> The question of ruins in Yin Eclipse is an interesting one. There are, once you start poking beneath the surface, a remarkable number of them, and almost, it must be said, as many questions. For anyone who has spent any time in that ghastly place, it is immediately clear that it is not somewhere at all hospitable, even on the outer edges, and rife with danger—

>

> [Section missing]

>

> What does stand out, however, is that there are some unusual patterns that show up. Ruins cluster oddly, and despite there being a plethora of artefacts that come out of them, it is almost a running joke among scholars who follow such things that each is more aggressively mundane than the last.

>

> Yes, there are tombs, and there are strange shrines and all the things you see in the other great ruin-field of Eastern Azure, the Burning Tiger Mountains on the Western Shu continent, but most of them are part of the bedrock of Yin Eclipse itself. Yes, later ruins build on top of these, and yes, there are occasionally dazzling finds, but the reality is that what we find, in Yin Eclipse, is the lost record of a people who lived. Their pottery, their workshops, occasionally their weapons and the like, all of them beautiful works of art, but all thoroughly mundane except for one enticing riddle – they repel qi, soul sense and any other means of investigation.

>

> The question of who made them, and how, is thus both alluring and frustrating in equal measure, though I shall, in this treatise, endeavour to shed some light on this matter from both my own research, and that of others…

Partial Fragment* from: ‘A treatise on the ruins of Yin Eclipse: A re-appraisal’

  ~ By Imperial Scholar of Shan, Quanluo

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~ JUN ARAI – KUN CLAN ESTATE, JADE WILLOW VILLAGE ~

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Arai lay in the bath and stared at the ceiling, feeling... drained. Part of that was, as before, just backlash from overuse of the pain-suppression and emotional repression techniques; however, it was also because she could only spend so long cursing how shit life was before she felt afflicted by the need to be doing something vaguely productive. As such, after half an hour of lying in the bath drinking, trying her hardest not to use her mantra to make herself feel better… her anger and frustration had mostly just given way to restlessness.

Standing up, she stretched and winced a bit, as her body reminded her that she had been stabbed a few times by the accursed tetrids only hours earlier.

“I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies,” she muttered, poking at her side where the tetrid stalker had stabbed her. “At least they were tetrid stalkers, not shadow-eyed stalkers. The last thing I want is to be feeling like I have a spider sitting on my back for a week.”

The injuries on her forearms and one leg were nowhere near as bad; most of them would still leave minor scars for a few weeks she supposed, though nothing on the scale of what her sister had acquired the previous year when a spirit herb nearly took her arm off in the Inner Valleys.

Sighing, she sat down, cross-legged in the water, and focused on her mantra again.

“…The Spirit and the Heart promote Renewal of the Body and the Soul, binding the Spirit to the Heart, the Renewal of the Body is the Soul of the Spirit and the Heart, Renewal transforms the Body and the Soul…”

It was hard to call it a ‘cycle’, like spiritual cultivators used when they invoked their cultivation laws to move their qi through their meridians, but with each iteration of a chant born of the combined mnemonics she knew a bit of accumulated qi and intent from her experiences would be slowly fused into her flesh and bones, advancing her bit by bit towards the threshold of Mantra Seed.

That was the real difference between physical cultivation and the 'Imperial' methods that originated on the central continent, like spiritual and body cultivation. Both of those methods formed a dantian, pulled qi from the world and refined it before storing it there, hoarding it rather than really integrating it with the body. Physical cultivation, on the other hand, wasn’t about stealing metaphorical good fortune from the heavens; instead it was about becoming one with the existing good fortune of the heavens by leveraging one’s own accumulated experiences, imbuing qi into the bones, flesh and blood directly. Eventually, it would permeate her whole being and begin to transform her.

Her mother had delineated the difference in the methods quite succinctly, really. In spiritual cultivation you fought tooth and nail for every gain, while with physical cultivation you had to accept what was already there, what you earned or were given, and make of it what you should. It was certainly not easy, for all that it sounded like it should be.

The ‘chant’, which was by no means perfect, largely because the ‘Renewal’ mnemonic was quite difficult to fit into the overall cadence of five linked words that fit a single phrase, requiring her to occasionally drop to two or three mnemonic phrases, was a reflection of that as well. Even so, she persisted with it, taking care not to overemphasise the mnemonics themselves, for some five minutes, letting it pull qi around her body, all the while focusing on ‘harmony’ and the idea of ‘reinforcing’ what little gains she had made over the course of the night.

Exhaling one final time, she refocused on her surroundings, finding that the medicinal herbs she had tossed into the bath had lost all their efficacy. Her body was warm, the qi flowing through it touched by hints of water, wood and fire – from the bath, the medicine and the lingering traces of poison from the tetrid stalkers mostly. She took a few deep breaths and observed it as it settled.

The ambient qi around her showed no signs of pressure, largely she supposed because the Kun estate had a lot of sources providing qi for various purposes – from the formations that heated the water, to the protections and filters on the plumbing, to spirit vegetation elsewhere in the suite of rooms. Even the wards against intrusion and the actual defensive formations themselves would contribute to the qi density.

Standing up, she stepped out of the bath and claimed a towel, drying herself off.

Usually that was something you could do with qi, but, yet again, the weather blowing out of Yin Eclipse was full of little idiosyncrasies like that. How it ensured that water stayed wet, even in the face of qi manipulation, during the wet season rains was a mystery as far as she knew, because that property extended to all water in the area touched by the rains, not just the rains themselves, after a short while.

In this case though, it didn’t bother her particularly, because there was something oddly comforting about just having to do non-spiritual things like that after the horrible night she had just endured.

Walking back into the room with her bed, she put on new undergarments, trousers and a knee-length gown in vaguely Kun clan colours, then just flopped onto the bed and stared out of the open screen doors at the rain which was drifting down over the village.

In the end, she managed to lie there for about… a minute, before sitting back up and pulling out the various texts from her storage talisman and considering them pensively.

“Can I be bothered…” she mused out loud, staring at them for a few moments before concluding that she could not, and putting them away again.

“…”

Sighing, she got off the bed and walked over to the table and grabbed a piece of the fried fish to nibble—

*knock knock*

“Yes?” she asked, turning to the door.

“There are messages for you, Miss Jun,” a woman outside said respectfully.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened and the maid she had spoken to before came in and bowed respectfully.

“There are two communications for you, Miss Jun. One, from ah… well, Young Lord Talshin will be here before lunch and hopes to see you at your convenience… and… a request from the village elders to say that they are coming to see you within the hour.”

“…”

-Well, that took them no time at all, she reflected sourly.

“Tell the village elders I am otherwise engaged. I will see them after I meet with Young Lord Talshin,” she said blandly.

“Ah… okay,” the maid looked at her sceptically, but bowed respectfully.

“Oh, there is also a personal request from Young Master Shi. He hopes you might join him and some friends for some light refreshment?”

“…”

She was tempted to say no to that, but on reflection this was Kun Shi’s house, probably, and it would be rude to reject the invitation, so she nodded, then paused as another thought struck her.

“Will Kun Wencheng be there?” she asked.

“Ah, no, Young Master Wencheng is out ‘supervising’. His mother was clear that he needed more responsibility,” the maid replied respectfully. “If you wish to see him, a message can be—”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” she said drily. “Where are Kun Shi and his friends?”

“In the inner courtyard,” the maid answered. “I can show you the way?”

“Please,” she waved a hand politely.

Following after the young woman, she found that the estate was not as bustling as she might have expected. There were folk around, here and there, but mostly it was just servants and the odd guard.

“How come there are not more people about?” she asked, curious, as they arrived at the main courtyard and started to head around it, keeping to the covered edges to avoid the rain.

“The harvest, mostly,” the maid replied, glancing back at her. “And anyone who could has likely left to go to the coast, away from the rain. In any case, usually it is only Young Master Wencheng who stays here, and Young Master Kun Shi, because of the Jade Willow Sect. The estates belong to Lady Ruomei, whose father, Lord Ruo, is the local leader of the Kun clan in this region. Young Master Wencheng is her son.”

-That’s useful to know, she sighed inwardly. Definitely best that I avoid him then.

“Here we are,” the maid added brightly, heading through the door at the far end of the courtyard and through a broad hall into a further courtyard.

“Young Master Shi, Miss Jun is here,” the maid said politely.

Standing in the doorway, she surveyed the ‘courtyard’, which was actually a large flower garden and lawn. The group, who were all male disciples of the Jade Willow Sect about Kun Shi’s age, were sitting around a table under the shelter of a pavilion by the small pond in the garden’s midst. Kun Shi, the only one she immediately recognised, stood up a little hastily and actually saluted her.

“Hunter Jun, please, come join us!” Kun Shi called over with enough earnestness that she was surprised the flowers didn’t actually bloom.

She was about to withdraw an umbrella, but the maid was already ahead of her, offering one for shelter, so not wanting to be rude she just nodded and let the young woman escort her down the path to the pagoda.

“Thank you for the invitation,” she murmured, saluting Kun Shi back.

“Unnecessary, unnecessary, you are a friend of Young Lady Juni, it is my honour to have you as a guest!” Kun Shi said brightly.

“Don’t overdo it,” the youth sitting beside Kun Shi remarked drily.

“Brother Luong, please,” Kun Shi hissed.

“…”

“Are you going to introduce me to your other guests?” she prompted gently.

“Ah… yes, sorry,” Kun Shi, who she was certain at this point was trying to impress her, coughed and nodded.

“This is my sect brother Deng Luong…” the youth who had just spoken nodded slightly but made no move to stand or otherwise salute her.

-Deng clan? she frowned, somewhat surprised at that.

“I am Fan Aoshen,” a tall youth sitting across the table added.

“Kun Zhuge Fei,” a more scholarly youth said, saluting but not getting up either.

“Jiang Dan Guang,” the last, muscular, youth said, just looking her over.

“Jun Arai,” she replied, offering them slight salutes.

“Brother Shi was just telling us how you were educating the masses regarding Duo Li’s lotuses,” Zhuge Fei said, casting Kun Shi a slightly sideways look.

“I am sure he was very modest,” she said, helping herself to a cup of tea.

“Do you want anything?” the maid asked her.

“Hmm… some more of the soup I had before?” she replied after a moment’s thought. “And whatever the estate kitchen recommends for breakfast.”

“Of course, Miss Jun,” the young woman murmured and, with a quick bow to Kun Shi, departed.

“They are more respectful to her than they are to you, Brother Shi,” Dan Guang chuckled.

“I just live here,” Kun Shi grunted, sitting down again.

“…”

She sipped her tea, looking at each of the youths in turn. All of them were Qi Refinement, near as she could tell, with the possible exception of Dan Guang, who gave off a bit more pressure.

“You are a physical cultivator,” Dan Guang half asked, half stated after a moment.

“I am,” she replied.

“Ah, that explains why I can feel intent off you,” the youth nodded, as if this all made sense now.

“I am surprised one such as you has connections with the Kun clan as you appear to, how did you enter into their circles?” Deng Luong added.

-Maybe I should have stayed in my room, she sighed to herself.

Kun Shi also looked a bit awkward suddenly, casting a sideways look at the others as if willing them to be just a bit politer.

-So he is clearly not the ‘leader’ in this group?

“I’ve been friends with Juni for a number of years,” she murmured, channelling a bit of Ling Yu and suddenly wishing she had put on a smarter gown. “If you ever meet her, perhaps you can ask?”

“Hah!” Zhuge Fei laughed. “She has you there, Brother Luong!”

“Mmmmm…” Deng Luong just frowned.

“How is the lotus I left you with?” she asked Kun Shi, changing the topic.

“It’s in the pond by the kitchens,” Kun Shi said. “We had to leave it sealed up.”

“Probably for the best,” she agreed. “I’d like to have a look at it later, if that is acceptable?”

“Of course!” Kun Shi said brightly. “Perhaps even now?”

“Maybe after I’ve eaten and seen to a few other matters,” she replied, politely shooting that spectacle down. “It will be very boring anyway, I just need to confirm a few things about it.”

-Starting with what it actually is, she mused to herself. And whether it has anything in common with that lamium I found.

“Of course,” Kun Shi agreed, though he looked a bit disappointed.

-I wonder, is it that they don’t believe him… she thought suddenly, feeling like she was stuck in the middle of something stupid.

“Now is a rather inauspicious hour in any case,” she added, seeking further refuge in the arms of feng shui. “Better to poke at the angry spirit herbs when waning yin is not the overriding alignment of the heavens…”

“You are familiar with some feng shui?” Dan Guang mused, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course,” she replied, somehow managing to avoid sounding especially supercilious. “One of the advantages of being a physical cultivator is that I don’t have to sit on my ass for hours every day to feel like I’m making progress with my life.”

“Haha!” Fan Aoshen laughed. “That is true, advancing to Golden Core is a pain…”

“More seriously,” she added, “Feng shui and formations are useful up in those accursed mountains—”

“Your food, Miss Jun,” the maid, who had just come back, interjected politely, setting down a tray of soup, various fried breads and fish, something that looked like spirit rice in lotus leaves and a bowl of roasted lotus seeds.

“Thank you,” she replied.

“We would also like more wine and some light refreshments,” Zhuge Fei added.

“Of course, Young Master Fei,” the maid murmured, bowing respectfully to the others.

“…”

“Will there be anything else, young masters?” the maid added after a moment’s pause.

“Perhaps some music?” Zhuge Fei mused. “To accent the rain?”

“I will… see if there is anyone around,” the maid replied, bowing again and departing.

“So, what will we do this afternoon?” Kun Shi asked, turning back to her.

“…”

She stared at the gardens, not really sure of her answer there. Going back into the valleys was out of the question and the comments made by the bandits had implied that there might be some plan in motion to cause her headaches back in the village as well.

“Finish sweeping the canals,” she replied after a moment’s further consideration.

“Did you not finish that yesterday?” Dan Guang interjected.

“With plants like Duo Li’s water lotus it always pays to check,” she pointed out, helping herself to some of the rice wrapped in bitter leaves.

The village elders would likely grumble about that as well, even thought it had been left to her. It was unlikely that they would do something so facetious as withhold completion, not unless they really wanted to burn bridges with West Flower Picking Town’s Hunter Pavilion, but it was also not impossible for them to cause difficulties in other ways. That they had already cut the mission’s pay by half and ensured it was all on her did not help her expectations there either.

“So Brother Shi was saying,” Fan Aoshen agreed. “I have seen them growing in ornamental ponds, but these ones sound like a real trial.”

“No more so than some others,” she replied. “The issue here was that they conflict with the established alignments of the canals and will damage the productivity of the fields irrigated by them if left unaddressed. Underestimate them this season and you will find them ten times as hard to eradicate next season and likely suffer massive drops in profitability, even before they start drowning livestock and maybe even people.”

“They drown people?” Dan Guang sounded slightly disbelieving at that.

“In this weather?” she waved outside. “Absolutely. These are mutates that got introduced from contaminated spirit soil.”

That wasn’t technically true, but the less people knew that she knew about the ins and outs of the reality of what was going on in Jade Willow Village – or appeared to be at least – the more likely she got to go home without any further headaches… or worse.

“If they start on livestock… all it takes is a few children playing where they shouldn’t and a spirit herb like that gets a taste for how easy it is to ambush people… and how beneficial it is. Even worse, they could make it into the edges of the suppression zone and use that to hide from powerful experts, forcing anyone coming after them to exterminate the root of the infestation in there, not out here.”

“I would not think a lotus would be that…?” Dan Guang frowned.

“—insightful?” she supplied. “All a few plants have to do is hide for a season to get to Soul Foundation and awaken spiritual wisdom, then they can be as smart as a child within weeks. And with the weather like this for weeks at a time, who is going to be able to notice?”

“That is very true, Brother Guang,” Fan Aoshen agreed.

“…”

Dan Guang stared at his fellow disciple for a long moment, then just shook his head and poured more tea.

“What else did you come here to do, Miss Jun?” Fan Aoshen asked.

“Just some clearance missions: teach a few students, get rid of some errant spirit herbs.”

“Oh?” Kun Shi looked interested now.

“Someone did the outstanding one already,” she shrugged. “There was a ‘spotted eye fungus’ on a massif to the west of the town.”

“Oh… I think I heard about that yesterday, that smug bastard Ding Fan was with the group that did it on the way back from Nine Clouds Village, got a bunch of sect contribution points out of it,” Deng Luong added with a faint scowl.

“What does it do?” Kun Shi asked, clearly curious.

“Their spores parasitize other spirit herbs, get into their roots and drain vitality out of them and the soil, rotting them from the inside out. It gets its name from the black and white eye-like patterns that show up on the leaves of plants it afflicts. They then decay into the ground and become more spotted eye fungus. Several of the local spirit herb crops, like the blue star grass and the Megumi flower, are particularly susceptible,” she explained. “It’s almost entirely harmless to cultivators, unless you eat the fungus, but a disaster for spirit herb farmers. It also draws various pests like leech bugs and saw-winged flies who like the inauspicious ambience it provides, which just further damage the crops.”

“That seems like it should have been a big priority?” Kun Shi frowned.

“Yes… well, the fungus is a total pain to find, requires a lot of walking about and casting repeat divinations on plants. You need to attune your own compasses for it as well,” she added. “The mission here languished for seven months before they made it a clearance request.”

“Half a year?” Zhuge Fei asked.

“Yep,” she shrugged. “Whoever posted it was only willing to pay forty spirit stones for its removal.”

“That’s…” Fan Aoshen raised his eyebrows.

“About what you might get for a decently captured Soul Foundation herb,” she added. “Before expenses anyway, and so long as you knew what you were doing. That forty would barely cover the cost of the compasses and your time.”

“So, it went undone because it wasn’t offering enough?” Fan Aoshen sighed.

“Basically, yes,” she agreed. “High-ranked hunters, which in this province is anyone over seven-star bronze, are in high demand. Unless they are told to do it or given a lot of incentives, why would you go do that when you could earn Spirit Jades arranging someone’s garden in Blue Water City.”

“Does that include you?” Dan Guang chuckled.

“…”

She sighed mentally, because that was a clear provocation in its own way. To the side, Kun Shi also scowled at Dan Guang.

“Hardly, at my rank you live in those mountains, doing the seven- and eight-star ranked missions the Affiliate Hunters refuse to do because they are too busy arranging said gardens,” she remarked levelly. “There are only fifteen nine-star hunters in the entirety of Blue Water Province, outside of Blue Water City.”

Noting their slightly surprised looks, she sighed and poured herself more tea.

“What, you expected more?” she asked Kun Shi.

“Eh… um… well…yes?” he replied.

“Before the Three Schools Conflict there were over two hundred,” she added.

“…”

“That’s… a big drop,” Fan Aosheng frowned.

She nodded, not that surprised that none of them knew the specifics. All of them were in their mid to late teens, younger than she was.

“Some left and some were drawn away by their clans, but about half were killed or crippled. Either by the Imperial influences seeking to cripple the Hunter Bureau, or by Shan Lai seeking retaliation against those clans who were drifting towards the Imperial Court, seeking to cut their links to the riches of Yin Eclipse,” she explained. “Most of those who survived took their expertise and used it to further their clans’ agendas, others went over the ocean to Meng City or Pill Sovereign City…”

The others sat in silence as she finished her tea and helped herself to another roll of rice wrapped in the bitter lotus leaves.

“Well, it’s all old history… we just have to live with what we have now,” she added with a smile that was a bit cooler than she intended.

“This is why the Azure Astral Authority is a blight,” Dan Guang grunted. “They should just accept the outcome and the righteous nature of the Imperial Seat.”

“…”

She sighed to herself, refusing to get drawn and just enjoying the bitter coolness of the food.

“Young Master Kun,” a male servant approached the pagoda, carrying an umbrella.

