Ha scions out of this, if possible,” Lianmei said, giving him an apologetic grimace.

“No, I understand,” he murmured, allowing himself a frustrated sigh.

It was a bit depressing, but her point was valid.

The hunters had a real stake in this, and had the mission and their livelihoods wrapped up in matters. However, the Ha clan group – Yun, Leng and maybe Yufan aside – were just here for the opportunity, the trial or because they had been told to come by their elders.

“The Din clan presence complicates everything,” he muttered.

“It does, yes,” Priestess Ying agreed.

The Din clan scions were clearly trying to build up a rapport with Yun, Caolun and Wufan, presumably to entice them with the idea that they could join an influence under their control. He was clearer, he was fairly certain, than anyone else here of the depths of enticement that a clan like the Din could put out. Beauties, treasures, cultivation methods, influence, friends, they could supply it all, much like the Ling clan was throwing resources at the issue of the herb shortfall for the gift.

Yufan’s family situation with the split in the Shi clan made him vulnerable, Leng had already been working with Caolun, Ha Botan and the Din scions, while Yun had been feted from pillar to post after his lucky win at the Patriarch’s tournament.

In that regard, some of their problems could be alleviated if he outed Yun as a Cherry Wine Pagoda disciple. However, for now that was not something he wanted foregrounded, much like the talismans he and Ancestor Kai had supplied to Ha Feirong for his son to refine.

“…”

He nearly asked how confident they were in the hunters, but in the end, did not. For all that he felt a bit aggrieved that the Ha had not undeservingly been singled out, that was something to bring up privately, with Lianmei.

The Din clan were not the only potential worry here, although the others would probably not act directly to undermine what was going on.

“I also had a rather interesting chat with Qing Aofang and Bai Cheng…” he added instead, deciding to frame the problem in that way.

“Did you now?” Lianmei asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh-huh, over wine, in the baths. Singled me out as someone with a Body Cultivation method, and were not that concerned that I was with the Ha clan…” he mused.

“Complications… everywhere,” Faolian agreed with a soft sigh.

“Quite,” he agreed.

It was somewhat amusing really, that the attitudes of the Ha clan scions up to this point had probably done irreparable damage there.

The Din, Qing and Bai were probably all cursing in their hearts at this point, that they had not brought any female disciples along. It was hard to build up a good impression with young women in male dominated circumstances like this.

“Yes, it is most fortuitous that the Ha clan sent a bunch of absolute brats up here,” he added with grin, not above claiming that small, serendipitous bit of good fortune as deliberate.

“…”

Lianmei, Juni and Faolian however, all just gave him sideways looks, and even Mo Shunfei raised an eyebrow.

“Anyway,” he added, moving on quickly, “If we act as you have suggested, Lianmei, most of their plotting will be moot anyway.”

“It is certainly another point in favour of splitting our forces up,” Mo Shunfei agreed.

“Yes, it is,” Lianmei agreed smoothly, before turning to Shunfei. “In regards to here, though, you have the best idea I think, about what needs done. Do you want to take us though this?” she gestured to the re-organisation of the herb stores that was going on throughout the hall.

“Yes, of course…” Mo Shunfei said, stopping leaning on the table, and picking up a tablet.

They talked away for quite some time after that, mostly about the organisation of the huge number of herbs up here now, and whether some of them would need sent down, until Diaomei actually came to tell them that dinner was ready.

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

~ KUN JUNI – MISTY JASMINE INN ~

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

Sitting at a table on the second floor of the common area of the inn with Sana, Juni found herself staring at the various bits of projected maps between them, somewhat lost in her own thoughts.

“—only a table of people…”

“Sorry?” she blinked, realising she had been staring at the point cloud without any idea of what she wanted to do with it, and turned to Sana.

“I said I miss the time when it was only a table of people,” Sana repeated, pushing her half-finished bowl of fried noodles away with a sigh.

“Oh… yeah,” she nodded in agreement.

It had been nice when they first got here, in a frenetic sort of way. That she had not been able to enjoy it more, in light of circumstances now, was just another little reason for her to dislike the Kun clan elders and her uncle.

“Honestly, I miss being able to just go use the main baths,” she added with a sigh. “I did go once, the other day, ended up being drooled over by Ha Yun for my trouble.”

Sana just made a face, then reached for the wine and refilled both their cups.

