"Pidge! Pidge!"

Xueyies voice shot through the silence.

"He is in closed door cultivation, Mistress you can't..."

"Open the door!"

I could feel her anger pulsing through her. Even through the thick metal doors. I got up, tensing my muscles all around myself as Min lounged. I felt like a panther uncoiling.

I wanted to say something but it was taking some time to feel out mouth sounds. Min went to the door, slipping through a tiny crack. I took a second to adjust my now luxurious robes as I went to follow her and join them.

"Moon Lee, I..."

I stepped out to the bright light of day.

"What's going on, Xueyie?"

"Not here," she hissed.

Next to her, Xiru stood, looking like he had ran two marathons. I nodded to them, then to Moon Lee and we all followed my Blue companion and moon spirit to another room.

Inside of another gorgeous marble room that looked like it was part of the playboy mansion we all sat down. The wood paneling with the marble would have been cheap anywhere else.

Without preamble Lee dispatched someone to get us tea.

"There has been a most peculiar murder," Xiru stated in a cold clinical tone.

Xueyie was holding back tears.

"My cousin..."

I wasn't able to hide my surprise as she fell into me and you'd be right if I said that I gave her the best damn bear hug I'd ever given.

I felt her hair as I began to whisper something mostly to myself.

"Real cultivators should take care of their own mess. But there aren't any, so I'll have to do this myself."

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

What came out over the course of the next ten minutes was the one of the Jin cousins, had been found, her desiccated corpse found floating by a gondolier. He alerted the blue robes and they notified the family. Xueyie was asked to identify the body as they had nothing to go on except for the girls robes. The crest of the first emperor had been their clue of the clan to contact, though apparently it had been half ripped off, leaving half of the icon.

"They suspect some foul play, don't they," I said, trying to keep on topic. "Why else would they have ripped the crest?"

I'll be the first one to say that I was a bit out of my element. I was there to console her and help her process her grief, but I was the last person to be ready to investigate a murder. If it was a murder, that is.

"A corpse like that, nearly beyond recognition," Lee said, rubbing the back of the silent Xueyie, "There has to be a reason. They did something to her. She was at the first realm and, now..."

"And now Lilah is dead! And it's probably...." Xueyie said, her outburst stunning us all to silence. Min had assumed the form of a Shiba Inu and sat patiently in Xueyies arms, doing her best emotional support beast act.

Xiru meditated to the right of me, Lee and Xueyie to the left. We gave her a long time to let the sobs end, both Xiru and I deciding that this was the best course of action.

"It has to be demonic cultivators, though the blue robes won't just make this public knowledge," Lee said, sighing, "Few cultivators here know about them, but in my youth there was a rash of these types of murders across the continent, and I...I hate to say that I took an airship in search of these types of people."

The ageless beauty that she maintained didn't really give away an age, but she had to be at least in her fifties. She told me that she had taken a long time to break through to the third realm, which is where she had stabilized, and she would have a long life no matter what happened.

"Tell me about them," I said, wishing I had something to take notes with, but alas I had gone into closed door meditation with only the bare minimum.

"They feed on other cultivators, drawing out their strength to bolster their own. Often they need to kill one to grow stronger, then they..."

Xueyie straightened, her jet black straight hair a mess for the first time I'd seen it.

"Continue, Auntie," she said in a low voice.

"They sometimes do sick rituals with the bodies, torturing them to the point of death, or they just suck the qi out, turning them into husks, like..."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Xueyie sobbed again.

"Like what your cousin, Leng went through. they probably thought that she would sink to the bottom of the canals, but instead, she grew bloated after they tossed her. So she floated up, at least we know and she didn't disappear. It's almost like," Lee said, pausing to look around the room.

"Yes?" I ventured.

"It's almost like they wanted her to be found," Lee said, "Like they are sending a message. I don't know to whom though. As difficult as it is to kill a cultivator, it's even more difficult to cover it up so that it looks like an accidental death."

We all sat in silence for a good long time.

"You don't think," I said, my face trying it's best to become a mask.

Min inclined her head up to look at me.

"They're trying to send a message. Perhaps...to you?"

"That makes not sense. They have enough messengers that can find an intermediary as they have seen me with enough people. Probably," I replied.

"You're applying logic to this problem but I think that you shouldn't attribute to malice when can easily be explained by idiocy."