“Yes?” Kun Shi frowned.

“Uh… it is for Zhuge Fei,” the servant said with a small bow of apology.

“What?” Zhuge Fei asked, putting his cup down.

“A message from the Jade Willow Sect,” the servant said, handing Zhuge Fei a scroll.

Zhuge Fei opened it, skimmed it then handed it to Dan Guang, who glanced at it and just stood with a sigh.

“It seems we must take our leave, Brother Shi,” Zhuge Fei said, also standing.

“Oh?” Kun Shi asked, accepting the letter from Dan Guang.

“…”

Kun Shi scanned it and sighed, also standing.

“Sorry, Miss Jun, it seems we must go back to the school, there is some announcement about a trip to Blue Water City,” Kun Shi said apologetically.

She stood as well as the group collected their own umbrellas and trooped away, Kun Shi the only one who really bowed, somewhat apologetically. Watching them depart, she offered them a polite salute, then sat back down again with a sigh and stared at the garden in silence, eating the food.

Devoid of slightly opinionated sect disciples and awkward questions about her ‘day job’, the garden was actually rather calming in the rain, especially without the potential threat of something horrible dropping out of a tree or a vine trying to strangle her. There was a sort of gentle harmony to the sound of water hitting greenery that was easy to get lost in.

Like that, she ended up wasting a whole thirty minutes in the garden, just watching the plants and letting the world pass by with a degree of emptiness that had been profoundly lacking in the last week or so. At some point, she found she had also finished off most of the spirit food that was left behind, though that was fine as far as she was concerned: it was of excellent quality and quite beneficial to her cultivation. That physical cultivators could literally eat their way to the threshold of Mantra Seed was something she had always thought amusingly simplistic… at least until she learned how much spirit food of sufficient quality usually cost if you weren’t sourcing the ingredients for it yourself.

Getting up, she grabbed her umbrella and managed to kill a further twenty minutes just walking around the garden, admiring the layouts of the plants and lawn around the pagoda and its accompanying pond. The design put her somewhat in mind of the Blue Jade Courtyard in the Kun family estates in Blue Water City, which was probably the point really. She was just about to start a second circuit when one of the servant women, a different one from before she noted, returned.

“Do you need anything?” the young woman asked politely.

“Ah… no,” she shook her head. “I was just admiring the garden.”

“It is a recreation of one the Lady of the Estate knows, or so I am led to believe,” the maid explained with a flash of pride.

“Is there anywhere to train?” she asked suddenly, largely because the feeling of restlessness really was refusing to go away.

“To train?” the maid frowned.

“I just wanted to stretch my arms and legs a bit,” she said with a polite smile. “Given Young Master Kun Shi has been called away, I am left somewhat to my own devices it seems… and given it is raining like this…”

“Ah, yes, sorry,” the maid looked a bit flustered but caught herself. “There is a training hall, if you wish to use it. I am sure there will be no objection.”

“Thank you,” she said with another polite smile.

The maid nodded and started to walk briskly across the garden courtyard. Soon they exited it, went through an arched corridor, then over a small bridge that crossed one of the minor canals that ran through the estate and finally into another courtyard, this one tiled and with plain stone columns. At the far end, set into the wall, was a larger than life statue of a martial-looking figure with a large beard, holding a broad-bladed swordstaff, incense smouldering faintly in a bronze cauldron placed at its feet.

“This way,” the maid murmured, waving for her to follow around the edge of the courtyard.

The maid led the way up some steps on the right-hand side, then through a set of doors into a large wooden-floored hall about twenty metres long by ten wide.

“This is the general training hall, there are weapons on those racks that you can use if you like,” the maid explained, waving her hand towards several racks on the right-hand wall that held everything from spears and glaives to blades and swords.

“There are no bows here, archery isn’t done indoors,” the maid added with a sideways look at her.

“Thank you,” she replied with a polite bow.

“People will be going by regularly, so if you need anything, just call,” the maid added, though her statement could also be read as ‘don’t think you’re just left alone here’.

“…”

Watching the maid depart, she shook her head and walked over to the racks of weapons, considering what was there. As was befitting a clan like the Kun, which focused a lot of its efforts on martial forms, the selection was broad to the point of confusing, though it did lean towards polearms and swords.

The Hunter Pavilions didn’t include them as a mandatory part of the curriculum for advancement, mostly because they were not that useful when dealing with most of what Yin Eclipse had to offer. As such, her own talents for martial forms were… middling at best, she had to acknowledge, and what she knew was born mostly out of what her father had taught her, or she had picked up from Juni over the years of their association and friendship.

After walking up and down the row of racks, she eventually selected a short blade, about the length of her forearm. As a weapon choice, it was a bit atypical compared to what people usually selected – things like swords, sabres, spears, polearms… even bows – but the reasoning her father had given when starting to train both her and Sana had proven to be impeccably sound, even if she, aged… twelve or so, had wanted to wield a sword like a Fairy Immortal.

Her father had pointed out that the shorter blades were something you used regularly in day to day life: for cutting plants, for chopping food, butchering animals, even digging holes in the ground. It was a weapon you could wield and get familiar with without having to spend days every week on a training ground. It could be worn openly and not elicit immediate judgement or expectation, and it usually didn’t rely on flashy techniques or superior qi manifestation to progress far in.

The secondary reason, as she would later discover, along with why the Pavilion didn’t emphasise martial training at all, was that spirit herbs didn’t fight duels with you, and while ‘arts’ were useful for dealing with some spirit beasts, the flashy active arts wasted a lot of qi and were useless up in the mountains. They couldn’t cause anywhere near the devastation they normally did due to the suppression and were, on balance, more likely to get you killed for attracting the notice of something you should not. The Pavilion saw much more return from training its members in feng shui, formations and talisman use.

Holding the blade, which was well-crafted with a hide-bound wooden hilt and a metal blade, edged, though not with any great sharpness, she gave it a few experimental stabs and slices, getting a feel for the weight and balance.

“As is befitting a clan that excels in martial forms, even their training weapons are top grade,” she murmured, admiring how nicely even a simple training weapon handled.

Inhaling, she tried a few forward thrusts, timing her breathing to match her footwork as she attacked diagonal to an imaginary line, moving up the hall for a few dozen paces, mostly to warm up.

Finally, happy with what she had picked, she ran through one of the basic forms, a simple sequence of stabs, cuts and sweeps, designed to teach you how to match movement of the weapon itself with footwork and breathing.

The whole form, which she completed without so much as touching her mantra or qi, took her about five minutes, after which she went to the rack and got a second short blade and repeated the form, only now wielding a blade in both hands. It was somewhat flashier, but the purpose of the exercise was, again, not that, but rather to help her get used to the harmony of the movements and, in conjunction with her mantra, provide a controlled medium for helping qi to move through her body more freely.

Once she had finished that, she took a short breath, finally stimulating her mantra to help with her recovery, then repeated the forms, but without weapons, considering the differences in her movement as she went.

The unarmed form went much slower, because the focus here was different. If the weapons had been about movement and coordination, then the unarmed form was about commitment and intent. Each strike and movement had to be performed with complete conviction, leaving nothing behind.

In that regard, her father had been a harsh teacher, especially after her mother passed away, but, while she had to admit she had cursed him somewhat then… now the results spoke for themselves.

She finished the last few moves of the form, her knife hands hissing faintly in the air, and found that she had acquired a small audience of an old man and a boy, watching quietly from just by the entrance to the hall.

“Impressive, very impressive!” the old man chuckled. “I didn’t know our Kun clan had a young lass like you lurking out here.”

“Ah… I am just a guest,” she said, bowing politely.

“Hah…” the old man nodded, stroking his beard.

“You see that, young brat?” he added to the boy, who was aged about twelve and looking on dubiously. “When I lectured you before about ‘intent’ and you didn’t understand?”

“Grandfather, she’s just fighting with knives though, that’s hardly a real—”

“Shall I stab you, and you can tell us all how you are bleeding out on the floor from something that is ‘not a real weapon’?” the old man remarked with a faint twinkle in his eye that made her wonder if he might not actually make good on that.

“I wonder who taught you?” the old man added, walking over to the wall and taking down a short staff and giving it an experimental twirl.

“My father, Jun Han,” she replied respectfully.

“Hooo…” the old man nodded. “You’re one of Sir Jun’s daughters?”

“I am,” she nodded, “Jun Arai.”

“Little Xian, go grab a short staff!” the old man said, turning his attention back to the boy. “Give me five hundred overhead strikes, in four directions, and I want to see commitment. If you hit the floor with a strike you start again.”

“Awwww…” the boy pouted, but sloped over and grabbed a short staff from a rack of them.

“Kids… they want to do the flashy stuff, but never bother with the basics… all I can do is drill them until they get to Golden Core and then they run off to flying swords and fancy things with too many spikes on them and never look back,” the old man sighed, watching the youth strip off his top and start, raising the staff and slashing down with an exhalation, a bit like a sword, then turn a half circle and strike again, then a quarter circle, always shifting his back foot to pick the direction.

“I am Old Xian,” the old man added. “I knew your father from years ago, not spoken to him in a while though… I trust he is keeping well?”

“He is,” she nodded, somewhat surprised at that. “He has recently gotten a role as a civilian advisor for Town Captain Tai in West Flower Picking Town.”

“I had heard, glad he is putting his talents to some public use again!” Old Xian chuckled. “Though, was a bad business with your poor mother, I can only offer my condolences once again.”

“Ah… thank you,” she said, bowing slightly again, not quite sure what to make of that.

“Well, enough serious stuff,” Old Xian added, giving her a friendly smile. “Want to help this old man warm up with a few rounds?”

“…”

“Armed or unarmed?” she asked, glancing over at where she had set the short blades.

“Your choice,” the old man mused.

Giving it a moment’s choice, she walked over and claimed a short staff as well. Her father had taught her less of those forms, but she had still trained with a staff, both to build up strength and also because it was another ‘weapon’ that nobody judged you for carrying.

“You are familiar with short staves?” the old man mused.

“Ah, I have been taught a little, please be understanding,” she said with a slight smile.

“Of course, training is training, it’s easy to forget this,” Old Xian mused, standing neutrally with the short staff held like a walking stick. “I will receive, you strike.”

Bowing politely to him, she matched his stance, then slid forward, stabbing for his diaphragm as best she could, focusing on putting the tip of the staff straight through him to hit a point about a pace beyond his back—

The old man smoothly stepped to the side, sweeping up his staff with both hands into a high guard and deflecting her blow.

Countering, she swept low with the reverse end, making sure she kept contact with the front end to his staff.

Like that, they exchanged a dozen moves of the most basic attack and defence form she had been taught by her father. Her trying her utmost to strike the old man and he smoothly blocking each strike with the appropriate counter.

“Not bad, not bad,” the old man murmured as she completed the last strike and he backed off, returning to the resting posture of holding the staff like it was a walking stick. “You understand the matter of commitment very well, but you do have lapses where you are too focused on the strike and not on the moment.”

Nodding in agreement, she exhaled.

“It is… easy to get lost in wanting to land the next blow,” she agreed.

“Yep!” the old man agreed. “And then you land the last blow ever as someone else with a dagger walks up behind you and stabs you in the neck!”

She winced and nodded. Her father had said similar on many occasions.

“My father had me and my sister practice together, one of us would be instructed to launch an attack if they saw such an opening… usually with a dagger or staff covered in dye.”

“Aye, it’s a good method. You only get hit in the back of the head a few times before you learn!” Old Xian laughed, casting an eye at ‘Little Xian’ who was starting to puff a bit as he did his strikes, his gaze a bit zoned out.

“My turn to attack,” the old man grinned.

Exhaling, she took up her guard—

“Huuut!”

She barely got the first block off, keeping her posture and sweeping up the blow, just as he had done to her strike.

“Huuut!” the second strike followed like a serpent, neither slow nor fast, but with a sort of inexorable drift that tried to fool the eyes into thinking it was not a low strike—

She blocked it, stepping sideways and ensuring she never lost the connection with him.

The whole exchange only took about two minutes, but by the time they had finished she felt like she was pulling her short staff through turgid water, and was sweating nearly as hard as she had been in the forests the day before.

“Ahaha…” the old man laughed jovially as she managed to perform the last block. “Good… I approve, there are areas you can improve, but you are much better at defence than attack.”

“Yeah… thanks,” she panted, slowly bringing her breathing back under control as she let her body recover.

“A solid foundation, shall we go again?” Old Xian grinned, adopting his resting guard again. “This time, let’s go for twenty-eight moves.”

Exhaling, she nodded and set herself up again to strike.

In the end, they completed three more exchanges over ten minutes before Old Xian’s grandson finally completed his five hundred repetitions, finally affording her a break, which she was more than happy to avail herself of. Thinking about the things the old man had pointed out to her, or drawn her towards considering, she watched him take the young boy through the same form they had just done, albeit with much less intensity.

The short staff forms were intended, according to her father, and also Juni, to largely build that solid foundation of attack and defence, instilling understanding about the extent of your reach, the speed of your reactions, the perils of over-focusing… or not focusing enough and so on. It was all, by the standards of most folk, rather tame stuff, but therein was the secret really. Martial cultivation was not spiritual cultivation, nor, really, was it physical cultivation.

She watched the pair exchange the same set of blows, considering the youth’s movement. He was crisp and fluid, despite having a minor case of jelly legs, and it all looked very… martial, but actually that was probably the issue and the reason why he was being drilled—

“Do you know what the issue here is?” Old Xian asked, turning back to her where she was standing spinning her staff idly, as the pair completed the set.

“Your grandson is letting his Martial Intent creep out when he should not,” she said. “It makes it look very martial, but it’s giving tells.”

“…”

The youth opened and shut his mouth, but then, to her surprise just saluted her politely and muttered, “Thank you for the instruction.”

“Please,” she laughed. “You are much better than I was at your age!”

“He is much better than either of those two wet sticks who treat this place as their party house,” Old Xian added, with an eye roll that made the young boy smirk as well. “They are both spiritual cultivators though, and more in love with their fancy swords than is perhaps desirable.”

“…”

She stared at the old man, then just shook her head, unable to hide a smile at his bad joke. The young boy, Xian also smirked, just about managing to hide his laugh.

“Our Kun clan’s longevity is in its martial lineage,” Old Xian huffed, observing their reactions. “Running off to the Jade Willow Sect when an elder barks, no decorum…”

“I am curious, how you managed to get such good reactions…” Little Xian asked her.

“She doesn’t fight people,” Old Xian said drily to his charge. “As a Herb Hunter her opponents are nature, in root, tooth and claw.”

“Old Xian says it truly,” she agreed, putting the staff down and sitting properly. “Martial forms are no good up in the mountains, the qi used is wasteful and they attract notice. Space is often constrained: trees, bushes, vines, everything is spirit vegetation. Everything is watching.”

“Indeed,” Old Xian agreed. “Let out too much intent and something will notice. Swing your fancy spear wrong and it will get caught in vines that the suppression will ensure it cannot cut, use your grand art of supreme sovereign slaying majestic explosions and everything within a mile will know you are out of qi and ripe for the taking. Yin Eclipse is a cruel training partner.”

“It is,” she sighed, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment, suddenly struck by the thought that the youth in front of her was about the same age as she was, when she started out as a Herb Hunter… and not that much younger than Ha Fenfang, Nen Hong and Nen Shirong.

“…”

“Sorry,” she said, giving herself a shake and realising that she had been looking a bit… gloomy. “It’s been a stressful few days.”

“Not at all,” the old man sighed. “Ours is a cruel land, where a young lass such as yourself can make such an expression. Grief should be left to us old fellows, too long in the tooth to count the passing of our years, where it will lie, forgotten in our failing memories.”

“Isn’t that a partial quote from Seng Mo?” she asked with a sideways look.

“HAH!” the old man stroked his beard and rolled his eyes. “You are well read as well.”

“My sister and some of my friends like his style,” she remarked drolly. “There are only so many times you can sit in a teahouse, listening to others quote him back and forth before something sticks!”

Old Xian laughed again, though Little Xian just looked a bit confused.

“Right!” the old man added, “Shall we go again. Why don’t you take my place with this boy for a round!”

Exhaling, she nodded and stood, picking up her short staff.

As it turned out, her judgement of Little Xian had been fairly spot-on, the only differences between them were… strength, really, because she was some five or six years older than him, and her control over intent. In terms of technical ability he was almost her equal, which was a bit sobering, as they traded blows with her attacking, then defending, for thirty-two moves apiece.

-Well, the old man is an excellent teacher, she reflected, finishing up the second repetition and listening as he explained what they should each try to correct. And the Kun are a martial clan at heart. Juni said she started training when she was… six or seven.

“Do you actually have intent?” Little Xian grumbled, staring at his short staff then at her.

“Can I?” she asked Old Xian.

“Go ahead, he is tougher than he looks,” the old man chuckled.

Grimacing faintly, she focused on her mantra and thrust out her palm towards the boy, stimulating ‘Spirit’ and ‘Body’ in an external manner—

“Guah!” he coughed as her intent met his and sent him staggering back, pale-faced.

“Physical cultivators like Miss Jun here are the ones you really need to watch out for,” Old Xian chuckled. “Their grasp of ‘Intent’ is second only to us martial cultivators, and, depending on their other means, it can even exceed it in certain circumstances!”

“What… was that…?” Little Xian gasped, sweating slightly and eyeing her warily. “That… shadow, what means do you have to cultivate to get that?”

“…”

She sighed and said nothing.

“Death,” the old man said softly. “The experience of it, the sorrow of it, etched into the self. Intent for a mantra user is not as it is for a martial cultivator. We strive to conquer, to subdue, to stand opposed, they… accept and return all that is given to them.”

“You… killed people?” Little Xian asked her, a bit more eagerly—

“Idiot boy!” the old man snapped, suddenly annoyed and actually banging him on the shoulder with the short staff. “Do not be rude to guests!”

Almost as fast as the moment had come, it passed, such that she could almost believe it was a figment of her imagination, were it not for the red weal on the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she sighed.

“Sorry,” Little Xian grimaced, “I was rude and misspoke.”

“It is fine,” she repeated. “It is the nature of youth to question… and now that I say that, I realise that it makes me sound like an old woman,” she chuckled.

The old man just shook his head, amused.

“To answer your question, yes… I have. When I was… fourteen, my sister and I were guarding a wagon transporting some herbs from Red Lake Village to West Flower Picking Town. It was meant to be a very mundane assignment, but some bandits attacked and tried to steal the cargo and kidnap us… I burned one to death with a talisman. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards, and couldn’t touch cooked meat for a month, because the smell kept reminding me of this man, screaming in the middle of the road, cursing me and calling for his mother.”

“Killing is not glamorous,” Old Xian agreed. “It is not pretty, it is not kind and it is never good. Far too many forget this...”

“I…” Little Xian stared at her for a moment then bowed again. “Sorry, I made you remember something unpleasant.”

“It’s… fine, I’ve seen worse since,” she sighed.

“How is your… control so good?” Little Xian asked, changing the topic quickly. “Is it because you are a physical cultivator?”

“Spend a few nights in Yin Eclipse, even the outer valleys near here, and you will understand,” she grinned, a bit more toothily than she intended.

“That will do it,” Old Xian agreed, standing up.

“Aww…” Little Xian sighed. “I wanted to see Yin Eclipse, but grandfather keeps telling me not to be stupid.”

“Your grandfather is wise,” she agreed with an eye roll, also standing up. “It is not a place to be taken lightly.”

In truth, the ‘shadow’ in her intent was less to do with what she had told Xian and a lot more to do with her experiences recently with the Red Pit. The mountains had a way of leaving barbs in you that never really vanished, just blunted and wore down with time, slowly becoming a part of you. As someone who had been all the way to the slopes of the Great Mount itself, and into the depths, the scars were deeper than most her age, she supposed, excepting people like Juni or the Beast Hunters.