“I never thought I would willingly say this, but I am looking forward to sitting in some damp rock-shelter in a ridgeline staring at the greenery in paranoia, wondering if the weird shapes in the trees are just that or some horrible monstrosity trying to spook me,” Sana muttered.

“To rock shelters…” she agreed with a grin, tapping her cup against Sana’s.

“—and never being dry,” Sana added.

Downing the wine, she sat back and sighed, staring at the ceiling.

“Ah… company,” Sana sighed a moment later.

“Company?” Turning, she looked behind her and found that a pair of youths with dark hair and fair features had come over to them.

“—Young Lady Kun?” the taller of the two asked, giving her a pleasant smile.

“Can we help you?” she asked, recognising them as two of the group who had come with the Ling clan’s offering to their shattered idyll.

“Yes, sorry, it is presumptuous of us to come over, unsolicited,” Bai Laofan apologized. “I am Bai Laofan, this is my junior brother Cheng,” he added. “We are good friends of a mutual acquaintance? Brother Jiang...”

“Bai Jiang,” she mused, looking from one to the other. “Yes, we have some slight acquaintance. He visited the Kun clan before I had to come up here.”

“Senior Brother spoke in glowing terms of his time in the Kun clan, and of your excellent hospitality, Young Lady Kun,” Bai Laofan went on. “Indeed, we had intended to make that trip, but alas, were delayed in Blue Water City, my brother here bought a herb in the auction that was problematic,” Bai Laofan murmured.

“That is… unfortunate,” Sana, who was something of a hidden expert on the ‘problematic purchases’ of said auction, remarked with aplomb.

Bai Cheng glanced at Sana, who had not yet introduced herself.

“Jun Sana,” Sana murmured, giving them both a polite nod.

“Miss Jun, yes, Senior Brother Jiang also spoke very highly of you… and your sister?” Bai Cheng Laofan, rather smoothly she thought.

-So, that’s their game? They want to cosy up to us through Bai Jiang? she mused, noting that both had glanced at the empty seats now.

-Should I give them points for not simply sitting down already?

“I must profess that when we were invited to come up here, by Brother Tengfei, we did not expect such illustrious young ladies as yourselves to be here as well,” Bai Laofan added. “Had we known that you were both up here, perhaps Senior Brother Jiang might also have accompanied us…”

“I am sure he would find the experience… interesting. Capable alchemists are useful anywhere,” she replied with a half-smile, not motioning for them to sit, not yet anyway. “Is that why you are both here?”

Bai Jiang had made no mention of either of these two, but then again, he had spoken relatively little about himself, until the Patriarch’s banquet…

“Aaha….” Bai Laofan laughed politely. “I am honoured you think my alchemical talents can compare to Brother Jiang’s.”

“As to how we are here, it was quite serendipitous really,” Bai Cheng added.

“Brother Laofan, Brother Cheng, here you are…”

The third youth, a muscular young man with sandy hair and a neatly trimmed beard, had also come over to join them.

“Brother Aofang, we missed you below,” Bai Cheng said.

“It is a bit raucous…” Aofang sighed, before looking at the two of them. “I am Qing Aofang, my apologies young ladies, are my good friends intruding into your meal?”

Sana gave a non-committal shrug and signed, while pretending to adjust the plait in her hair; “Are they trying to cosy up to us like the other bunch with Han Shu?”

“Of course,” she sent back, disguising the reply in picking up her own wine cup.

“Not really,” she added out loud, then, because it occurred to her that this could be a good opportunity to get some useful information on what was going on in the lowlands…“By all means, please join us, it is indeed rather raucous below.”

“What is that you are examining?” Bai Cheng asked, taking a seat opposite her and eyeing the shifting point cloud.

“Survey data for the forest valleys,” she said. “So we have maps to navigate by out there…”

“I am surprised there are not already maps?” Bai Cheng mused.

“A map from last week is already out of date,” Sana said with an eye roll. “In this rain a valley can change overnight.”

“Hmm… Brother Jiang did say that the valleys were surprising…” Qing Aofang murmured.

“—So, you were saying about this trial?” she interjected, steering the conversation back to where she wanted it to go. “We have been stuck up here since before all that unfolded…”

She trailed off again as another youth, who had just come up to the second floor, holding some food and a jar of wine on a tray looked around, frowning then spotted them and sighed.

“Yeah, we have,” Sana agreed, catching onto what she was doing.

