Qian Shanyi left the meeting with the disciples soon after, thoughts boiling in her mind and spilling over the edge like noodles out of an overheated pot.

The mysterious spirit hunter had been a crystal bomb planted at the base of a tower of lies, one she had been building ever since she arrived in this town. She had been counting on being a mystery, an untraceable unknown - but if he could prove who she was…

If he had any evidence, he would have shown it to Jian Wei already.

Not necessarily. He might be simply waiting for a better moment.

He had to be dealt with before he would ruin everything.

How did he even find me?

This was the core question at the heart of this whole mystery. If he found her, others could do so as well. She needed to know what mistake she made, what trace she left behind, or else she would always remain on the run.

She had been spinning this problem in her mind when she reached the entrance to the Northern Scarlet Stream sect and felt him again. Fang Jiugui, hiding behind the gate, away from the sight of her eyes but not of her spirit. Waiting for her.

She didn’t slow down her step. That he was here made it all but certain he really was here for her, but she already expected the possibility. This was the closest gate to the warehouse and to her tavern - an obvious place to wait for her to leave, if he already knew her rough movements.

Concealing her intentions, she casually glanced around the square in front of the gates. It was only just past the sunset, and she saw six different disciples all around her, and more people still on the street beyond. Even if the spirit hunter already knew who she was - she still had to appear completely unaffected by his presence. The last thing she needed was rumors getting back to Jian Wei before she even had an inkling of a solid plan.

Very well. You want a confrontation? I can do a confrontation.

Focusing on her chest, she felt her own heartbeat resonate all through her body, the bright flows of recirculating spiritual energy pulsing alongside it. With great care, she wove a dense lattice of spiritual energy around her heart, suffusing every last fiber of the muscle, and synchronizing it to the same rhythm.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Powerful, alive.

Then, she stopped it.

Her heart stuttered, before the lattice took over the work. Still beating, but only as long as she kept the spiritual energy flowing. The flesh inert, relaxed, if still living.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. A clock of her own making.

This was the most dangerous gambling technique she had ever experimented with, one she had only used twice before. Even with her control over spiritual energy just on the cusp of the high refinement stage, it still took up some of her concentration, and if it slipped… she would probably fall unconscious faster than she could restart her own heart.

Then she might die. But there was no other choice.

She could school her face, control her breathing, and prepare herself mentally, but an unexpected surprise could still spike her heartbeat before she could control it. In most cases, this was for the best - not reacting could be just as much of a tell. Covering up surprise with another emotion - anger, disappointment, lust - was far simpler, but in exceptional cases…

Few people could even hear the change. But a building foundation cultivator just might. She had originally came up with this trick when playing against one. She won, and put it away for a darker day.

It seemed that day had come. If she was going to speak to Fang Jiugui, she needed every advantage she could get.

The stench hit her nostrils just before she reached the gates. Alcoholic, but unnatural, sharp and burrowing down into the base of your skull, as if distilled from the ashes of an entire burnt-down alchemical laboratory. Qian Shanyi let her lips freely curl in disgust as she rounded the corner, and gave a single passing glance to Fang Jiugui, where he leaned against one of the gate pillars.

He seemed… asleep. Head rolled back, a bit of drool dripping out of the corner of his mouth and staining the edge of his collar. He held his flask loosely in his right hand, the lid unscrewed and hanging by a crimson thread, just barely kept from dropping down onto the ground by the crook of his other elbow. Yet when Qian Shanyi passed a step away from him, he snapped awake, a wide grin stretching across his stubbled face.

“Ah, fellow cultivator Qian, was it?” Fang Jiugui said, pausing for a hacked cough, and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Would you grace this old hunter with a minute of your time?”

Qian Shanyi slowed down, turning her head slowly towards Fang Jiugui. Her lips curled further, into a disgusted grimace. “What possible business would I have,” she said slowly, dropping one word after another like stones down a mountain. “with a drooling alcoholic?”

She expected anger. She tossed the insult directly into his face, and for all that he couldn’t duel her himself, such blatant disrespect must have been rare for a building foundation cultivator.

She’d have settled for annoyance. Instead Fang Jiugui laughed as if she had just played into some long-forgotten private joke. Joyful, unbothered.

Tch.

So much for trying to provoke him in public. She hoped he would make a scene right at the sect gates over the insult, and she’d find a way to get him thrown out of town for his trouble.

