“Our food is gone,” she swore, having checked every water trench in the chiclotron, “the damn rosevines must have eaten all of it.”

“All of it?! There’d been an entire bear in there!”

“Come on,” she motioned to him, walking over to a spot where the earth has been disturbed, “We need to dig them up. There’s a chance some of the meat is still undigested - it will be disgusting, but it’s better than starving.”

They quickly dug up one of the rosevines, murdered it in cold blood and dissected its stomach, but all they found was some disgusting grayish slime, clearly well beyond the point of consumption. Qian Shanyi closed her eyes and sighed, her stomach grumbling in hunger, reminding her of that first horrific week in the world fragment. After having spent a while eating as much as she wanted, the sensation felt sharply unpleasant. Wang Yonghao groaned right next to her.

“Maybe the other ones have some?” Wang Yonghao said hopefully, ”We should dig them up too.”

“No,” she shook her head, “Save it. Any hole you dig now will just burn your own strength, and we’d need it to traverse the river. It’s best to hope they won’t attack us - and if they do, then at the very least they would have to dig themselves out.”

“You want us to travel further while we are hungry?”

“I don’t want to, but we have no choice,” she shook her head again, “Remember today? Neither of us is skilled enough at foraging to fully sustain ourselves, at least as long as I am not willing to try my luck with plants I can’t identify for sure. If we try to stick around, we would burn more calories than we consume every day, hopelessly trying to forage further afield until we starve. Our only choice to find civilization - and thus food - is to risk it all and go through the tunnel in one go. As soon as the sun is up, we’ll set off.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he sighed, “I guess I just got used to not being constantly hungry for once.”

“You and me both, Yonghao.”

Wary of the rosevines and the dead air affecting them again, they agreed to sleep in shifts, and Wang Yonghao headed straight to bed. Qian Shanyi debated wherever she should cultivate while he slept, and in the end, decided in favor: she was feeling on the cusp of unblocking her sixth dantian, and if she managed to do it, it should benefit her more than the calories she would lose in the process.

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

Tension was thick in the air as they woke up in the morning. The rosevines stayed underground, though they heard them moving around underneath their feet, and Qian Shanyi was sure that if they were both asleep at once they would have attacked. Not wanting to spend more of their energy, they put the modifications to the chiclotron on pause, and instead played more shatranj and talked about life. Now that she didn’t need to keep her past secret, she told Wang Yonghao about her childhood while he taught her how to play shatranj strategically.

“So you didn’t get born into a sect?” He asked her while they were having yet another practice match, “That’s surprising.”

“How so?” she quirked her eyebrow at him, “Most cultivators do not belong to any sect. Out of the ones that do, most weren’t born into them either. I only joined my former sect at fourteen.”

“It’s just the way you speak, how much you know,” he shrugged, quickly responding to her move on the board, “I figured that you were taught this from birth.”

“I was indeed. Just not in a sect. My father paid through the nose for tutors to teach me how to be a great merchant - or at the very least, an imperial official.”

“A merchant?” he gave her a confused look, “What does that have to do with cultivation?”

“Everything?” she returned his confusion with a look of her own, “Who do you think buys the most expensive goods if not the cultivators? Every good trader should know how to recognise sect cultivators with a single glance, and learn the types and properties of the most common heavenly materials and earthly treasures by heart - if for no other reason than to be able to store them safely, and know which ones have to be smuggled without a license and which ones could be left out in the open. There is a reason why basic knowledge of cultivation is a part of the imperial examinations - many jobs require you to know all the basics.”

He hummed, pondering her words.

“Did you pass these exams?”

“I didn’t take them in the end,” she replied, “I studied hard for the attempt, but then my spiritual root unblocked, and I felt it would be pointless to continue. What use is a diploma to a cultivator?”

“You could have joined an imperial daoism school, right? A lot of cultivators do that.”

“I could have,” she nodded, “but at the time, I thought that it’s best to be a big fish in a small pond. The Empire is massive, and their resources are split between a hundred different things. I figured that in a sect, it would be easier for me to get the things I needed - and perhaps become an elder later in life. There is fluidity there that the empire lacks - if you sign up with them, then you are forever prohibited from joining or forming your own sect, and your career will be rigid and regimented. Basically, I thought I could strike it big.”

