“Hm. You don’t look half bad, you know,” Qian Shanyi said, crouching in front of Linghui Mei, “considering the circumstances.”
The kitsune still shivered slightly, warming her hands against the fire node in their kitchens. She changed into a new set of robes, these ones too big for her figure, fabric bunching up on her sleeves. Her hair was still damp, and so she looked a bit like a wet cat wrapped up in a big towel, ears, tails and all.
Wang Yonghao soaked in the bath, warming himself up after his own run through the forest. He was humming quietly, with an occasional splash of water.
Linghui Mei gave Qian Shanyi a soft glare. By her standards, at least - not even a little scowl. “I almost drowned.”
Qian Shanyi waved her off. “Don’t worry about it, it happens to the best of us. At least your river wasn’t full of glass blades.” She tapped her cheek, thinking it over. “Maybe I should have given you one of our frostbite pills after all, risk of incompatibility be damned. Hindsight, I suppose.”
“And why didn’t you?” Linghui Mei asked, with a bit of venom in her voice. Seemingly more because she felt obligated to add some, not because she actually felt it.
“Because you said you’ve never taken spiritual pills before.” Qian Shanyi said seriously, filling a kettle and putting it over the fire node, right in front of Linghui Mei. Best to warm up from inside out as well as outside in. “Some people get a very bad reaction, and you are kitsune, not human. What is medicine for us might be the vilest poison for you.”
There was a test for these incompatibilities, one that all sect disciples were supposed to go through in their first year, consisting of miniscule pills administered by a trained healer - but it took weeks, and they had no time for it.
Kettle in place, Qian Shanyi went to their storage of robes and fabric, and brought some more for Linghui Mei to huddle up in. The kitsune accepted them gratefully. “You said you should have been able to handle the waters - what did we miss?” Qian Shanyi said as she helped her arrange them into a bit of a nest, “Was it the temperature?”
“Spirit hunters found me,” Lingui Mei said, shivering. Not from the cold, this time. “Had to hide under a bridge until they passed. Froze while I waited.”
Qian Shanyi paused. Not unexpected, but... “Did they see you?”
“No. The dog got the trail, but I threw them off.”
“Good.”
“You think it’s the Heavens already?” Wang Yonghao called out from his bath. “What are the chances she would meet them right after leaving the tavern?”
“Well over fifty percent, I would say,” Qian Shanyi said immediately. “I don’t see a need to speculate about Heavenly involvement here.”
“Come on. In the entire town, they just cross paths?”
“You are thinking about this wrong,” Qian Shanyi said, shaking her head. More for her own and Linghui Mei’s benefit, since the man couldn’t see her. “Spirit hunters would have headed to one of the imperial offices right away, to get a map of the sewers. Then they would have started checking the exits, one by one, starting with the ones closest to the tavern. Their path must have been something of a spiral, with the tavern in the middle, while Mei’s was straight towards the river. That they would have crossed paths was certain - it was just a question of wherever it was before or after she had already reached the river. Based on the distances, how fast I imagine them taking to check each exit… Fifty percent seems about right to me.”
Linghui Mei did not seem surprised by her words. Not her first time evading a search, clearly.
“Really?” Wang Yonghao called out, “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“I said it was highly likely they would cross paths.”
“Yeah. I thought it was because of the Heavens, not in general.”
Qian Shanyi scoffed at that. “What does it matter? Probability is probability. The key was wherever the dog would pick up the scent, and Linghui Mei would have known better than me how likely that was.”
Linghui Mei shook her head. “I didn’t think it would. But it’s not that simple.”
Qian Shanyi waited a moment, but when no elaboration came, she made a gesture, prompting for more.
Linghui Mei frowned at her. “What?”
“Not simple how?”
“You really like that question, huh.”
Qian Shanyi grinned. “To cultivate is to always ask how, and not relent until the universe produces an answer. Now answer.”
Linghui Mei narrowed her eyes and huffed, looking away. She had a tendency to say nothing, reveal even less, unless absolutely necessary. Somewhat annoying, perhaps, but comforting in these circumstances. She wouldn’t carelessly reveal their secrets when she went outside.
“Fine,” Linghui Mei finally said, “A scent trail isn’t like paint dripping on the ground. It is a blending of scents, of signs in the environment, and all the while, the dog doesn’t know if it is following the trail it’s master wants. It just guesses. I thought it would guess differently.”
“Because your scent is different.”
“Yes.”