The overuse of the emotion repression and pain suppression with her mantra was not helping either, as she was having to deliberately avoid engaging too much with that side of her mantra, lest her body’s natural perception of pain and her own mental state become dangerously muted.

“It is not,” Old Xian agreed. “Now, shall we go again? This time for forty-eight moves?”

Stretching, she nodded, happy to be able to set the unhappy memories aside and just focus on the martial forms.

By the time Old Xian decided that they had indeed worked hard enough for his satisfaction, she had reached the point of running through all 108 ‘moves’ of the paired form for attack and defence sequences. The full thing was… close to a form of torture, done right, something Little Xian was more than happy to vocalize as he crouched, drenched in sweat in the humid heat of the late morning.

“How are you… not… falling over?” he gasped, looking at her.

In truth, she was feeling it quite a bit as well, but the humidity was actually not as bad as she had expected, given the rain had become more misty drizzle since she came back.

“I am used to it,” she grinned, wiping the sweat off her brow. “This is just what the cloud forest of the High Valleys is like all year round.”

“Euugh…” Little Xian groaned. “This weather is like, so vile.”

“That’s why you are here, not on the coast!” Old Xian laughed. “It’s character building.”

“Then I’d like to build my character somewhere else!” Little Xian moaned, flopping back onto the floor and then sitting up again immediately with a grimace. “Even the floor is warm!”

“Perhaps some refreshments are in order,” Old Xian mused, clapping his hands.

“Yes?” a servant appeared a moment later.

“Something refreshing please,” the old man asked perfunctorily.

“Of course…” the servant seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking at the three of them, then nodded and departed.

“Let us go out to the courtyard,” Old Xian said, taking his staff and walking back over to the wall and returning it to the rack with a small bow.

Nodding, she took her staff and the daggers over and replaced them, also bowing to the rack, then to the shrine at the end and murmuring her thanks for training in the hall. Little Xian followed suit and then they all traipsed out after the old man and just sat on the steps, watching the rain drizzle down and splash on the courtyard, which was covered in water now to about a finger’s depth.

“How come this rain just ignores everything?” Little Xian grumbled.

“If you can answer that, this old man will bow and call you grandfather!” Old Xian, who had taken his shoes off and was now sitting with his feet out in the rain, remarked jovially.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, just watching the rain fall, thousands of ripples shimmering across the shallow film of water covering the courtyard, until the young maid returned with a stack of lotus leaf-wrapped rice and some drinks.

“Am I imagining things or have we had Duo Li’s lotus leaves for three meals straight now?” Old Xian remarked to the maid.

“Young Master Shi returned with a large haul…” the young maid remarked with aplomb. “And there is a lot of call for cool, refreshing snacks in this weather, so misty rice and lotus leaves—”

“—did he… oh well, I suppose it is what it is,” the old man sighed, helping himself to one and cutting off the explanation with a wave of his hand.

She took one as well, nibbling on it and avoiding commenting given her role in that. They were tasty, with the rice having a lingering coolness that accented the bitter tang and slightly spicy chill of the lotus leaves, however this batch had been prepared. It was possible to see how it might get repetitive, but it was all high quality spirit food, so she was not going to complain in the slightest.

Accepting a proffered cup of the beverage, it turned out to be the juice of some kind of spirit fruit that had been chilled… a bit over-chilled for her tastes, truthfully, but she sipped it nonetheless because it was still refreshing.

“Do you need anything else?” the maid asked respectfully.

“No, that should be all,” Old Xian mused.

“Of course…” the maid bowed again and departed back the way she had come, towards the garden court where Kun Shi and his friends had been.

“Right,” Old Xian said after they had spent a few minutes refreshing themselves. “Little Xian, grab one of those long staves from in the hall and get out there, I want to see you do five hundred thrusts, in the rain, without leaving splashes in the water.”

“In the rain?” Little Xian groaned.

“Staff, water, go,” the old man repeated with a wolfish grin.

“Do you want me to do that as well?” she half asked, half joked as the young boy sighed and stood up, heading back into the hall.

“Only if you feel like it,” Old Xian chuckled.

“The purpose of the exercise is to force him to reliably internalize his qi flows for the movement?” she asked.

“You have done such exercises before?” Old Xian nodded, appreciatively.

“I have,” she agreed. “The Hunter Pavilion requires you to be able to do it with ‘Flickering Steps’ before they certify you for eight-star rank.”

“Ah, yes… they did have that stipulation,” the old man mused. “It was one of the ones that stayed even with the relaxing of the realm requirement.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Mostly because at that rank you might have to go into the valleys near Thunder Crest and East Fury… where the swamps are. While walking on the water up there is next to impossible, having that degree of control is a requisite for safely navigating those places without disturbing things best left un-annoyed.”

“They have those snapping xuanwu up there, don’t they?” Old Xian nodded.

“They do,” she replied.

“Hunted one when I was younger, their shells make for excellent armour,” the old man sighed. “If you get a good core it’s a valuable thing as well, especially if you can gain some comprehensions off it.”

“The trick is getting one and escaping that valley alive,” she pointed out drily.

“Yes… yes it rather is,” he agreed.

“Well, there is always room for improvement, so why not,” she said, standing up as well.

“That’s the attitude, I wish some of those scions of ours had the same view,” Old Xian chuckled as she shrugged off her outer robe.

“Teacher got you as well?” Little Xian remarked with an eye roll as he passed her exiting the hall.

“Something like that,” she chuckled, grabbing a longer staff off the wall.

“Actually!” Old Xian’s voice drifted in from outside. “Miss Jun, if you would bring a short blade? A blunt one?”

She frowned and put the staff back, instead taking a slightly blunter version of the arm-length blade she had used before… then grabbed a second, shorter blade and shoved it unobtrusively into the sash of her knee-length gown.

Returning to the courtyard, she looked quizzically at the old man.

“I was thinking about earlier, you two can have a little spar,” Old Xian grinned, looking at his grandson, who perked up at that. “Miss Jun here can use a short blade and you use the staff.”

“Oh… okay,” Little Xian nodded, though she did see that there was a degree of wariness creeping in, no doubt wondering what the trick was.

She thought she knew, but if she was right, that meant that the old man had actually had fairly good expectations of her.

“The rain will even the playing field somewhat,” Old Xian added, critically looking around the courtyard. “You can go at it until I tell you to stop.”

“I take it no intent, and no arts?” she asked.

“Indeed,” Old Xian agreed. “Not that much of either will be possible in this misty drizzle.”

That was true: the faint, suppressive humidity would be prohibitively draining on any external qi use, and, while both of them could use intent, the goal here was to train, and do so in a committed manner – injuring people was held to be bad form.

She put on her broad-brimmed grass hat to give herself a bit of shelter and walked out into the rain.

Little Xian followed after, spinning his staff and grinning, clearly enthused by the idea of a proper spar after having had to do nothing but attack and defence forms and simple strikes in the hall.

“Whenever you like,” Old Xian called over, having taken out a pot of wine from somewhere.

She frowned, circling through the rain, keeping her blade low—

Xian lunged forward with a ferocious, sweeping strike to her legs. Grinning, she darted in, closing off the distance and forcing him to do a vertical block to preserve his own space.

Flipping the blade over in her hands, she slid it edge first up the staff, aiming for Xian’s hand, forcing him to relinquish his grip and kick the staff to make it flex and deflect her strike.

Going with his move, she continued to close him down, not giving him room to use the length of the staff to stab at her. Little Xian spun the staff twice, forcing her to break contact, but both times she was able to easily avoid the downward strikes, and because she was too close, he could get no momentum to leverage sweeps.

A more experienced opponent would have started kicking her, or aimed for her arms in the first instance. Juni could lay her out in about four moves in this kind of matchup, simply by ensuring she never got past the point of the staff or spear, and controlling the space—

Little Xian finally realised his mistake and kicked up a huge spray of water, rolling himself backward to make distance.

Ducking her head, she followed after him, spinning away from the sweeping strike and again aiming for his hand with her short blade.

“HAI!” he yelled, and then spun the staff over, lashing down with it diagonally this time.

Just about seeing the feint, she ducked rather than jumped and was rewarded by him overbalancing as his sweep passed through where her torso would have been. Launching herself forward, she caught him on the inside of the arm with the blade, then set it against his neck with a grin.

“Bah!” Little Xian shook his head as she released him after a moment, his long plait scattering water everywhere, and made distance from her—

Smirking, she followed him, barely letting him recover a guard and then swatting his hurried strike down.

“Hey!” he yelled.

“Old Xian said we were to keep going until he said,” she reminded the younger boy with a grin.

“…”

Realising she was right, he sighed and vaulted back, kicking up sheets of water to obfuscate her approach now. It was a good strategy, but his mistake, if it could be called that, was mostly down to not really respecting the weapon she was using.

Taking aim, she tossed the curved blade in a hissing arc through the water and was rewarded with a shocked yelp of pain as Little Xian was hit directly in the chest, having barely seen the blade coming in the sense-suppressing rain.

Groaning, he rolled up, stashing the blade in his belt, and charged for her with the staff, seeking to leverage her apparent lack of a weapon.

“…”

She let the strike come, allowing him to close out her space. His forward thrust was good, but in a battle between equals he was clearly too reliant on force, despite, actually, having the superior technique in her eyes. It was an ironic mistake that made him slower than he should have been, providing her with the opening to spin down the blade and draw the other dagger from within her robe, drawing it up his arm and poking him under the armpit, before arriving behind him and putting him in a chokehold.

“You had a second dagger,” he grumbled as she relinquished him and let him get distance again.

“Of course, you always carry a spare,” she remarked drily. “If only because you might break the first one, or drop it somewhere.”

Frowning, he eyed her, then swept sideways with the staff, forcing her to evade—

This time, he transitioned flawlessly from sweep into stab and nearly caught her in the stomach before she could dodge down the length of the staff. Grabbing his hand, she grunted as he kicked her in the leg, managing to destabilise her enough…

“Haa…” she sighed as he drew the short blade and poked it in her face with a grin.

“Well done!” Old Xian called over, applauding. “Have you learnt your lesson, boy?”

“…”

Little Xian stared at the slightly curved short blade and then nodded with a sigh.

“Every weapon has its use,” she agreed, standing up.

“Exactly,” Old Xian agreed. “The weapon you don’t respect will eventually kill you, whether you wield it or it’s wielded by someone else. Now, keep going!”

Shaking her head, she circled around, still having not recovered her blade, not that that mattered enormously in the circumstances.

Little Xian gave himself a shake and then sheathed the blade at his waist again and charged forward, this time sweeping up with the staff point in a scooping arc. It was a move she was rather familiar with, from having sparred with Juni, so rather than give him time, she leapt straight at him, crashing straight into his body knees first and sending them both sprawling, and in the same moment poking him in the neck with her dagger again, before grabbing his staff and rolling away with it.

“HEY!” he yelled, staggering up. “That’s not—!”

“Never assume you have any tricks on your opponent!” Old Xian called over, even as she flipped the staff and kept the point low as her opponent circled her, forced to use the unfamiliar short blade now.

He darted at her, but she just feinted at him, forcing him to back up while never standing still herself. In a way, it was rather unfair, because Little Xian was technically excellent, but he was cursed with the desire to ‘fight fair’ – or at least within the confines of a set of circumstances. Probably most of those he sparred with thought the same way as well, just compounding the issue.

“It is never the great villain that kills you,” Old Xian added from the sidelines as they circled again. “Invariably, it’s the knife in the back, the soldier you stumble into on the battlefield, the unexpected weapon when you thought your opponent was down…”

Little Xian closed on her, faster this time, then leapt for her, trying the same trick—

Having only ever gotten Juni with that trick once, she did what Juni almost always did and closed the distance herself, flipping the staff over as if it were a much shorter weapon and catching the unfortunate Xian dead in mid-air with the rear end.

He screamed and tumbled down… and she grunted as she only spotted the blade he had thrown at the last moment, before it hit her in the side.

Wincing, she backed up as he rolled on the ground, wheezing.

“Sorry,” she apologised.

“It’s… ha… just…ha…” Little Xian staggered up, looking a bit green, but found his footing.

-At least his mindset is good, she thought with relief, pondering whether to give him the staff back.

“It’s just a minor… ha—”

Little Xian abruptly dashed straight for her, grabbing the staff and stabbing for her hand in the same instance, having judged that his feint had bought him enough of an opening.

Releasing the staff with one hand, she grabbed his arm and spun him around, pointing the blade straight back in his face and making him roll acrobatically to avoid getting a mouthful of blunt training blade.

“You know Kun clan arts!” he complained.

“Actually, that one is quite widespread,” Old Xian remarked drily from the side. “The question of what to do to get your pointy weapon back has exercised people for far longer than our Kun clan has existed!”

Twisting his arm, she stepped around her victim until he was forced to relinquish the blade from his clenched fist or force her to break his wrist—

She rolled forwards as a hand shot through the air behind her, releasing Little Xian in the process.

“You have gotten… better!” the familiar baritone of Juni’s older brother echoed behind her as she stood up, brushing water off herself.

“Very good!” Old Xian laughed. “Always expect the extra opponent, even if they were not there at the start.”

“Who are you teaching here, grandfather,” Little Xian pouted, standing up and massaging his arm.

“So, why did you get your ass handed to you?” the old man asked.

“…”

The younger Xian frowned, staring at his hand.

“I… underestimated the opponent, how much she knew, what she had and how she would use it.”

“Exactly,” Old Xian nodded. “This is why we train, for moments like this, so they are not… unexpected.”

“Thank you for the instruction,” she said, saluting—

Little Xian lunged for her, catching her a glancing blow with the other blade, which he had managed to steal off her.

“…”

Old Xian stared for a moment, then laughed uproariously as she recovered, wincing and holding her side.

“Right… not done yet,” she sighed, feeling a bit embarrassed that she had switched off like that.

It was the surprise interruption of Kun Talshin that had done it really, along with the stressful day.

“Now we are done!” the old man remarked with a broad grin as she shook her head again.

Little Xian stuck his tongue out at her, but then bowed politely.

“Thank you for the spar, Miss Jun,” he said formally.

“Thank you for the spar,” she replied, matching his bow.

While they completed the little ritual, Kun Talshin had returned to the shelter of the walkway around the courtyard to stand beside Old Xian.

“Sir Xian, do you make everyone who crosses your path endure unusual training?” the woman standing next to Kun Talshin remarked drolly, revealing herself to be Kun Lianmei, one of the Kun clan elites who also worked with the Beast Cadre.

“Hah…” the old man shook his head. “Today was a day that has provided me some auspicious enjoyment, do not begrudge an old man his hobbies!”

Recovering her blade and dagger from the ground, she walked back over to the covered area herself and saluted them, or tried to, because Kun Talshin stopped her.

“Please, as a good friend to Juni, you do not need to salute me,” Kun Talshin chuckled, taking his hand away again as she straightened up.

“Little Xian, come over here and greet Young Lord Talshin!” Old Xian added.

“Kun Xian sees cousin Talshin,” Little Xian said, bowing respectfully to Kun Talshin.

“Eh?” she blinked, caught out by the address.

-He is Juni’s cousin?

“Has this old man been making you do things and he didn’t even introduce himself?” Kun Talshin asked her with an eye roll, storing away his hat and cloak.

“…”

“That boy is Kun Xian, the son of Lady Wenhua, my aunt,” Kun Talshin explained.

“Then…”

She turned to the unassuming old man, who just returned her slightly nervous look levelly and grinned.

“You are…”

“Just Old Xian,” the old man, who she suddenly had a premonition was absolutely not a simple person, said drily. “This Old Xian is long retired, now I just teach people how to hit things properly and have good moral character.”

-Don’t tell me this unassuming old man is Juni’s grand uncle Kun Xian Jiang? she thought nervously. Can someone that eminent just be wandering about here like this, handing out pointers at random?

“…”

Given he was determined, she could only salute him and murmur; “Thank you for the instruction,” glad she had not said anything embarrassing.

Even if that wasn’t the case, and he was not one of the clan’s reclusive old elders, he was still clearly an important senior who had taken the time out of his day to let her train with his ward or charge.

The others with Kun Talshin had also stored away their hats and cloaks, allowing her to recognise them properly as well.

“Senior Lianmei,” she murmured, saluting the woman she had recognised before, who was one of the team leaders with the Beast Cadre in West Flower Picking Town and an elite of the Kun clan.

“Senior Chengde, Senior Huanfu…” she followed by saluting the two others with Kun Talshin as well.

Neither were part of the Hunter Bureau, but rather friends of Juni’s brother, from his time liaising with the Blue Duke’s forces during the Three Schools Conflict. She had a passing acquaintance with them, as they usually worked with Kun Talshin running security for caravans of spirit herbs. Both nodded politely to her but said nothing.

“…”

“Hunter Jun,” Lianmei nodded with a smile.

“Old Xian, shall we leave you to this?” Kun Talshin asked.

“Eh… a break is good,” the old man shrugged. “Thanks to Miss Jun here, the morning has been quite productive. Why don’t you scarper off, Little Xian, and we will resume this after lunch in the hall?”

“Yes, grandfather,” Kun Xian murmured, giving her a polite bow and then hurrying back into the hall with almost unseemly haste, carrying his weapon.

“I will put these back,” she added,

“He is a good lad, but still needs to get that instinct to always push himself really ingrained into his moral character,” Old Xian remarked behind her, watching Kun Xian go.

“If that is the worst you can say about him, our Kun clan is blessed,” Lianmei responded rather wryly. “The same…”

Heading inside, she didn’t catch the rest of the conversation, not that that really bothered her too much. Rather, it was the fact that she had just had one of the Old Elders of the Kun clan offering her pointers on her martial forms...

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

-And I said I actually knew stuff… she groaned inwardly.

“…”

Giving herself a shake, she replaced the short blade and dagger on their respective racks and bowed in thanks, then turned to the altar at the far end and bowed again, before departing the hall.

“Shall we retire to somewhere a bit less… damp?” Talshin was saying when she rejoined them.

“Yes, Disciple Mu will be coming shortly. Apparently the town elders have been complaining about the Kun clan interfering in Ha clan business all morning,” Lianmei added. “I have no doubt that the usual suspects locally will already be flocking to say their piece as well.”

“Certainly,” Chengde agreed, looking around the courtyard.

She followed after them for a few moments, before Kun Talshin fell in beside her.

“You… look well, all things considered,” he remarked, giving her some side-eye.

“Sorry, did Juni spin you some tale?” she grimaced.

“Not at all, I was getting tired of staring at supercilious Ha clan experts sipping tea on every street corner,” Kun Talshin chuckled.

“Ah, the Patriarch’s birthday at the end of the week,” she nodded, realising that was only two days away.

“—Yes, you would not think there were that many shady moustaches and ill-advised beards in the province unless you saw it with your own eyes,” Chengde interjected with an eye roll.

“Quite,” Lianmei sighed, as they started to walk around the garden courtyard she had been in before. “And the Pavilion is crawling with guest experts, I actually saw an associate official the other day. They never show their faces if there is the slightest chance they might have to shoulder some responsibility.”

“I’ll go get cleaned up?” she added, once Lianmei had finished complaining about associate officials.

“Ah, yes, probably not a bad idea,” Talshin observed, probably noticing that she looked thoroughly bedraggled at this point. “A maid will bring you to join us.”

“Okay,” she nodded.

Taking her leave, she hurried back to her rooms and quickly towelled herself off again, quietly lamenting the stupid traits of the rain-induced suppression as she did so. Swapping out her clothes, she pulled on a smarter-looking deep blue knee-length gown and eyed her hair in the mirror, before quickly re-plaiting it so it looked respectable again.

