By the time Wang Yonghao came to relieve her again, she finished all the farming books she took out of the library. She was always a fast reader, and could have brought more - but she didn’t want to be suspicious.

Linghui Mei had barely moved in the six hours that had passed in the world fragment - still meditating on the edge of the world fragment, a blindfold over her eyes. Qian Shanyi approached her quietly, with a frown on her face, and crouched next to her.

“Have you at least taken a break?” she said, carefully poking Linghui Mei in the shoulder.

Linghui Mei reached up and pulled the blindfold off with a tired hand. Her eyes looked dead, unfocused, staring past Qian Shanyi’s head. Her hand rose slowly, rubbing at her face. She shook her head slightly.

“Hm,” Qian Shanyi said, pursing her lips. “This is what I get for deciding to see how long you’d go before getting bored.”

Linghui Mei looked at her dumbly. Too mentally drained for anything else. “You told me to meditate.”

“Yeah, I did.” Qian Shanyi sighed. “First time, most disciples get bored to death after fifteen, twenty minutes. I figured you would as well, stop, go do something else, try again later. Maybe get three or four tries in before I came back, give us something to talk about. Didn’t think you’d just keep pushing yourself like this. My fault for not being more clear, I suppose. Well, come on.”

Qian Shanyi helped Linghui Mei up, one hand under her arm. The Jiuweihu staggered a bit, legs not ready to bear her weight after many hours of sitting, and Qian Shanyi held her up while she adjusted.

“Your mind isn’t used to having little to work with,” she explained, leading Linghui Mei towards the kitchens. “It’s a bit like a muscle, it has to be trained, slowly increasing the exertion. You’ve pushed it far beyond what it can handle, so now you are going to rest, maybe take a nap.”

“Will I have to do this again?” Linghui Mei said, laying down on the grass, one hand covering her eyes from the light. “For how long?”

Qian Shanyi snorted, starting to make tea. “You are in no condition to think about something that complicated right now. It takes a while, but if it helps, there’s a faster method - it’s just a bit expensive and a little dangerous. I didn’t want to mention it until I was sure you were committed, but well…” She gave Linghui Mei a considering look. “Seems like you already are.”

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

Linghui Mei woke up a couple hours later, her head still aching a bit after that horrible meditation session. Qian Shanyi said she had only been at it for six hours - but it felt like an eternity. She wasn’t looking forward to more.

The memory brought with it a spike of betrayal, no longer muted now that her mind did not feel like viscous honey, and with it, a spike of guilt.

Why didn’t she tell me how I was supposed to meditate? Who am I to question how a teacher does things?

Stilling her heart, she got out of the hut, careful with the door beams, and looked around the world fragment. Qian Shanyi was there, some thirty meters away, humming quietly, putting small stakes into the ground. They were all tied together into one long chain with silken thread. She turned around with a cheery smile. “Feeling better?”

“A bit,” Linghui Mei said, giving the cultivator a long look. She still couldn’t fully decide how she should treat this strange woman, behave around her. Not like a cultivator, clearly, though she would never say this out loud. But she was a strange friend, if that is what she was trying to be. She felt no malice from her, but that meant little - she saw how good Qian Shanyi was at lying.

A second spike of guilt right through her heart.

Who was she, to doubt the intentions of those who saved her life?

Once from the spirit hunter, twice from her own loose tongue. Foxes were not cats, to have nine lives to trade.

Perhaps she should treat her like a fellow jiuweihu? But no. Qian Shanyi said she was her teacher now - but Linghui Mei could see she treated it like a joke, not realizing the weight of her own words. Not how a jiuweihu would, not at all. It wouldn’t be right to treat her the same way.

She wasn’t used to this, a human knowing what she was, neither her child nor a fellow jiuweihu. This was new and different, but she would adapt. Jiuweihu always did.

Linghui Mei headed towards Qian Shanyi, a hundred thoughts warring in her mind. Even if Qian Shanyi didn’t behave like a proper teacher should, it felt wrong not to contribute, offer her service.

