When Qian Shanyi returned to the tavern, hair unkept and yawning from sleep cut short, it was already noon. The sun rays burst through the rainy clouds, bringing spots of color down on the quiet town. The scant rain had kept most people indoors, and the town seemed quiet, almost as if it was just as tired as she was after this long but very enjoyable night.
Her judgment for finding a partner for a night was still spot on: Rui Bao turned out to be a decent lay, though the inner disciple he dragged in with them - some girl of barely twenty, whose name she didn’t care to ask - was far too timid for her tastes. She supposed she shouldn’t complain much - she couldn’t truly go wild, not with her injuries. Her lungs bled a bit still, though easily manageable.
When she unlocked their room with her key and stepped inside, she found Wang Yonghao asleep in the bed, dug in like a rabbit into a burrow, with only the head sticking out. She nudged the edge of the blob with her foot, and he woke up with a start, limbs scrambling beneath the covers.
She snorted. “Bad dreams?”
His eyes finally focused on her, and he breathed out, slumping back into bed and pulling the blanket up to his chin. “Not today. You just startled me.”
She looked around the room curiously. “I take it the honorable fairy had left already?”
He blinked at her, and then groaned, covering his head with the blanket entirely.
“What?” She laughed. “Shouldn’t I be concerned about the happiness of my…partner?”
Wang Yonghao’s voice came out muffled by the silks and down. “Why did I ever wake up?”
“No time to sleep, Yonghao.” She snorted, poking the blanket with her foot again. “Open up the entrance - I want to change my bandages and take a bath, and the one next to our room is too small to relax properly.”
“Are you going to be this annoyingly cheerful every morning?”
“Why shouldn’t I be cheerful?” she asked, resting her foot on the edge of the bed, leaning forwards and pitching her voice lower, “I’ve had the most entertaining night. Quite…acrobatic, too.”
Wang Yonghao pulled the blanket down to just below his eyes, glaring at her. “I still can’t believe how casually you talk about luring some man into your bed.”
She raised an eyebrow, her grin spreading a touch wider. “Who said it was a man?”
She saw the tops of his cheeks blush beneath the blanket. “So-” he stuttered, “you, ah, another woman?”
“Who said it was a woman?”
“You are messing with me again,” he accused her, annoyance straightening out his speech in an instant, as he pulled the blanket down to his neck. “Aren’t you even a bit worried about getting pregnant?”
“Why would I -,” she stopped, blinking in confusion, and stood up straight, rubbing her nose in dismay. Talk about ruining the joke. “Yonghao, cultivators don’t get pregnant by accident.”
“Why not?” he said, frowning sincerely. He sat up against the head of the bed, keeping himself covered. “I know that much about how things work, don’t try to fool me.”
She sighed. Well, at least he woke up. “For once I can’t blame your lack of education,” she said. “Men in my sect weren’t taught this either - though I would have expected you to run into the issue already, with how much you have traveled.”
She lifted her hand, and circulated the Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes, making a crude diagram of light in the air. The technique wasn’t terribly precise, but neither was what she was drawing.
“There’s a minor spiritual energy circulation technique, meant for the woman’s root dantian,” she said, “once you adapt to it, no more pregnancy, until you take a couple weeks to reverse the adaptation.”
It also stopped her monthlies. Seven years of miserable experience before she stepped on the path of cultivation and cleared her root dantian made her more than glad about that particular side effect.
Wang Yonghao studied the spiritual energy circulation diagram with surprising interest. “Some kind of body transformation technique?”
She waved her other arm vaguely in the air, shaking her head slightly. “It’s too simple for that. It’s something about stabilizing life energies, but the scholarship on the topic is so abysmal you would think that the reformation never happened. Most healers still can’t be bothered with the topic,” she said, dismissing the diagram and lowering her hand. “Teaching those new to our sect was one of my unofficial duties. Now get up and open the entrance, I really do need to bathe and brush my magnificent hair.”
She poked him with her foot again for emphasis. He glared at her. “Can you at least turn around and let me dress first?”
She rolled her eyes at him, but did so, leaning against one of the walls. “And while you do that,” she said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She heard the rustle of silk as he got out of bed, and picked up his robes. “What question?”
“Whether there was a girl after all,” she said casually, checking her nails. There was a bit of blood stuck beneath them - was that still from the tribulation, cooking the ox last night, or from the excitement after? She honestly wasn’t sure. “Though I suppose your confusion from before might explain some of your hesitation?”
“What makes you think it wasn’t a man?” he called out, a challenge in his voice. The fool. He was a thousand years too young to play this game.