She sighed.

“In the end, I was wrong. Small ponds grow stagnant. Unfortunately for me, leaving a sect is even harder than joining one. Not that it matters now - with your help, I should be able to advance by leaps and bounds.”

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

After they got tired of practice matches, Wang Yonghao started to run her through a series of endgame positions, where she had to pick the best move possible for her side of the game. It was a challenging puzzle, scratching her mind in just the right way.

“But enough about me,” she said, bringing their conversation out of a lull it has fallen into, ”Let’s talk about you. I keep thinking about your luck - for example, take your treasury. The distribution of weapons you own is very skewed. You own around a hundred swords, but only five bows, and not even a single musical instrument.”

“You actually remember how many bows I have?” He gave her a befuddled glance.

“Of course. I counted them while I was sorting them,” she frowned at him. “But let’s not get distracted. These numbers are puzzling, even when taking your luck into account. For example, the conditions of the ruins you explore were set well before your birth - surely you couldn’t avoid running into some of the other weapon forms.”

“Oh, that. It’s mostly down to me,” he sighed, “These days, I only pick up weapons I have a talent in, or ones that interest me for some reason. Why would I pick up musical instruments?”

“To sell them?”

“I told you, it doesn’t work.”

“Then why do you pick up swords? You will never need this many.”

“Force of habit, I suppose.”

“I remember you throwing a whip inside too. Do you know any whip techniques?”

“No, I picked that one up because it was lying next to this cool looking sphere I found nearby,” he said, “I figured they might be related. Mostly I only have talent with the sword, spear, dagger and ax.”

She nodded, and went back to the game.

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

After they both got sick of playing shatranj for the day, she got Wang Yonghao to help her catalog all of the various weapons and artifacts laying around in their treasury, for the purposes of selling them later. They split them in four groups: “Unknown”, “Legitimate”, “Archeology” and “Stolen”, which she renamed into “Appropriated” after loud objections from Wang Yonghao that all of those stories of him picking up weapons from people he beat up were a totally different situation. Any artifact he couldn’t remember clearly was put into “Unknown”; ones he won from tournaments or got as gifts went into “Legitimate”, results of graverobbing secret realms were sorted into “Archeology” and finally everything that was in any way connected to living or dead cultivators or sects went into “Appropriated”.

Qian Shanyi had never tried selling cultivation artifacts before, and her father did not trade in them either, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that selling “Appropriated” weapons would pose a much bigger problem.

All of the weapons were expertly crafted, perfect for channeling spiritual energy, and seven were the rare kind that possessed additional abilities, just like the fly whisk. There was an emerald jade spear that could warp the air in front of a cultivator’s face into a lens, letting them see further into the distance; a sword that could store small animals it touched like a cosmos ring (currently empty); a chakram that would release a powerful lightning bolt after draining the blood of their user; a pair of daggers that could turn into sandals, concealing their nature in the process (which she immediately borrowed, replacing her own crudely crafted footwear); a sword that would turn some of the blood of those it cut into liquid metal; a saber that shuddered when someone else looked at her; and a hammer that could telekinetically pull the enemy’s weapon towards it. Wang Yonghao thought that there might have been more, but she wasn’t about to start randomly testing artifacts - that was a great recipe for getting their hands blown off. There was a reason why cultivators occasionally called careless fools as “artifact testers”.

There was no real reason to rush, either, as they would be harder to sell. Few refiners bothered to create weapons that included permanent abilities, due to their cost, difficulty in production, and because such abilities could never be as flexible as a technique performed by a living cultivator. Because of this, what few weapons that reached the market were incredibly expensive, and until she could accurately price their value, they would simply suffer a loss if she tried.

Well, first they would need to reach civilization - but despite their difficulties, she was feeling relatively optimistic.

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

By the time the sun rose outside, the relations between them were starting to mend, until conflict sparked up again from a direction she didn’t expect.