"It could be one of their foot soldiers getting out of line. That is a remote possibility. Or a rogue faction. Either way they're playing their hand. I know a skilled healer that we can offer to the Jin clan," Lee said.

Xueyies sunken eyes tracked the woman in the white robe.

"And a skilled mental healer," I said, trying to diffuse the situation.

I might be wrong, but none of the cultivators had ever mentioned anything close to therapy. They probably didn't have the concept, given what I'd heard so far. Sure, they have concussion protocols, but they were far backwards in terms of anything besides the physical.

"I understand that this is all fresh and you're seeking my help as well as the moon clans help," I addressed the mourning woman, "if you need me to step in and help, I can. If you want to let your family handle this, either way if you want to talk or just process I can be here. Min as well."

Min purred.

"No one deserves such a death and the perpetrators will face justice," the moon spirit said, it's low voice a contrast to the cute little kitty it was pretending to be.

Xueyies rage dampened a little bit as she petted Min. We let the comfortable silence dominate the room. I tried to process what it would mean, and if being reactive was really serving me. This far, I had been highly reactive, focusing on stopping the mounting threat. Now I had the strength to fight against a large portion of the city, and though I was untested on this new realm, it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, just in time to pick up Xueyie.

In my mind there had to be two or more possibilities. One was that this was entirely unrelated to myself and my crew. This had been some freak accident and she had ended up there through not fault of her own. However the attempt to cover it up placed the death into the other possibility. She had died because someone had wanted something to happen as a result of her death. Whether it was wanting the family to do something, or her individually, I didn't know.

Terrorism is often defined as the achievement of political gains through force or coercion. I had no idea what kind of political maneuvering this was adjacent to.

And then again, sometimes a dead woman is just a dead woman, not a dead fridge girlfriend that would be a catalyst for a heroic boyfriend. This far I hadn't expressed any sentiment close to romantic intent to anyone here, I had barely gotten a handle on losing my girls and leaving Lauren. I didn't want to tell Xueyie that though. If her cousin had been her confidant, and they knew that it would elicit this type of reaction, then they probably knew that she would be able to find me.

"Moon Lee, are there any more cultivators outside than normal?"

She visibly strained at my question. They could have been stacked up at the doors waiting for us to come out. Whoever this was would have had to send thugs through the Moon clans family holdings to reach us and that would have been catastrophic if they were able to breach the gap. Dozens of Moon enforcers would have died if this was true.

"Their number is unchanged," she said, "but heard and understood. This one will take her leave and return shortly."

In the brief minute she was gone the quiet came back in force. I didn't want to fill it and Xiru seemed to have been much deflated from his posturing when he arrived.

I took him to the side, away from Xueyie close to the exit. She could still see us but I wanted to get things rolling. We could process while Xiru ran down some things for me.

"Do you have any contacts in the gondoliers? This would be the time to call in a favor."

He nodded, pausing to peek back at Xueyie before he began.

"This one has the ear of one of their more social members, we will call upon him if possible. The blue robes are utterly opaque, even to one like myself. They are humorless when off duty and you can't plant anyone into their ranks either, I have heard the stories."

"Have you tried to plant someone into the blue robes?"

Xiru scratched his beard before locking eyes with me. It was the first time he had ever been so bold and I was liking this new trend.

"Several Moon clan members joined with the intent to feed us back information. They were assigned to menial foot patrols for years and then kicked out one by one when one let something inconsequential slip. They don't just want slaves, they want zealots."

"That's something," I whispered, "loose lips sink ships or something like that."

"What a curious mantra. This one is certain that the gondoliers will embrace the expression, as well as the sentiment drawn from it. Their partisanship is a pale imitation of the blue robes zeal, and they are all the better for it."

Min darted in right before Moon Lee did and we both stepped away to clear a path for her.

"If you're expecting a trap, then I don't see one. All the same, you need to develop the backbone of your Nascent soul soon, and that will expand upon your innate senses in ways that are surprising. Your spirit should be able to help you with this soon, but it is a long road."

Min rested upon my shoulders, her form that of a small white dragon with blue eyes. When Moon Lee mentioned her, her eyes sparkled.

"This one lives to serve," Min whispered.

As one we all turned to look back at the grief stricken actress.

"I want to hurt someone," she said standing up and composing herself.

"Well, that's a start."