Seeing her approach, Qian Shanyi nodded towards her work. “We’ll be starting a farm here,” she explained. “Beans, so that we won’t starve if we have to spend a lot of time on the inside - or at least that was my plan before you entered the picture. I was figuring out where to plant them, where to put the posts.”

Linghui Mei bowed respectfully, and gave the work another look with a critical eye. Now that she knew what to look for, it was easier to see the pattern. Regular lines, with space for a farmer to walk in between.

“If I may make an observation…” she began.

Qian Shanyi snorted, immediately waving her off. “Don’t ask, simply speak plainly. I am no Elder of Farming, to expect such deference.”

Linghui Mei paused. Again this confusion. Why was she rebuffed? A teacher was owed respect. “They are a bit too far away from each other,” she said after a moment. “I would put them closer together.”

“You think? How much?”

“By about a fifth.” She kneeled, poking a finger at the ground. “This earth feels a bit too wet for beans, and a bit too hard, but not too much. You’d have to do something about the grass as well.”

“Yeah, I have been thinking we’d plow it, or maybe burn it off. Yonghao can do it easily,” Qian Shanyi said, putting her hands on her hips, giving Linghui Mei another of her long, considering looks. A little cold, like sizing up a good shovel. “Do you know how to farm? You sound like you speak from experience.”

“I’ve worked on farms, in gardens, here and there,” Linghui Mei said. “Farmers always need an extra pair of hands for the planting and the reaping.”

“I imagine it’s easier to find work that way, when traveling from place to place?”

“Yes. They… don’t ask too many questions. And the ones they do, I know the answers to.”

Qian Shanyi hummed in agreement and bent down, starting to roll up the thread, pulling the stakes out of the ground one by one. She chewed on her lip, brow creased in a frown. Linghui Mei followed after.

“I keep thinking of how you feed,” Qian Shanyi said when they reached the end of the line, and she laid the thread on the ground to adjust the distances, with Linghui Mei’s help. “Not just the souls, but the meat as well. Hunting seems dangerous, but purchasing it off the market… You would need to find a place where to feed safely, away from prying eyes, and also come up with an excuse not to eat in public. Not to mention how expensive it would be… Perhaps if you were the one cooking most meals, but even then…”

Linghui Mei shifted around uncomfortably. What was she supposed to reply here?

Qian Shanyi caught her eye, and frowned. “Hm,” she said, “Should I not pry? I can imagine that this could be a closely held secret among the jiuweihu.”

“A secret?”

“Where you find food, how you hide. All things that could make you easier to track. You don’t have to tell me anything, if you still do not feel comfortable sharing.”

Linghui Mei exhaled some tension. That it was a secret was true enough, but hearing it stated so plainly it was hers to keep was calming. She still felt like she had to say something. “I do not just eat meat,” she said after a long pause. “Only mostly meat. Fruit, bread as well, as long as it is not too much. And…thank you, for not prying.”

Qian Shanyi smiled, going back to the stakes, but… There was something off about her. A little twinkle in her eye, a pause after Linghui Mei spoke, just a bit longer than seemed necessary.

Was Linghui Mei being paranoid, or did she know something, connect more dots? She couldn’t imagine how, not from what little she said - but Linghui Mei still had no idea how she realized that jiuweihu did not need to kill people to feed on them, all in the middle of the two of them trading insults.

Qian Shanyi caught her staring again. “What?”

“Did you -” Linghui Mei swallowed. “What did you figure out just now?”

“Was I that obvious?” Qian Shanyi burst out laughing. “I can’t help myself, really. I didn’t want to speak up again, since you have asked me not to.” She shook her head sadly, continuing with a light smile. “You must replace people on occasion, don’t you? Not children, but adults. A woodcutter falls off a tree, breaks their neck… And you return from the forest with their face, having eaten the corpse.” She snapped her fingers, eyes glowing. “Or no, perhaps not a forest - a hospital. That would be a perfect place for you, wouldn’t it? Among the dying?”

Linghui Mei shuddered. “How do you know that?” she asked, staring straight at Qian Shanyi, her work on the stakes completely abandoned. She had to clasp her right hand to her thigh to keep it from trembling. “I know I’ve revealed nothing. Can you read my mind?”