“You don’t seem like the type, and I have seen how you look at both men and women,” she said, pulling out her sword, and using the tip to clean beneath her nails. “But perhaps I am wrong after all? There is something to your tension with Jian Shizhe - an honorable cultivator and a drifter, the hate all mixed up with respect, your ‘swords’ clashing with the fury of the sun and sending out showers of sparks... You know, I could arrange a date for you two, somewhere hidden - all you have to do is ask?”
She heard him choke, and cackled loudly.
“Why do you even care?” he said, once he got himself back under control.
She turned her head ever so slightly in his direction. “Why shouldn’t I care? Well-being of my allies is also my concern, is it not? Besides, I am curious.”
“You know what the problem is,” he grumbled behind her, “I’ll run into the fiance of some young master, or they’d be a demonic cultivator in disguise, or they’d straight up die in my arms. I can’t have a relationship with anyone.”
“Hm. But I didn’t ask about any of that. I asked about sex.”
“For everyone except you, those go together.”
She laughed at that, and sheathed her sword. This would go so much easier in the bath. “One person may play a melody, but shatranj takes two. I assure you, I am far from unique.”
She heard steps behind her, and turned around to find Wang Yonghao fully dressed, glaring at her. “Careful,” she said, smiling cheerfully at him in return, “keep holding that expression and it might stick.”
He only glared at her harder. Honestly, some people just couldn’t appreciate free advice. “Well what was I supposed to do?” he said.
She raised an eyebrow curiously, leaning against the wall. “I am not saying you were supposed to do anything. I am just curious why you didn’t. You’ve approached me in the Golden Rabbit Bay, have you not? So what changed?”
He looked away guiltily. “I was drunk. Besides, didn’t you shout at me for it? And now you want me to do it to other people?”
She angled her head, looking down at the idiot that kept avoiding the question. “I did not merely ‘shout’ at you, and I did it because you beat me up,” she said, “your approach itself, while far too blunt, boring, awkward, and overall mildly unpleasant, wasn’t the actual issue - and with the status of having transcended the tribulation, I suspect a fair few fairies would have looked past your glaring lack of conversational skills. But once again - what I want is irrelevant, I am merely curious why you didn’t in fact do it.”
He stayed silent, crossing his arms, and not meeting her gaze. His lips twitched downwards.
Hm.
“Do you imagine I would judge you for it?” she said gently, “Surely you know better than that.”
He sighed. “It’s - I don’t know how to explain it. It’s silly.”
“Many worthwhile things have been called that.”
He paced around a bit. “I don’t know. Of course I’d like someone to talk to about life, to share things with - and you know,” he said, blushing slightly, “it would be nice if they were a cute fairy. But it’s not about sex, it’s about, you know, having someone who cares for you, keeps their home warm for you. But I can’t have that, can I? So it’s silly to think about. Besides, I can already talk to you, so how could I ask for more?”
“Hm. Would you like a hug?” she said neutrally. Wang Yonghao glanced at her hands, folded as they were right below her bandaged chest, and shuddered. She chuckled. “Fair enough.”
She pushed herself off the wall, and stretched out her arms, humming in thought. “Thank you for sharing - it was quite interesting. But let’s take it one step at a time. First we topple the Heavens, and then we’ll find you someone to love.”
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While she waited for the bath to fill, she changed her bandages, and used a bit of cloth to wipe off dried sweat and blood off her chest. The wounds have been healing decently enough, even though with the bandages off, she could still feel the air whistling through the slowly closing holes. She had to keep them clean in the meantime - and that meant she couldn’t submerge herself, but she could still wash her hair and legs without too much difficulty.
After she cleaned herself, she leaned against the walls of the bath, using a wooden comb Wang Yonghao made to brush her long hair while it was still wet. The man himself was lounging on the grass nearby. “Now that we are away from the hateful gaze of Heaven,” she began, “I think it’s time we talked strategy.”
“Shouldn’t we have waited to talk about, you know, what we talked about upstairs, until we were down here too?” He said, sighting. “Sorry. I forgot we agreed to do this.”
She raised her eyebrows. Upstairs, really? “I am struggling to imagine what advantage the Heavens would derive from knowing a bit more about your love life.” she said slowly, “even if they weren’t already aware, which seems doubtful.”
“Maybe they could seduce me somehow.”
“All the better for you, in that case?”
Wang Yonghao closed his eyes, breathing out calmly. She chuckled. “But enough about the past,” she said, “let’s talk about where we are headed.”
“Well, you already know where I was headed.”