She had just finished checking she had no mud on her face, from splashing around in the courtyard, when there was a knock on the door. Going over, she opened it to find a maid standing there.

“Please follow me,” the woman said perfunctorily, turning on her heel and hurrying off.

-Is it just me, or are they getting more terse as the day goes on? she frowned, setting off after the woman.

The servant led her down to the lower level, back to the garden court, then down to the far end and into a large hall where the group were standing or sitting, with Kun Talshin being harangued by a middle-aged, bearded man in ornate robes.

Almost at the same moment, the man noticed her and scowled.

“You—!”

The words crossed the room like a curse, then dissipated almost immediately as Old Xian, who was sitting in the corner flipping through a book, coughed.

“…”

The others in the room all turned to look at him, frowning, looking uneasily between the bearded man and Old Xian.

“Erfan Ji, you are shaming your station,” Old Xian said blandly, not looking up from his book.

“Old Xian, you are also a guest in my house!” ‘Erfan’ scowled. “This girl has gotten our Kun clan embroiled in this whole mess, undoing all the effort we have taken to not get caught up in the spat between the Deng and Ha clans… now, thanks to her, it looks like we are siding with the Ha clan!”

“Last I checked the Deng region was one over,” Kun Talshin pointed out. “In any case, if your complaint is that we are calling out bandits who may be backed by the Deng clan, raiding Ha clan ginseng fields…”

“It has nothing to do with that!” Kun Erfan snapped. “I could care less what they do, so long as they leave Kun fields alone; the problem is this girl getting us tied up in that mess with the Ha clan’s Elder Li!”

“…”

“You mean, it has interfered with you milking all angles and put your brother firmly in the spotlight,” Lianmei muttered from the side. “Don’t blame Hunter Jun for this, this is entirely on you, Erlang Fu and Tan Jinfei.”

“Enough, Lianmei,” Talshin sighed.

“The Supreme Elder will certainly be informed,” Erfan scowled, glaring at her then at Talshin before stalking out, glaring at her again for good measure on the way.

“Well… that went better than expected,” Lianmei mused, watching the man depart.

“…”

“I suppose it did,” Talshin agreed.

“Sorry for causing a mess,” she said, coming over to the table and pouring herself some wine.

“You caused nothing,” Lianmei sighed, coming over and pouring out a cup of her own. “It’s this farce with the clearance missions, old men pissing into the wind from a great height for their own self-aggrandizement. The grudges they honed with the Three Schools Conflict never got resolved, they just escalated to a point where there was nobody acceptable left to kill.”

“It’s statements like that that prevent you from being promoted,” Chengde pointed out.

“Bleh, I will never be promoted so long as that Fang Hai leads the Hunter Bureau in this province,” Lianmei sneered.

“Ah… that is true,” Talshin agreed.

She looked from one to the other, just sipping her wine and saying nothing. The politics of the matter were… bitter, and the Beast Cadres had their own woes, more so in fact, because their purpose was more… potentially militant, compared to the Herb Hunters.

“Anyway,” Lianmei said, more decisively. “On to proper business: these corpses you brought back and the recordings you made of the tetrid lair. Do you have a hall somewhere we can work with?”

Her last words were addressed to Old Xian, who nodded and got up. “The martial training hall is probably best suited if you want space to work with.”

“Where we just were,” Lianmei said with a slightly resigned sigh.

“If it were not pouring down we could look at them outside, that would be better,” Talshin remarked. “But it is, and so we must make do.”

Finishing his own wine, Talshin stood again and with a sigh walked back out of the hall. Putting her cup down, she followed after the others as they all went back through the estate to the martial training hall.

“Light all the lanterns and put fresh incense on the altar,” Lianmei instructed Chengde and Huanfu, staring around the hall critically.

Chengde sighed, but went down the hall, poking each lantern in turn and putting a little flickering golden light into them.

While they were doing that, she took out her scrip and projected the life-size image of what she had scanned for them to see.

“Fates… is some bastard actually raising this thing?” Lianmei hissed, almost immediately, walking around the periphery of the ‘nest’.

“That… was my impression, or at the very least someone created a captive nest from which to extract suitable tetrids for control,” she agreed, flicking through the other scenes. “Ah… here.”

She found the scene of the ‘workshop’ and projected that as well.

“…”

“Well… well, well, well…” Lianmei murmured, her tone turning frosty as she walked over to the new image she was projecting.

“Old Xian… you were involved in the mess 150 years ago, were you not?” Lianmei said, turning to the old man.

“I was,” Old Xian mused, also staring at the workshop.

“You found this as you recorded it, up in the mountains?” Lianmei turned back to her and asked.

“I did,” she nodded. “It was a ruin… old, a complex belonging to an ancient clan, at the far end of the escarpment below the Red Pit.”

“Oh?” Old Xian asked.

“Tai?” she clarified, recalling the name on the pair of statues.

“…”

Old Xian stared at her for a long moment, then at the room.

“I am not familiar with them,” Lianmei frowned, still staring at the workshop with narrow eyes.

“You would not be,” Old Xian mused. “They are ancient history, I doubt you found anything valuable there in any case.”

“It… did have the appearance of having been cleaned out long ago,” she conceded. “Just statues and carvings… mostly.”

“What happened 150 years ago?” Chengde asked, finishing lighting the lanterns and coming over.

“Nastiness… that still resonates today if you poke in the wrong places,” Old Xian sighed, shaking his head.

“Did you see who was raising these?” Lianmei asked, pointing to the eggs.

“Maybe,” she mused after a moment’s consideration, “although not that I knew at the time. He was about medium build… scrawny beard, rather nondescript-looking, as far as defining features that stood out in the middle of a dark swamp, by lantern light, in the middle of a rainstorm go.”

“A name?” Lianmei added.

“Oh… ‘Yeng’,” she replied. “They were cursing him a lot, especially in regards to the big queen that got out of that nest chamber… somehow.”

“Yeng…” Lianmei frowned. “Yeng Illhan?”

“If this is indeed that old bandit, this is no longer something we can leave up to the village authority,” Old Xian said simply.

“From what little I recall, this does have the look; he raised mutate tetrids, used them to assassinate people here and there, kept a low profile after the Blood Eclipse mess. He really came back into the frame during the Three Schools Conflict…” Lianmei scowled. “And then vanished without a trace. It was presumed he was dead in a ditch somewhere from trying his arm at assassinating one too many people.”

“What do you think?” Talshin asked Lianmei, having finished his own walk through her projection of the tetrid stalker nest.

“Someone was definitely raising and mutating tetrids up there… the native ones in Yin Eclipse have mutations and adaptions that make them very desirable outside,” Lianmei mused. “If this is Yeng Illhan, or someone operating with knowledge of what he was doing…”

“You think the tetrid that rampaged through Bo Lai Village was linked to here?”

“Without actual—”

“Uh… I may have that,” she said, cutting in.

“You…” Lianmei blinked.

She focused on her talisman and withdrew the remains of the large, adult stalker she had half teleported, and the core, which she passed to Lianmei.

“…”

“Fates go get crocked!” Lianmei remarked, looking at the remains of the body.

“You killed it with a teleport talisman,” Old Xian mused, walking over to poke it with a finger.

“It jumped me, I teleported… and brought half of it with me,” she grimaced.

“Fortuitous,” Lianmei nodded. “This is nearly at Nascent Soul.”

“And it has mutations from the Red Pit,” Talshin added, crouching down to peer at the flesh.

“The core kinda makes that obvious,” Lianmei remarked, turning it over in her hands, then declaring after a further moment’s consideration: “This has been messed with.”

“I was able to take out another pair with an ‘Alignment Disruption’ talisman,” she added.

“That sounds about right,” Lianmei agreed, then tossed her a Spirit Jade.

“Eh?” she blinked, surprised, catching the oval gem out of the air.

“Remuneration for the corpse and the core, I assume your original plan was to see if any alchemists were interested in beast parts?” Lianmei asked.

“Or talisman masters,” she replied with a grimace.

-Well, that solves my expenses, she reflected wryly, storing away the Jade.

“—though at this point I would certainly have taken it to you first anyway, especially once it looked like there was a link between this tetrid nest and this local attack that seems to have laid out Elder Fei,” she added.

“Really…” Lianmei mused.

“Well, there was no absolute evidence,” she said, with a grimace. “But thinking about it, it makes sense.”

“Oh?” Old Xian said, looking at her.

“Well, Immortal Fei was… powerful,” she said. “Apparently other high ranking individuals were injured as well, after the tetrid destroyed the villages of Fei Moon and Bolai? Since then, there seems to have been a notable uptick in local… corruption, or at least malign neglect by various local influences. The ginseng fields are fallow and the Ha clan seem to be using a lot of labour from West Flower Picking Town, rather than locals.”

“Hmmm…” Talshin nodded as he listened.

“Furthermore,” she went on. “The records for the passes in and out of the Red Pit are totally outdated. The way station up there is flooded, the main route in has been blocked by a massive landslide and half of the Red Pit itself was flooded… none of this was mentioned on any Hunter Bureau record, and when I went up there I found trapped spirit herbs on the path in.”

“Indeed… it is listed as passable,” Lianmei mused, staring into nothing for a moment. “That will have to be investigated as a matter of urgency, though I doubt anyone here will be especially cut up that that death trap of a forbidden area is not as accessible.”

“That’s the thing…” she grimaced. “I found fresh bodies up there, three children from West Flower Picking Town, including a very minor daughter of the Ha clan, Ha Fenfang.”

“The flower seller?” Huanfu’s expression turned stony.

“And Nen Hong… and her brother… they died along with a ‘Ha Quan’,” she said, not bothering to hide her anger at that.

“If the passes in are blocked… how?” Chengde muttered.

“I think there may be a passage up through the ruins I found, or via some other ruin,” she said with a sigh. “But…”

“You could search up there for weeks, and find nothing,” Talshin sighed.

“Yes,” she agreed, grimacing.

“It is no wonder the village elders wanted to get their hands on you,” Talshin muttered. “You were right to come straight to my sister.”

“These clearance missions you were given stink,” Lianmei added, apparently having checked what she had been here for.

“—I found them,” she interjected, pulling up that scene.

“…”

“These are Fate Shifting Compasses,” Old Xian said, stepping into the scene to stare at the bodies in turn. “All from the Ha clan…inauspicious… inauspicious…”

“Two of them were the scions I was sent to look for, I think I destroyed the body of the third when I hit a tetrid nest in the Red Pit with a ‘Fu Kan’s Lash’ talisman,” she added.

“Young Lord Talshin… sorry to… interrupt,” a male servant appeared at the doorway to the hall.

“What is it?” Talshin asked, standing up.

“The… village elders are here, demanding to see Hunter Jun,” the servant said, glancing at her. “The priest from the ancestral shrine is with them as well, along with an elder from the Jade Willow Sect and some experts from the Ha clan.”

“They took their time,” Lianmei remarked.

“Hmm… invite them in, serve them some refreshments since it is lunch, and then show them here when they inevitably refuse and just start walking,” Talshin said with a frown.

“You have a plan?” Lianmei asked.

“It is a Bureau requirement that all bodies recovered—”

“—from within the confines of the suppression zone be evaluated by an official from the Hunter Bureau, in case any among their number happen to be a Herb Hunter,” she finished for him.

“Ah, Young Lord Talshin!”

She turned around to find Kun Shi, Kun Zhuge Fei and Fan Aoshen were also in the doorway.

“When I heard that Young Lord Talshin had arrived, I hurried back,” Kun Shi said, bowing deeply. “This disciple apologises for not being here to meet you in person!”

“This disciple apologizes,” Zhuge Fei murmured, also bowing, though not quite as much.

“Excuse me Cousin Shi... hey Grandfather, what is… oh… cool! What is that!” the smaller form of Kun Xian slipped into the doorway of the hall, pushing past Kun Shi and nodding to Old Xian before pausing to admire the ruined half of the tetrid stalker.

“A tetrid stalker,” she remarked drily.

“Hmmmmm…” Old Xian eyed his grandson dubiously, but the boy studiously ignored the old man, instead walking in a circle around the bisected monstrosity with determined interest.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the three Jade Willow disciples also looking somewhat nonplussed at his appearance.

“They seem fairly clueless?” she murmured to him, making sure she was facing away from the three by the door.

“…”

Kun Xian rolled his eyes, basically confirming her guess.

“What about them?” Chengde asked, waving a hand at the three disciples, who eyed him back, dubiously.

Lianmei, who had gone back to staring at the projection of the nest, shrugged.

“You should probably put on your rank robe,” Talshin remarked to Lianmei.

“Ah, I suppose I should, these village types do like a show,” Lianmei mused, waving her hand.

A moment later, a blue robe in Kun colours, with nine silver slashes, appeared on the Beast Hunter. Following suit, she put on her own grey robe, with its bronze slashes and red trim.

“Can you start putting the bodies out as they are in the projection?” Lianmei asked her.

“Ah… sure,” she saluted and, pulling out the black bracelet from her belt pouch, walked over to the middle of the room.

“Bodies?” Kun Xian asked from the side of the hall, where he had gone to sit on a ledge that might have held a statue once.

“Bodies?” Kun Shi asked, echoing the question. “What do you—?”

Ignoring them both, she withdrew the first corpse and placed it where it had been in the nest, pausing only to reorientate the projection a bit so it gave space to walk all the way around it.

Kun Shi, and in fact all the other onlookers, trailed off as she placed the rest of the whole corpses down, arranging them into the appropriate positions, checking for contamination as she did so. All of them had stored, so nothing ‘living’ should technically be on them, but death qi was dangerous and probably none of the bodies she had found had had anything approaching a ‘good’ death, if there even was such a thing.

In short order, she had twenty-three bodies laid out: thirteen male and ten female. As she had noticed before, their ages were fairly random—

“Wait… is that Meihua!?!” Fan Aoshen exclaimed from where the group had been watching, by the door.

“You know her?” she asked, gesturing to a dark-haired young woman about her age, who had died from having her throat cut near as she could tell, and whose body she had just placed down close to the front of where the ghostly ‘pagoda’ was shimmering.

“Oh?” Lianmei frowned, pausing her examination of the various bodies as they lay amidst the faintly translucent, projected forms of dead qi-beasts.

“Uh… junior sister Meihua left to go back to her family in Red Lake four weeks ago,” Fan Aoshen said, looking a bit pale as he surveyed the macabre scene. “She… agreed to do some simple tasks along the way for sect contributions and never arrived…”

“I… see,” she sighed, seeing another little tragedy.

The last three bodies, all male, that she laid out included Nen Shirong, who was still cold enough that his presence made the air mist faintly.

Stepping back, she glanced back over at Lianmei.

“Want me to do the partials?” she asked.

“Hmm…” Lianmei, who was crouching down now and looking at or for something, glanced up and nodded.

Burying her grimace, she took out the partial remains and started on another grim, sad circuit. Most were torsos with an arm or a leg attached, none of them pretty to look at.

She resisted using her mantra to suppress her distaste… because that didn’t feel right really.

“Where… did all these bodies come from?” Kun Shi asked, staring aghast as she put the last of seven severed heads out, trying not to look at their pale, sightless eyes and lost expressions.

“A big fate-thrashed mess,” Chengde, who was looking at a compass now, muttered.

“—a clear—”

“This is a disgrace!” an old man snapped, stalking into the hall. “So much for Kun—”

The man, who wore a white and purple robe with a lot of gold trim, stared around, looking rather aghast.

“What the fates is this, nameless fates! Put these away!”

“You must be the Village Leader?” Lianmei said, standing up and stepping through the reflection and around bodies to arrive before the group of five who had entered in after him.

“I… am,” the old man trailed off as his gaze took in Lianmei’s robe.

“Sadly, while these poor souls deserve their peaceful repose and passage to the next life,” Lianmei said with a sad, yet supportive expression. “Bodies recovered in Yin Eclipse must be properly recorded and the records submitted to the central Bureau in Blue Water City if they are recovered on official business. There might be Herb Hunters among them.”

“That is…” a second old man, dressed in red and purple robes, stared daggers at her rather than Lianmei.

“It is the rule,” she said apologetically.

“This… you are playing politics with our villagers’ lives, we will complain formally to the Hunter Pavilion!” another of the elders huffed.

“I am Elder Lianmei, leader of West Flower Picking Town’s Beast Cadre,” Lianmei replied politely. “Any complaints can be directed to me personally.”

“…”

The group of elders, faced with the idea of complaining in person to a Chosen Immortal… wisely said nothing.

“Ah… Elder Jung!” Aoshen, who was standing nearby, saluted a sixth figure who had just entered behind the five elders.

“Stop blocking the door,” a commanding voice from behind the village elders interjected.

The five village leaders and the elder from the Jade Willow Sect all shuffled out of the way as a further group of six entered the hall, all dressed in Ha clan robes.

“Does this estate even have a gate?” Old Xian scowled, as the two groups fanned out and the new arrivals also took in the grim scene.

“Elder Lianmei, Sir Talshin,” the bearded young man leading the Ha clan group said, nodding politely to the pair and basically ignoring everyone else, beyond casting a faint, sideways look at her.

“Ha Mofan,” Talshin replied politely.

“I am here under the authority of the Governor of West Flower Picking Town, Sir Ha Feirong, to provide an escort for Hunter Jun Arai until she is able to return to West Flower Picking Town and deliver a full and sincere account of the events she has witnessed. The Patriarch has taken a particular interest in this matter and is hoping for good news,” Ha Mofan, who she vaguely recognised as one of the officials who accompanied the Governor Ha, said blandly, holding out a sealed scroll.

“How does your Patriarch hope for good news,” Chengde remarked sourly.

“Disrespectful!” one of the guards accompanying Ha Mofan said, stepping forward—

“…” Old Xian said nothing, but the pressure in the room became faintly… more somehow.

“Old man—!” another guard scowled.

“I thought the Ha clan better than this,” Talshin frowned.

“…”

Ha Mofan glanced at the guards, clearly also unhappy with their actions.

“Please wait outside,” Ha Mofan said to the two who had spoken up.

“…”

Both guards scowled at her, Old Xian and Chengde, but did as Ha Mofan commanded and left through the door.

“Please excuse their… enthusiasm,” Ha Mofan said with a faint grimace.

The others in the room just looked at him like he was an idiot, but Ha Mofan clearly affected not to notice and instead looked at the group of corpses arraigned in the middle of the hall.

“Very unfortunate, this,” he mused. “The Ha clan will of course give every bit of support to Jade Willow Village. So many promising people dead… this seems to be the work of tetrid stalkers?”

He turned to look at the remains of the stalker at the side of the hall.

“The beast that did it?”

“No,” Lianmei said blandly. “This one is a male.”

“I see, I see…” Ha Mofan continued to nod. “Well, this matter is all well and good it seems.”

“It is?” the village mayor blinked.

“Well, a Beast Hunter is here, the victims have been recovered… it seems a line can be drawn—”

“Hardly,” the elder from the Jade Willow Sect spoke up. “One of our disciples is dead… and as far as I can see, tetrid stalkers do not slit people’s throats from ear to ear with metal blades.”

“I rather fear the Elder is right,” Lianmei said. “We must check the identities of all these bodies. There are six missing persons from the Hunter Pavilion in this region, between Red Lake and Jade Willow, that have been reported this year that remain unresolved.”

“The Ha clan is more than happy to take over this duty…”

“Ah, yes,” an old bald man in Taoist priests’ robes, standing beside the mayor, bowed to Ha Mofan. “It would be very gracious of the Ha clan to handle this matter, very gracious.”

“Our Ha clan also has several Herb Hunters, Associate Official Botan is already on his way here along with several promising juniors,” Ha Mofan said with a broad smile.