What else did she know?

“Ha!” Qian Shanyi laughed. “I wish! No, nothing of the sort.”

Linghui Mei clenched her teeth, forcing herself to remain calm. “Then how?”

“Just a good guess,” Qian Shanyi said, scratching her head. “Nothing more. It only makes sense. The best place to hide is one where nobody would look, no? If you replace a person, there is nothing to suspect - no missing person, no scene of grisly murder. Any deviations in your behavior - desire to often eat alone, lacking memories, forgetting names - can be explained by changes after sickness or trauma. With all the sick people - it is easy to find an opportunity, a decent target. After death, there’s a window before the soul fully dissipates - about an hour, I believe - and if you get to the body before that happens, that would be a good meal. And you should still get their memories, right? Certainly safer than trying to sneak into beds at night.”

Linghui Mei breathed out. The secrets of her children were still safe. Thank the Heavens.

Qian Shanyi grimaced, continuing, ignorant of the struggle within her soul. “The empire keeps quiet about what you can do. With how few of you are out there, most people wouldn’t even know what to look out for. You could work in the same room as a cultivator for a week straight and they would not even have an inkling of suspicion. Damnable spirit hunters.”

Linghui Mei kneeled in front of Qian Shanyi, bowing her head to the ground, grass tickling her ears. “Please, I beg you. Do not spread this knowledge further. Not even to cultivator Wang.”

“Hm? Oh, absolutely.”

“Thank you. I will -”

“Get up before bugs start crawling up your nose,” Qian Shanyi said, annoyance clear in her voice. “Why even kowtow? This is a minor request that costs me nothing. Keeps attention away from me, even.”

Linghui Mei sat back up, looking away. “You have asked me to,” she said quietly. “Five times when you pass by -”

“That was a joke, and an obvious one at that,” Qian Shanyi snapped. “Don’t pretend to be so childish you did not understand it. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Was telling me to meditate also a joke?” Linghui Mei snapped back. “Why not tell me I was supposed to take breaks? You spoke as if you expected me to violate the orders of my teacher.”

“I didn’t tell you exactly so that this -” Qian Shanyi gestured to Linghui Mei’s entire body. “- this pointless deference would not start to happen. Orders? Obviously I would expect you to violate them, if I ever gave any. To cultivate is to rebel against the heavens! How do you imagine walking this path if you only listen to what you are told to do, without thinking about the point of the instructions? Nobody can teach a cultivator how to walk the path of cultivation except themselves. Even if your elder practices the exact same cultivation law, they will not have the same body, the same meridians, now would they? At best they can provide advice. So why kowtow to someone who might know nothing of use?”

“This is ridiculous.” Linghui Mei scowled. “Deference to a teacher is pointless? As expected of you cultivators. Will you tell me I may slap my own mother as well?”

Qian Shanyi snorted dismissively. “If your mother tells you to go beat your head against the wall, then slap her without restraint. Put your shoulder into it.”

Linghui Mei huffed in response. They glared at each other for a minute.

“I apologize for leaving you alone for six hours,” Qian Shanyi finally said, “that was my mistake. Back in my sect, I would not have done so - I have far too much on my mind, and it is not fair to you as a student. But I will not apologize for giving you tasks that are just a bit too hard to accomplish, a bit too strenuous. I will warn you away from hurting yourself - but at the end of the day, this is your cultivation. I cannot know what will and will not work for you. I don’t even know if your meridian network is the same as that of us humans. If I instructed you as I would a human disciple, and you followed all my ‘orders’ to the letter, no matter how much it hurt, you might end up killing yourself. Ask questions, and think about what you are doing before you do it. If I think you should push yourself beyond your limits, because there is a good reason for it, I will tell you explicitly.”

“And you call yourself a teacher?” Linghui Mei huffed again, feeling her cheeks flush with anger. To think she ever considered treating her as a jiuweihu. “A teacher knows what is best for their student!”

“You can call me whatever you like. ‘Fellow cultivator Qian’ is fine. ‘Shanyi’ is fine too.”