They have discussed it a bit in the previous days - but frankly, neither she nor Yonghao had the energy to focus on the long-term before the tribulation. He said he was heading towards an ancient sect compound up on top of a mountain peak he had visited before, where he saw a lot of stone cuttings of celestials, in the hope that a careful search might turn up something useful.
He also said he only stopped in Glaze Ridge because there was free food for those who helped Jian Shizhe with his hunts, which she found hilarious.
She nodded. “I think your idea still makes as much sense as anything else, as a starting point. If we pass through a larger city on the way, it will be even better - the libraries there might tell us a lot. But I am reluctant to abandon this town before we have exhausted all it has to give us.”
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She saw his mouth open, and raised a hand to forestall him. “I know what you will say,” she said, “it’s dangerous to stay in one place for too long. But I still think your judgment of how your luck works is flawed. Its power - whatever source it comes from - is not infinite. You thought I would fall to the tribulation, and yet I still stand.”
He grimaced. “Barely.”
“There is no barely, you either transcend or you do not.”
“Shanyi, you got perforated.”
She shrugged easily. “Victory is all that counts.”
His grimace grew. “And why do you want to stay here?”
“Consider our situation,” she said, listing out factors on her fingers, “We have an excellent reputation, and the ear of the young master of the Northern Scarlet Stream sect. We have the heavenly materials and earthly treasures in storage - ones we could, potentially, sell or use, but only as long as we remain. I have already made small moves in that direction. We know the terrain, and have a safe place to hide your inner world. And of course, I am still injured. If there is any place at all where we could rest, prepare, and build up your inner world, this would be it.”
Wang Yonghao rubbed his face with both hands. “Fine.”
“Really?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I would have expected you to put up more of a fight.”
“Well,” he said, “This could be a test, right? For wherever you are right about my luck? Even if you are wrong, we’d learn something.”
She smiled. That he was starting to think in proactive terms was very good to hear.
“So how do you want us to prepare?” Wang Yonghao said.
“It’s a question of limitations and forced moves,” she said, sweeping her arm across the world fragment. “For example, think back to how we prepared for the tribulation. Even if we decided to spend more than the nine days training, we would have ran out of food by the two weeks mark - forcing us out of here. It is a weakness, one the Heavens can surely take advantage of.”
She pointed at the bunker they used to hide from the rosevines, and started counting out points on her fingers. “First of all, I want a proper house,” she said, “one that does not smell of damp earth and mold, and with enough room we could sleep in parallel. Having to schedule sleep is incredibly inconvenient, the more so the more time we have to spend here. Secondly, I want a source of food - a farm - and storage that could last us several months. Third, a proper way of dealing with waste - I am thoroughly fed up with needing to dig a hole any time I have to poop. Fourth, a way of proactively dealing with dead air, if that problem ever reoccurs. Sleep, food, waste, air - with these problems solved, we could stay here indefinitely, if the need presented itself. I think we could get it all done in a week or two, if we try.”
Wang Yonghao sighed, rubbing his face. “You mean, I could get it done.”
She blinked at him in confusion. “Since when are you so addicted to work you hog it all to yourself? Of course we would do it together.”
“No you won’t.” Wang Yonghao said, getting up off the grass, dusting off his robes. “The healer said you should rest for two weeks, so you are resting.”
She squinted at him. Where did this come from? “Don’t be ridiculous. I am not a child to be coddled, just because I had a bit of a scratch.”
“This isn’t about-” Wang Yonghao stopped, and shook his head. “Shanyi, you are being stupid. You got perforated, your wounds would reopen if you start lugging tree trunks around. You are resting until you are fully healed.”
“So what, you propose we do nothing at all for two whole weeks?” she asked sardonically. “You really think we can risk waiting that much?”
“No, I propose you rest, as your healer instructed. Like a sensible person.”
So annoying.
The worst part was that she had no real counterargument.
“Fine.” She said, rolling her eyes. “This here jade beauty will refrain from lifting even a single one of her long, slender fingers. But in exchange… We are going to do a couple heists.”
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Lin Fang saw the smoke when she and Ye Yun were returning from their circle around the town.
Patrols during the rain season were always the worst, though at least the new cloaks they got this year kept all the water out. The quiet murmur of rain lulled you to sleep, and made it that much harder to see or smell anything beyond what was right in front of your face. But spirits had to be kept track of, and that was their job.
“Do you see that?” she asked, pointing towards the smoke. It was faint, obscured by one of the tall hills that dotted the landscape more and more as one headed towards the mountains.
Her partner stopped, squinting in the same direction. “See what?”
“The smoke.”
He angled his head to the side, grimacing uncertainly. “I suppose. What of it?”