-So that’s their plan, she mused. Just wrap it all up in cloth and have it looked into under the auspice of the Ha clan?

“There is something about this that doesn’t add up,” she signed unobtrusively to Lianmei.

“How so?” Lianmei signed back.

“Well… I encountered an Associate Hunter up there, who should be called Botan if I recall, he was badly injured by an adult tetrid,” she signed.

“…”

“That is very generous, Ha Mofan,” Lianmei said, still retaining her helpful smile. “But I am afraid this is out of your hands. Unless you can produce a Gold Ranked Official in the pocket of the Ha clan, you are not getting sole custody over this. There are too many questions that need answers.”

“This attitude is rather unfortunate, don’t you think?” Ha Mofan sighed. “We must respect the wishes of Jade Willow Village after all. They are the most aggrieved party in this?”

“Seeing it settled by Official Mofan is all we desire,” the mayor and the shrine priest both mused.

“That is hardly a majority decision,” the other old man scowled. “Your Ha clan this, Ha clan that…”

“I concur, Old Leung,” the Elder from the Jade Willow Sect nodded, looking annoyed at having been forced to the sidelines near as she could tell. “Having this done in the presence of all parties, with a famous expert like Fairy Lianmei in attendance, means we can only learn more, not less… given at least one of our own is dead in this unusual tetrid nest.”

“Scholar Jung speaks wise words,” Elder Leung nodded.

“There is also the matter of the request completions,” the mayor said, looking sideways at her. “It has been… disappointing to us that this Hunter has not fulfilled the promise we hoped…”

“I have looked over that,” Lianmei said blandly. “Hunter Jun was to teach about ginseng, yes. However, your local ginseng fields are, according to recently filed reports, in such disrepair that you can barely expect to gather a tithe as required by the Pavilion for their help in managing them in the coming year…

“Rather than risk further degradation to an already valuable local resource, she instead showed initiative by identifying another important problem – an unfortunate contamination by Duo Li’s water lotuses – and has instructed various villagers, local scions and members of the Jade Willow Sect in feng shui and formations that they might better deal with these kinds of problems without suffering so keenly the vagaries and politics of great men and women in Blue Water City… I see this request went around several times over the course of this year and remained unaddressed until this point.”

“That…” the mayor frowned.

“There are some waterways still to be swept, to confirm that the infestation is properly eliminated,” she said promptly. “I was to do this, this afternoon, until these events occurred.”

“And what of the other matters?” Ha Mofan mused, looking at her.

“Other matters?” she asked.

“There was a request to look into a missing elder who has achieved some small fame, again the Patriarch has taken a personal interest… not to mention several missing scions…”

“I have already started submitting that,” she replied, which was true, given she had told Juni, and now Talshin and Lianmei were here. “Given it was stressed as a matter of utmost importance, I have already located Elder Li and the missing scions and sent that information to the appropriate parties, as the missions instructed.”

-You think I have not done this before? She scowled mentally at Ha Mofan.

“The paperwork presented so far does seem in order,” Lianmei noted, staring into the distance again for a moment, no doubt looking at something through her talisman. “It is being handled by an Official… Xianji, on behalf of Official Weng, who it appears is fulfilling other official obligations relating to the ongoing visit in Blue Water City?”

“I will have to make enquiries there,” Ha Mofan replied, a bit less pleasantly.

“Ah, Hunter Jun, if you wish, you can go see to this training request that the village mayor is so exercised about?” Lianmei added.

“Ah, I would be interested in that,” Kun Xian said, hopping off his perch. “Perhaps Brother Shi here will catch another lotus!”

Kun Shi scowled slightly at Kun Xian, who affected not to notice.

“Pavilion Elder Mu will meet you in the main courtyard,” Lianmei said to her. “Thank you for your assistance earlier as well.”

“Not at all,” she murmured, saluting Lianmei then turning to the others in turn. “Young Lord Talshin, Sir Chengde, Sir Huanfu.”

“This old man needs a walk as well,” Old Xian chuckled, getting up from the bench at the side of the room where he had been sitting. “Perhaps I shall fish a bit while watching you youngsters frolic with attitude-deficient pondweed.”

Giving one last look around the hall, studiously ignoring the various unhappy and calculating looks… especially the one from Ha Mofan, she turned on her heel and headed out of the hall.

-How can this day feel like it’s more work than yesterday? she grumbled to herself, stepping out into the much less oppressive early afternoon rain and setting off around the courtyard, back towards the entrance of the estate.

The whistling Kun Xian trotted after her, followed after a moment’s hesitation by Kun Shi and his fellow disciples and Old Xian.

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

~ DUN LIAN JING – GOLDEN DRAGON TEAHOUSE ~

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

Sitting at a table on the top floor of the Golden Dragon Teahouse, Dun Lian Jing sipped her tea and tried not to look as bored as she currently felt. About a dozen other groups, mostly young nobles from various influences within the city, were scattered around the other tables, talking quietly and occasionally casting glances towards the area where she, JiLao and a few others had carved out a sort of private domain.

-Truly, this place is nowhere near as good as the Myriad Blossoms, she complained internally, putting the tea down again and staring at the ceiling for a moment.

“I trust the book is at least interesting?” she asked JiLao at last, sitting back listlessly and staring at nothing in particular behind him on the carved spirit wood partition screen.

“It is… actually, for all that it is incomplete in many ways,” JiLao sighed, putting it down so she could see the title, ‘A treatise on the ruins of Yin Eclipse: A re-appraisal, By Quanluo’, and picking up a cup of tea.

“…”

“Although I still fear that the clearest route to the answers your Imperial Uncle is seeking leads through the Cao clan,” JiLao said, noting her silence as she just waited for him to continue his explanation.

He took a sip of his tea and grimaced, putting it down again.

“Maybe we could move to the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse?” he reflected, staring at the cup. “Or at least find out where they source their tea.”

“JiLao, here you are!”

A disciple wearing the robes of an inner disciple of the Four Peacocks Court, emblazoned with an extra golden star with the symbol for ‘Hong’ on it, appeared, almost like a ghost, intruding into their little enclave. Along with him came three other disciples, one in the dark green robes edged with black and gold of an inner disciple of the Jade Gate Court, the other two wearing gowns of the Imperial School.

“Huang Ryuun,” JiLao sighed, staring up at the newcomer, then at the three behind him.

“Imperial Princess,” the Huang clan scion bowed formally, if unenthusiastically, to her, as did the disciples following behind him.

“To what do we owe this interruption?” JiLao asked, the book vanishing into his storage ring almost before Huang Ryuun had straightened up from his bow.

“Interruption?” Huang Ryuun chuckled, looking around. “You look bored stiff.”

“…”

-Fates I hate these off-world scions, she complained in her heart.

The ‘Hong’ were one of the main Heavenly branches of the Huang clan. Given the Empress was affiliated with the ‘Wuli’ branch of the Huang clan, there was some political back and forth with the other Huang branches, but they did not have a big presence on Eastern Azure, being mostly limited to the Four Peacocks Court. They were, however, closely aligned with the Kong Heavenly Clan elsewhere in the starfield from what she understood, an affiliation which went all the way back to the Huang-Mo War.

The issue, in this instance, was simply that the off-world scions of those clans were insufferable. Most of them had been born on Eastern Azure, this much was true, but in terms of attitude, they held themselves apart, aloof even from the Imperial Court, and, in the case of people like Huang Ryuun, largely just did as they pleased, secure in the knowledge that even someone like her could do little to really censure them.

“I wanted to introduce you to my good friends here! They have just arrived today and are eagerly looking forward to this grand spectacle of an auction you have planned!” Huang Ryuun grinned, sitting down opposite Huang JiLao.

“Din Huan,” the dark-blonde-haired youth with chiselled features in Jade Gate Court robes said with a polite bow, sitting down beside Huang Ryuun.

“Shu Shubei,” the taller youth from the Imperial School added.

“Fang Daodi,” the more muscular Imperial School disciple concluded, sitting down as well.

“A pleasure,” JiLao murmured, clearly not meaning it.

-Din, Huang, Fang and Shu… are this lot the Sovereignty Hall? she scowled.

The ‘Sovereignty Hall’ was a faction within the Imperial Court who wanted Eastern Azure to thoroughly desert the influence sphere of Shan Lai and the Azure Astral Authority and declare the world fully for the Supreme Sovereignty Alliance, of which the Kong and Huang were major backers. It had mostly emerged after the Huang-Mo War as she understood it, and had significantly more clout with her Imperial Father’s court than they had with his august predecessor.

More importantly though, they were not particularly nicely aligned with her Imperial Uncle, Dun Jian, but rather had links to the Third Imperial Prince, Dun Fanshu, who, while not a ‘member’ of the Hall, was known to be very sympathetic to their views.

“Brother Huan has apparently been touring the province, as the Din clan are negotiating closer ties with the Ha clan,” Ryuun added.

“I have…” Din Huan agreed.

-Is that why the Deng clan have been almost throwing themselves at us? she wondered, having been appraised of that petty squabble from several angles already in the last few days. They don’t want to lose ground if the Ha gain closer ties to the Jade Gate Court or the Imperial School, so they want to kiss the hem of an Imperial Family member instead?

“It has come a long way in the thirty years since I was here last,” Din Huan mused, pouring himself a cup of the tea.

“Young Noble JiLao,” a servant appeared, bowing respectfully to Huang JiLao and her. “There is someone asking to see you.”

“To see me?” Huang JiLao frowned.

“Yes, the Young Lady of the Kun clan and the Inheritance Daughter of the Kun clan are both here.”

“Did they give a reason why?” Huang JiLao asked, nonplussed.

“Not… as such, but the Young Lady of the Kun clan said that if it was convenient she had a small matter to discuss with you and, as a token of her sincerity, she was willing to talk about Yin Eclipse.”

JiLao kept his frown but nodded, looking pensive.

“That sounds like they want to impress you, Brother JiLao,” Huang Ryuun chuckled.

“Well, I was not expecting her for a while,” JiLao sighed, standing up. “But it seems like I will have to offer my apologies, Brother Ryuun, Daoists Huan, Shubei, Daodi, let us catch up properly later if opportunity permits.”

“Not at all,” Huang Ryuun chuckled. “I saw the Inheritance Daughter at the dinner yesterday, she is quite attentive so I am sure you will find her very engaging!”

“…”

Huang JiLao just shook his head faintly, affecting to look amused at the comment.

Sighing, she stood up as well.

-If he is using this pair as an opportunity to escape these four, I may as well make use of his deception, she reflected.

Sweeping her veiled gaze across the four, she gave them a barely visible half-smile that never really reached her eyes.

“A pleasure,” she murmured, following after JiLao as he set off after the servant.

“That was rather handy,” she murmured once they were properly out of earshot of the four.

“Yes,” JiLao agreed, not elaborating further.

They followed the servant across the upper level and to another partitioned area, where a group of eight were sitting talking among themselves.

“Young Noble JiLao, Imperial Princess Lian Jing,” the servant announced.

As one, the group all stood, saluting them both.

“You honour us, Young Noble JiLao,” a tall dark-haired woman with flawless features wearing a blue and gold gown murmured. “This Xingjuan is honoured to stand in your presence.”

Eyeing the ‘Inheritance Daughter’, she was somewhat surprised to see that she was actually at Dao Seeking, and had a reasonably robust foundation for such a backwater place. By the standards of the central, Imperial continent she was a bit old, but probably Kun Xingjuan would become an Immortal by her late thirties.

“Young Noble Huang JiLao, Imperial Princess Lian Jing,” the slightly older, dark-brown-haired woman with blue eyes, sitting next to Xingjuan, who had the kind of figure that drew male eyes, bowed, with quite a bit more poise than Xingjuan she had to admit. “This Young Lady is honoured to stand in your presence.”

“You… must be the Young Lady of the Kun clan?” Huang JiLao mused.

“I am,” the woman said, not looking up from her formal bow. “This Young Lady is Kun Juni.”

Looking the young woman over, she had to sigh because, while she was pretty, it was clear, taking in the age and cultivation foundation of the ‘Young Lady’ of the Kun clan, why Kun Xingjuan was the ‘Inheritance Daughter’.

To be only at Qi Refinement at the age of thirty-four was… embarrassing honestly, for someone in that position. The woman had nothing particularly wrong with her cultivation either, if anything there were elements of the woman’s foundation that were strangely obscure, but that was about it.

-Perhaps she lacks dedication or something.

Such a thing was not that uncommon, although most who took that route at least got to Immortal before abandoning their trek upwards.

-The Kun clan sure has it hard, she mused.

Shaking her head slightly, she took a seat at the table and crossed her arms. Huang JiLao sat beside her after a moment’s consideration, then waved for the rest – a young, blonde-haired woman of equally poor realm, dressed in a dark-blue and gold spirit gown embroidered with swirling waves or clouds, and three male disciples from influences in Pill Sovereign City – to be seated as well.

“So, you had a matter to discuss with me?” JiLao asked looking between the two women.

“I understand Young Noble Huang has been making enquiries about Yin Eclipse,” Kun Juni said respectfully.

-She certainly knows the manner, she judged, probably she is used to convincing others to make up for her own faults.

“I am curious how you came by that,” JiLao mused.

“The Blue Gate School is in turmoil since you arrived, the Deng clan and others are scrambling over themselves to see you. Clan Lord Deng Kong has barely left this teahouse in three days,” Kun Juni said softly. “And Deng Bo Hai was waiting for you on the dock when you arrived.”

“You are… remarkably well informed,” JiLao replied.

“You praise me, Young Noble,” Kun Juni murmured respectfully.

“And your tales are… not so tall?” she added.

“That depends on what your Imperial Highness wants to know,” Kun Juni replied.

“…”

She stared at the woman, frowning, because there was nothing at all inappropriate with her reply, but somehow the context of it just seemed…

To cover her annoyance, she took a sip of the tea and blinked, because it was several times better in quality compared to what they had been served.

“The tea is good?” she remarked, glancing at the servant who just looked a bit nonplussed.

“You like it?” Kun Xingjuan asked. “It is our Kun clan’s produce.”

“They do not serve it here?” she asked, glancing at the servant again, who was now looking a bit askance at the tea pot.

“The Myriad Blossoms Teahouse holds an exclusive contract to sell it within the city, Your Imperial Highness,” Kun Juni answered politely. “The Golden Dragon prefers to import their signature tea blends from the Imperial continent.”

“…”

“Our teas are the finest blends, imported from the Imperial continent’s most established and esteemed sources, your Imperial Highness,” the servant said, bowing to her.

“I see,” she said a bit shortly, taking another sip of the tea to make her point to the servant.

“—In any case, what do you wish to… transact?” JiLao asked, cutting through the conversation.

“That depends what you want to know about Yin Eclipse,” Kun Juni replied respectfully.

“And what do you want in return?” she added.

“My friend here has a small issue regarding a scion of the Huang clan that really should not get blown out of proportion, Your Imperial Highness,” Kun Juni replied.

“And you want me to intercede?” JiLao frowned.

“If possible,” Kun Juni agreed.

“Which scion?” JiLao asked, which was, she had to admit, a rather pertinent question.

“Huang Fuan,” Kun Juni replied promptly. “He is a disciple of the Myriad Herb Association and a member of the Four Peacocks Court.”

“I am familiar with him,” JiLao mused. “What has he done?”

“He was invited to teach a class by an elder in the Blue Gate School, and this has led to some problems for my friend Lin Ling, who was already contracted by the School to teach that class. The elder overseeing is eager to curry favour with the backers of Huang Fuan, I assume.”

“How does that affect you?” JiLao frowned.

“The School is playing politics, preferring foreign over local,” Kun Juni said simply.

Frowning, she looked at the others, who were listening in with a degree of polite, if detached, interest.

“I see…” JiLao nodded, sipping his own tea. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“You control the School now,” Kun Juni said matter-of-factly. “Make this problem go away and I will answer any question you have about Yin Eclipse to the best of my knowledge.”

“And you can offer us something worth that favour?” she interjected, actually slightly impressed at the younger woman’s confidence in that declaration. She hadn’t quite come out and said ‘and my knowledge is better than the rest’, but the subtle implication was there.

Off to the side, she saw Xingjuan’s expression turn a bit conflicted for a second, then go back to impassive as the younger Kun clan woman sipped her tea in silence.

-What is her purpose here, was it just to get this meeting? Because she went to the banquet?

-And speaking of that, why wasn’t this Kun Juni at the banquet, is it just because her cultivation is low for her age?

-I may have misjudged this girl, she reflected, eyeing Juni again pensively. Her cultivation is lacking… but her judgement is astute compared to most.

Considering herself critically, she had to admit that that was maybe why she disliked the younger woman slightly. She was too… political? That she was clearly doing this to help a friend just made her want to look for the extra angle.

-Or is this some ploy by the Kun clan? she mused. Imperial Uncle’s plan was to push this firmly into the court of the younger generation, force the old fogies to stay clear of it for fear of the optics involved, just like Fanshu did with the Teng School…

“…”

Kun Juni stared at the ceiling for a moment, then withdrew a talisman and passed it over to JiLao.

“My record is publicly available, although the nature of the missions completed in several cases are not,” Kun Juni said simply.

“You are a junior official in the Hunter Bureau?” JiLao mused, picking up the talisman and turning it over in his hands. “And have been a Herb Hunter for almost twenty years?”

“I am a full official, the liaison from the Kun clan to the West Flower Picking Hunter Pavilion,” Kun Juni replied deferentially. “And yes, I have been a Hunter since I was fourteen.”

“I see…” JiLao nodded. “You are aware that the Hunter Pavilion has politely remained at a distance from our visit here?”

“The Hunter Bureau in this province is not so monolithic beyond the confines of this city,” Kun Juni remarked.

-And she doesn’t seem that concerned about talking about that either, she noted. Why did they send the Inheritance Daughter to the dinner then? Clan politics?

“And if my price for asking about this, was about the ruins up stream, and the things that come out of them?” JiLao asked, accepting a refill of tea from the Pill Sovereign Sect disciple sitting nearby.

The blonde girl just about stifled a half-laugh, putting her hand over her mouth and sipping her tea quickly.

“You are interested in stone pots that never break and inscrutable remnants of structures from the previous heavens?” Kun Juni asked, raising an eyebrow.

“If that is all you have to say about this, then I cannot help you,” JiLao replied blandly.

“I think I can do better than whatever the Deng clan have peddled you,” Kun Juni murmured; “however, I will need some assurance that this issue is… dealt with, or, if you cannot exert any influence over Huang Fuan, that the school will not stand in the way of signing off on my friend’s teaching assignment.”

“I have heard something of that,” Huang JiLao mused. “Apparently improper teaching led to a disciple exploding a very expensive pill furnace?”

“The school supplies furnaces that are not precious; this disciple used their own, and used it inappropriately, then blamed Miss Lin for his own failure,” Kun Juni replied blandly.

“…”

Listening to this, she could sort of guess what had happened, which was… kind of amusing really. Clearly Huang Fuan had been called upon by this junior and, still angry over the matter in the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse, had taken out his frustrations on this Lin Ling. That Kun Juni was astute enough to suspect that Huang JiLao might not necessarily be able to convince Huang Fuan directly to not make a further scene was… also interesting.

“As to an assurance, certainly,” JiLao agreed. “What do you want?”

“A signed document with your personal seal on it will suffice,” Kun Juni replied.

“Not a heavenly oath?” JiLao asked with a faint smile.

“This Young Lady would not dare,” Kun Juni replied respectfully.

“Fine,” JiLao nodded, pulling out a sheet of paper and quickly writing down his personal assurance and offering it to Kun Juni to read.