“Each teacher leaves a part of their soul in their student,” Linghui Mei hissed with righteous anger at a careless fool blundering across life. She poked Qian Shanyi in the chest, hard, though the cultivator did not budge. “One that the student carries for the rest of their life. It’s a bond as tight as between a mother and child. If the mother was not sure that a meal was safe to eat, would she ever dare feed it to her children?”

Qian Shanyi narrowed her eyes a fraction. “That is not a karmist teaching, I know that much,” she said, “A bit of jiuweihu wisdom?”

Linghui Mei abruptly stood up, brushing her clothes off. “You are not suited for our wisdom,” she threw over her shoulder, “let’s get back to farm work. A cultivator’s hands might still be trusted, even if their soul cannot.”

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

Qian Shanyi knocked on the simple wooden door, and stepped back, waiting for a response. In her hands, she held a pair of bamboo containers, full of fresh, heated dumplings, stacked on top of one another. She opened the top one, wafting the smell around the door with the lid - it was best to involve all the senses to make a good first impression.

Once morning came, she sent Wang Yonghao to scout out the name of the tavern where the spirit hunters stopped for the night. By her estimation, scouring the town for the non-existent trail of Linghui Mei would take at least a full day, and no matter Bao Sheng’s convictions, all cultivators needed sleep. She expected them to be at it for several hours at night, and then find a place to sleep, relying on other local cultivators to continue the search, before picking back up in the morning or around mid-day.

She was, of course, entirely correct.

The door stayed quiet. There was a thin red rope passing over the top of the door, with a small wooden sign claiming it was for emergencies - likely attached to an alarm seal of some sort - but Qian Shanyi didn’t want to make that much fuss. She gave it a minute and knocked again, a fraction louder.

This time, she heard soft shuffling behind the door, and half a minute later it cracked open. A pair of sleepless eyes peered at her from the darkness, beneath a head of short brown hair. A wide nose sniffed the air, and the eyes locked on the containers in her hands.

“Greetings.” She bowed shortly. “This here cultivator is Qian Shanyi. I come bearing gifts -” She lifted the containers higher for emphasis. “- and some information for one Bao Sheng - is he here?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The head grunted, opening the door wider, revealing a ruffled cultivator in a pale red spirit hunter robe, tied carelessly. His arms were thick and muscular, like small tree trunks - a rare sight, outside of body fundamentalists. “Sheng, you have guests!” the cultivator called out, reaching out for the bamboo containers. Qian Shanyi handed them over. “A guest. Just one. Put some robes on.”

An indistinct answer from the darkness, like a groan of a wounded animal. “I already let her in,” the mysterious cultivator called back, somehow translating the groan, and walked deeper into the room. Qian Shanyi politely waited at the entrance. “She bribed me with food. Get up, three hours is plenty.”

More shuffling. A heavy thud of something falling to the floor. A minute later, Bao Sheng emerged, brushing his hair with one hand. His eyes looked as fresh as last night, not even squinting at the light from the doorway, light glinting off the lenses. “Fellow cultivator Qian?” he asked her, covering up a yawn with his other hand.

She bowed again, throwing a glance around the hallway the room was in. Nobody else was nearby. “We have found some clothes - we think the ones the kitsune used, though we could not be certain. I wanted to bring them to you, in case it would help, and again apologize for my foolishness last night. May I come in?”

Bao Sheng looked back at the room, grimaced, and turned around uncertainly. She smiled at his indecision. “You have already seen my room. I will not judge yours. I would prefer not to speak of this out in the hallway.”

He sighed, and waved her in. The room was small, with only a single narrow bed. A small lump under the covers, snoring lightly, betrayed the presence of Jian the tracking hound. A bedroll was rolled out on the floor next to it, with bags laid out all around, various odds and ends, and an enormous bow leaning against one of the walls. Talismans and pills were arranged on a small table, together with a stuffed plush crow. Qian Shanyi let her eyes slide off it casually.

“I apologize for our humble accommodations -” Bao Sheng said, leading her into the room.

The cultivator who let her in sat down on top of his bedroll, already digging into her dumplings. Seeing her enter, he gestured with his chopsticks. “These are incredible,” he said, interrupting Bao Sheng. “Are you the chef?”