Even as he laughed, his eyes were focused, attentive, scanning her like she was but a bird seen over the tip of a notched arrow. Surprising, for someone who seemed to be fast asleep just a minute ago.

Without a drop of lust, at least - small mercies. She had more than enough experience to tell right away.

His gaze flickered to her gloved hands, and that same hint of a frown passed over his face, before vanishing. Just like in that gazebo. Definitely not a coincidence. What Qian Shanyi wouldn’t have given for a way to hide them entirely, to keep whatever it was he tried to see far away from his eyes, but instead she kept her hands still at her sides, one resting comfortably on the pommel of her sword.

Her heart beat in an even rhythm, cut off from all of her emotions.

“Oh, jade beauty, but it’s barely even a trifle. I only have a few questions,” Fang Jiugui chuckled, coming down from his laughter. With his free hand, he ruffled through his pockets, and pulled out a small metal clip of papers, together with the stub of a coal pencil. There was something written on the top page, though in such horrible handwriting that Qian Shanyi had no chance of parsing it. “I was just establishing a… timeline, as Fates would have it. Standard procedure.”

Qian Shanyi turned to face Fang Jiugui fully. If she couldn’t get rid of him easily, then she at least needed information. She very much doubted he would volunteer something she could use directly - but she needed something to work with, a foundation to build on. “A timeline?” she said. “A timeline of what?”

“Oh, but of this town, the comings and goings,” Fang Jiugui said. As he got talking, he really seemed to come alive, the last signs of weariness leaving him. “A drunk artist leaves a sketch on a napkin, but I must put one together from rumors and gossip. But the full picture can only be seen from the outside - and you are an out of towner, just like me.”

Qian Shanyi’s eyes narrowed slightly. If she could only get him talking of what he did between the duel and now… “I do not believe I mentioned my origins, fellow cultivator Fang. To what do I owe this impression?”

“Is it a false one?”

“That is not what I asked.”

“It’s simplicity itself,” Fang Jiugui said, gesturing with his flask. He took a sip, and then finally screwed the cap back on, and put it into his pocket. The wind was light, but it already made standing next to the man more bearable. “I have seen your duel. It was as if the humble mantis brought down an entire oriole. Very, very impressive. How could I resist asking about the duelists? Nothing untoward, you understand.”

Nothing beyond the bare minimum. She couldn’t even tell if he was lying or not, even if it was all entirely plausible.

“I saw you land,” she said, relaxing her face a fraction. “I hope the town has been to your satisfaction so far? If you wish, I could suggest a good place to spend the night. With a bath, perhaps.”

If she could only put him into a place she could control, she could find a way to sneak into his rooms -

“How could I accept such generosity when I have nothing to give in return?” Fang Jiugui denied her with a light grin. He knew exactly what she was doing. He glanced down on the small clip of papers in his hand. “But perhaps there is one thing that had been spinning in my mind. The air is thick with tales of the honorable Jian Shizhe, of course, but of you, there is scarcely a drop. Even where you call home - it is all shrouded in mystery.“

She hated dealing with competent people. But that last question - it was something she could use.

“I come from the north,” she said, mirroring his manner. “But now I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“A fellow northerner!” Fang Jiugui said, flashing his teeth. “I come from the great city of the Golden Rabbit Bay myself. Have you ever been?”

“Once or twice.”

Tick-tock went her heart, but in her mind, Qian Shanyi felt something relax. If he was from her city, then at the very least, he was almost certainly sent by her sect. Not a case of mistaken identity, brought about by Wang Yonghao’s luck.

“There is one other mystery that I just can’t seem to place,” Fang Jiugui continued casually, “The crystal bombs. Where did you get them? Just as a professional curiosity.”

Qian Shanyi arched an eyebrow at him. A trap, but one she prepared for. “Why, I made them myself,” she said calmly. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Ah, so it was that way,” Fang Jiugui said, marking down something on his papers. “Their sale is prohibited, you see, so I was wondering…” He made a dismissive gesture.

Qian Shanyi arched her eyebrow further. “I would have expected a full test from a spirit hunter. Is it not… standard procedure?”

Fang Jiugui waved her off. “The duel took place before my very eyes. There is no point in testing if a fish can swim.”

Bullshit. If he could have called her on basic details of assembling a crystal bomb he would, just on the off chance she’d fail, which meant he couldn’t, which meant he wasn’t a real spirit hunter. So what then?

