Linghui Mei returned only a couple hours later - long enough for Qian Shanyi to take a nice long nap in the world fragment.

While she was gone, Wang Yonghao had mostly finished the first prototype of their lift, and Qian Shanyi insisted on coming along to test it. She claimed she wanted to see the anchoring tripod in action, though in actuality she was simply too bored to sit still. As she expected, the first test was a failure - when they tried to lift a hundred kilogram block of wood the tripod sagged, and so they decided to reinforce the connection point between the legs before trying again.

That was when Linghui Mei returned, bearing woeful news.

“I tracked this ‘Jian Shizhe’ from their compound to the edge of town, where the glass ravine starts,” Linghui Mei said, once they were all back in the world fragment, and she changed her form back into that of the maid. “It is a pretty fresh trail, from this morning. He definitely went in, but the scent did not catch on the glass, and so I did not follow. I went along the edge for a good kilometer in either direction - if he came out, it wasn’t on this side.”

“Good thinking,” Qian Shanyi complimented her with a frown. Why would Jian Shizhe venture into the glassy fields?

“You think he headed to Reflection Ridge?” Wang Yonghao said, coming over, having put away the disassembled parts of their lift.

Qian Shanyi shook her head. “For what purpose? For an entire day, without telling anyone? If he seeks to train, his own sect is the best place for him.” She paced around, thinking it over.

“Maybe another town?”

“There is nothing else in that direction,” she said, distracted by a memory just on the edge of her mind. “Lake of Peace is closest, and it’s still a good two days of travel away on foot. He wouldn’t be back in time for the duel, and he’d know it.” She suddenly stopped, pieces clicking together in her mind. “Remind me, Yonghao,” she said slowly, “why was little Shizhe trying to capture that glass shambler? Back when I first arrived in this town, he was berating you over killing it.”

“Why?” Wang Yonghao scratched his head, then shrugged. “I don’t remember. You think it’s related?”

“I have to check something,” she said, hurriedly heading over to grab the cultivator almanac. There was an entry she only dimly recalled - not Jian Shizhe’s, but that of another cultivator from his sect, with only two duels to his name. She ruffled through the pages, eyes darting across the even lines, until they stopped on the one she sought.

“This might be a problem,” she said grimly after a moment.

“What is?”

Qian Shanyi handed Wang Yonghao the almanac, gesturing to the line. “Good thing that you two convinced me that it was worth tracking him,” she continued, “if I am right, this would have been a nasty surprise.”

Wang Yonghao whistled. “You really think he’d manage it in three days?”

“Alone? Unlikely. With Heaven’s help, if he already studied the techniques before...” She shook her head uncertainly. “I am starting to get around to your line of thinking, Yonghao. How fast can you teach me how to make crystal bombs?”

Wang Yonghao gave her an admonishing look. “You could have asked before.”

“I didn’t think I’d need them before,” she grumbled, “Learning would mean making the damnable things, and I neither wanted to store bombs next to where I sleep nor risk blowing my own arms off by making a mistake.” She snapped her fingers decisively. “Now answer the question - how long?”

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

Two days of rest had passed swiftly, and once morning rose in the world outside, Linghui Mei and Wang Yonghao left once again, leaving Qian Shanyi alone for an entire day.

Wang Yonghao agreed to teach her how to make crystal bombs, and spent the last two days instructing her on the principles - but they both agreed she shouldn’t try her hand at it alone, and frankly, she wasn’t enthused to experiment. She liked her hands still attached to her body, you see. Best to memorize everything first - she’d probably ask Yonghao to make the ones she’d need for the duel itself, too.

And so she was laying in her hammock, counting Heavenly goats in her mind, when voices interrupted her rumination.

“Couldn’t you have transformed into someone lighter?”

“Master Qian picked this form. It is perfect for the task.”

“She said she didn’t actually care!”

“Who are you to question my master, masterless Wang?”

“Oh what is that supposed to mean?”

Qian Shanyi groaned and rolled out of her hammock. She was planning on taking another nap, but if Linghui Mei and Wang Yonghao had returned, she should go out and greet them.

It’s not like she was actually tired, just bored with absolutely nothing to do. She felt completely healed, but the healer said two weeks, and so she stubbornly decided to wait out the full two weeks. She only had half a day left, anyways, but it felt like the sands of time had been drenched in molasses.

She exited out of their hut, and approached Wang Yonghao and Linghui Mei, who were bickering over nothing of substance. Linghui Mei had the form of an old, balding man, and bowed to her as she approached.