“I just think it doesn’t make sense for both of us to be swimming downstream,” Wang Yonghao sighed for the tenth time, as neither of them was willing to cede their position. “I have to be out because otherwise the entrance of the world fragment won’t go anywhere. You don’t.”

“Not a single squeak from you about it over the past week, and only now it becomes an issue?” she responded, keeping her hands folded on her chest. She wrapped one of her silk ropes around her waist for easy access, and kept the fly whisk on her belt alongside a dozen other, shorter ropes for easy access.

“I thought you were an old monster back then!” he said, “What would be the point in you sticking inside?”

“There is no point now either.”

“The point is safety! Who knows what will happen? Last time we walked through the forest we got attacked by vine monsters.”

“If you get knocked out again, I’ll starve to death within your inner world, Yonghao. It isn’t safe there either.”

“If something could knock me out, it would outright eat you.”

“Eat me? Please. I am all bones, no meat at all. Any demon beast would choke if it tried.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“You aren’t taking this seriously.”

“I am taking it precisely as seriously as it deserves. If anything happens, we will retreat to your inner world, and I am prepared for all the likely eventualities. I am going on that tree trunk.”

“It’s a pointless risk!”

“The only real risk here is you somehow fucking it up without my gentle guiding hand.”

“It’s a river,” he scowled, “stop being rude, there is no way to screw up traveling downstream.”

“You could drown.”

“I know how to swim and I can fly!”

“You’d have to fight me to keep me away from that tree trunk,” she rolled her eyes, “so either take out your sword or shut up.”

He did neither, and nagged her about it as they set off down the river and into the dimensional tunnel formed by the walls of the world. Even threatening him with a fight didn’t help.

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

The river flow quickened within the tunnel, and soon they were left surrounded on all sides by the empty blue - bright sunlight above, and dim below, where it filtered up through the water. There wasn’t much else to see around them, and the water seemed to be flowing fast enough to carry off any sediment on the bottom of the river.

As the day went on, they passed suns traveling alongside the world edges. From up close, their heat was scorching, and both of them dived into the water to avoid dealing with it. Qian Shanyi stayed in the warm water, enjoying how it felt on her skin, merely putting her arms on top of her log for support, while Wang Yonghao climbed back out. She was telling him a story about her youth helping at their main store, when he suddenly interrupted her.

“Why didn’t you pick up a new sword from my treasury?” He asked.

“I already have a sword,” she responded, “why would I need another one?”

“Sure, but it’s probably not as good as the ones that I have, right?” He shook his head, “Sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about how we could best deal with demon beasts.”

“It’s a good thing to think about,” she answered, eyeing him, “It’s true that your weapons are probably better overall, but I would have needed time to adjust to using a new sword, which we do not have right now.”

“You could have picked one a week ago though.”

She paused to think this through. Frankly, the idea just didn’t occur to her.

“It’s my sword in more ways than one,” she finally answered, climbing on top of her log. She pulled her sword out of its scabbard, and showed him a faint inscription engraved on the blade, “I won it in a tournament back in the Golden Rabbit Bay, so I suppose I am being somewhat sentimental.”

Into heavens through sweat and blood, the inscription said, which is about what it took for her to win, with her garbage spiritual energy circulation law. To this day, it was one of her finest plays, pitting two strongest competitors against one another before swooping in to finish off the winner.

He opened his mouth to respond -

- and suddenly was thrown off his log as an enormous fish tail battered it from below.

“There’s a fish!” she called out to him, seeing him starting to walk on air, but the fast river current had already carried her a good distance away. He unsheathed his sword as he ran to catch up, staying far away from the water.

No such safety for me, she thought grimly as she quickly circulated her thread control technique. The rope tied around her waist came alive, its movements linked to one of the shorter ropes on her waist, and she quickly used it to tie herself to her log by her left arm. With her right hand, she quickly tightened a lanyard on her sword, securing it in place. Her eyes frantically searched through the waters for the signs of the fish, but sunlight reflecting off the waters made that almost impossible.