Qian Shanyi bowed slightly, still surveying the room for a convenient place to stand. “I am glad my humble cooking has been to your liking, fellow cultivator..?”

Noticing her pause, Bao Sheng whirled around. “Honorable cultivator Chen,” he said, aghast. “Did you not even introduce yourself?”

“Didn’t seem relevant.” Chen shrugged with no remorse. “She was here for you. Chen Tai, spirit hunter. Pleasures and all that.”

She snorted. “Pleasure is all mine.”

Bao Sheng seemed torn between going on a tirade and not wanting to embarrass his companion further - but in the end, he stayed quiet. Instead, he stalked over to the window, and tore the blinds open, letting the morning sun shine directly into the room. Chen Tai hissed like a rabid snake, covering up his eyes.

Qian Shanyi leaned against a wall, and pulled a set of ripped maid clothes out of her bag. Linghui Mei’s robes, the very same ones Wang Yonghao stashed in the gardens last night. They were still soaking wet, though she squeezed most of the rainwater out. “Yonghao found these in the gardens this morning,” she said, handing them over to Bao Sheng. “Not far from the window that leads into the disposal chamber. We thought they might have been the kitsune’s - they are so torn up, they have to be - and since I was already planning to make an apology for interfering with your hunt, I wanted to bring them to you. I’ve also written a list of everything I could recall that was in the bag the kitsune stole - perhaps you could trace it that way, from something it lost or sold.”

Bao Sheng took the robes carefully, and kneeled down next to the bed, gently beckoning his dog from under the covers. His other hand held a simple clicker, two ceramic plates attached together by a strip of metal. Jian poked his nose out, sniffed at the robes, and growled. Bao Sheng clicked several times in a curious pattern, until Jian’s nose growled again and vanished back under the covers.

“It is the kitsune,” Bao Sheng said, setting the robes aside on the table. “Thank you for bringing them to us. The scent of the transformation vanishes after a couple weeks, and our old sample was already running thin.”

Linghui Mei told her as much, so this was not surprising. “What have you been using before?” Qian Shanyi asked curiously, feeling a sudden spark of inspiration. She came here to put the spirit hunters fully on the false trail they laid a day before, but she could still get more out of them. If nothing else, she had to stall a bit, make sure they were the ones to make the connection.

Bao Sheng nodded towards the stuffed crow on the table. She reached over and picked it up, examining the stitching. “It is well made.” She complimented. “By the kitsune, you think?”

“Doubtful,” Chen Tai grunted. “Stolen. Just like those clothes.”

She hummed neutrally. Arguing the point would only make her more suspicious. “Would you mind if I examine it?” She said, gesturing with the crow. “I am something of a seamstress as well as an immortal chef. I won’t claim to have great skill, but… Perhaps there is something of value to be found here, if the kitsune chose to carry this crow. Maybe the stitches could tell me where it came from.”

Think about where the robes came from, please. I know you are sleep deprived, but just think!

“If you would prefer,” Bao Sheng said, inclining his head, “We won’t need it for the scent now.”

“Thank you,” she said, putting the crow into her bag. She’d lie about the stitches and materials, and then the spirit hunters would have nothing at all to go on if they ever tried to search for Linghui Mei’s kid. Better that way. “At least I can hope to still be useful.”

“You have been of great help already,” Bao Sheng said, shaking his head. “Even without the delay, I doubt we would have caught up to the kitsune in the gardens. You pointed us straight towards the sewers - without you, it would have taken us a good hour longer to search through the entire tavern.”

“I still feel responsible.” She sighed, running a hair through her hair, as if preparing to leave. “I won’t take up more of your time. I hope you catch this kitsune. It seemed that you had some vengeance to make.”

“Yes, it’s… A long story.”

“What do you mean, ‘a long story’?” Chen Tai grumbled. “Just take off your glasses.”

Bao Sheng turned away from her and towards Chen Tai. She couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine the glare. “What?” Chen Tai said, glaring up at him, eyes still half-shut against the sunlight. “She brought us food and is helping, for free mind you, when she doesn’t have to. The least you can do is sate her curiosity.”