He introduced himself as simply a hunter. Perhaps a retired one? It might explain his realm, at least. Her adventure novels were full of such characters, taking on one last job for a wealth of spirit stones. And if he was, then he wouldn’t be allowed to test her. At least, not legally.

This one realization was worth this entire discussion. If he was not a true spirit hunter, there would be a wealth of other things he wouldn’t be allowed to do.

“Still, there are more mysteries that grace my notes,” Fang Jiugui continued just a bit too quickly, perhaps already realizing what he let slip. “Is it not a little strange to get into a duel so quickly after arriving in town?”

“It was an internal matter between me, Jian Shizhe and his sect,” Qian Shanyi said tersely. Time to make her retreat, before she made a mistake herself. “Was the duel all you wanted to talk about? I am afraid I am a busy woman, and do not have time for idle chit-chat.”

“Well… There was just one more thing,” Fang Jiugui said casually just as she was turning away. “It’s the strangest thing, but… this fugitive, the bird fleeing on the winds of fortune?” He leaned forwards, lowering his voice. “Her name is also Qian Shanyi. Now isn’t that a coincidence?”

Tick-tock, tick-tock. Her heart was calm, even as Qian Shanyi lifted her lip in disdain. “Are you accusing me, Fang Jiugui?” she said, voice dripping with quiet poison. “I have been known to have quite a temper.”

Fang Jiugui raised his hands defensively, stepping back. “Oh but of course I wouldn’t accuse a fellow cultivator with no evidence. But it’s interesting, don’t you think? The blood and sweat it takes to find this bird can never be unspent. And those of her family - why, the sights I’ve seen at their house, the nightmares of demonic cultivators…”

And there it was. A stab straight at her soul, that would have made her crack.

Are they safe? Did you threaten them, you demon?

But her heart could not be made to waver. Tick-tock, tick-tock it went. And so she held his stare unflinching.

“Are you implying they are my parents?” She calmly answered, raising one eyebrow curiously. “In Golden Rabbit Bay? That would be quite the trick. I recommend staying off the drink, fellow cultivator Fang. Good day.”

She turned around and left, feeling Fang Jiugui’s eyes boring into the back of her head all the way down the street.

And still her heart kept beating.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

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

Qian Shanyi slipped inside the warehouse, quiet like a dormouse. Fang Jiugui did not follow her - or at least, she didn’t see him, which meant little. With his senses of a building foundation cultivator, he could have easily kept track of her from the next street over.

Wang Yonghao was there, stacking the crates back up, and smiled at her as she came in. “How did the meeting go?” he said.

Qian Shanyi kept her face impassive, and motioned to their sound muffling formation. Wang Yonghao quirked an eyebrow, but followed after.

Once inside, Qian Shanyi took a deep breath, calmly sat down on the ground next to the entrance portal, calmly closed her eyes, buried her face in her hair, and finally let herself scream in terror.

They are fine they have to be fine they have to be that bastard what did he DO how DARE he -

Wang Yonghao was shouting something, but she wasn’t listening, her thoughts spinning in place. Her mind’s eye was filled with the faces of her father and mother, and a thousand thousand brutal images of their deaths, helpfully supplied by her imagination.

He had to be lying. He didn’t say it explicitly. He didn’t. Just a misdirection, it had to be -

She screamed again. It helped a little bit.

Slowly, she pulled her face out of her hair, her breathing panicked and choppy. Wang Yonghao was sitting in front of her, one hand on her shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Wang Yonghao asked. His face was white, terrified.

“I’ll - I’ll explain,” she stuttered in between ragged breaths. She was shivering now, all the built up emotions coursing through her body at once. “But first I need - do you know how to restart a heart, in case of a dantian failure?”

“What?” Wang Yonghao said, his eyes growing to the size of saucers. “Your heart dantian -”

“No,” Qian Shanyi cut him off. “I had to stop my own heart. I can restart it -”

“Why would you -”

“Do you know or not?!” she snapped.

Wang Yonghao swallowed. “I - yes. I know how to do it.”

Qian Shanyi breathed out, clenching her teeth tightly to stop them from chattering. “Good,” she said, laying flat on the ground, just in case. “I’ll restart it. If I pass out and stop breathing, you know what to do.”

She closed her eyes, and focused on her heart. Stopping it was far easier than restarting - the muscles wanted to beat together, and had to all be brought into motion all at once, while she pulled the spiritual energy lattice out at the exact same time. The first time she did this, she made a mistake. Fortunately she never experimented alone, and a fellow disciple saved her life with an appropriate talisman.