Before Wang Yonghao could catch up and open his inner world, she saw a shape move below her, and barely managed to brace herself before being thrown into the air. She hit the edge of the world and bounced off back into the water, thankful that she managed to bring up her spiritual shield up in time. Her vision blurred in the water, but with how much light was around her, she could still clearly make out the shape of the fish pivoting in her direction. She surfaced and pulled on her rope, dragging herself towards her log as fast as she could. Her sword dangled awkwardly off her right arm, but at least it wasn’t lost.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of light from the water, and instinctively pushed herself to swim faster. That was the only thing that saved her.

Her vision swam as the loudest screech she had ever heard in her life slammed into her ears. She yanked her head out of the water, but it only helped so much.

If it hit directly, I’d be unconscious, she thought, struggling to stay awake.

She was still too far away from the log, and abandoned that idea as she saw the fish getting closer. Instead, she brought her sword back into her hand, and turned towards the fish, bracing herself behind her sword. It lunged straight at her, and for a moment, she saw sharp jaws below a head of smooth, black skin, before the fish tried to bite down on her sword only to find sharp steel.

Not familiar with cultivators, are you? She sneered in her mind. The fish responded by barreling her down into the water with its sheer weight and momentum, knocking air out of her lungs.

The hit threw any sense of direction out of her mind, and she struggled to reorient herself, but finally managed to surface, breathing hard. Wang Yonghao was mere meters away, already stretching out a hand to pull her up out of the water, when she saw the fish leap up and slam him out of the air with a swipe of its tail.

She cursed, and ducked her head back under the water, trying to find him. He ended up a good two dozen meters away from her, lying strangely still in the water, and she saw the fish circling around him. Her wood log ended up in the exact opposite direction.

Damn you Yonghao, can’t you fall more conveniently? She cursed him, forced her rope to untie itself from the log, and swam towards him. Her rope streaked through the water ahead of her, carried by the power of spiritual energy. Feeling her lungs burning, she swam up towards the surface to draw air, but hit a solid wall.

What?

Her fingers clawed at the edge of the world as the horrible realization set in. The dimensional tunnel must have narrowed so much it was completely filled with water, and the current had carried them inside. Worse still, she had lost her sense of direction, and couldn’t even tell which way was upstream.

No! I need air!

She spun back towards Yonghao, and saw that he came back to his senses, and tried to slash at the fish with the Honk of the Solar Goose, but the technique was not designed to pass through water and dissipated almost immediately.

Without any better options, she swam towards him again, only to see the fish bite him on the leg. He struggled against it, and she saw the fish start to swim away, carrying him along.

The sense of doom within her heart deepened further, and the pieces clicked in place.

Wang Yonghao had great luck. He probably wouldn’t die here, so this fish would carry him to safety.

Luck only kept the cultivator safe, not the others.

He repeatedly pushed for her to stay within his inner world because of “danger”.

Did he…expect this to happen?

Did this happen before?

Was she going to die here?

She swam even harder, and just as the fish was passing by ten meters away from her, she managed to thread her rope through its mouth and around the top of its head, tying it into a bridle.

I hope I am right about this.

She tightened her end of the rope, and felt it yank her forwards, dragging her behind the fish. Water pushed hard against her body, and if she didn’t tie herself down, she would have been sure to slip out.

Come on, you stupid fish, she thought as her vision started to go black at the edges, do your fucking job. Serve your Heavenly masters.

Suddenly, her face breached the surface of water, and she finally let her lungs heave, coughing violently as she finally breathed clean air. She burst spiritual energy from the pores near her eyes to whip water away from them, and finally she could see clearly.

They were falling.

The tunnel had opened up in the sky of a wide open space, and the river fell down from it in a thick column of water. The fish had burst through the surface of this column, and was now falling freely through the air, dragging her along with it. She saw Wang Yonghao stab it through an eye, and the fish released him. For a moment, he stepped on air, and stopped. She and the fish kept falling, instantly leaving him behind them.

A hundred meters below them the water crashed down into a caldera, roiling and steaming as hundreds of tons of water hammered down into it every second, pulverizing anything that would fall in like the jaws of a hungry water spirit.

