The small room was incredibly cramped. The patriarch’s brother may well actually be twice the man of his older brother, at least in size. It was clear to Dan that all of this bulk was muscle, impossibly well-trained muscle on a frame specifically designed to be perfect for it. He could walk through the walls of the Jiaoduo without so much as a splinter, Dan felt. He could probably uproot a tree without much effort.

He could crush Dan’s skull with little more than a thought and a twitch.

It was like being held hostage, being so close to the man. There had been no hope for it, but Dan’s final unspoken plea had been to his caretaker. The man had resumed his post outside of Dan’s room and was in no way to blame for Dan leaving. He would certainly be forgiven. His punishment was having to deal with Guan Po Shang. It was valiant, but his protest was a mouse’s squeak to a dragon.

Dan and Po Shang had been sitting in silence for well over ten minutes before the man finally spoke his first words.

“You defeated my daughter.” The words seemed like a trap, with no avoiding one of the spikes pointing towards Dan.

“I believed so, wise elder. I was mistaken.” He could not help but touch his bandages. It was not to inspire sympathy, instead the itching of his face had grown massively. Being around Po Shang, his mana being so similar to the one that had caused Dan’s wound, seemed to cause irritation in his still healing face.

The giant man’s mana pulsed, the air around him becoming razor blades that sliced Dan’s own hanging mana to shreds. Dan was keeping most of his mana to himself, but there was now an aura around himself that never truly disappeared. There was too much being cycled inside Dan’s core for it to all sit there still as it used to. At Po Shang’s surge, Dan’s vision went completely blind in the small room. He could see outside where some of his mana lingered, but between the destruction in the room and his bandaged face, everything went dark.

Dan flinched. He was never as blind as he was now. It terrified him, like he had lost a limb suddenly. In panic, his mana squeezed out from the imaginary clutch he had his core in. Vision returned. Nothing in the room had changed except for Dan’s position.

“You have talent.” Guan Po Shang’s eyes had not left Dan’s position for even an instant since they crammed into the room. An intense inspection of Dan, but for what reason. “Impressive talent.” The man emphasised.

“I- This one…” Dan was spluttering. It seemed as though the air in the room was harder and harder to breathe. Maybe it, too, was being shattered apart by Guan Po Shang’s spiky mana. “It is an honour.” It wasn’t so much a decision not to speak as a complete inability to form words, but Dan erred to the side of caution. He would let Guan Po Shang say what he did, and hope he survived the conversation.

Silence reigned. Dan’s caretaker was still outside the door, shivering. Dan couldn’t blame the man but he harboured a slight resentment that he had not made off like an operative. Find someone, Dan pleaded silently. He dared not use his mana to share a whisper with the man, not just because Po Shang was still boring into him with his eyes but also because the caretaker didn’t need to be more involved than he already was. Dan felt like he was on a literal knife edge with the sharp mana occasionally sparking in the quiet room. Better not to point that knife anywhere but at himself.

“What do you know of soul stones, Guan Ah Dan?” For the first time, Po Shang’s eyes left Dan. They closed and he took a deep breath, as though calming himself. Indeed, it seemed he was as the room somehow seemed to grow larger, the man shrinking a little in Dan’s perspective. He had seemed bigger than he was, a veil of thick mana bulking his form to Dan’s unique sight. Now, he was no longer as imposing. There was almost something wistful about him.

“This one is afraid to say he has not heard the term before, unless they are like a soul badge, wise elder.” Without Dan’s actual vision, he couldn’t see Guan Po Shang’s soul badge, but he imagined it looking like the eye of a snake, wrought from emerald.

“Enough of that pomp, boy. It doesn’t suit you.” The words were not those of a guide, like Park Man-Shik had been, but of a commander. Po Shang ordered. “A soul stone is not the same as a badge. It is more like a mana stone like you might find in a monster.” Dan was as confused as he had been in his life. He understood what Po Shang was saying but why was he receiving a lesson right now?

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“I see. This is the first I have heard of them.” Dan did as he was told, and spoke more naturally. He supposed it wasn’t politeness keeping him alive right now anyway, it was only the grace of a man who could end his life in an instant. The man opened his eyes again and seemed to consider Dan ponderously for a moment.

“You speak the truth.”

“I wouldn’t dare lie to you, wise elder.” Another long pause followed Dan’s confirmation of his words. He didn’t know anything about soul stones. It seemed that this surprised Guan Po Shang, disarming him a little. Seeming the right moment to push what little luck existed, Dan asked a probing question. “Should I have heard of them?”

The wrong question. The slashing mana returned in full, Dan felt that if he touched anything with a sharp edge he might just be sliced to ribbons right there in the room. “So, not only are you a weapon, you are an ignorant one at that.”