It was hard to see, especially due to the rain. Ye Yun argued many times that there was little point in patrolling when it rained, because they could walk right on top of a spirit and not even notice it - but she knew he just wanted to stay inside.
“We should investigate,” she said, checking the sword at her hip and the short ax slung over her back. “It might be a problem.”
“Oh come on,” he groaned, looking back at Reflection Ridge, the outermost buildings visible here and there between the trees. “It’s got to be a good hour away.”
“It’s our job.”
“Our job isn’t to look into every little thing that could maybe, possibly, be happening somewhere. It’s probably just a cultivator practicing flame techniques.”
“And if they start a forest fire?”
Ye Yun raised an eyebrow at her, and mutely pointed up at the rain clouds. She crossed her arms. “The rain could stop at any moment, and the ground dries quickly. But it could also be a spirit, or a demon beast. One that it is our job to track.”
“What demon beast? We don’t have any fire beasts nearby.”
“Azonian shriks can develop fire breathing.”
His forehead creased in an uncertain frown. “First time I am hearing of it, which means it barely ever happens.”
“Rare is not never. It could also be a migrant.”
“You are really stretching this. A migrating spirit, this time of year?”
“You should read the reports more,” she said, pursing her lips in annoyance, “one was delivered three days ago from Lake of Peace. They had an encounter with a powerful mushroom spirit, and their best guess is that it was a migrant from a good four hundred miles away. Lake of Peace is on the other side of this forest - we could easily be getting knock-on migrations.”
He grimaced, still clearly unconvinced. “Okay, so say it’s a spirit or demon beast. Then what? By the time we get there, it will be gone already. Come on, our patrol is almost over - let’s go eat something warm? You can look for this spirit tomorrow too.”
“There won’t be any tracks left tomorrow.”
“Well if it sticks around, we’ll see more of it, and if it moves on, it’s not our problem either way?”
“If it moves on, we should warn other offices,” she said, glaring at Ye Yun. “If you aren’t going, I will go alone.”
He sighed, and turned away, walking towards the farms at the edge of the town. “Don’t get eaten!” he called out, giving her a last glance.
Lazy bum.
She turned around and sprinted off into the forest, quickly bouncing up into the tree crowns, and keeping her pace even as she swung from tree to tree above the dense undergrowth below, bouncing off the trunks where the branches were too sparse. Her cloak, all dark greens and browns, blended in with the forest, and for once she was thankful for the rain - it should obscure her scent.
They were supposed to patrol in pairs for a reason.
Ye Yun was right on the money, and she came out into a clearing about an hour later, crouching down on a branch high off the ground. It had been recently cleared out, still littered with leaves and branches. In the middle was an enormous pyre, a massive pile of wood arranged into a pyramid, flame and smoke rising up into the sky. It was surrounded by a dozen smaller ones - some still going, others already put out.
There were two cultivators in the clearing, wearing long, black leather cloaks, crouched in front of one of the smaller fires. They were cooking meat, and speaking quietly enough that she could not hear them. One was a man, looking bored, and the other a woman, wearing scarlet robes underneath her cloak.
Poachers?
Something about the picture tugged at her mind, but she couldn’t quite figure out what. She sniffed the air. No fresh blood, and the meat was from an ox - they must have brought it from the town. If they were poachers, they were careful enough not to leave obvious tracks. But then why start a fire she could see all the way from the town?
As she observed them, the woman raised her head, scanning the treeline, and spotted Lin Fang, smiling and waving at her. The man looked in the same direction, suddenly growing alert.
“I told you someone would come if we didn’t warn them,” the woman said, louder than before - clearly for Lin Fang’s benefit - before calling out to her directly. “Would you like some meat, honorable cultivator? We have plenty to spare.”
After a moment of indecision, Lin Fang nodded, and dropped down to the ground. “I apologize for the intrusion, honorable cultivators,” she said, “I only wanted to make sure this wasn’t a forest fire.”
“It’s alright,” the man said, “we expected that a spirit hunter might show up, like Shanyi said.”
Lin Fang’s eye twitched as she came closer. The woman - Shanyi - snorted, shaking her head.
“I apologize for my partner, he was raised under a bridge,” Shanyi said, and Lin Fang shared a look of understanding with her.
“Hey!”
“Perhaps you are right. A bridge would have been far too luxurious for you,” Shanyi continued, shaking her head. “Those aren’t spirit hunter robes, Yonghao.”
Lin Fang stopped a respectable distance away, and bowed. “I am Lin Fang, office of spiritual conservation,” she said.
“Qian Shanyi, and Wang Yonghao,” Qian Shanyi said, bowing as well, and gesturing to her partner. “I hope we haven’t made too much trouble?”