She nodded and JiLao withdrew a seal and placed it on the paper, pushing some qi into it. The paper shimmered and the seal imprinted itself indelibly onto the document.

“So, what is your offering in return?” JiLao asked.

“Do you want me to talk about it here?” Kun Juni asked, glancing around at the various tables of young nobles.

“…”

JiLao didn’t look around, but did raise an eyebrow.

“Where would you talk about it?” he asked.

“My cousin Xingjuan and I are about to go to dinner with the only other eligible young lady of a noble clan in Blue Water City, Ling Yu,” Kun Juni replied. “It will be in the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse… where we will not be overheard by too many young nobles with older ears behind them.”

She happened to catch the slightly surprised glance that Xingjuan cast Kun Juni at that comment… which was certainly interesting.

“…”

“If that still doesn’t convince you…” Juni got up and leant over the table to whisper something in JiLao’s ear that was barely audible.

“What nobody has likely told you about those pots, I am sure, is that there is a way to match artefacts to the ruins they came from…”

Thinking back… that was true. Even in her Imperial Uncle, Dun Jian’s, notes, there was no mention of that, though they were not as copious as she had once thought in any case, so possibly he had just overlooked it for some reason.

“That is indeed the case,” JiLao nodded, glancing at her.

Frowning she turned it over in her head, then nodded, if largely because the food and service were better there.

“Okay, I will come to dinner with you in the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse,” JiLao agreed.

“Brother JiLao, Princess Lian Jing,”

She glanced up and sighed, because Huang Ryuun was… back, along with – somewhat ironically – the idiot in question, Huang Fuan, two other Four Peacocks Court disciples and Fang Daodi from the Imperial School.

“We are just about to take our leave,” Huang Ryuun said, casting a glance across the table, dismissing everyone except for the Kun pair.

“Thank you for the delightful gathering,” Fang Daodi added, his gaze also lingering on Juni and Xingjuan.

“Unless, of course, you wish to join us elsewhere?” Huang Ryuun added.

“We have other commitments,” she said coolly.

“Ah, unfortunate,” Fang Daodi said. “What about you fine ladies of the Kun clan?”

“Your offer is very kind, however we also have a prior engagement,” Kun Juni said respectfully.

“Hah…” Huang Fuan shook his head pityingly. “Beauties should be honoured to be admired so, yet you shun brother Ryuun’s good intentions?”

Fuan’s remark made her sigh inwardly, because it was… very Huang. Yet another reminder that Huang JiLao was far better company than most.

“Fuan, enough,” JiLao remarked drily.

Huang Fuan shot JiLao a look that was not exactly pleasant.

-Yep, he is nursing a grudge over yesterday all right, she sighed. All because he annoyed some old expert.

“Won’t you reconsider?” Huang Ryuun murmured diffidently to the pair.

Xingjuan flushed slightly and half opened her mouth—

There was the barest flash of something from Kun Juni… a deep shadow so subtle she nearly thought she imagined it, given that soul sense was still unusable thanks to the weather. Huang Ryuun’s eyebrows rose slightly as well, as his ‘intent’, which had probably been subtly gauged to enrapture a Qi Refinement disciple, was snared in whatever that darkness had just been and slightly dispersed.

“Many apologies, Young Nobles,” Kun Juni reiterated, sweating slightly now and holding a talisman in her hand, “we do have a prior engagement.”

“Hah…”

Fang Daodi shook his head and started to walk on.

Huang Ryuun cast a frown at Kun Juni, then narrowed his eyes—

“Huaaaa!”

The force of the blow that swirled out of Kun Juni was not a thing any junior was capable of. A shadow of an imposing, middle-aged man with a close-cropped beard, wearing the dark blue of the Kun clan, his hands behind his back, stood on the table, staring down at the group with dark eyes.

“Huang clan… eh… Interesting… Interesting… Interesting…”

Rooted to the spot, unable to move, she felt the sweat slicking down her arms as the feeling of being stood in a field of invisible blades weighed down on her.

-Martial Intent… nothing else… this degree of strength has to be a Martial Immortal, or even a Martial Lord? she guessed, focusing on her own protective talisman, just in case.

The projection of the man, which likely came from the talisman, cast his gaze across all of them again, then the room at large, where everyone else was frozen, likely experiencing the same unsettling feeling of a hidden blade hanging at their back.

“Senior, I meant no disrespect,” Ryuun said, recovering somewhat. “I was just concerned at the inauspicious aura—”

“…”

-Idiot! she cursed, noting JiLao had pulled out his own clan talisman, the one from his uncle.

“Lord Jiao!” a jovial voice exclaimed, as a balding man wearing a casual robe hurried into the room looking concerned, followed by two burly guards.

“Young Nobles, if I might ask you to show a little decorum, it is early in the day and nobody wants unpleasantness or misunderstandings to fester!” the balding proprietor of the Golden Dragon said with a hopeful look around.

“Of course,” Fang Daodi added, saluting the projection respectfully. “My friend was just a little overzealous, the lady’s cultivation is low, and this rain makes fools of us all, let us leave this here?”

“…”

‘Lord Jiao’ focused on Fang Daodi, who started to sweat visibly, his face turning white.

“Yes! Let us leave this here!” the owner of the Golden Dragon said quickly, glancing at her. “Lord Jiao, please show some decorum before the Imperial Princess!”

She scowled behind her veil, feeling quite put out, because in a way this reflected worst on her, because it was ‘her’ gathering, and a disturbance was a disrespectful action to her status.

‘Lord Jiao’ turned to her for a long moment, then back at Fang Daodi and Huang Ryuun.

There was a long pause, then Huang Ryuun sighed and, with some effort, nodded.

The pressure vanished but the man’s shadow remained until the whole group had left, only then vanishing.

“Ha…” Kun Juni exhaled and shivered.

Xingjuan, clutching her own talisman, was also looking uneasily after the group.

“My apologies, Young Noble Huang, Imperial Highness Lian,” Kun Juni said with a bow.

“It should be us who apologize,” JiLao scowled, staring around at the others in the hall, who were frozen mostly, faces pale.

She sighed herself, casting her gaze around the room again. Over where they had left Huang Ryuun and the others, Din Huan and two others from the Jade Gate Court were watching with frowns.

“Ever since the matter of that villain, Di Ji, our Kun clan has taken the security of its scions seriously,” Kun Juni said, glancing around.

She noted that the young woman’s comment got quite a few nods here and there, another reminder that there were ‘concerns’ everywhere.

-Di Ji… she sighed again, resisting the urge to rub her temples. Everywhere the spectre of that cursed event lingers here.

“What idiot thought they could actually hit on a clan daughter,” someone else nearby finally remarked, which got a few nervous laughs.

“This is why I hate the Golden Dragon,” the blonde-haired girl sighed after a long moment, grabbing the jar of wine from the middle of the table and pouring herself a cup with a barely shaking hand.

“It has been uncommonly quiet since the Princess took up residence,” someone else added from the other side of the room.

“My apologies, Young Ladies,” the proprietor of the Golden Dragon murmured, still sweating himself as he looked around at the groups of cultivators all discussing quietly how this kind of thing was rather late coming. The memory of that rather unpleasant Martial Intent aside, it was rather amusing when viewed from a certain perspective, she had to acknowledge, even if the slight that the Sovereignty Hall had given to her ‘hospitality’ was vexing.

“It is what it is,” Kun Juni sighed. “I am sure my father will understand.”

“…”

JiLao had a thoughtful look on his face that annoyed her inordinately in that moment, because she was sure he was just putting on a show of going – ‘ah, of course’.

-That was her father?

The proprietor bowed again to Kun Juni and Kun Xingjuan, then turned to her and bowed almost to the floor. “Our service was substandard, Your Highness, please punish this villain!”

“It’s fine,” JiLao said with a resigned sigh as the party started to return to normal, “it was outside your control.”

In truth it was equally beyond hers, because the Huang clan would suffer no real repercussions for what had just occurred, or at least Ryuun and Fuan would not.

“I will speak to the elder at the school,” JiLao added apologetically to Kun Juni.

Kun Juni nodded accommodatingly, not commenting on how her early wording of her request had turned out to be worryingly prescient, she noted.

“Perhaps… we can discuss this over dinner?” Xingjuan asked, sounding a bit nervous.

“…”

“Yes,” Huang JiLao agreed after a moment’s pause, and a further look around the hall.

She glanced sideways at him, but understood why he had still agreed. The odds of that whole thing having been designed or engineered by Ryuun, or maybe the Din clan, just to try and cause difficulties between them and the Kun clan were… high. By agreeing to meet with them, it was undeniably a coup for Kun Xingjuan and Kun Juni, but it also reassured everyone else here that her authority and hospitality were not that fragile.

“I will prepare—” the proprietor started to say.

“Elsewhere, I think,” she murmured, unlike JiLao not willing to entirely let the matter slide. “We will discuss this later,” she added, staring at the proprietor a bit more forcefully.

The old man nodded, probably he had expected her reply anyway. There was a sort of play there; unless she broke completely with the Envoy’s Estate, they would still be staying here and he would still be getting paid. She was merely expressing her displeasure that the events had gotten to that point, though realistically, there was little he could have done, not in the vile rain with all the unpleasant surprises it kept throwing up.

“We will take our leave and see you later, in an hour or so at the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse, Young Noble Huang, Imperial Highness Lian,” Kun Juni murmured respectfully, offering both of them salutes.

The others all followed suit, saluting and murmuring polite apologies and thanks for the audience.

She nodded, accepting the salutes, as did JiLao, and watched them depart, glad she could hide her face behind the veil.

“It is apparently never a dull moment here,” Lu Seong muttered, walking out of the returning hubbub.

“Only since we took up residence, according to the conversation,” JiLao observed wryly.

“So that was Lord Kun Jiao,” Lu Seong mused, staring out the door. “His daughter is… interesting.”

“I think that is a rose few would dare risk the thorns for,” JiLao remarked, sitting down and pouring out some more of the tea from the pot that remained.

“There seems to be some friction between the cousins,” he added, sipping his tea. “They hid it well, but Kun Xingjuan did shoot some very interesting looks at Kun Juni.”

“Politics,” she observed, claiming her own cup of the tea before JiLao finished it.

“This is much better than their usual stuff,” Lu Seong remarked.

“What… was that shadow?” she asked after a moment’s thought.

“The… shadow?” JiLao frowned.

“On her, when Ryuun failed in his stupid little manipulation,” she mused, trying to recall it…

“A defensive talisman maybe?” JiLao mused. “Ryuun is a quasi-Ancient Immortal; even if he pulled his punches to a fantastical degree, just trying to nudge her mood, a Qi Refinement disciple would never even see…”

“And yet she seemingly did, or something did,” she mused.

“What is it though…” she hissed under her breath after a further moment, because even the sensation of it slipped away like fog, elusive, and separated from her ability to comprehend it somehow.

She tried again and got nothing... it was like trying to grasp shadows.

“A defensive charm or seal I would imagine,” JiLao reiterated, staring at the food on the table.

“…”

She stared at him for a moment, then took a swig of her tea and sighed.

“So, do you think what she said is… right?” she asked after a moment.

“Hmmm… she believes it is,” JiLao mused, “and she is a high ranked Herb Hunter and official with a very good reputation or so it seems, so either she is telling the truth or she is leading us on for her clan, in which case we will know quickly…”

“Let’s hope so,” she nodded.

“Well, at least the food for the dinner will be good,” JiLao chuckled.

“There is that,” she agreed.

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

~ LIN LING – BLUE WATER CITY ~

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

“Well, that was the Golden Dragon Teahouse,” Lin Ling found herself remarking to Bai Jiang as they walked back out of the gilded gate into the main square of the city.

The rain was falling gently now, closer to a perpetual miasma or mist that occasionally happened to intensify into surprising squalls of proper rain. The visibility was okay, however the sounds of the city were muted and the haze of lanterns being lit in the late afternoon light gave the whole vista a kind of dreamlike, ethereal tone.

“I have to admit, I’ve seen worse,” Bai Jiang chuckled, taking out his own umbrella, for what it was worth, which was not very much.

“Even in this city that’s not hard,” she agreed. “Just walk down the canals in the evening and you will see that in every tavern.”

“Though not everyone has a defensive talisman like that!” Bai Jiang agreed.

Taking out her own paper umbrella, she nodded in silent agreement at that.

-Indeed, not everyone has a fancy talisman like that…

Up ahead of them, Juni was walking about a metre adrift of her cousin, Kun Xingjuan, who was just staring into the gloom a bit sullenly now that they were free of the obvious onlookers.

“They do not seem to get on,” Kun Ying Ji murmured, catching her up on the other side.

“You don’t say,” she remarked a bit pithily, because only a blind idiot could say that Juni and her cousin ‘got on’.

“If you want me to explain why, I won’t,” she added with a mock pout. “Just ask Juni, it’s her business, not mine.”

-And it makes my teeth hurt, because it’s too close to home in all sorts of ways, she added to herself.

Conversation with the three who Juni was showing around was not actually that bad. It had certainly helped take her mind off her traumatic start to the day, with that fates-accursed Huang Fuan. That he had not even noticed her in the teahouse was equal parts hilarious and infuriating as well. Admittedly, she had been dressed up in a fancy spirit gown she had borrowed from Juni, but that somehow made it worse, albeit in a different way!

“The Huang clan are always rampant though,” Kun Feng Jinhai added. “That they were willing to back down so easily…”

“—just means that they achieved what they wanted,” she interjected.

-Which was probably to try and upset whatever they thought we were doing with the princess and the young noble from the Huang clan.

“…”

“True,” Ying Ji agreed.

“At least you cannot say that your day sightseeing here has not been eventful though,” she said with an amused sigh.

“And all the merrier for the pleasant company!” Feng Jinhai added

“…”

“It is comments like that that lead to scenes like we just witnessed!” she pointed out with an eye roll.

“Only if they are intended nefariously!” Feng Jinhai protested. “It has been positively enjoyable to walk around this city and see it from a different perspective.”

“As opposed to through a procession of increasingly dubious teahouses?” she suggested drily.

“Hah!” Bai Jiang laughed, shaking his head.

She sighed softly, twisting the umbrella in her hands for a moment, sending scatters of rain hither and thither. The three cultivators from Nine Moons Province were, in fact, fairly good company. They had started the day a bit standoffish, not quite clear where she stood, but after a few hours wandering around looking in shops and minor auctions for odd things, a sort of rapport had built up.

“Ah, they are walking fast…” Kun Ying Ji groused.

Glancing ahead, she saw that he was right. Juni and Xingjuan were indeed walking at a rate that could only be called ‘brisk’, especially in comparison to the four of them. Shaking her head, she picked up her pace a bit, so that they would not get left behind totally.

“I know where we are going in any case,” she remarked with an eye roll, stepping around a cart that was being unpacked to sell…

“How much for the fish on a stick?” she asked the old man who was sorting out his awning.

“Five bronze a fish!” the old man said promptly.

-That’s robbery! she complained inwardly. They only cost two or three down on the river front.

Sighing again, she handed over three iron talismans as she claimed six skewers out of his fire and passed one each to Bai Jiang, Feng Jinhai and Ying Ji.

“Hey, Juni, stop walking so fate-thrashed fast!” she called out.

“…”

Both Kun ‘daughters’ paused their silent tromp across the plaza to wait for them to catch up.

“Sorry,” Juni said, “I was miles away.”

“Clearly, you were almost in the next plaza!” she grumbled, passing a fish on a stick to Juni and then Xingjuan, who took hers with a look of someone being handed a rare mushroom that was a shade of white no living thing should ever consume.

“Oh, thanks!” Juni smiled, accepting hers and taking a bite out of it and nodding.

“I’ve… been meaning to ask,” Bai Jiang muttered, catching up. “Not to be rude or anything… but you eat… a lot?”

“…”

“That is kind of rude,” she pouted.

“Spirit food is as good as qi supplements for physical cultivators,” Juni replied. “You don’t have to sit for hours every day cycling your law to get efficient gains.”

“In fact, it even works if you cultivate both,” she added, before taking a bite out of her fried fish.

“I can’t say I know much about it as a method,” Bai Jiang said diplomatically.

“Unsurprising,” she nodded, taking another bite of the fish. “It has its advantages though.”

“To hear it spoken of, it is a path which cannot really advance…” Ying Ji mused.

“If I speak of what a Dharma cultivator does, does that make me the authority on all Dharma cultivation?” she giggled.

“Those who write at length about physical cultivation largely only know of it by second-hand accounts, or have mantras they have not inherited. Clans who inherit their mantras guard them jealously and make all their inheritors swear oaths to the Three Pure Ones never to divulge any secrets,” Juni added.

“That is…” Bai Jiang stared at her, then, apparently having nothing else to say, just took a bite of his fish.

“Setting that aside,” she chuckled. “The main advantage is that physical cultivation allows you to advance your spiritual cultivation without really needing to do the whole focus on laws thing, and it makes intent perception much easier. That alone frees up enormous amounts of time to do other stuff!”

“There must be a catch, or that would be rather popular,” Ying Ji remarked.

“There is,” she nodded, more seriously. “The tribulations are horrid, akin to having an implicated tribulation at higher realms like Nascent Soul and Dao Seeking.”

“You can cross over Immortal, but it’s apparently as hard as an Immortal Tribulation in a Mortal World,” Juni added.

Bai Jiang whistled and shook his head.

“Yeah, most Immortal realm physical cultivators are ancient fellows who have been alive for a very long time,” Juni mused.

“What about above that?” Bai Jiang asked, curious.

“No idea,” she shrugged, glancing at Juni, who also shook her head.

“That seems a bit unlikely—” Ying Ji mused.

“—are we going to stand around here in the rain?” Xingjuan finally interjected, cutting him off.

“Yes, why are we standing around out here?” she asked the others with mock seriousness. “Shall we go to the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse?”

“…”

Juni looked at her, a bit like an older sister trying to decide whether to laugh or throw something at her, then just sighed and started off again towards the tall, azure-tiled building on the western side of the sprawling plaza.

Myriad Blossoms Teahouse was imposing in a way few other buildings in this part of the city were. It was the second tallest building in the central district, rising to five floors, and offering a commanding view out over the parklands beyond it that stretched to the waterfront, between it, the Blue Gate School, the Blue Pavilion and the southern gate of the Ducal estate and palace. It was also one of the oldest buildings in the district, apparently constructed on the site of an even older inn that had existed even before Blue Water City was founded.

The only reason it was not considered the foremost teahouse in the whole city was due to the wealthy backing that the Golden Dragon had, and its much smaller number of guest rooms compared to the other major inns and teahouses dotted around the square.

“Do you have a reservation?” a maid standing at the gate to the teahouse asked politely as they approached.

“Ling Yu,” Juni answered.

“I shall go check, if you would wait inside?” the maid murmured, bowing to them and ushering them into the lower level which was open to everyone.

Leaning against a pillar, she watched people bustle by, or sit at tables, talking, drinking, and playing dice games or just reading. A small group were playing music off in one corner, and there was even some kind of martial competition being held in the middle, where some tables had been cleared out of the way.

“It really is heaven and earth, compared to the Golden Dragon,” she mused out loud.

“The difference is marked,” Bai Jiang agreed, looking around.

“It is the lack of pretension,” Juni interjected. “The ground floor is open to everyone, the second floor is just common dining areas overlooking this hall. The third is mostly rooms for private parties. The fourth is the only one that is selective, because it offers the view across the park.”

“The main reason it’s not more popular is because it doesn’t have many guest rooms,” she added.

“Oh, so people cannot stay here, like they do at the Golden Dragon,” Feng Junhai mused.

“Indeed,” Juni nodded.

They stood around for a few more minutes just watching the world bustle by, until the maid returned with a bright smile.