Dan was a weapon? That was news to him, but perhaps for all of Dan’s analysis of others he wasn’t looking at himself clearly. He had fought and mostly defeated Guan Po Daiyu in single combat. He was the one who had brought down the puppetmaster, in the end. It had all happened so quickly, all felt so natural and accidental, that Dan hadn’t thought of the implications for himself, beyond being excited at what he thought was hidden potential.

Dan became keenly aware of his own situation, with a new angle on it which made him tense. Not only was he desperately unprepared for the goings on within the court of a royal family, without knowing it Dan had somehow been positioned by those around him - those above him - into the precarious predicament of being at odds with Guan Po Shang and his lethal mana.

“Apologies for my ignorance,” Dan said in his most humble tone, agreeing with the man who seemed sensible, “if I can be educated by one such as yourself, I would be incredibly gracious.”

“Grateful.” The man said firmly. “You would be grateful.” For some reason, the man was as intimidating while correcting grammar as he was while staring Dan down during the Quiet Combat. “I am no teacher and you are not my student, are you?” Dan again thought of slow, thick liquid dripping as the man spoke. Venom, maybe. He chose not to reply to the man. His luck was as pressed as he was willing to have it.

So pressed, was his luck, that it apparently turned to diamonds. A rosy nebula of energy breached Dan’s awareness and he turned in its direction without thinking. It was a power that he recognised. Prayers answered, Dan felt a small amount of confidence bloom in his chest.

Again, Dan was not very experienced in these matters, but he knew what it meant when your mother was mad at you. He braced as he saw, to his surprise, elder Baba lifted her foot and kicked the door. It rocketed open, straining the hinge and the wood around the door. Guan Po Shang didn’t flinch, simply turning to face his mother. He nodded his head and greeted her, calm as anything.

“Leave.” The ancient papyrus of the old woman’s voice was now sharp enough to leave papercuts. The air grew noticeably colder in the room and Guan Po Shang raised his hands in a sign of submission. It was faux, the man seemed supremely unthreatened, but he made a show of it anyway.

“I’m going, mother. Just congratulating the little warrior on his bout with your granddaughter.” Elder Baba said nothing as Guan Po Shang left the room and disappeared from Dan’s view shortly afterwards. The last he heard of the man was a slow chuckle.

Yet again, and to his increasing frustration, Dan was left waiting for answers. Once more he had been swept into a frightening situation, but this time he wouldn’t maintain the ignorance that had nearly gotten him killed. “Please, elder Baba… help me understand.” Dan pleaded from within his now dirty bandages. His face ached from all the talking he had been doing, and Dan desperately wanted to just stop and rest. He couldn’t though. The whole reason he had been out tonight and bumped into the terrifying Po Shang was to find elder Baba herself ideally. Now that she was here, he couldn’t let the sores on his face stop him.

She seemed to be empathising with this as she looked at Dan. Truly, he was glad that he couldn’t see himself. It must be a terrible sight. As Guan Shi Ai began to clean Dan’s bandages and replace them, he saw her wince and heard her tut under her breath. So it was that bad, was it?

“Cowardly.” The word stung Dan’s heart, like an icicle. “Guan Po Daiyu is a coward.” The ice in Dan’s heart melted, replaced with a small, silly guilt at his own feelings. The old woman wavered, her hands staying in the warm water which flowed from taps connected to piping in the Jaioduo’s walls. “I am a worse coward.”

Dan could almost feel the words leading there, but hearing the words from the old woman broke his heart. She was the closest thing Dan had to a grandmother himself, and without thinking he embraced her. Whether it was for her wellbeing or his own, he didn’t know. It was the right choice.

In that moment, Guan Ah Dan felt like he had a family. One he meant to protect.

“Elder Baba, I need answers. You know so much more than you’re telling me, please.” This was what Dan needed. He needed someone to explain all the things that he was missing, and that time needed to be now. It was that, or he would end up dead. He didn’t need to see elder Baba through his mana, or his now-ruined eyes to see her. Her weight shifted and Dan saw all the telltale signs of someone preparing to disappoint another.

“I… cannot.” She said, her eyes looking anywhere but at him. At the face that had been ruined as part of her and her family’s scheming. Dan could suddenly see how this family would create a man like Po Shang. He wanted nothing more to do with their politics. With a few more words, and a quiet replacement of the rest of Dan’s bandages, elder Baba bade farewell.

Dan’s thoughts were moving a million miles a minute. As much as Dan wished to convince himself otherwise, he was not of the Guan family. The Ah in his name was a constant reminder of that from birth. He would never be part of their secrets, only kept a pawn of their games. That wasn’t fair. Dan didn’t want to be a tool of anyone, he wanted more than that.

So he decided right there, right there. He would get strong enough that their games no longer mattered to him. So that they would not scar him, and steal his eyes. So that none of them could ever again lock him away in a box or a side room. He would take all of their teachings and all of their knowledge and turn it into his own power.