“It really is no trouble,” she said. She was curious, but not enough to press the issue.

Bao Sheng sighed, and turned around. His hand came up, pulling his glasses off his face. His face rippled, as if the skin was being pulled after them, and then it dispersed in a puff of smoke.

An illusion?

Masterfully crafted one, at that - she hadn’t sensed it at all. Behind it, his face looked much the same, only with a long scar running horizontally across, through both missing eyes. The skin had healed flat, leaving only scar tissue behind.

“When I was a young cultivator, I walked in on it feeding,” he said, putting the glasses back on, voice hollow and tense. “It took my brother, and then my sight.”

“If it’s even the same kitsune,” Chen Tai added.

“It is,” Bao Sheng threw over his shoulder, with sudden fury in his voice. “I felt its spiritual energy, I heard its voice, and you said its fur is orange, bright like caramel. I know it is the same one.”

Chen Tai raised his hands defensively, chopsticks still held in his right.

“I am sorry for your brother,” Qian Shanyi said kindly. Nothing new to it - she already knew Linghui Mei killed cultivators. “And I once again apologize for this intrusion. Thank you for telling me, and good luck on your hunt.”

She turned around, and headed towards the doors. She stopped there, one hand on the doorframe.

Like helpless puppies, I swear.

“Just one more thing,” she said, coming back into the room. The two spirit hunters looked back at her, one with tired eyes, the other with no eyes at all. “I kept thinking this as I headed here. Why leave the clothes in the garden?”

“Huh?”

“The clothes the kitsune left? Why leave them there?”

“It probably had transformed in the garden. Shed the clothes.”

“Hmm. Yeah, that would make sense…” She headed towards the doors again, but came back just a mere moment later. “Although… Why not transform above the hatch, and toss the clothes into the sewer? It would be one less piece to leave behind, one less thing you can track. Surely it knows that it’s scent fades in a week, that leaving new things for you is a weakness.”

Chen Tai frowned at that. Bao Sheng started to pace around the room, rubbing his forehead.

“Maybe it did not want to get tangled up in them?” Chen Tai offered. “It would mean it was going to swim downstream. This is a good clue.”

“Good point. Or it was trying to trick you, and swam upstream. A bit of a gamble, what you would believe.” Qian Shanyi offered, keeping Bao Sheng in the corner of her eye. They had to put it together themselves - if she was the one to offer the conclusion she was already blatantly guiding them towards, even these two might grow suspicious, or reject it outright.

“No, no…” Bao Sheng said, shaking his head. “It…wanted us to find the clothes. Why would it want that? It would just lead us to the sewer hatch faster… And the sewage waters would wash away the scent of the transformation…”

Suddenly, he stopped as if frozen, head held in his hands. “That trail last evening. The one we lost near the river. We have to find it now.”

Finally, sweet mercy. Like making a baby do arithmetic.

“What?”

“No, it’s - I’ll explain on the way. Grab your bow. We have to be quick, before it’s gone entirely!”

Qian Shanyi bowed, and left the spirit hunters to their devices. Her job here was finished.

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

Qian Shanyi hummed a little song as she headed back to her room at the tavern. She made a couple short stops in town along the way, and her bag with the stuffed crow was hanging over her shoulder, a small cage held securely in the other hand.

Wang Yonghao was lazing on the bed when she entered, little knife chiseling away at a piece of wood. His eyes slid over her and stopped on the cage in her hands. He frowned. “What is that?”

Qian Shanyi raised the cage in her arms to her eye level. “A bunny.”

The beautiful white rabbit in question shifted around in its cage, hopping over to the side. She expected it to be anxious from the unfamiliar surroundings, but it was surprisingly calm. She pulled a piece of lettuce out, and fed it through the bars.

“Does it… have a name?” Wang Yonghao asked slowly.

“It didn’t,” Qian Shanyi said, putting the cage on the table and opening the latch. She reached in, and pulled the rabbit out, holding it carefully under the feet and over the torso. The rabbit mostly ignored her. “But I came up with one on my way back.”

“What is it?”

“Yihao. Tuzi Yihao.”

Wang Yonghao groaned, covering his face with both hands. “Shanyi, no.”