She did this twice before already. That her emotions were flying off the handle had to be partly down to the flow of spiritual energy through her heart meridian being affected by what she did.

Last time I kept it going for almost half an hour and it was fine -

She pushed the errant thoughts off to the side, and got to work. With six out of seven of her dantians open, her control over spiritual energy was far better than before. She got it done within a minute, and soon, her heart started to beat the same as always. Given her continuing panic, it meant a mile a minute.

It still hurt as if she was punched in the chest, and she hissed through her clenched teeth. These muscles weren’t meant to ever fully relax.

She’d need a better plan if - when - she met Fang Jiugui again. She couldn’t just walk around town like this.

Qian Shanyi opened her eyes and sat up, massaging her chest. She gave a brief nod to Wang Yonghao, whose services were thankfully not required. “The man we saw fly into the square is a rat-fucking spirit hunter, and he’s after me,” she spat out, trying to get her breathing and natural heartbeat to slow again. “We had a conversation. Had to stop my heart so my heartbeat wouldn’t give my lies away, keep it beating with pure spiritual energy.”

“What?!”

“Calm down,” she said to him as much as herself. She looked over the warehouse room. “How many crates are left?”

“Maybe - maybe about a third? We were just finishing up -”

“Good,” Qian Shanyi said decisively, finally feeling her usual calm start to come back to her, an outline of a plan forming in her mind. “Let’s get this over with. I want us out of this fucking warehouse as soon as possible. As it is, we are like a dozen demon beasts all lined up for a flying sword out here.”

Yep, definitely the meridian at fault. If Fang Jiugui so much as touched a hair on her parent’s heads, she’d skin him alive and use his ligaments for shoelaces.

“But -”

“The crates, Yonghao,” she snapped, getting up off the ground. “Get to it. I’ll explain as we work. Only talk in the formation, that fucker might be lurking right by our door.”

She stopped just at the edge, smoothing out her hair, wiping an errant tear out of the corner of her eye. Breathe in, breathe out. Mask back on.

She stepped through.

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

They worked quickly. All the crates have already been packed and nailed shut, they simply had to pull them back out. They didn’t even need to stack them neatly - the warehouse workers could figure it all out later.

“If he is after you,” Wang Yonghao asked, “why are we still taking the glass?”

“I am not going to fold completely just because some hunter joined the table with a hand he claims is good,” Qian Shanyi blanched. “We worked hard to get this glassware. Even if we have to cut and run, we take it with us.”

“But if he could check the warehouse, look in the crates, see the stones - isn’t it leaving a loophole for him to find?”

“What a stupid question,” Qian Shanyi snapped. “Everything is leaving some kind of loophole. It’s a question of which one is larger. For now, he has no reason to even consider wasting his time on these crates. But if he is nearby now, which is likely, and right after I return, he senses us go through all the crates a second time, what will he think? That there is something worth looking into. I think our current deception can pass a casual examination - but can you vouch that an intense look could not find a single sign the crates were put into your inner world, that the glass wasn’t laid out on the grass, or touched by a jiuweihu? I cannot.”

Two crates were pulled out in silence.

“I am sorry for calling you stupid, it was actually a good question,” Qian Shanyi said. “I am not thinking straight.”

Wang Yonghao gave her a careful look. “And why not?”

Qian Shanyi stayed quiet for a bit. “He mentioned my parents,” she finally said, pausing again to recall Fang Jiugui’s exact words. ”‘The blood and sweat it takes to find this bird can never be unspent. And those of her family - why, the sights I’ve seen at their house, the nightmares of demonic cultivators…’”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she said grimly, “he speaks in a strange manner. It feels familiar somehow, but I can’t quite place it. It’s hard to tell what he means literally and what is just a fanciful saying. And yet.”

Another crate came out, and both of them stayed quiet.

“Even if you aren’t thinking completely straight, I still think you are mostly right. Let’s take the glass.”

“Thanks.”

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

Good, simple work quickly calmed down Qian Shanyi, and by the time they were done with the warehouse, sheets of canvas torn off the windows and the tools put back where they belonged, double-checked against the inventory lists to make sure they did not forget anything, the last traces of her panic were gone.

They quickly headed back to the tavern, to plan and prepare for the future. Their room was much more secure than the one in a warehouse. If nothing else, nobody else had the key to it.