“You said, before, that the transformation had its own musk,” Qian Shanyi continued, working through the logic, “one you have washed off before leaving. Your body was different, and so was its smell. I’ve barely touched the clothes before, so what does that leave? Just the scent of sewage on your hands?”
“Should be.” Linghui Mei nodded slightly. “But that isn’t so simple either. Scents are not…independent. They are mixtures. Sewage is one of rot, dung, urine, food waste, wet dirt, and a dozen other things. Every pipe is disgusting in its own unique way. This combination is what identifies a specific scent, like a footprint, like-”
“Like ingredients in a meal? Distinct, but recognizable when together?”
“Yes. But all of these things - mud, urine, rot - are everywhere in cities. Mud especially, with the rain outside. I thought the dog would be looking for my musk, and that the rain would wash away the rest. If it smelled some sewage, alongside the scent of a new, unfamiliar person, I thought it would have dismissed it. A person wouldn’t, if they had a nose like mine - it is too suspicious, given the circumstances. But a dog isn’t a person.”
“Seems you were wrong.”
Linghui Mei scowled. There it was, finally! “I escaped. If I was wrong, I’d be dead.”
“Good point,” Qian Shanyi nodded. “Well, I am glad you got out safely. Now let’s make sure you stay this way.”
She still hadn’t made a full, written inventory of their weapons stores, but her memory was as good as it had always been. She went over to one of the sections of the chiclotron, and took out a dagger. It was short, curved wickedly, the metal shining crimson, as if the entire weapon was a fountain of blood frozen in mid air. Darker glints spread slowly across it, like waves in a pond.
The dagger came with a sheath, and Qian Shanyi quickly fashioned a belt for it from a spare cut of silk. Coming back to Linghui Mei, she gestured for kitsune to stand. “Up you get,” she said.
Linghui Mei did as she asked, looking at her suspiciously. “What is that?”
“A weapon. You’ll need it,” Qian Shanyi explained, kneeling in front of her and passing the makeshift belt through the loops on the robes, securing it in place. She gestured for Linghui Mei to untie it, and made her repeat the motions several times so that the process would stick in her memory.
“Congratulations, disciple Mei,” she said once everything was in place. “You now have your very own weapon, like a real cultivator. For as long as you are in this world fragment, never let it get more than a foot away from you.”
Usually, there was a ceremony associated with the master giving a first weapon to their direct disciple, as a mark they were now qualified to step out of the sect, fully prepared to defend their life and honor - but Qian Shanyi didn’t think Linghui Mei would appreciate the symbolism, and she didn’t know enough about the kitsune culture to adapt it on the spot. Best to stick to the practicalities.
Linghui Mei spun around, walking this way and that, keeping her eyes on the dagger. Qian Shanyi was pleased to see she tied it correctly, and it didn’t move around - doing it on another person was different, motions unfamiliar, reversed.
“It’s awkward,” Linghui Mei said, “what is the point of it? I have my claws.”
“You’ll get used to it. The point of it is that you can’t manifest a spiritual shield. For me and Yonghao, rosevines are mostly a minor annoyance, unless they catch us while asleep. For you, they are a deadly threat. With this dagger, you can free yourself if they try to kill you.” Qian Shanyi paused, glancing at the baths. “It’s frankly a wonder they didn’t try again while you thawed out in the bath.”
“Hey!” Wang Yonghao shouted in indignation, “I waited around until she woke up! And I even left her a sword!”
Qian Shanyi nodded to Linghui Mei. “Do you know how to use a sword?”
“No.”
“Yeah, about what I expected,” she snorted, pulling out her own sword and swishing it through the air. “Weapons made for cultivators are not like a knife of mundane steel. The sharpness of our swords is such that there are few things they cannot cut through. A sword - or that dagger of yours - will cut wood. It will cut through any bone. It will easily chip stone, though I doubt you have the strength to actually cut it. And it will never lose this edge. Your claws, I am afraid, cannot compete.”
Qian Shanyi stepped over to the palisade around the bath and easily chopped off a centimeter off one of the poles in a single swing, flicking the bit of wood towards Linghui Mei. It fell on the ground at her feet, rolling away.
“Please do not destroy my bath with me in it,” Wang Yonghao complained. She ignored him.
She turned around, theatrically pointing her sword at Linghui Mei. The kitsune took a step back. “What I am saying is,” Qian Shanyi continued, sheathing her sword with a flourish, “make sure you don’t chop off your own fingers by accident. Swords are far too dangerous for you to use until you learn how to manifest a proper spiritual shield.”