“Please follow me,” the young woman said, bowing politely and then waving for them to follow her up the stairs to the upper levels.

It didn’t take long to reach the fourth level, however when they did get there, she was surprised to find that it was actually rather busy.

“The auction being organized has brought people out,” the maid noted, without any of them even asking.

“The auction?” she asked, curious.

“You haven’t heard?” the maid asked, raising her eyebrows. “There is a large auction being organized by the Imperial Princess.”

“Oh…”

Belatedly she recalled that there had been talk about that; however, up until a while ago, when she was actually sitting across the table from her, that distant thought had been just that. More nuisance than anything else, because of the restrictions and the increase in people and the upheaval in the Blue Gate School that was trying to turn her clearance requests into a request to clear her star-ranking.

In a weird way, it still hadn’t sunk in that that princess was actually invited to ‘dinner’ either, she realised. There was something faintly absurdist about the whole idea, if you said it out loud.

-I, Lin Ling, am having a meal with an Imperial Princess…

-Yep, it sounds weird, no matter how you say it, she reflected wryly.

“Hey, you’re early!” pulling herself back out of her thoughts she saw Sana, somewhat surprisingly, standing up at a table by the main veranda with a good view out.

“Juni, Ling!” Ling Yu added, standing up with a bright smile, waving for them to come sit.

“We were at the Golden Dragon,” she sighed, a bit more theatrically, now there was distance.

“Oh dear, my condolences,” Ling Yu replied with an equally theatrical sigh.

“Ha-ha!” she had to stifle a laugh, because Juni had moved on to introducing Xingjuan, Bai Jiang, Ying Ji and Feng Jinhai.

“A pleasure,” Ling Yu said with a polite bow. “I am Ling Yu, from the Ling clan.”

“Jun Sana,” Sana added, also standing and bowing.

“A pleasure,” Bai Jiang replied brightly, his response echoed by the others.

“Thank you for the dinner invitation,” Kun Xingjuan said with a formal bow.

“Not at all,” Ling Yu shrugged. “The more the merrier, sit where you like!”

“Speaking of that, there will be two more coming,” Juni added.

“More?” Ling Yu asked.

“Princess Dun Lian Jing and Huang JiLao,”

“…”

“How the fates did you wrangle that?” Ling Yu said with a laugh.

“By strange and unusual means,” Juni sighed, sitting down opposite her cousin. “Mostly because I am putting out minor fires everywhere with the Pavilion requests and Ling’s fire is Huang clan-related.”

“How…?” Ling Yu turned to her.

Taking a seat, she just shook her head.

“I made the mistake of permitting an outer sect disciple the opportunity to explode their own pill cauldron.”

“Ah… was it an expensive cauldron?” Ling Yu murmured.

“They claimed it was a family heirloom,” she sighed, letting her tone say what she thought of that. “Anyway, they then blamed my teaching and complained about it to their senior, who seems to have complained to his friend, and that led to a Huang clan scion from the Myriad Herb Association being invited by that Ha Gongli to help instruct the class, so that they could see the means of both the Myriad Herb Association and the Hunter Pavilion!” she explained, not bothering to hide her distaste.

“Ouch,” Sana winced, pouring out a cup of wine and passing it over to her.

Taking it, she sipped it and sighed more deeply.

“Where is Arai?” she asked Sana, because it was rather unusual for them not to be on missions together, and she didn’t really want to dwell on the early morning’s misfortunes just yet.

“…”

“If Arai finds out we had this meal, she will probably try to kill us all,” Juni murmured, before Sana could say anything.

“Arai?” Bai Jiang, who was sitting next to her, asked.

“Sana’s sister, she is also a Herb Hunter,” she explained to him, waving towards Sana.

“You are all Herb Hunters?” Ying Ji asked, glancing around at them.

“Well, I am not,” Ling Yu said with a sigh of her own. “I asked once if I could go into the valleys, just to like, see what they were like! But my father was like—” she watched, amused, as Ling Yu did a remarkably good impression of the face of the Acala statues that guarded some of the shrines around the city, especially in Little Harbour “—and that was that. As such, I dabble in gardening and raising ginseng.”

“I am an Alchemist,” Bai Jiang added, sipping his own drink.

“Ha! My brother tried his hand at that,” Ling Yu sniggered. “He blew up sooo many pill cauldrons that even mother had to put her foot down at last and tell him that he had about as much alchemical talent as a drunken monkey!”

Matching the image of either of Ling Yu’s brothers, neither of whom she particularly liked, to that of a drunken monkey kicking a pill furnace and demanding it refine its pill because they were the Young Master, nearly made her spit out her drink, and she ended up coughing awkwardly.

“It is a field of cultivation that requires patience,” Bai Jiang agreed diplomatically.

“So, you have been shown around Blue Water City by Juni all day?” Ling Yu asked the three from the Pill Sovereign Sect with a bright smile.

“Ah… yes, Young Lady Juni has been showing us all the sights,” Feng Jinhai replied.

Xingjuan, sitting silently on the other side of Sana, just sipped her own drink she noticed, still not really engaging.

-Well, it is to be expected, she mused. Everyone here is Juni’s friend and Xingjuan’s father has been the most vocal proponent of trying to get Juni married off and out of his daughter’s hair for longer than I am alive.

“We went to the Wind and Waves Auction earlier,” Ying Ji added.

“—It was fairly quiet,” Juni said, “a bit disappointing really, but I imagine that everyone is saving their stuff for whatever this auction tomorrow will bring.”

“Even so, there were some remarkable things there,” Ying Ji said. “The breadth of curious things that pass through this city far outstrips what any tale from home would have you believe.”

“Well, Pill Sovereign City is the same,” Juni shrugged. “The local flavour rarely travels.”

“Quite,” Ling Yu nodded, then turned to Xingjuan.

“Sister Xingjuan, you were at the dinner the princess hosted?”

“Ah… I was,” Xingjuan answered. “You… were not?”

“No,” Ling Yu shook her head. “My cousin Ling Luo went instead, she has taken up a position in the civil offices of the city, as an aide to my father.”

“So, where is Arai?” she asked Sana again, tuning out the rest of that conversation as Ling Yu started to discuss various bits of ‘gossip’ with Xingjuan that had come out of that gala dinner thing.

“She is doing clearance requests near Jade Willow Village,” Sana said. “I haven’t heard from her for a few days, but based on what Juni just said, I should probably bring her a present from Blue Water City.”

“That’s the Deng and the Ha clans’ current ‘he said she said?’ isn’t it?” she mused, trying to recall Jade Willow Village. “There’s a sect there?”

“There is,” Sana nodded. “Jade Willow Sect, we both did our orienteering for five-star ranking at the Pavilion in the village as well.”

“So, why are you here then?” she added.

“Oh… I got a request from Ling Yu,” Sana said with a grimace. “Little Blue had a problem.”

“No!” she exclaimed, because the ginseng was… utterly cute, there was no way to say otherwise really. “What happened to him?”

“Yu’s younger brother,” Sana scowled.

Her own experiences with Ling Mu… were all fairly vexatious, so she felt no shame in making an obscene hand gesture in the general direction of the Ling clan at Sana mentioning the stuck-up little shit-monkey. He had even been in that class, that morning, though not taking part, but as one of the hangers-on that came with Huang Fuan.

“Ling Yu can tell you all about it, probably with a lot of cursing, if you ask her, but the short of it is that her brothers got the estate garden infested with some fungus from Yin Eclipse and also swapped out Little Blue’s pot for one that was absolutely unhealthy for the poor thing. I think Ling Mu wanted to refine Little Blue to help with his cultivation.”

“That little shit-monkey, I hope Ling Mu gets piles for nine generations!” she muttered.

“HEY!” a voice at a nearby table complained, making them both turn.

“How dare you disparage brother Mu!”

“He is the Ling clan’s… brightest…”

The three youths, all about her age, who had been part of the group there, trailed off as perspective allowed them to see who else was at the table.

“Oh… brother Pang… you styling today!” one of the others at the table cackled, also seeing Ling Yu, Kun Juni and Kun Xingjuan. “Impress them fairies more!”

Ling Yu said nothing, just ‘looked’ at the youth and his two outraged friends, all of whom sat back down in silence, basically pretending nothing had happened as their compatriots, who were quite deep into a large jar of spirit wine she was sure, laughed uproariously.

“Idiots,” Juni murmured just loud enough to be heard at every table nearby.

Xingjuan just shook her head.

“Sorry, where were we,” Ling Yu said to Xingjuan, “You were telling me about how that daughter from…”

Shaking her head, she grabbed an aperitif and nibbled it in silence.

“Anyway, we have been running around buying things to help Little Blue convalesce,” Sana went on. “The Hurong ceramics workshop were there this morning, and Grandmaster Mang has agreed to re-do the estate’s formations for the Ling clan, he even said he would give me a discount on some talismans as thanks for being the middle-woman!” Sana grinned.

“His talismans are good,” she agreed, sipping more of her wine.

Of the three formations and talisman masters in West Flower Picking Town, Grandmaster Mang was the … eccentric one. His talismans all tended to be strange things, but always worth what you paid for… usually. She had a handful of them, mostly escape talismans and a few barriers that had special curses associated with them that reflected damage or marked things that attacked you with Martial Intent. They were invariably expensive though, and Grandmaster Mang tended to be very hard to negotiate with, so a discount was almost like him calling you family.

“Miss Ling, your other guests have arrived,” a young serving girl, who had arrived at the table, said.

“Ah, I will go down and meet them I suppose,” Ling Yu said. “Juni, Xingjuan, do you want to come?”

Both Juni and Xingjuan nodded, standing and following Ling Yu and the servant girl back towards the stairs.

“It’s easy to forget that for all that Ling Yu acts totally casual, she is the daughter of the City Governor,” she remarked, mostly to Sana, watching the trio depart.

“She is very… disarming,” Bai Jiang agreed.

“Ling Yu is Ling Yu,” Sana chuckled. “Just don’t ever annoy her: when she holds grudges, even cats bow down and call her teacher.”

“Noted,” Ying Ji murmured drolly.

“So, Miss Sana… I can call you that?” Feng Jinhai started, turning to Sana properly.

Sana nodded, so he went on.

“I must admit I am surprised at how young—”

“I am older than you are,” Sana pouted.

“Haha…” Feng Jinhai laughed awkwardly. “Apologies, I started that wrong.”

“You did,” Sana said archly.

“What age did you join the Pavilion?” Feng Junhai asked, coughing.

“I became a Hunter at fourteen,” Sana said.

“Twelve,” she added.

“That is rather young given the profession seems quite…” Ying Ji noted.

“—Dangerous?” she interjected.

“The missions Lady Juni spoke of yesterday when we went to a peripheral dinner associated with the gala in the Golden Dragon…”

“Juni is a bit different,” Sana remarked drolly. “She has been a Herb Hunter longer than either of us have been alive.”

“Now who is talking about how old others are!” she pointed out with mock horror.

Sana just rolled her eyes.

“Blue Water Province is a bit different anyway, as is South Grove Province to the south. Both of them got messed up in a war between the major powers… some thirty years ago.”

“…”

She sighed, nodding.

“Sorry,” Sana grimaced, glancing at her.

“Its fine, it was before I was born,” she said magnanimously, even though a part of her felt that it wasn’t really.

-Though given it’s such a defining moment, it’s impossible to avoid… she reflected sourly to herself, pouring another cup of wine as Sana gave a quick recounting of the ins and outs of the Three Schools Conflict and the aftermath.

By the time Sana had finished with the impromptu lesson, Ling Yu and the others had come back, with Huang JiLao and… a much more low-key princess. In truth, she had to look at the ‘woman of the hour’ twice to be sure she was the same person, given she was now dressed in a much less striking spirit gown and had divested herself of her veil and jewellery, now just looking like a very high class noble lady.

Standing with the others, she bowed politely as they sat down at the far end of the table.

“Thank you for inviting us,” Huang JiLao said politely, proffering a toast to Ling Yu after they had all sat again. “I have heard much about you, Young Lady Ling, yet you have not graced any previous gatherings.”

“Ah…” Ling Yu looked a bit ‘flustered’ – which was to say she acted as if she was a bit embarrassed – and accepted the toast.

“My apologies, Young Noble JiLao, circumstances have simply been inauspicious up to this point. I am very pleased you can both join us,” Ling Yu murmured, raising her own cup in salute.

“A pleasure,” the princess murmured, matching it.

“I cannot help but feel that the gala was less for missing so many fine flowers,” JiLao added, casting a glance down the table at Juni, Sana and her.

Given all of them were dressed up much more than usual, she supposed that was true, even if it was a bit daunting to be sat next to Sana, and especially Juni, and her cousin, all three of whom were tall, athletic and physically attractive without ever really needing to try. By comparison, it was hard not to feel short, thin and a bit overlooked. That she was wearing a borrowed gown didn’t really help either.

Raising her own cup, she saluted the pair with everyone else though, and pushed down that feeling of being a little out of place.

“This is Lin Ling,” Ling Yu said, making her blink and look up as she was ‘introduced’. “She is the other high ranked Herb Hunter here.”

“As in the Lin clan?” Huang JiLao asked, looking at her with an appraising eye.

“Ah… yes, Young Noble Huang,” she replied, trying her best to hide her grimace and not look at the princess.

-Does she know it was her older brother who ruined my whole clan? she wondered to herself, not that the other woman would ever formally acknowledge the role of the Imperial Court, its Third Crown Prince and the Astrology Bureau in that whole tragedy. They didn’t even openly acknowledge the matter with that villain Di Ji after all…

“…”

JiLao gave her a slightly odd look then nodded.

-I wonder what that was about, she mused, unless it relates to what Juni asked him earlier, given this whole thing is… basically Juni fixing my mess.

Framing it like that… didn’t help though, so she quickly pushed that thought away as well, and just sipped her wine to distract herself.

Thankfully, a few moments later, maids started to come with the food, and the ‘dinner’ started in earnest, so she could just continue chatting with Sana and the trio from Nine Moons Province and only have to very occasionally engage with the much more engaged conversation at the other end of the table.

Initially, it mostly focused on Juni talking about Yin Eclipse, with her and Sana interjecting occasionally to provide alternative viewpoints on various valleys and the dangers and difficulties of extended exploration. Huang JiLao mostly listened, occasionally asking questions, most of which seemed to lead towards interest in the underworld of the High Valleys and the kinds of things people found there.

The princess was a bit more… she hesitated to say disbelieving, but she mostly asked about the suppression and then talked a bit about the ‘great trials’ within the Dragon Pillars across the ocean or about the Argent Devouring Pit on the southern continent, which were both other places that had ‘realm suppression’ of various stripes from what she recalled.

Most of that was, however, public knowledge, if not always very obvious public knowledge, so the conversation eventually did move into things that only Herb Hunters or those who actually spent a lot of time in the higher valleys might know.

“So, regarding what you said before?” Huang JiLao at last said to Juni, presumably referring to whatever Juni had agreed to tell him to intercede with the Blue Gate School Elder and Huang Fuan.

“Oh, yes, that,” Juni nodded. “Basically, there is a way to tell what, and even roughly where, a lot of the things that wash out of the rivers in the wet season come from.”

“—So you said,” the princess interjected, looking around.

“If you are concerned with prying ears, Lady Lian,” Ling Yu murmured, “there is no need, and nobody has been listening since those idiots earlier. We will not be disturbed.”

Glancing around, she realised that Ling Yu’s ‘grandpa’ Baisheng was, in fact, sitting at a table over by the window, sipping some wine and reading a book, the very image of a scholarly old cultivator enjoying a quiet evening out, watching the world pass by.

The princess said nothing, for a moment, then nodded, in agreement she supposed.

“Anyway,” Juni said with aplomb. “Take this jar…”

Juni picked up the wine jar in the middle of the table, which was carved of a faintly azure-tinted stone and worked with all sorts of vines of flowers and fruits in swirling, whirlpool patterns.

“—This comes from a series of ruins set into the western slopes of the East Fury Peaks.”

“The wine jar comes from a ruin in Yin Eclipse?” the princess asked, picking it up and considering it somewhat dubiously.

“They all do, the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse has a full set. About two hundred of these jars, in various sizes, were found in a sealed room within a ruin up there about three centuries ago,” Juni explained.

“The ruin was studied for a while and it was concluded that it was a mine and workshop for their manufacture,” Sana added. “There were texts in ancient Easten found there that were instructions and records for shipping them, and two other similar ruins were found in the valleys below, one of which is now a staging post for exploration of those valleys.”

“And how does that help?” Huang JiLao frowned.

“It relates to the patterns,” Juni said. “The vine-patterned jars and stuff all come from that region. There are extensive caves, and the upper level of the underworld there has multiple ruins in it that hold larger carvings in this fashion. That motif of the seven-petaled flower and the trefoil-leaved vine clearly had some importance to them, because it is on everything, from scrollwork on wall carvings, to patterns on the robes of ancient statues in some of the small shrines, to the pottery that was recovered.”

“And stuff is still found up there?” the princess mused.

“Not frequently,” Juni admitted. “It was picked clean back when it was first uncovered. The Kun clan had a role in transporting and securing the route out, which is how I know about it.”

“You couldn’t teleport the items out?” Bai Jiang asked politely, from the edge of the conversation.

“Nope, these jars do not teleport,” Juni remarked drily. “Try pushing qi into it.”

She watched as the princess stared at the jar—

The density of qi in the air swirled, making her skin flush. The already rather muggy humidity, kept at bay by the open, well-ventilated layout of the fourth floor, settled unpleasantly for a moment, then dissipated.

“How strange,” Huang JiLao mused. “May I?”

He took the jar from the princess and did something else to it that defied her understanding entirely, except that the air around him became a little sharper.

“They reject all qi, you cannot teleport them, you cannot send soul sense into them, qi placed within them cannot easily escape if sealed,” Xingjuan, of all people, added.

-Suppose as the inheritance daughter she has to learn all the same things Juni did, she reflected.

“They are basically curios, many local families have a few, but these are among the more striking examples,” Ling Yu agreed. “The Ling clan has a few sets as well, as do most of the major clans I suspect, if you asked the right person.”

“I see,” JiLao murmured, with a tone suggesting that that was rather at odds with what someone else might have told him. “And it is just pots?”

“Hah… no,” Ling Yu shook her head. “People joke about pots, because they transport easily in the river I think, and are regularly found by fishermen after the wet season. It is a lucrative cottage industry up beyond West Flower Picking Town and Misty Moon Town. Also in South Grove. The Ling clan has some cutlery, patterned with clouds, that came from South Grove Pinnacle when it was first being explored. The knives are sharp enough to cut spirit wood… and plates, so they only get used with stoneware from the mountains…”

“I would be interested to see those,” JiLao mused.

“It can probably be arranged,” Ling Yu shrugged.

“The Kun clan has a few such objects as well,” Xingjuan added with a slight smile, “if you are interested in such curios, Young Noble JiLao.”

“How old are such objects?” the princess mused, looking back at the wine jar.

“The materials cannot be divined,” Juni noted drily.

“Of course,” the princess sighed, sounding disappointed.

“That said, there are some speculations,” Juni added. “Fairly recently there was a chest that went up for auction that caused a furore.”

“Ah, yes, I have heard about that,” JiLao nodded. “It is being widely decried as the Azure Astral Authority overreaching itself and violating the spirit of the agreements it has with the Imperial Court.”

“Yes,” Juni nodded. “Also, the Shen and the Sheng clans have hated each other since the inception of our august Dun Dynasty. The rumour was that someone in Shan Lai felt the box held a connection to the last Shan Empress, Saintess White Swan, who so famously vanished looking for her beloved in Yin Eclipse during the last days of the dynasty.”

“An old tale,” JiLao noted.