“Whyever not?”

“It’s a stupid name.”

“It’s a perfect name,” Qian Shanyi said, holding the rabbit up next to her face so that they could look at Yonghao together. The rabbit flicked an ear, and she fed it a second piece of lettuce to keep it calm. “I think it suits him.”

“It’s a really stupid name.”

“Tuzi Yonghao is jealous of you, Yihao,” Qian Shanyi cooed, rubbing the rabbit with her nose. Yihao stayed silent, chewing on its piece of lettuce. “Jealous of you and your handsome rabbit ears.”

“I am not -” Wang Yonghao groaned again. “You can’t name the rabbit that.”

“I already did.” Qian Shanyi winked at him. “It’s far too late, Yonghao. Your devious schemes will not get in the way of Yihao’s rise to rabbit greatness.” She carefully hid the rabbit in her robes. She didn’t want it to get scared at the sight of a thirty-meter drop from within the cage. Deep pockets within her robes were nice and dark. “Now open up your inner world. I have good news for little Mei.”

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

Linghui Mei was busy plowing their burgeoning field when they returned, using a small plow they made last night, from a pair of swords and a piece of wood. Qian Shanyi didn’t want her to overwork herself, but the jiuweihu was surprisingly strong, and seemed calmer when she had something familiar to do, so she did not protest too much.

There wasn’t much else to do in the world fragment, really. It was either farming or meditating, and Linghui Mei didn’t yet have the right mindset for the latter. Her initial bad experience didn’t help matters. Qian Shanyi hoped that if she let her rest for a couple days, she would be more willing to go back to it - but for now, she didn’t push the issue.

She could hardly blame her. Many disciples complained about the meditation practice - it was the exact opposite of engaging, at least until their inner senses strengthened to the point where they could observe their own spiritual energy flows. Admittedly, Qian Shanyi couldn’t empathize that much - she had already learned to meditate several years before she even became a cultivator, just out of a desire to grasp at anything related to the practice, no matter how small - but this was still a fact of life in any sect.

“Mei!” Qian Shanyi called out once they had descended down to the ground. “Come here. I have a present for you.”

“A present?” Linghui Mei said warily, approaching the two.

Qian Shanyi quickly untied herself from Wang Yonghao, and then reached into her bag. “Ta-dah!” she said triumphantly, raising the stuffed crow high into the air, like an offering to the Heavens.

Linghui Mei made an incomprehensible sound, something between a whimper, a groan, and the sound of her own heart being choked up in her throat, eyes glued to the crow. She rushed towards Qian Shanyi.

“Ah-ah-ah! Not so fast!” Qian Shanyi chided, putting her free hand on Linghui Mei’s forehead to keep her a step back, holding the crow as far away as she could from the hasty jiuweihu. Linghui Mei struggled against her, arms outstretched, trying to grab it. “A crow in your hand may be better than a swan up in the skies, but you know what’s worse? The spirit hunters finding you again. Don’t want your new scent on it quite yet.”

“How did you -“ Linghui Mei choked back a sob. “How is it here? Spirit hunters took it from me.”

“I traded it from the spirit hunters for some old rags,” Qian Shanyi said with a small grin. “Said I would look it over for clues. Somehow I don’t anticipate finding any - but let’s keep it stored away until they leave town, hm, just in case I have to show it to them again? Yonghao, if you don’t mind - go put it on top of our hut.”

Wang Yonghao took the stuffed crow from her outstretched hand, and with a few long strides, walked on air, placing the crow up on the corner of their hut, in full view of the entire world fragment. He took a moment to position it, small feet apart, so that it would look like it was sitting, just like a real bird would.

Linghui Mei’s eyes never left it, though she stopped struggling to grab it. The height of the hut was only a psychological barrier in the first place, with how high she could jump. She sniffled, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t think I would ever - you’ve actually -” She stopped, then turned around, and bowed deeply towards Qian Shanyi, almost folding herself in half.

Qian Shanyi frowned. What was she doing again? She thought they went over this.

“Master Qian -” Linghui Mei began.