Linghu Mei touched her own throat, and swallowed. “Thank you,” she said, looking down on her dagger with a mix of trepidation and gratitude.
“Don’t mention it. You are entitled to it, as my direct disciple.”
“Disciple?”
Qian Shanyi nodded. “You have agreed to learn to cultivate from me, have you not? That makes you my direct disciple. I am obligated to provide you with help, instruction, materials. Even food and housing. Of course.” She grinned mischievously. “There are certain responsibilities as well. For example, you have to address me as ‘Master Qian, grandest beneath the Heavens’ -”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Wang Yonghao groaned in the bath. “You absolutely do not have to call her that.”
“- and kowtow no less than five times any time I walk by -”
“You don’t have to do that either. She is just joking.”
Linghui Mei looked between Qian Shanyi and the bath, confusion plain on her face. Qian Shanyi turned to the bath with a mock frown. “Joking? Do you doubt my words, Yonghao?”
“Words? I even doubt your silence.”
“Such disrespect. I should duel you over this insult.” Qian Shanyi ran a hand through her long hair, pretending to consider it. “Fine. If you do not believe me either -” she pointed at Linghui Mei “- then we can make a bet -”
“Do not gamble with her. She is a fraudster and a cheat.”
“Silence, insolent voice of the baths! You dare interfere with me instructing my direct disciple?”
“I dare - ”
“Show some respect to each other,” Linghui Mei suddenly snapped at them. “Husband and wife, yet you argue like common peddlers at market.”
A loud splash from the baths - Wang Yonghao must have slipped up from the shock, sending a small wave of water through the palisade. His voice cut off mid sentence, drowned out by the water.
Qian Shanyi quirked an eyebrow at Linghui Mei. “Husband and wife?”
Wang Yonghao surfaced loudly, coughing up water.
“You even have your hammocks hanging one over the other,” Linghui Mei sneered. “I do not know what kind of perversions you cultivators get up to, but there is no mistaking it.”
“SHE IS NOT - SHE IS NOT MY WIFE!” Wang Yonghao shouted, before descending into more coughing.
A mischievous twinkle passed through Qian Shanyi’s eyes. She gasped, both hands going up to her mouth. “Yonghao! Was that your intention all along?!”
“Shanyi! You - ”
“You pervert! You tricked me, a young, innocent girl -”
“Shanyi, damn you -”
“- without a single lustful thought in the corner of her eye -”
Wang Yonghao’s head showed up above the palisade, hands cupped together, wet hair pulled away from his face. “Mei, I beg for your understanding, she is lying again.”
“- into sharing a room with you?! How could you?!”
“Oh stop it,” Linghui Mei snapped again, glaring at both of them. “Like an old married couple, yet you can’t make peace?”
“WE ARE NOT -”
Qian Shanyi gasped, fell on her knees and theatrically shielded her eyes with one hand. “Ah Yonghao, even she doesn’t believe our lies! Fine, Mei, we admit it! Our love is so strong it could shatter mountains!”
Wang Yonghao’s face went white with terror, his hands grasping at his hair. “Absolutely not! No love, no nothing!”
“- so mighty that even if heaven and earth mingled, we would withstand it all together!”
Wang Yonghao’s face went even whiter, pale as death. He hiccuped. “I can’t even withstand this…” he whispered.
“- so fiery, it can melt through even the coldest blizzard!”
Linghui Mei stared at her antics with narrowed eyes. “This is all one big joke to you?”
“My entire life is a joke,” Wang Yonghao moaned, burrowing his face in his palms.
“A joke?!” Qian Shanyi gasped, sweeping the hand that shielded her eyes wide, the other grasping at her heart. “Is this…truly how you feel, Yonghao?” She sniffled, wiping her right eye with one finger, pushing a single tragic tear out of her tear ducts with her spiritual energy. “Had even my love been… just one big joke to you?!”
Qian Shanyi stretched one hand to Linghui Mei, bending down until her forehead touched the tall grass. “Please… Do not believe his sweet lies… At least you, should keep your heart whole…”
Linghui Mei looked between Wang Yonghao, his face still buried in his hands, and Qian Shanyi, kowtowing down on the grass, one hand stretched towards her feet. Her face passed from confusion, to annoyance, to fury, and then settled on disdain. “Cultivators,” she ceded through her teeth.