“Seng Mo wrote a famous pamphlet about it,” Ling Yu agreed.

“Yes… that flavourful account has circulated widely in more recent times,” Princess Lian noted.

“I don’t follow,” Bai Jiang murmured to her and Sana.

“It decries, at length, the shameless actions of those left to safeguard the selection of a new emperor, citing that moral degradation in responsibility to the people for the fall of one dynasty and the rise of the current one… elements within the Imperial Court do not come off well,” Sana replied quietly. “Seng Mo is not a fan of the Din clan… or the Ji or the Hao.”

“Ah…” Ying Ji nodded.

“So, they believed it related to the Shan Dynasty?” the princess frowned.

“That has been the working assumption as far as I know,” Juni said. “There are other old ruins of long-abandoned clans dotted around the province as well, as well as evidence that the suppression has shifted at times, quite radically.”

“I read an account of that,” JiLao agreed. “It postulated that the edge southwards that reaches deep into the Shadow Forest between here and Yuan Shan City was once further west?”

“You are familiar with it then,” Juni conceded.

“So, returning to the question of the kinds of artefacts?” JiLao said.

“I’ve seen knives, various household goods, there are statues that appear, big and small…” Ling Yu mused.

“I believe the Deng clan has a sword, entirely unenchanted, which can cut most rock items weaker than the Immortal realm as if they were butter,” Xingjuan added.

“The Duke’s Palace has the largest collection of such items,” she added, feeling that she could at last contribute something meaningful.

“That I have also heard,” JiLao remarked with a bit more resignation.

-I guess Duke Cao is not that pleased to have an Imperial Princess and a Huang clan scion running about, she reflected.

“There is probably quite a bit just scattered around various clan vaults and treasure houses, or in old tombs,” Juni added. “They are scarce mostly because the easily accessible sources have been picked clean untold millennia ago. The depths of the mountain range are hard to enter and exit even when it’s just you. Most of these things do not store in talismans or storage rings…”

“So you have to carry them out, yourself, by hand, through spirit herb-infested valleys, guarding them day and night,” she chipped in. “Few people are interested in risking death without a grave for indestructible pots that are fished out in reasonable quantities each year just by waiting for the rains to dislodge things from the headwaters of the Blue River or the Green Torrent that runs north into the North Fissure Flats.”

“Yeah,” Sana agreed seriously. “Also, one of these pots here is worth a few Spirit Jade, but a spirit herb from up there is worth double that. Most of the pots and artefacts that get brought down are incidental to things like that, where you need a suitable container and they can be scavenged.”

“It’s boring, I appreciate,” Juni added.

“Not at all,” Huang JiLao mused. “This has in fact been quite illuminating.”

After that, the conversation drifted back towards more mundane matters. Xingjuan was keen to show off how much of a role the Kun clan had in the exploitation of the mountains, and for whatever reason Juni was happy to just sit there adding clarifications occasionally.

Eventually, they moved to dessert, though by that time, it was getting gloomy outside as afternoon stretched to actual evening, reminding her that she had the follow-up mission.

“Uh… Juni?” she said across the table.

“Ah? Oh, yes, you need to go deal with this request,” Juni sighed.

“Young Noble JiLao?” Juni murmured politely, getting his attention. “I trust this has been… interesting enough to uphold our agreement?”

“…”

Huang JiLao looked pensive for a moment, and she was suddenly struck by an awful premonition that it might not be…

“Yes, although I would be very interested in seeing the collections in the Kun estates across the river.”

“Of course,” Juni nodded, “you can view them at your convenience, it would be our Kun clan’s honour to help you in whatever way you need. My cousin, or I, will be delighted to show you around.”

“Then yes…” JiLao nodded, his eyes growing distant for a moment. “I have relayed matters, the school will not cause difficulties for Miss Lin here.”

“I should hope not!” Ling Yu huffed. “Lin, I’ve asked Auntie Tao to go look into it as well.”

“The vice-headmistress is… your aunt?” Huang JiLao raised an eyebrow at Ling Yu.

Ling Yu shamelessly nodded in reply.

“…”

Huang JiLao shook his head, amused apparently, as she started to extricate herself from where she was sitting.

“Your Highness, Young Noble Huang,” she saluted both of them.

“A pleasure, Miss Lin,” Huang JiLao nodded courteously.

“I’ll go as well,” Sana added, also standing up and saluting the pair.

“Okay,” Juni nodded. “We’ll come by afterwards.”

Bowing again, she turned and headed for the stairs down, Sana following, noting that there were a lot of curious gazes following them from the other diners, especially those among the younger generation.

“It almost makes you feel important,” Sana signed to her with an eye roll.

“The gallery of curious faces, wondering what you talked to a princess about?” she signed back.

“When you put it like that, it also makes my shoulder blades itch,” Sana grumbled, speaking this time, as they started down the stairs.

They walked on in silence after that, back out into the early evening rain and the faint mist.

“It feels a bit like we are the children, leaving the adults to do serious talking,” she added eventually, as they exited the plaza and set off towards the Blue Gate School and the gardens by the coastline.

“It does have that vibe, doesn’t it,” Sana agreed.

“What did you make of all that?” she mused, mulling over the conversation in general.

“They are oddly interested in dangerous holes in the ground for a bunch of influential bigshots from over the water,” Sana replied.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “They are…

“You don’t think…” she started to say, wondering if they might actually end up being asked to guide one or the other of the princess or Huang JiLao into the mountains.

“Please don’t even give voice to that thought,” Sana retorted pre-emptively.

“There are Hunters in the Pavilion who would sell their mothers and grandmothers for that kind of mission,” she pointed out.

“Yes,” Sana agreed. “And neither you nor I are among them.”

“I dunno,” she grunted, reflecting for a moment in the gloomy mist and the hazy lantern light on how her own family situation was. “I might—”

Too late, she recalled that that was a bit of a taboo topic with Sana.

“Sorry,” she grimaced, after cutting herself short. “I…”

“Its fine,” Sana sighed. “I know what you meant. Your brothers are almost as bad as Ling Yu’s.”

“My older brother has just gotten into the Blue Gate School,” she sighed. “He broke through to Nascent Soul last month and has been preparing to accept the offer they gave him when his spirit root was tested.”

Before she ran head-first into clearance mission problems, that had been the all-encompassing narrative of the Lin households in West Flower Picking. Everything was about that selfish idiot. It had also opened up talk about her… ‘prospects’ and whether or not an ‘eight-star Herb Hunter’ might, if withdrawn from the Pavilion, make for an attractive enough package to entice a suitable marriage match to some local scion to help rebuild the family’s fortunes.

Just thinking about those conversations, before she fled back to missions, made her stomach twist.

“A curse on brothers, on that at least we can agree,” Sana grumbled, reading her mood fairly succinctly, though probably not the specifics as she had complained to no one but Juni about that – so far anyway.

“Sorry, let’s talk about something happier,” she agreed, recalling that Sana’s ‘younger brother’ was almost as much of a taboo subject as her late mother, although her friend had always been much cagier on the why, there.

“…”

“It’s just the weather,” Sana sighed, waving an arm at the hazy mist swirling over the lantern-lit buildings of the central district as they walked up the street. “It brings out the worst topics when it’s misty, grey and wet like this.”

“That it does,” she agreed.

“So what is the teaching about?” Sana asked after they had walked on for a few more minutes and the shadowy pagodas of the Blue Gate School with their myriad lanterns were more discernible ahead of them.

“Elaborating on the various aspects of the transformation of Yang to Yin in the life cycle of spirit herbs in Yin Eclipse,” she answered.

“On a day like today?” Sana asked dubiously, staring out from under her umbrella at the city wreathed in misty, muggy drizzle.

“Yeah…” she agreed with a grimace.

They were able to walk into the Blue Gate School largely unbothered, given the hour. There were a few disciples manning the gates, but they recognised both of them and just waved her in without comment.

The main courtyard was largely empty, with only a few disciples clustered around one of the message boards at the far end. Those listed things outer disciples could do to earn contribution points with the school, which could be exchanged for things like storage rings, artefact weapons or even some cultivation manuals.

Turning left, she led Sana through two smaller courtyards before finally being stopped by a bored-looking female disciple she vaguely recognised, Ling Mei Xiaolian, at the entrance to the school’s gardens.

“Passes,” she asked, waving for them to come into the light.

She withdrew her talisman, as did Sana, holding it out for Mei Xiaolian to inspect.

“Ah, Lin Ling,” the woman nodded. “Head on through… although, I wouldn’t blame you for just accepting this as a bust and going home. They will sort out the mess afterwards, so it’s unlikely you will be blamed.”

“Sadly, not an option,” she sighed.

“Is that why you’re here?” Xiaolian asked Sana.

“Moral support,” Sana shrugged.

“Elder Ha Gongli is here as well, by the way and he is… unhappy.”

-Figures… she complained to herself.

“There is a certain irony that this place is more aggravating than some of the High Valleys,” Sana remarked drily to Xiaolian.

“Certainly these last few days,” Xiaolian sighed. “Though in this case, it’s because of the rain mostly. I suspect he is trying to find a different ‘lesson’ for you both to teach, that will cause you more problems than that Huang Fuan.”

“…”

She could only sigh at that. It was the kind of exercise in ‘moving the finishing post’ that these kind of politically sabotaged requests always seemed to attract.

“Is Huang Fuan already there?” she asked.

“No, he isn’t,” Xiaolian said with an eye roll.

“Figures,” Sana interjected drolly.

“That said, looking as you are – like you are from the Kun and Ling clans – is probably a smart idea,” Xiaolian added, waving her hand to draw attention to the fact that she was wearing a Ling clan robe marked with Blue Gate School insignia. “I would avoid looking like you’re openly associated with the Bureau. There are a lot of hawkish brats from across the ocean around and a lot of them are Soul Foundation or Nascent Soul and not enthused by the local weather.”

“Noted, thanks,” she murmured.

“No problem,” Xiaolian replied, waving them both through.

Shaking her head, she made her way on into the gardens, going mostly by memory in the misty lantern-lit gloom. Few people were out and about in the humid misty rain, so it didn’t take very long to get to the ‘teaching area’ in the middle of the gardens.

Elder Gongli, a portly ruddy-faced man in middle age, was one of the few standing around waiting, looking rather pensive. Upon seeing them both, he grimaced but just waited for them both to arrive in the middle, where he was considering a stack of basic fired earth alchemy cauldrons.

“Elder Gongli,” she murmured, saluting him properly, because even if he was an ass and a bastard, thoroughly interested only in his own advancement, if she was polite to him, he would just look like an idiot being rude to her the whole time.

“You are here,” he remarked a bit sourly.

“I am required to be,” she replied.

“Huang Fuan has said he will be late. Do as you like until he gets here,” Elder Gongli said perfunctorily, going back to pondering the resources available.

“Um, given the weather conditions, Elder Gongli, it will be difficult to teach what was originally suggested,” she added, respectfully.

“I am aware, I will let you know what you will be teaching shortly,” Elder Gongli grunted.

Looking around, she walked over to one of the benches, wedged her umbrella into the back and sat down. Sana followed her in silence and sat down cross-legged under her own umbrella, elbow on knee, chin in hand, just watching the rain in the gardens with a slightly distant expression.

They had sat there for almost three quarters of an hour, the rain drifting down and the light fading away, before students actually started to filter in. Most saw that nothing was happening and left again, or like them took up positions on benches to wait.

“Yo! I thought I was late, but it turns out even respectably delayed young ladies are kept waiting by young masters!”

She turned to find that Ling Yu had actually shown up.

“Hah…” Sana shook her head at Ling Yu’s comment and swung her legs off the bench to make space.

“Where are Juni and the other bigshots?” she asked drily.

“You wound me,” Ling Yu pouted. “Juni went back to the Kun family estates, something about issues with your sister’s clearance mission to recover bodies acting like a soul mushroom-infested corpse.”

“Euwww…” Sana winced. “I am going to have to get her a fancy present, aren’t I?”

“Haha…” Ling Yu just laughed lightly at Sana’s pained expression then turned to her, “As to the others, they came back here, Xingjuan is going to go show them fancy relics in the Kun clan estates or something afterwards.

“So, what are you teaching, because it certainly won’t be the transformation of Yang to Yin in this weather?”

“No idea,” she muttered, glancing over at Elder Gongli. “The Elder is likely wracking his brains for something a young noble from the Myriad Herb Association will be more familiar with than an eight- or a nine-star ranked Herb Hunter from here.”

“Well, if it gets stupid I’ll call Aunt Tao,” Ling Yu sniggered.

“Isn’t that an abuse of power or something?” she joked.

“In this place? With this lot?” Ling Yu retorted mockingly.

“Fair point,” she conceded.

“Ah… here comes the circus,” Sana remarked, standing up as about two dozen people sheltering under umbrellas and carrying a few lanterns made their way in.

“Young Master Huang!” Elder Gongli exclaimed, saluting as the youth she had seen before in the Golden Dragon sauntered over.

Three other disciples following after were a mix from the Pill Sovereign Sect, Myriad Herb Association and another she didn’t recognise with pale green and blue insignia and attire. As she watched, Elder Gongli shamelessly bowed in turn to all of them.

“Bowing like a servant to other sects, they really have no pride,” Ling Yu muttered, just loud enough to be heard by a few others nearby, who shot the three of them dark looks in the evening drizzle.

“I guess we go over,” she sighed, sitting up.

-I wonder what he has concocted, she reflected, considering the group and the stack of cauldrons. Probably something alchemy-related, knowing who he is trying to curry favour with.

Exhaling, she twirled her umbrella a bit and walked back over to Elder Gongli, followed by Ling Yu and Sana.

“Elder Gongli, what do—”

“YOU!”

She flinched slightly as one of the purple-robed youths standing behind Huang Fuan, who was looking at the cauldrons, pointed at Ling Yu and Sana, his face a mask of outrage.

“Ah?” she took a step back, as did Elder Gongli, who was also looking confused.

“Eh?” Sana looked equally confused, while Ling Yu just sighed.

“Wait… it’s you?” Huang Fuan had turned as well and was looking at her, she realised. “You were at the Golden Dragon?”

“I was,” she nodded, wondering what was going on as the Pill Sovereign disciple started to move towards Sana and Ling Yu, who had stopped a few paces away.

“I see… I see…” Huang Fuan scowled, then his eyes fell on Sana and widened.

-What is going on?

“You…” Huang Fuan hissed, his eyes narrowing, brushing past her as if she were not even there all of a sudden. “Finally, some fate-thrashed good fortune, to think I would meet you two again!”

“Senior Fuan, is she the one who was party to…” A disciple wearing the teal robes of the Myriad Herb Association asked, stepping forward with a scowl.

“Because of you, I was humiliated!” Huang Fuan hissed at Sana and Ling Yu.

“I don’t follow,” Sana replied, looking… thoroughly bewildered.

“I am fairly sure you have mistaken something here,” Ling Yu said calmly.

“You… don’t….” Huang Fuan actually seemed to turn slightly red, but oddly managed to keep control of his qi.

The Pill Sovereign Sect disciple was also shaking, clearly barely able to control himself.

“Uh… Young Lord Huang,” Elder Gongli muttered, finally noticing that Ling Yu was… well, Ling Yu, she supposed. “If I might just have a word?”

“Your teacher isn’t here now… seniors should not interfere with junior matters…” Huang Fuan hissed, ignoring Elder Gongli as if he were dogshit on the pavement.

“Uh… what is going on?” she asked Sana, taking a step in her direction before one of the disciples with Huang Fuan moved to half block her.

“I… honestly have no idea what you mean,” Sana said politely, casting a sideways look at Ling Yu as the rest of those watching encircled them, looking on with expectant or amused faces.

“That old bastard disrespected Young Noble Fuan!” another disciple from the Myriad Herb Association snapped.

“Eh?” she blinked, confused, wondering how that could have happened.

“Ah…” Sana stared at him. “You’re the one Old Kai threw out into the pond?!”

“…”

“Say what?” she stared dully at Sana, her thoughts drifting freely for a second as bits of a puzzle suddenly slid into disturbing focus.

Old Kai was… a rather eccentric figure who liked to invent various games and then test them on people. ‘Gu Takes All’, which was now wildly popular in the province and even overseas as far as she knew, was something he had claimed to have invented, though rarely was he believed. He was remarkably popular, welcome at most parties and, despite being an old, and she was sure fairly powerful, cultivator, rarely had any prejudice when dealing with anyone that she had ever seen.

“Oh… you called Old Kai poor, and tried to demand everyone who was common be thrown out of the fourth floor of the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse,” Ling Yu added, clapping her hands together rather childishly.

-And just like that, it all makes sense, she groaned. And then he came here to bully people to make himself feel better…

“Young Noble Fuan should not sully himself!” one of the other disciples standing nearby declared piously. “Your master attacked a junior—”

“Uh… Old Kai is not my master, he is a well-known local eccentric around Blue Water City,” Sana pointed out, moving closer to Ling Yu.

“Uh… Young Noble Huang!” Elder Gongli said a bit more insistently, rather gamely trying to head off a disaster. “If I might have a word with you?”

“On behalf of Young Noble Huang!” the Myriad Herb disciple sneered, grabbing Ling Yu’s umbrella. “Kowtow six times and admit fault, and address Young Noble your father—”

Huang Fuan barely even managed to flinch before everything went still, as an old man, who had not been there before, appeared, standing just behind the foolish youth who had laid hands on Ling Yu.

“…”

“You are asking me to kowtow six times?” Ling Yu asked, sounding amused. “Could you repeat that? I don’t think I heard you right. Did you just ask the Young Lady of the Ling clan, the daughter of the City Governor, to kowtow six times and apologize?”

The only sound audible in the evening air was the rain pattering down over everything.

All around her, she had a vague awareness of people edging backwards by some subtle means, as if the ground itself was upwelling directly to give them more distance from the scene of the crime they might all be held to be indirectly complicit in.

“I…”

The youth who had grabbed Ling Yu’s umbrella vanished in a half-scream, his form splitting the rain as he vanished over the gardens like a small meteor, heading for the shoreline.

Huang Fuan, his face draining of colour, stared at the old man.

“This is not a matter for seniors—”

The word ‘seniors’ hung in the air as a second meteor vanished over the gardens.

“I am Huang Fuan—”

“I am aware,” Grandpa Baisheng remarked drolly. “And who is your father?”

“Huang… Fuhai?”

“…”

“Your Grandfather?” Baisheng chuckled.

“Um… S-Sir B-Baisheng,” Elder Gongli nearly wept. “Please be a... a little understanding?”

“Your Grandfather?” Baisheng asked blandly.

“You… You are my grandfather,” Huang Fuan mumbled in the silence of the stunned moment.

“…”

Baisheng just stood there in silence, looking at him.

Silently, Huang Fuan slumped to his knees and pushed his face into the wet flagstones, kowtowing silently six times.

“Very good,” Baisheng mused.

“This junior is—”

Huang Fuan wasn’t teleported this time, rather, he was physically cast, like a third small meteor out into the rain in the direction of the ocean with a flick of Baisheng’s hand, his words hanging in the misty rain like a faint echo.

“If you want to complain to your clan, tell them you insulted my disciple and asked her to kowtow six times and call you father. Consider this as me being very lenient,” Baisheng murmured, his voice somehow carrying in a way that made her fairly certain all three who had been thrown could hear.

“What…” Ling Yu said blandly, looking around at the frozen crowd, who were all staring after Huang Fuan in stunned silence. “It is the start of the New Year Celebrations tomorrow, should you not all be bowing down and wishing upon the good fortune of seeing a star fly through the sky?”

Dully, she watched as everyone else present stared at Ling Yu, then in the direction of the vanished idiots… and almost as one bowed. There were only a few sobs audible, which was quite impressive really.