Ten meters away, Wang Yonghao grabbed his head in despair, looking back at them. “NO! Don’t call her that!”

“- I apologize for my earlier rudeness -”

“Stop! It will go to her head!”

Qian Shanyi started to cackle, then laugh, hands resting on her hips.

“You see what you did?!”

“- you may be a… strange teacher - “

“Oh, Yonghao, it’s far too late to stop her now!”

“- but I would still be honored to have you as my master -”

“Stop! Do you even understand what you are unleashing?”

“- please, accept me as your disciple in truth.” Linghui Mei finished, then kneeled down on the grass in front of Qian Shanyi, her head buried in the grass. “I would like to learn all you have to teach.”

“Of course I accept,” Qian Shanyi grinned her most wolfish grin, and leaned down to help Linghui Mei back up. “You don’t have to call me your master,” she whispered into Linghui Mei’s ear, “except when Yonghao is nearby. His anguish is like the sweetest liquor.”

Linghui Mei inclined her head a fraction in understanding.

Wang Yonghao rushed back towards them, his hands cupped together in a begging gesture. He stopped in front of Linghui Mei. “Please tell me you were joking?” he pleaded. “Or that Shanyi put you up to this? I don’t think I could handle her with an actual student. She is a menace as it is.”

Linghui Mei drew herself up, nose held high, shoulders straight. “Watch your tongue, cultivator,” she said in a dangerous tone. “You are talking about my master. Who gave you the right to besmirch her name?”

Qian Shanyi laughed again. Wasn’t the spring ghost festival coming up soon? She couldn’t possibly ask for a better gift.

Wang Yonghao fell on his knees, hands covering his face in despair. “Shanyi, tell me honestly. Are you a demon? How did you corrupt her this fast?”

“Natural talent.” She snorted, then schooled her face into a gravely serious mask, of a kind she often saw on her own elders. “Yonghao, Yonghao. What are we going to do with you? I already have two disciples. If you don’t shape up you’d never be a real sect elder like me.”

“I don’t want - what?” He moved his hands away, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “What do you mean two disciples?”

She reached into her robes, taking out the bunny. He seemed to have already fallen asleep. “Mei and Yihao. I count two.”

Wang Yonghao’s eyebrow twitched, and she just barely held herself back from laughing again, keeping her face serious. “It is a rabbit!”

“A cultivator can be from any species. I don’t discriminate.”

Wang Yonghao’s teeth ground together. Could she make him set out sparks? She had to try.

“It is physically incapable of comprehending what cultivation even means!” he said.

“He is a bit dim, I agree,” she said thoughtfully, patting Yihao on the head, “but we all have our faults. There's no reason to be rude.” She handed the rabbit over to Linghui Mei. “Here you go, Mei. This is your new friend - Tuzi Yihao. Please keep him safe.”

“You…named the rabbit?” Linghui Mei said slowly, taking Yihao from her. She looked at it uncertainly. Qian Shanyi could see that Linghui Mei thought the name was strange, but wasn’t going to speak up. It only amused her more. “Is it for me?...”

“Yihao is not food,” Qian Shanyi explained patiently, “Yihao is for you to hunt the rosevines. They are very stupid creatures, but they can still somewhat learn what is and isn’t a threat to them. They rarely attack me or Yonghao anymore, for example - but they still fruit underground, making more of themselves. You will watch over honorable Yihao, use him as bait, and when they come out to eat him, kill them instead. This way we could cull their population, keep our farms safe, and teach you how to kill things with your dagger.”

Linghui Mei nodded, hugging the rabbit closer to her chest.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get more rabbits for food soon,” Qian Shanyi continued, “But not Yihao. Yihao has the soul of a hunter - you can see it in his eyes.”

“Can you at least tell her that that name is stupid?” Wang Yonghao begged. “Tuzi Yihao? It is unbearable.”

Linghui Mei drew herself up again, turning Yihao away from Wang Yonghao as if to protect him. “If my master says it is a good name,” she cut back, “then it is a perfect name. What would you know about rabbits, cultivator Wang?”

Seeing the despair in Wang Yonghao’s eyes, Qian Shanyi didn’t think she would ever stop laughing.