Which brought Qian Shanyi, Linghui Mei and Wang Yonghao together, huddled around a single itemized sheet of paper.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

Qian Shanyi looked over the list she made a second time. They needed to know how Fang Jiugui could have found them, and went through every tracking method they could think of.

And none of them fit.

Fang Jiugui mentioned he was chasing after a fugitive. He said he was from Golden Rabbit Bay himself. Her sect had the means, motive and opportunity to hire a retired spirit hunter to chase her down. So take this as a given. How did he find them?

First, the obvious. On the date of her kidnapping, Wang Yonghao fell into a teleportation formation. This should have cut off any conventional methods of tracking - following footprints, scent trails, and so on.

The next thing to check for were tracking talismans. They were rare, and tended to be highly limited in range, but hypothetically, if one was hidden in Qian Shanyi’s robes… But no. Qian Shanyi wore all new clothes now, and her old ones were torn to scraps. Wang Yonghao meticulously checked over his, and also found nothing. And of course as cultivators, if one was to be somehow implanted in their bodies, they would have known right away.

Qian Shanyi even considered that her sword might have had a talisman built into it, but a careful examination discarded that possibility too.

Long-range techniques were even more of a dead-end. There were some that could detect human beings from far away, with various limitations - but without a talisman to anchor the technique to, they lost their power extremely quickly. Even in the best of circumstances, someone managing to detect her from more than ten kilometers away would beggar belief - and she had never come closer than five hundred kilometers to the Golden Rabbit Bay.

If she was on the run from the imperial palace - perhaps she could imagine some rare artifact or technique that could manage it. But her sect had no such resources.

Next: rumors. Could her sect have simply known of her tribulation, heard her name mentioned by some traveler, perhaps with a bit of helping hand from the Heavens?

All but impossible. From Glass Ridge, Golden Rabbit Bay was a good twelve days of travel away by ship, and her tribulation was less than a week ago. The rumors couldn’t have possibly reached them, not unless someone decided to pay for a voidbird. The only reason for such an expense would be to, perhaps, discuss her tribulation with an expert - but in such a case, they would have obviously included her report, signed as Lan Yishan, not Qian Shanyi.

This brought her to her next idea. Traitors. Her sect should have had no way of knowing where she was. So who did?

Wu Lanhua did, as did Liu Fakuang - she told them where she was heading. If either of them sent a message to her sect - either after she left their ship, or just before - it was possible for it to reach Golden Rabbit Bay in time, and for Fang Jiugui to speed over here on top of a flying sword. Just barely.

It fit the facts, but it still made no sense. What reason would Wu Lanhua have to betray her? They parted on very friendly terms, and her fiance was too oblivious to plan this. She felt, in her heart of hearts, that she had a good read on the pair.

So what was left? Confusing betrayal, or were they missing something?

Qian Shanyi sighed, leaning away from the list they wrote. Idly, she took one of her gloves off, to take a look at her hand. Fang Jiugui was trying to see something, after all… Or was he?

Clean, smooth skin, neither blemish nor hair sticking out. Very conventional style, for a female cultivator, but she never saw the point in going against the fashion on this particular question. Long fingers, nails kept short. Nothing that would have made her hand stand out all that much from the hands of a thousand other women, really.

She turned it over, and the lines on her palm caught her eye. Was that it? There was an old superstition that they could foretell your future, so perhaps they were unique enough to be a hint to her identity. But how could this help Fang Jiugui? It’s not like she had left any palm prints around her sect. No, it must have been something else.

“Mei, tell me,” Qian Shanyi said, still looking her hand over with suspicion she usually reserved for junior disciples caught stealing snacks from the kitchens. “Could you smell the difference between the sweat from my hands and…my neck, let’s say?”

The jiuweihu nodded. “Yes, from up close. Why?”

“The spirit hunter wanted to take a look at my hands, I think,” Qian Shanyi said, pursing her lips. Nothing conclusive. She pulled her glove back on. “I sent a letter to my sect some time ago. I was wondering if he could… track it back, somehow, by scent, and then prove I was myself.”

“If he could,” Linghui Mei said reasonably, “he wouldn’t have needed you to take your gloves off. I could tell it from a step away, at least. But I couldn’t follow the scent of a letter through… boats and dozens of couriers. There is nothing for the scent to catch on. I don’t think anyone could.”