“I have done as you have instructed, Master Qian,” Linghui Mei said. Wang Yonghao exhaled in exasperation behind her.

Qian Shanyi nodded casually, enjoying the sight of Wang Yonghao stewing in the background. “Thank you. Any problems throughout?”

“None at all,” Linghui Mei said, shaking her head. “They haven’t even asked me where I came from.”

Linghui Mei’s task - in as far as a kind request was a task at all - had two steps. The first was to get a room in a cheap tavern at the edge of town, where Wang Yonghao could pick her up without attracting undue attention to their own room. The second was to visit several merchants, asking about the happenings in town, and ideally turning conversations towards cultivators, to fish for rumors about Jian Shizhe. If anyone asked, she was to pretend to be a well-off farmer, traveling upriver in search of a good piece of land to buy for his son - but they didn’t.

Qian Shanyi would ask her about what she found later. Perhaps there was something more about Jian Shizhe to be uncovered before the duel.

Linghui Mei also bought some clothes, shoes, and a good hand plow and shovel - things neither Qian Shanyi nor Wang Yonghao would have had an excuse to buy. Having proper instruments to work with would make farming so much easier.

While Qian Shanyi was busy in thought, Linghui Mei reached into her clothes, took out her money pouch - loaned from Qian Shanyi - and handed it back. Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’ve kept my expenses small,” Linghui Mei explained, “you may count the silver -”

Qian Shanyi’s eyebrow rose higher. “For what purpose? I trust you to pay the right price.”

Linghui Mei coughed, and blushed slightly. It looked a bit strange on her old, roughened face. “It’s… a lot of money,” she mumbled.

Only what, fifty-odd silver yuan? Barely anything.

Qian Shanyi snorted instead. “Go, wash up, junior. I’ll prepare dinner in the meantime.”

Linghui Mei bowed again, and left for the baths. Qian Shanyi turned to Wang Yonghao who silently watched their interaction, arms crossed on his chest. “Did you get the materials for Mei?” Qian Shanyi asked with a soft sigh.

Wang Yonghao nodded, and reached into his bag, handing her a pair of small wooden boxes.

The top one was flat, about a foot wide and as thick as a book, with a wax seal of the Three Mountains sect on the front - the same sect that produced Big Mo’s tablets, and a dozen other medicinal pills common all over the empire. Qian Shanyi broke the seal and flipped open the lid, revealing a wooden grid of fourteen slots, two by seven, each numbered and filled with a pair of bundles of waxy paper. Cutting open the first bundle with a tip of her knife, she gave a critical look to the finely cut, dried mushrooms inside. ”Looks about right,” she said, closing the box and setting it aside on the table.

The second box was smaller, only as thick as a pair of fingers, and with a latch on the front. It contained rows upon rows of acupuncture needles, tips pushed into a soft woolen pillow at one end of the box. The needles looked fine, and she set the second box aside as well.

“Good job,” she finally said, turning back to Wang Yonghao. “What of the rumors on your side?”

Where Linghui Mei asked civilians, Wang Yonghao headed to the Northern Scarlet Stream sect, to ask inner disciples about Jian Shizhe, and tell them about how he almost burst into their room. With any hope, it would inflame the talk about him just before their duel, bring more attention to it - which would serve them well.

“People were pretty willing to talk, after I told them about your situation,” Wang Yonghao said while she prepared her knives and started to wash the rice. “But there’s not that much that is useful.”

“Don’t rush ahead of your own flying sword,” she said. “Let’s take this step by step. We’ll decide what is and isn’t useful once we have it all on the table.”

Wang Yonghao shrugged, leaning against their table, and having to hastily step back when it croaked dangerously. Qian Shanyi snorted. It wasn’t the most solid construction, especially after it was cracked in his fight with Linghui Mei. “Almost everyone said Shizhe was like this ever since… Nine years old, I think,” Wang Yonghao said after he made sure the table wasn’t about to collapse. “Though it got worse over time. It’s more than just how he behaves - he has several outer disciples assigned to him as servants, and he instructs them in philosophy.”

“Did they say why he changed?”

“One of his servants - I spoke to them for a bit - said it was because of his father, Jian Zhexuan. He died fighting a Zhuque out south.”

Qian Shanyi stopped her work, leveling a curious gaze at Wang Yonghao. “A Zhuque? What was he even doing that far out?”