If she dropped into that plunge pool, she would never come out.

A distant part of her mind calmly estimated the distances and told her she had five seconds left to live.

She needed to grab onto something, anything to arrest her momentum, but the rock walls were so distant, almost vertical, gleaming in the daylight. Above the tops of the caldera, she could see trees reaching towards the waterfall, thick leafy crowns slick from the moisture, but even the closest of them would pass them by a good twenty meters. She spun her neck around and saw Wang Yonghao way above her, but she could already see he was too far away to offer any help.

Four seconds.

In desperation, she yanked on the rope, sending her flying closer towards the fish. The rope went slack, and she pushed it towards the closest tree she could see below her with the thread control technique. If she could only hook it onto a branch, she would survive…

Panic shot through her as she lost control of her technique and the rope started to flutter freely. She grit her teeth and wove spiritual energy around it anew, forcing it to obey.

Three seconds.

At the same time, she dived through the air towards the fish - it was struggling aimlessly as it fell, crying out in sharp tones, but its dangerous call did almost nothing in the open air. Her fingers cramped from the pressure, and she almost fumbled her technique again, but managed to keep it together.

Two seconds.

The fish almost slapped her aside with its tail, but she managed to avoid its strike by the width of a hair, and stabbed her sword into its body to keep them together. With it helpless in the air, she could have chopped off its head, but she needed as much of its mass as she could manage. The rope stretched out towards the treeline, and she could see it would still come out just a bit too short.

One second.

She sprung off the fish towards the trees, thankful that it was so large - if they weighed equally, her kick would have just sent it back towards the waterfall. The rope stretched between them, and at the last moment, she managed to hook it onto a branch of the tree she was flying past. At the same time, she pushed as much of her spiritual energy as she could into her left arm and shoulder, strengthening them for the impact.

The rope wrapped around the branch as she and the fish fell down, until it went taut and sent their collective weight into the wood. The branch groaned and cracked, but thankfully resisted, and the entire tree bent down towards the waterfall under the sudden impact of a giant fish and one desperate cultivator. The weight of the fish pulled on the rope and it slid over the bark, dragging Qian Shanyi up towards the branch. Ready for it, she stabbed her sword into the wood to arrest her momentum. Pain shot through her left shoulder - no doubt dislocated - but she held tight, and hugged the slippery, mossy branch with both of her arms and legs to keep herself in place.

The tree groaned more and started to bend backwards, as the elastic energy of the trunk was converted back into speed. As it swung the other way, Qian Shanyi felt the weight on the rope relax for a moment, and in one smooth move, she reached down towards her feet with her good right arm, grabbed one of her slippers and turned it into a dagger, and cut the rope off. The tree swung back and forth as the weight of the fish suddenly vanished, and she held onto for her dear life. Finally, everything went still.

With great care, she raised her head. Agony was shooting through her left hand, and when she focused her senses on it, she realized it was indeed dislocated. She quickly popped it back into its socket with her spiritual energy, but knew she wouldn’t be using it in the foreseeable future.

Slowly and carefully, she inched her way along the slippery bark towards the tree trunk, and finally leaped off onto the stones below. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she laid down on the rocks, and closed her eyes.

Safe.

She felt the stress instantly leave her body, and laughter bubbled out of her chest as the weight of what just happened finally settled over her mind. She laid there, giggling, feeling more alive than she had ever been before.

Hearing the rustle of cloth, she opened her eyes to see Wang Yonghao descend from the air, his face white with fear.

“You are alive,” he breathed out, “I thought for sure I would find you down on the rocks.”

“I am a cultivator, Yonghao,” she grinned at him, “We are very hard to kill.”

She got up, and dusted herself off with her one good hand. As she turned around, she saw what laid beyond the caldera. The river flowed out of one of its sides, rushing down the side of a mountain, and streaked through the landscape, through forests and fields down below their feet. Far in the distance, she saw it enter a canyon, and in that canyon, she saw smoke, and a ship on the water.

They finally found civilization.