Qian Shanyi started to cackle, then laugh, toppling backwards onto the grass, clutching at her chest. “Oh saints and heavenbreakers, you should have seen your faces!” she laughed, wiping tears of joy from her eyes.
----------------------------------------
It took them another twenty minutes to convince Linghui Mei that they haven’t been married, and that despite Qian Shanyi’s character, she was still a serious and mostly reliable cultivator.
Qian Shanyi still snickered, as she sat back down in front of Linghui Mei. “We have more important things to discuss, in either case,” she said, her face growing serious. “I think I have figured out what I meant by helping you develop a new spiritual energy recirculation law.”
Linghui Mei’s eyes flew open, full of cautious hope. Suspicion that this was a trap was gone, replaced with somewhat justified suspicion that Qian Shanyi was having her on. “Really?”
“Yes.” Qian Shanyi paused, chewing on her lip. She wasn’t looking forward to this, but it was best to have everyone on the same page right away. “You aren’t going to like it.”
Suspicion changed, growing more serious. Qian Shanyi sighed, getting her writing set out. She’d need some numbers, diagrams. “Let me explain my reasoning first. The biggest problem isn’t so much the spiritophagy, it’s that the Empire will kill you on sight.”
Linghui Mei gave her a hesitant nod.
“Let’s consider what it would take to get kitsune taken off the slaughter list,” Qian Shanyi continued. “I only know the broadest bureaucratic details, but essentially, this is a matter of proving there is a path towards coexistence. And spiritophagy isn’t as big of a hurdle as it may at first seem.”
Qian Shanyi picked up a clean sheet of paper, starting to write. “You said you need to feed once or twice a week? Let’s suppose we can find some volunteers. Perhaps you could feed on them while they sleep, so not much of value is lost.”
There was a slight twitch to Linghui Mei’s ears, a narrowing of her eyes. It seems Qian Shanyi’s suspicion was correct, and she already did so. Easy enough to find a drunkard to feed on, one who will not be suspicious of feeling terrible after a bad night out, who won’t go to a healer. No need to hide a body, to worry about a missing person being traced. Perhaps she even worked in taverns before - a good place to find “food”.
“How many volunteers do we need?” Qian Shanyi continued, not letting her thoughts show. If Linghui Mei wanted to keep this a secret, she could make an effort at pretending ignorance, “Let’s think of this in terms of hours of memory you need to consume.”
“It’s not direct -”
She waved Linghui Mei off. “Yes, yes, I can imagine, it won’t be a direct translation from soul damage to days lost. I had experienced that on my own self already, but we are just estimating for now. Say you need to eat twenty four hours of memory equivalent per week - we can split this across four volunteers, just to be safe. Let’s assume that these volunteers - not cultivators, just ordinary people - fully recover within two months. In that case, you can survive by rotating between thirty to forty people, like goat farmers rotate their herds between different fields.”
Linghui Mei pursed her lips, unhappy about being compared to a ravenous goat. “Your tails are much fluffier than goat ones, do not worry.” Qian Shanyi assured her, which only seemed to make her grumpier. Strange.
“Forty volunteers might seem like a lot, but… It isn’t,” Qian Shanyi said, writing out more numbers on her piece of paper. Demographic ones now, from what she could recall. “This is about making peace, the core spirit of reformation. Even if only one percent of people are idealists like me and would help you out, we are talking about two to three kitsune per ten thousand people, at an easily sustainable rate. Any town the size of Glaze Ridge would be more than enough for you.”
She turned back towards Linghui Mei. “But unless kitsune are much better at hiding than I suspect, there aren’t anywhere near that many of you around,” Qian Shanyi said, “in fact, I’d bet there are a good ten to a hundred times fewer than this. I do not know wherever the food ever was a problem, what truly happened with the kitsune lords - but it no longer is.”
The kettle started to whistle, and Linghui Mei took it off the fire, pouring them both some tea. She looked thoughtful.
“You really think people would go for it?” Wang Yonghao asked. His head poked out above the palisade again, wet hair slicked back, away from his face. “I did, but I am…”
“Insane?” Qian Shanyi offered, accepting her cup of tea with a grateful nod.
“Altruistic.” Wang Yonghao scowled. “I don’t know how many other people would be like me.”
“I know a couple back in my city, who would go for it for sure,” Qian Shanyi said, “Admittedly, for them it would have been a sexual thing, but food is food.”