“I didn’t ask,” Wang Yonghao said, shrugging. “If I had to guess, it’s probably because the sect used to be a lot more active all over the place. I run into it all the time, inner disciples roaming around, doing odd work in far away cities.”

Qian Shanyi hummed, replacing the rice water, and putting the pot on the burner. “Is that so? This is good to know. Good work.”

“Is it? It didn’t tell you anything about how he fights, what manuals he studied.”

“Those are far less important than how he thinks.” She paused, thinking it over. “The sect sending disciples out - did that also change when Jian Zhexuan died? That should be just about when Jian Wei took over his position as one of the heads of the sect.”

“Maybe,” Wang Yonghao said with a light frown. “I’ll ask again after dinner.”

“Please do.” Qian Shanyi smirked. “But don’t take too long and forget about your date.”

Wang Yonghao blushed deeply. Qian Shanyi cackled at him. “It’s not a date!” he ground out.

After she read her own notes, it took her a good bit to get him to admit it’s existence at all. If her past self didn’t consider his psychological profile to be crucially important, he would have simply backed out of it, without telling her a thing, and avoided that poor waitress entirely. But she insisted. It would be good for his mind, in the longer term, and losing sight of the future would be a beginner’s mistake to make.

“Oh, to think back on when I was this shy, denying I was invited on a date,” Qian Shanyi sniffled theatrically, and wiped away a non-existent tear. She wiped off her hands, and stepped up to Wang Yonghao to give him a light hug around the shoulders. “One day you too will be as old and experienced as me, junior, and then -”

“You are younger than me!” Wang Yonghao burst out, pushing her away. She only cackled harder.

“One of these days, Shanyi, I will find something you are ashamed about, and then there will be a reckoning,” Wang Yonghao said, wagging a finger at her. “I swear, or my name is not Wang Yonghao.”

“That would require me to have any shame whatsoever,” Qian Shanyi said, snorting. “Please, Yonghao. To cultivate is to rebel against our nature. I’ve excised it out of my mind years ago.”

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

After dinner, Wang Yonghao left to seek out more rumors, while Linghui Mei headed to the edge of the world fragment to meditate. That once again left Qian Shanyi with absolutely nothing to do.

She checked on the beans she left to germinate in a bowl of tepid water within the chiclotron. They were, of course, still germinating, same as when she checked them two hours ago. Beans, not being animate, weren’t about to flee. She put away the things the other two brought in - tools and groceries, mostly - which took all of five minutes. She checked on the rabbits - they were chewing on grass within their cages. They’ve released one into the world fragment, and so far, it has not been eaten. And then she was back to where she was when she decided to take a nap - only she couldn’t do that now, not in good conscience, not with Linghui Mei meditating and vulnerable to the rosevines without someone else to watch over her.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

She paced around for a bit. Perhaps she should have asked Wang Yonghao to teach her woodworking - the man seemed to whittle many hours away on small figurines like it was nothing.

With nothing better to do, she headed towards Linghui Mei to watch over her. The kitsune was sitting on the grass, back to the edge of the world fragment, her plush crow clasped tightly in her arms, breathing even and stable. After their dinner, she transformed back into her maid form, fox ears and tails out, her dagger once again hanging at her side.

Qian Shanyi stopped a dozen steps away, hands on her hips. After half a minute, Linghui Mei cracked open one eyelid.

“Don’t get distracted on my behalf,” Qian Shanyi said, “I just have nothing better to do.”

Linghui Mei sighed, shoulders slumping, and hugged her crow tighter. “I wasn’t really meditating anyways. Too many thoughts.”

“That isn’t necessarily bad,” Qian Shanyi said automatically, slipping into her lecturing tone without even noticing. “The point of the exercise is to learn to control your focus despite other thoughts, find ways to guide it where it needs to be, not to become a blank slate that has no thoughts at all. The end goal, after all, is to be capable of focusing on your inner senses in combat.”

Linghui Mei gave her a bow. It was deeper than was reasonable, for all that she couldn’t bend her back much with how she was sitting. “Of course, master Qian.”

“Mhm. Still feeling bored?”

“A bit,” Linghui Mei said with another nod. “It got a bit better, after the first day. But no. It’s just…” Linghui Mei paused, quiet. “Nevermind.”

“Out with it.”

“It is not my place to say.”

“Did I not tell you to speak your mind freely? Don’t make me tickle you until you are forced to follow my advice, junior Mei.”