“So this is where you three vanished… Ah, Young Lady Kun…” the youth said, hurrying over and then stopping abruptly as he recognised her.

“…”

“Oh, Brother Tengfei, you were still in the baths, I should have waited on you!” Bai Luofan said apologetically, actually standing to take the tray. “Can I get either of you young ladies something?” he added.

“I know this is self-serving, but can we trade this lot for the Ha clan?” Sana signed unobtrusively.

“Pfft!” she almost laughed at that and then had to cover it with a slight cough.

“Yes, Luofan, we will take whatever you are having,” she replied politely.

“Tengfei…” Sana added, staring at him with a frown. “You… did you take part in the tournament in the great square?”

“Ah… uh, yes,” Tengfei replied, sitting down as Bai Luofan headed off to very generously get more food for them.

“Against…” Sana drummed her fingers on the table, still frowning. “Young Hero…Wei Zhaohui?”

“…”

Ling Tengfei’s expression was amusingly conflicted, she felt.

“Yes, I was cheering for the Ling clan,” Sana added with aplomb. “I thought you fought very well, given the enviable advantages Wei Zhaohui has.”

“—He is the one who found that inheritance?” Qing Aofang interjected.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “He found a teaching in a cave that belonged to an ancient expert associated with the Blue Water Sage.”

“That…” Tengfei grimaced, then sighed and nodded. “I also cannot help but feel we have met somewhere before? Miss…?

“Jun Sana,” Sana replied. “I have some acquaintance with the Ling clan, so it’s possible.”

“Jun…” Tengfei stared at her dubiously. “Wait… the ‘Herb Hunter’? Ling Yu’s… friend?”

“…”

Realizing that he had actually been rather rude there, Ling Tengfei, to his credit, grimaced.

“I suppose I should be flattered that I am ‘the’ Herb Hunter,” Sana sighed, a bit theatrically, before adding to her, in a very respectable impression of Ling Yu “the words of your people are very strange, Sister Juni.”

“…”

Ling Tengfei eyed Sana and actually winced. “Apologies, Miss Sana, I was just surprised. This is not exactly the place I might have expected to cross paths with you… or Young Lady Kun.”

“So people keep saying,” she agreed drily. “Yet here we all are…”

“Are you also here for the trial?” Ling Cheng asked.

-No, we are here to gather herbs so that the province can avoid being bent into a Shan Lai shaped imperial seal two weeks from now, she said to herself.

“We are here on Hunter Pavilion business… the matter of this gift for the Azure Astral Emperor?” she said instead.

“Oh… yeah, that,” Ling Tengfei grimaced.

“…”

“I assume that the Ling clan has also invited you to help in this matter?” Sana added, glancing at Qing Aofang and Bai Cheng.

“It has come up,” Qing Aofang said. “It is to be expected that the Azure Astral Authority would overreach like that, and play such shameless games, setting the province against itself.”

“Indeed, hearing that, we of course agreed to help the Ling clan,” Bai Cheng agreed.

-Oh yeah, she frowned, looking from him to the Bai pair. Don’t the Bai and Qing hate the Sheng clan as much as the Shan do?

After that, they chatted away, mostly about fairly inane stuff, until Bai Luofan returned with more food. At that point, conversation turned to the trial, though mostly what they told her and Sana largely just confirmed what they had already known; that the trial was still being set up, that there would be further announcements in Blue Water City, that Dun Fanshu had swept in like a whirlwind and that there were various Imperial Advisors overseeing matters.

The specifics of the ‘rewards’ rumoured did make her raise an eyebrow though.

“The Azure Chrysanthemum Hall?” she repeated.

The Azure Chrysanthemum Hall was effectively the Royal Sect.

“Yeah…” Qing Aofang said. “Though it’s unclear exactly who is eligible for that. One rumour has it that the Imperial Uncle, Lord Jian, will personally select a few local disciples who catch his eye…”

“What is basically an open secret though, is that each participating advisor has agreed to take a few of those who excel in this trial, from cultivators born in Blue Water Province, and allow them to enter their core influences as a full disciple…” Bai Luofan added.

“…”

“—That’s the Jade Gate Court, Wisdom Court, Four Peacock’s Court, the Imperial School and maybe even the Shu Pavilion if those rumours are to be believed,” Bai Cheng said with a wistful sigh.

“Oh…”

“That is quite the draw,” she conceded, understanding now why Sir Huang and Lianmei were so concerned.