“Not at all,” Lin Fang said, and something finally clicked in her mind, and she relaxed. These two had no reason at all to poach. “You are the ones who went through the tribulation yesterday? And then donated half of the materials to the town?”
She still wasn’t sure what to do with her part of the donation.
“Indeed,” Qian Shanyi nodded, gesturing towards the smaller fire. Lin Fang approached it, and Wang Yonghao handed her a small log to use as a seat. She took it, stretching out her legs. With the central pyre burning bright, it was actually quite comfortable. The three of them got to talking, sharing small things about themselves. After her run through the forest, the cooked ox tasted heavenly, true to its nature.
“I am an immortal chef,” Qian Shanyi said, when the question of the clearing came up again. “I wanted to practice cooking with wood fires - see how their shape influences the heat and smoke, how quickly they burn through wood, and so on - but you can’t burn a dozen different fires at once in a tavern. So we decided to do it here.”
Must also make it easier to practice secret sect techniques, Lin Fang thought, idly wondering what sort of techniques were practiced by magnates so rich they simply donated several tons of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures on a whim.
“And this?” she asked instead, pointing to the central fire.
“We wanted to scare demon beasts away, if any were nearby,” Qian Shanyi said. “Two cultivators, the smell of cooking meat… It seemed safer, even if it’s a bit of a waste of good wood. I hope we haven’t violated some prohibition? We checked the trees for talismans or markings, and I looked at the maps in the library to make sure this forest was open, but perhaps we missed something?”
Lin Fang shook her head, and the conversation moved on.
“I still don’t understand,” Wang Yonghao asked after a while. ”You say you patrol the forest, keep track of demon beasts and spirits… Isn’t this what spirit hunters do?”
“Spirit hunters hunt spirits, Yonghao,” Qian Shanyi said before Lin Fang could respond. “The office of conservation does the opposite, if anything.” She glanced at Lin Fang. ”I understand that the difference in philosophy leads to some tensions.”
“I wouldn’t say tensions.” Lin Fang shook her head. “Our work rarely intersects with each other.”
“Then disagreements, perhaps?”
Lin Fang inclined her head in agreement. “Sometimes. Our approach to protecting people tends to be different.”
Wang Yonghao raised his eyebrows. “How is not killing a demon beast going to protect anyone?”
Lin Fang pursed her lips, thinking how to explain it. A common enough attitude, but still misguided.
Qian Shanyi shook her head. “Indeed,” she mused, “when there is something threatening your life, you should simply kill it, shouldn’t you, Yonghao?”
He seemed to pull back after that. There was some history there, though not one Lin Fang had any business prying into.
“Spirit hunters come from an earlier, more brutal time,” she said, throwing a thankful glance at Qian Shanyi for her support, even if she couldn’t exactly understand why it was given. “We know more about the world now, and many of the threats that could put whole towns on the brink of extinction have already been dealt with. To simply slaughter - it is misguided.”
“A flower plucked is a field that will not grow,” Qian Shanyi said, quoting straight from the books. “A demon beast slaughtered is a dozen beastlings that will never be.”
“Oh,” Wang Yonghao blinked, some realization plain on his face. “Is that why so many ancient manuals and techniques can’t be made to work now?”
“It’s not really my field,” Lin Fang shrugged. She was glad he understood, at least. “But yes, many ingredients have been driven to extinction. Many more simply never get the chance to ripen to their proper age. Out on the frontiers it’s different, but here on the interior of the Empire, we have to be careful.”
“I imagine it’s more than just the patrols,” Qian Shanyi said, scratching her chin. “But also catching poachers when they try to sell the materials?”
“That as well, yes,” Lin Fang nodded, “though it comes up rarely enough - most cultivators never even notice us doing our jobs in the background. Those who want to make money hunting leave for the frontiers, and all we have to deal with are the occasional mistakes.”
Qian Shanyi nodded with great interest, and they spent another half an hour talking about her job, before she thanked the pair, and left for Reflection Ridge, her spirits lifted greatly. It was always good to meet some cultivators who understood the big problem, and had nothing to hide.
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“Excellent work fooling Lin Fang,” Qian Shanyi said, clapping Wang Yonghao on the shoulder once they made their way back to the tavern, and descended down into his world fragment to check their haul. After a day’s work, they made out with a solid fifty tree trunks, and she never even came close to suspecting they had some kind of spatial storage. This wasn’t the frontier: if they wanted to stock up on wood for their projects, they had to cover up their trails.
And now they had a witness, and a ready-made excuse for any other clearings appearing in the forest.
A perfect heist.