Wang Yonghao rolled his eyes at her, for some reason assuming she was joking. Linghui Mei blushed deeply.
“It’s not my preference - but there are all sorts of strange people out there,” Qian Shanyi finished with a shrug. “The point is, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. We would have to prove your feeding is safe, but that is much simpler than developing a whole new recirculation law.”
“But?” Linghui Mei said, full of anticipation. “You said I wouldn’t like it.”
“But there are two sides to spiritophagy,” Qian Shanyi said with a sigh, leveling her gaze at Linghui Mei. “That you need it to survive, and that you grow stronger when you feed. Am I wrong?”
Linghui Mei drew herself up, ears flattening against her head, eyes narrowing. Qian Shanyi watched her calmly.
“What are you implying?”
“Nobody is attacking you here,” she said impassively. “Just answer the question.”
“We are not like you -” Linghui Mei growled, with a bit of a scowl.
“Save your outrage. Stronger or not?”
“Yes, but -”
“As I’ve expected.” Qian Shanyi cut her off. “Cauldrons, demonic cultivation techniques… Feeding on innocents had always been the fastest path towards power. This would be the actual threat in the eyes of cultivators - that some kitsune will take it, grow beyond all limits. And with your transformations, hiding from justice becomes surprisingly easy. Even easier, if you could cultivate.”
“We are not like you,” Linghui Mei growled, “We keep watch of our own, we do not take more than we need, we -”
“Can you guarantee that none of your fellow kitsune would be seduced by power? None at all?”
Linghui Mei scowl grew wider. “Stop using that word,” she said, quietly.
“What word?”
“Kitsune,” Linghui Mei hissed, leaping up on her feet, “It’s not our word, it is yours. It’s jiuweihu. Jiuweihu!”
Qian Shanyi blinked. An old term, was it not? She said it before, too. A bit of oral culture, shared by all jiuweihu, or something Linghui Mei herself researched at some point? “Okay,” she said easily, “Can you guarantee that none of your fellow jiuweihu would be seduced by power?“
“Can you guarantee that none of your fellow cultivators will slaughter innocents?”
“No. I know well that some do.”
Linghui Mei threw her hands up in the air. “Then why do you expect us to uphold a standard you do not?” she shouted. “This isn’t fair!”
“I am not expecting anything,” Qian Shanyi explained patiently. “Nor am I talking about what is fair. I am talking about what it would take to present a good case. To build trust. Some people - me included, frankly - would say we cannot tolerate a conflict based on a maybe. That we’ll figure out how to catch and slaughter jiuweihu who turn to demonic cultivation when and if they become a problem, separate from you simply needing to feed. Others will say that we will need a solution well in advance. If we had one on hand, it would all be that much simpler.”
“So what do you propose?”
Qian Shanyi sighed, looking up at Linghui Mei, not getting up off the grass. This wasn’t going well, but she had to finish. “Spiritophagy, by itself, is not the problem. Transformation, by itself, is not the problem. Only their combination. So this gives us two potential approaches.” Qian Shanyi wrote them out on her sheet, as branches off a tree. “One: develop a new spiritual energy recirculation law that not only removes your need to feed on souls, but also your ability. Reconstructs your soul from the ground up. It takes many weeks to fully adjust to a new recirculation law - if some jiuweihu tried to back out, other cultivators would notice. Two: develop one that removes your ability to transform.” She tapped the second option. “Destroying is always easier than creating. Perhaps we could even manage it on our own.”
“No.” Linghui Mei scowled, fangs growing out in her mouth. “Leave me defenseless, unable to run? Absolutely not.”
This isn’t just about you. How many other jiuweihu would take that chance for peace?
“Yeah.” Qian Shanyi sighed again, rubbing her hair. “About what I expected. So that only leaves the first option. The much, much harder one.“ She tapped the back of her writing brush against her forehead, thinking. “Well, one step at a time. If we could develop a different way for you to feed, or at least prove it does not harm ordinary people in the long term - it would help, give us options. Allies, perhaps. And the first step is to teach you how to cultivate.”
Qian Shanyi looked in Linghui Mei’s eyes. She was still glaring at her, agitated after the outburst. “How about we take ten minutes before we continue?” Qian Shanyi said, getting up off the grass. “I’d prefer for you to calm down first. An agitated mind is one unprepared for cultivation.”
Linghui Mei huffed, stalking away. Qian Shanyi watched her go.
With any hope, this wouldn’t put her off the idea entirely.