Linghui Mei snorted, then giggled slightly. “Fine,” she said, giving Qian Shanyi a disappointed, questioning look. “Shouldn’t you have sent me out to gather rumors again, among the merchants? The… immortal Wang left to do so, so why not me? You have said this would help, but now you say I should stay?”

“Oh.” Qian Shanyi blinked. “Well, yes, it might help, but it was always a bit of a long shot. If the merchants didn’t tell you anything useful right away, that means there are no big rumors floating around - and for subtle things, his sect would be the place to ask.”

“I see.” Linghui Mei breathed out. “I was worried I did something wrong, made you suspect my judgment when I found nothing you could use.”

“Nonsense,” Qian Shanyi said dismissively. “If you wish to, tomorrow you could go again - but this evening, with Yonghao going on his date, I didn’t think it’d be worth it. You would have to schedule where to meet him, or to spend the night out in the town… It’d be a complete planning mess, too many moving parts for too little gain.” She paused, considering her words. “Also, I have twelve more hours to wait before I can cultivate again, and if I had to spend them here alone I was going to start chewing grass out of boredom. I can’t fight a good duel if my mind is not at peace.”

“Oh!” Linghui Mei said, leaping up onto her feet, and crossing the distance between them. “Should I help you with that?”

Qian Shanyi frowned at her, angling her head slightly. “What you should be doing is cultivating - which at your stage, means learning to meditate. That is your first and frankly only priority. Disciples do not deal with the problems of their elders.”

Linghui Mei’s ears drooped down, corners of her lips twitching downwards. The two tails curled up around her legs, out of the way. Qian Shanyi sighed. “But perhaps we can slay two demon beasts with one flying sword,” she said, motioning for the jiuweihu to follow. “I could help you while we talk. You said you were still bored by meditation?”

“It is a bit calming, but… Yes. Boring. First two times each day are fine, but closer to the evening it becomes hard to continue, even when I only do it once every two hours.”

“It’s a common bane of young disciples,” Qian Shanyi said, leading Linghui Mei back to their kitchen. She brought out the box of mushrooms, flipped the lid open, and took out the first paper bundle - one she had already opened before. “Unlocking inner spiritual senses through meditation alone is possible, but it takes… a long time. Years. With any hope, we can go with the faster option.”

She put the paper bundle on top of the lid of the box, unwrapped it, and started to divide the pile of finely chopped mushrooms into doses, halving the mass every time - one half, then one quarter.

Linghui Mei leaned forwards, looking skeptically at Qian Shanyi’s hands as she worked. “By using these mushrooms? They don’t look special.”

“These are Seventh Revelation Piercing Mushrooms,” Qian Shanyi said, “they are the best by far for this purpose, and help focusing on meditation in general. This is twenty eight days worth, but it will be twenty seven for you, since we’ll use the first bundle to test your reaction.”

“My reaction?”

Qian Shanyi made a circular gesture next to her throat with her knife. “For some people, when they ingest certain drugs, their throat closes up. Without help, they suffocate. It’s not too common, but this is why I will give you a very small dose at first, just in case it goes badly.” Qian Shanyi reached into her pocket with her free hand, showing Linghui Mei a small bottle of dark pills - standard component of most good medical kits for this exact reason, one she bought on her shopping trip with Wang Yonghao. “If it does, I have other drugs to save you, so there isn’t too much risk.”

Linghui Mei nodded at her explanation, and Qian Shanyi went back to measuring out the mushrooms. “They are rather expensive, so I am hoping I won’t have to do that,” she continued, “it would be a bit of a waste.“

Once she was left with about one sixteenth of the entire bundle, she began to carefully cut what few whole mushrooms remained. The closer they were to dust, the better.

“How expensive?” Linghui Mei asked curiously.

“Seventy yuan,” Qian Shanyi replied neutrally. “Standard price.”

Linghui Mei choked next to her, eyes bulging out of her face. Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at her, stopping her work.

“Seventy silver for some mushrooms?...” Linghui Mei whispered.

Qian Shanyi frowned slightly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Ingredients like this are never priced in silver. It’s seventy gold.”

Linghui Mei whimpered cutely, face going a bit white. Qian Shanyi snorted, angling her head so that her breath wouldn’t scatter the mushroom dust, and scraped the prepared dose into a little spoon. She added a drop of water, stirred the mixture with the tip of her knife, before offering it to Linghui Mei. “Eat up.”