Qian Shanyi sighed in frustration. “Yeah, I expected as much,” she said, then shook her head. “Perhaps I simply made a mistake, and there is nothing there.”

“Why do you even need to know?” Linghui Mei grumbled. “Let’s just flee. He can’t stop us.”

“No,” Qian Shanyi said immediately. “Fleeing is exactly what he wants.”

She ruffled her hair, meeting the confused looks of the others head on. “Think through it carefully,” she said, “why confront me at all, tell me he is looking for me, why mention my parents? I think he was trying to scare me. It makes sense, too - Jian Wei told him off from arresting me in his town, but his jurisdiction only extends so far. If I flee outside of it, Fang Jiugui could just grab me by the throat and drag me right back to Golden Rabbit Bay. No evidence necessary. On foot, we’d never outrun him.”

“Alright,” Linghui Mei said after a moment. “How about -” she made a cutting gesture across her throat. “One cultivator less and the world is better off.”

“No. Building foundation? He’ll kill you faster than you could even get your tails out,” Qian Shanyi said, then turned to Wang Yonghao with a questioning look.

Wang Yonghao got a pained look on his face. “I mean - If I caught him sleeping, maybe?” he said, laughing slightly, looking back at Qian Shanyi. “But we aren’t going to just kill people, right?”

Qian Shanyi chewed on her lip, brows furrowed in concentration.

“Shanyi?” Wang Yonghao asked uncertainly. “Shanyi, please -”

“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” Qian Shanyi snapped. “I was just - considering it.” She shook her head. “It’s a bad idea, in any case. It would be a mess to hide, I think. No, I only see one solution, in the short term.”

She pointed one finger upwards, where the entrance to their world fragment laid closed. “Right now, Fang Jiugui won’t dare touch me because I am under Jian Wei’s protection,” she said, “he will try to gather evidence about me, and then put together a case proving I am his runaway. Before he can manage that - we need a case of our own. Something that would cast doubt on all his assertions.”

She turned to Linghui Mei. “If you can - please find where he stopped for the night. He stonewalled me about it, which means there might be some leverage there. He reeks of some truly disgusting alcohol - his trail won’t be a hard one to follow.” Turning to Wang Yonghao, she continued, “Yonghao. Could you visit that restaurant he landed at, ask the waitresses about the man? Feel free to tell them he seemed to be disturbingly focused on me, and you are a bit worried. In fact, tell them I sent you, but ask to keep my name out of it. It’s always best to get ahead of the rumor mill.”

“I can do that, yeah,” Wang Yonghao said, frowning. “But Mei - it’s too dangerous for her to go out, right? If he spots a third person with us -”

“He won’t,” Qian Shanyi said, shaking her head. “Because I will be heading to the library in Reflection Ridge. Fang Jiugui can’t afford to let me out of his sight for long, lest I slip through the forest and flee, and so he will surely follow. Glaze Ridge should be safe from him in the meantime.”

“And if he comes to talk to me?” Wang Yonghao grumbled. “I can’t lie like you do. I still can’t believe you stopped your own heart.”

“Then vomit on his shoes,” Qian Shanyi suggested casually.

Linghui Mei snorted down a laugh, and Wang Yonghao covered his face in his hands. Qian Shanyi frowned at both of them. “What?” She asked defensively. “It will end the conversation permanently. You can’t talk to him because of his smell, questions over.”

“Nothing, Shanyi. It’s nothing.”

Qian Shanyi snorted. Typical. “And don’t forget to buy some spirit wine for our little late night celebration, while you are at it,” she added.

Wang Yonghao gave her a strange look. “Is now really the time?”

“Now is exactly the perfect time,” she countered, “We do not even know what we are dealing with, so we need a bit of relaxation to get new ideas flowing.” She pursed her lips. “In the meantime, I will head to the library, work on the research for my Jian Shizhe education plan. I can no longer afford to slack off on it. I need some results I could show Jian Wei, and I need them fast. By morning, if I can manage it - or else he’d throw me to the wolves.”

She shared a look with the other two. They both nodded. Wang Yonghao was right, way back then - she didn’t have to do this alone. Even the heaviest boulder could be carried easily by a thousand hands working together.

Qian Shanyi turned away from the table, heading to where her rope harness was laying out on the grass. It was time to get to work.

“There’s just one question,” she muttered to herself, “With only a single night to work with, how do I transform a cockroach into a human being?”