The allure of any one of those sects was as powerful as the reality of Wei Zhaohui’s good fortune, and when you weighed up the odds, probably better, especially if those spots were limited to local juniors.

The rest of the meal mostly devolved into idle chatter after that; they spent more time discussing the trial, talked about the inn, and the complex in the gorge, which fascinated all four cultivators, and even a bit about some of their less vital exploits in Western Fall’s valley, until she and Sana begged their leave, saying they needed to go prepare things.

The reality of it was that she had not actually had a good soak in the bath yet, and the fatigue of the day was slowly starting to catch up on her, even acclimatized as she was and with a robust, peak physical refinement cultivation foundation.

“Do we go to the big baths or the shrine?” Sana asked as they paused in the stairwell.

“It’s dinner, so actually we might get away with the proper ones,” she mused, turning and walking over towards it.

“Unless some Ha moron is flat drunk in it,” Sana added.

“In that case, we put them face down in the water and leave,” she muttered, only mostly joking.

A part of her felt it was preposterous that they were basically forced to a different building because of the number of men exploiting it shamelessly without any care for them.

As it turned out though, the only people in the baths were Fanqing Diaomei and Ha Faolian, so taking that opportunity, they both stripped off and joined them, sitting in the shallows, sipping wine.

“How was your day?” Diaomei asked her after they had had a chance to soak for a while in silence.

“Did you see what we brought back?” she asked with a weary grin, because the fact that they had found that degree of treasure trove, basically out of nothing, still made her feel warm and fuzzy.

“Oh yes,” Diaomei replied, with a warm laugh. “It is certainly an impressive haul. A few more like it and we will have almost made up all the ground lost to these stupid circumstances.”

“Yep,” Sana agreed, helping herself to more wine. “It’s amazing what can be achieved when you are just left to get on with things.”

“No arguments there,” Faolian murmured, accepting a refill of her own cup from Sana.

They sat there in silence sipping their wine, enjoying the water, until Diaomei spoke again.

“So, how was your chat with the Ling clan’s group?”

“…”

“Odd,” she mused.

“They are also trying to make inroads with you?” Faolian asked.

“Uh-huh,” Sana nodded. “I can’t say it’s forced, but…”

“Welcome to the curse of seeing the agenda in everything,” she sighed, lounging back on the edge of the pool.

“Sadly, a necessary skill for a female cultivator,” Diaomei added.

“Uh-huh…” she murmured.

“Depressing,” Sana agreed.

“—They didn’t actually say much, really, beyond talking about the trial and questions about this place,” she added, by way of an actual answer. “This place fascinates them, certainly.”

“We also traded a few past tales of exploration up here, largely emphasising how fates-sent dangerous it can be,” Sana added with a wicked grin.

“I doubt that will work,” Diaomei said, laughing. “If you show a young noble cultivator danger, their first instinct is usually to stab it with their sword.”

“Which makes it all the more unfair that there are so many of them,” Sana sighed.

“No arguments there,” Diaomei sighed.

“Indeed,” she agreed, while Faolian just rolled her eyes.

They lounged around in the bath for a while longer, before she finally hauled Sana out. Rather than go to bed immediately, they went back to the storehouse and spent a short hour checking the arboretum, which had gained a second large Lingzhi and a few other oddities since she last paid it close attention. Only after some further conferral with Mo Shunfei, regarding the maps, did they head back to their rooms.

Entering hers, she found Lin Ling, who had effectively relocated to her room, vacating her own at the end of the corridor for the Ling clan Elder, was lying on the bed, reading ‘One with the Spear’.

“I didn’t see you at dinner,” she remarked to Ling, sealing the room and sitting down on the bed with a weary sigh.

“I ate with Meilan, in the kitchen,” Ling replied. “It was much more sociable than being an exotic flower in a room full of shit.”

“That bad huh?” she grimaced.

“It’s just the little things… and suddenly nine-star ranked hunters are the ‘flowers of the hour’,” Ling sighed.

“Did someone actually say that?” she asked dully.

“Oh yes,” Lin Ling sneered, rolling over. “Though not to me. I am ‘little sister Ling’.”

Scooting over, she gave Ling a hug, then rolled over to lie on the bed staring at the ceiling.

“I take it we leave before dawn tomorrow?” Ling asked.

“Yes, we leave basically an hour before,” she confirmed.