Linghui Mei stepped back, shaking her head fast enough her eyes vanished behind her black hair. “I - I can’t, this is -”

Qian Shanyi advanced on her, keeping the spoon perfectly level. “Speaking isn’t eating. Say aaaaah -”

“That one spoon is worth more than I’ve ever earned in a day!”

“And if all goes well, in a couple days you’d be eating more than you’ve ever earned in a month. Now shut up and open your mouth.”

In her retreat, Linghui Mei’s back pressed up against the wooden palisade around their baths. Qian Shanyi stepped after her, slamming her free hand to the side of her head. Closed in from all sides and with nowhere else to flee, Linghui Mei squeezed her eyes shut, whimpered again, and opened her mouth. The spoon clacked against her teeth as it went in.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, now was it?” Qian Shanyi said, patting Linghui Mei on the cheek. Linghui Mei cracked one eye open, still holding the spoon in her mouth. “What happened to not letting me feed you like a child?”

“I did not!” Linghui Mei burst out, cheeks flushing with rage. Her outburst was ruined by the spoon falling out of her mouth, as she scrambled to catch it. “I haven’t -“ She covered her eyes with one hand, flushing deeper. “Oh Heavens smite me. Please forget this happened, before I completely die of embarrassment.”

Qian Shanyi lifted one eyebrow, grinning from ear to ear. “To cultivate is to rebel against the heavens. If embarrassment could kill you, is it not my duty as your master to help you become immune to it?”

Linghui Mei slid to the ground against the palisade, covering her face completely with both hands, the little spoon still held by a couple fingers in her left.

“I do actually need to see your face, you know,” Qian Shanyi said, crouching in front of her. “To know wherever you are about to start going blue and a little dead from a bad reaction to the mushrooms.”

Linghui Mei pulled her hands away, glaring up at her. Her face was red like the sunset. “I did not let you feed me!” she hissed. “I was just startled by the price! If you had just given me a moment, I would have taken the damn spoon from you!”

Qian Shanyi gave her the most skeptical look she could manage. She had a lot of practice at it.

“I would have!” Linghui Mei burst out again, and threw the spoon at Qian Shanyi’s face. She caught it easily. “Damnable cultivators, how was I to expect that the drugs you would feed me would cost more than their weight in gold?! How could some mushrooms even cost that much?!”

Qian Shanyi grinned. “Only the best for my disciple! As for why they cost this much -” Her face relaxed, growing serious. “- it’s because they are grown on a single mountain by a single sect. They don’t exist anywhere else - Three Mountains made sure of that - so they get to set the prices.”

“Kalesherdek kra!” Linghui Mei cursed, the tone sharp. It was not a curse in any language Qian Shanyi had ever heard - and she heard plenty, having grown up in a port. Something to ask the jiuweihu about later, when she was calmer. “I knew cultivators were butchers, but not gluttons! And to think they accuse my ancestors of excess!”

“Most cultivators do not take Seventh Revelation Piercing Mushrooms, if that is what you mean,” Qian Shanyi said neutrally, “I wasn’t given them myself. There are other, cheaper medicines that do the same job - they just take longer, have more side effects, and so on. In the end it doesn’t matter that much, because all roads lead to the same place.”

She almost didn’t need any medicine herself. By the time she joined her sect, she had already been meditating for years, having started well before she even became a cultivator, and was well on the way to unlocking her inner spiritual energy senses the slow way. She was quietly proud of how easy it was for her, even if she still took the medicines when offered by her sect.

“So then why give me this?” Linghui Mei said slowly.

“Because I can afford it, you are my disciple, and this is the best choice.” Qian Shanyi paused, thinking it over. “And also because Wang Yonghao’s life is hectic enough I don’t think taking the slower path is wise. But mostly the former.”

It cost a sizable chunk of their money, but Qian Shanyi wasn’t too worried. If Wang Yonghao was to be believed, something or other would come up to strip them of their riches in any case - best to spend them on something useful while they had the chance. She was confident she’d find another opportunity to make some money eventually.

Linghui Mei blushed again and went to cover her face, and Qian Shanyi had to grab her by the hands to stop her. “What are you doing?” she chastised her, “I said I have to see your face to make sure you aren’t about to suffocate. You can be embarrassed some other time.”

Strangely, this didn’t seem to help, and Linghui Mei only blushed deeper, looking away - though at least she didn’t cover her face anymore.

“Why are you so embarrassed, in any case?” Qian Shanyi asked a minute later, scratching her own head with the little spoon. “Do jiuweihu teachers not help out their own students?”

“No, I’ve never before had a teacher spend seven hundred silver yuan on me with no warning!” Linghui Mei snapped, turning to glare at her again.

“As a lump sum, or overall? Because food will add up -”

The glare grew harsher. At this rate, she’d learn how to pierce through rock with it. “We follow our teachers, we help them, and we earn our share. Every secret a teacher shows us is repaid through our work. A jiuweihu would never expect this…whatever this is.”

“Generosity?”

“Perversion.”

“Hm,” Qian Shanyi said, scratching her chin. “Is this why you keep trying to help me, even when you don’t have to? Because you feel obligated to repay a debt you think you incurred by getting me to agree to teach you?”

Linghui Mei suddenly looked awkward, biting her lip. “If it’s unwelcome…”

“No, it’s fine,” Qian Shanyi said, waving her off. “But you really do not have to. Expectations are quite different among cultivators, I think. It’s my decision how to teach you. Disciples are of course expected to repay the master in whatever way they can - but only as far as is reasonable. If they cannot do so, then it’s the master’s mistake in overestimating them, and nobody will hold it against the disciple.”

“You are saying it’s not an equitable relationship,” Linghui Mei said slowly.

“Not particularly. There are upsides and downsides, of course. But at the end of the day, you do not have to strain yourself on my behalf.”

“Thank you, I suppose.” Linghui Mei murmured. She rubbed her face, the blush fading slowly. “I keep treating you like a jiuweihu teacher, but you are not one, are you? If a jiuweihu gave me a gift like this, I would have thought they were proposing marriage.”

Qian Shanyi’s eyebrows flew up of their own accord. “Really now? Hm.” She tapped a finger against her cheek. “I suppose that explains your reaction.”

“Does it?” Linghui Mei ground out, before sighing, her shoulders sagging from exhaustion. “And after I ate a gift, I could not refuse it - so I would have to pay it back, only to do so would be impossible. So if that was your intent, you have cornered me. Congratulations.”

A dozen different jokes danced just on the end of Qian Shanyi’s tongue, but she held herself back. Now was not the time. “It was not my intention, no,” she said instead. “Though I would love to hear more about your past teachers, if you have much to tell.”

Linghui Mei’s mouth slammed shut like a door in the face of an unwelcome guest. “They are not my secrets to tell,” she said quietly, “I beg you not to ask me this.”

Qian Shanyi nodded. She expected as much. “Understandable,” she said, “but perhaps you can tell me how you expect me to treat you, and what you expect of me? It would help to air the differences, I think.”

“How could I explain centuries of culture?” Linghui Mei asked rhetorically. At least it seemed to calm her a bit. “When a jiuweihu has a teacher, it’s… a bond deeper than just family. The teacher will show you their secrets - where and how to feed, how to hide, how to escape - but in exchange, you must follow their word as if it is a law of nature. To do otherwise might bring death on you, them, and those around you.”

“Because of the spirit hunters.”

“Yes. Even a single mistake can mean death. So you have to repay them with your every breath, because without these secrets, you will breathe no longer.”

“I see,” Qian Shanyi said, and smiled, patting Linghui Mei on the head. The jiuweihu swatted her hand away, though only slightly, without any real energy. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll try to be more accommodating.”

“Thank you.”

“But I do have good news: it doesn’t seem like you are having a bad reaction,” Qian Shanyi pronounced, getting up on her feet and stretching. “We’ll double the dose in the evening, and then again the next morning, but if this keeps up, it seems like you’d be in the clear.”

“That’s good to hear,” Linghui Mei said, shaking her head in dismay. “I will get to eat more golden mushrooms. My mind still cannot accept this. They didn’t even have a taste.” She sighed, waving a hand. “I am being ungrateful. To my own master, no less. If it will make meditation easier, I can only be thankful.”

“Don’t get too excited.” Qian Shanyi snorted. “Faster doesn’t mean fast. Even if it works, you are still looking at a good month of work.”

“Of course, master Qian.”

This went about as well as it could have. Now Linghui Mei just needed some time alone to process the scope of their wealth - and Qian Shanyi needed an excuse to give it to her, without the jiuweihu insisting on following her around like a tail.

Qian Shanyi smirked. “I wonder, will I have to feed you your next dose too?”

“I can do that myself!” Linghui Mei’s rage burst out again, as she sprung up on her feet and stalked off. Qian Shanyi’s laughter echoed after.