David

David and Alice stood together by the front mast of Jing's ship, looking in that moment as though they belonged in that world. She was wearing her guqin on her back once more, ready to disembark. On her hip was the saber that Wen still looked at longingly once in a while.

David was holding his flute, which he now could play, had he known any music for it. Even if they had remembered to take the book of flute scores from the Falling Leaves with them, neither of them would be able to read it. He considered practicing more, but their surroundings had caught his interest entirely.

A wave of noise rose around them as they sailed into Ping'an. A knot of tension in his stomach that David didn't realize he had been holding onto loosened. This was a city - a real city. Cloud Mountain City was just a village pretending.

There was shouting, food and difficult lives. There was love, success and death. It was the closest thing to home that he'd seen so far. The roads, which had been varieties of packed earth, were now paved with cobblestones. A man played an erhu on a roof. The instrument, which was a fiddle held upright on the musician's lap, had three strings - one more than usual.

Jing offered everything he knew about Ping’an to David and Alice, who were both fascinated. Wen continued to pace. He was in a good mood.

Ping'an had no walls around its population of four hundred thousand. The array of rivers, streams and brooks did not just surround the city - they were the city, which had grown over them.

Ping'an was not an accident. This juncture of Sky River bulged, widening to the size of a lake. It split around a small island that had once been the ancestral home of the Jiang family.

The sails of Jing's ship had been furled carefully, even though the current had become listless. The ship cut through the water at an aching pace that some pedestrians along the shore had matched. There were too many ships around to go faster, anyhow.

Rowboats darted amongst the ships, headed over the lake, carrying passengers. It must have been a taxi service of some kind - the sure, experienced rowers were studiously ignored by the passengers. David witnessed the beginnings of a minor catastrophe more than once in a few scant minutes, but somehow the rowboats always managed to squeeze through without ever causing an accident.

A ship with two decks which blocked their view straight ahead turned off towards a dock and the island was suddenly visible. On it, there was an enormous gate with a stone slab proclaiming Jiang above it - but nothing but the gate. Behind the gate was an enormous pillar, the height of thirty men.

From their current distance, the pillar seemed thin but David knew otherwise. Even from nearly a mile away, he could see the carving of a flower he almost recognized at the top of the cylindrical block of stone.

"What's that?" Alice asked Jing, pointing at the pillar, which rose three times as tall as any building they could see.

"The stone? It's a monument," said Jing. "The island it's on is the ancestral home of the Jiang family. No one lives there anymore but they still use it for official business. It's said that there's a source of natural qi on that island that matches the spirit springs you might find in a great sect."

Alice frowned. "But people don't go there to cultivate. Otherwise, there would have been more Jiangs who formed cores."

Jing nodded. "Exactly. The Jiang Patriarch built this city and placed his family in power, but under their breath, they curse his name because of that pillar."

Wen gave the pillar a contemplative stare. "It can't be that hard to dig under it, can it? It's just stone, after all."

Jing scoffed. "As if anyone would dare. Old Jiang's wife was his martial aunt, who raised him from a young age. She was already Severing when he formed his core - before he had become a man. But it was true love, so they married one another and ran from their sect."

He had a bit of a dopey grin. "If only I could find a woman like that."

Alice folded her arms.

"Don't look at me like that," said Jing. "Some men want a woman old enough to tell them stories and help with their cultivation."

His eyebrows danced and his matted black hair fell in front of his face. Alice sniffed angrily. She turned to David, who was nodding along because Jing hadn't said anything wrong. She got angrier.

"I tell the best stories."

"Sure you do," said Jing. Wen found this very funny. David did as well. Some things were just too funny not to laugh at.

"Anyway, according to legend, Patriarch Jiang scattered her ashes into the spirit spring, clapped his hands and that pillar rose into the air, already carved with the first flower he had given her. When he ascended, he faced his Heavenly Tribulation standing on the pillar. Love before all, the sort of dream an immortal can have. His family's never forgiven him."

Wen sneered. "Simply the excuses of the mediocre. He didn't need the spirit spring to form his core. Of course someone like that wouldn't return to a lower realm for a core formation ceremony. He probably found another wife and has a new, better family."

David didn't like that much. But even if he took a new wife, Patriarch Jiang was still a better man than David's own father. At least his wife had died.

"I wouldn't say that so loudly around these parts," Jing warned Wen. Wen looked around, as did David.

They'd made it to where the river widened. The Outer City dwarfed the island in size, surrounding it on all sides with nearly forty docks pointing towards the Inner City. The city was split into four quadrants, all of which, at least from the river, seemed to have few streets and many waterways.

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"They call Ping'an the City of Canals," said Jing. "A city of culture. A city of love."

Alice seemed to really hate that.

In front of them were ships and boats of all shapes and sizes, all headed for one of the two visible docks on the Inner City.

"Is it supposed to be this crowded?" asked David.

Jing shook his head. "I've never seen it like this before. There's usually only one or two ships on Sky River and many docked."

It was at that moment that a worker caught their attention from a dock on the Outer City. "Are you here on delivery? Delivery for Jiang? Delivery?" he shouted over the din.

Jing shouted back affirmatively.

"What are you delivering?" the man screamed.

"Wine!"

"Left dock. Left! Left!" He continued to shout until he saw the ship begin to turn. The worker continued to shout, this time at the boat behind them.

Fortunately, the left dock was both the larger one and the less crowded of the two. It appeared that most of the deliveries made here were for perishable goods, or delicate ones. As ships approached the dock, workers tossed enormous bundles of ropes onto any boat or ship with a mast.

Jing and David looped the rope thrown to them around both masts and Jing tied a rather complicated knot.

"When they pull the ship, this knot will tighten like a noose. Easy to untie afterwards, though," he explained. "You just have to push it through and it'll unravel."

It was clear that not everyone had that sort of foresight judging from the loud cursing and ships that suddenly began to list in different directions as they were pulled into shore. The workers cursed at the ship captains who shouted back at them and gestured rudely. No fights broke out - a miracle given the sort of things which had been said.

David soon discovered the source of this miracle. It wasn't a team of workers pulling on the ropes to forcibly dock the tied ships as David expected but a single middle aged woman. She was wearing a powder blue robe similar to his own and a white bib of some sort over it with a single word stitched on in red. Jiang.

She also wore an expression of utmost boredom and disdain, as her eyes flickered around as though all the sailors and any passengers they had were particularly large insects.

Wen stared at her, trying to judge her worth. "Foundation Establishment," he decided, then went back to pacing on the deck of the ship. Wen had a low opinion of people who were not Wen and an especially low opinion of cultivators who were less talented than him.

They were next. The woman gripped the rope with both hands and David heard that muted sound of the Song rise within her - but it was listless and lifeless. The rope went as taut as the woman's muscles. She gave a mighty heave and pulled them to the dock. Water splashed onto the deck but only by the steering wheel where Jing was standing.

The woman didn't apologize and Jing didn't expect her to. "What's the shipment?"

"Fifteen jugs of sorghum wine," said Jing, looking and smelling a bit like a wet dog - and just as enthusiastic.

"Sorghum wine?" the woman asked. Her face was unreadable. She strode forward to step onto the ship.

Jing nodded enthusiastically. "I was told I'd be paid five and a half taels for each jug."

The woman had found her way onboard. She inspected the jugs carefully. "But why would anyone buy this much sorghum wine?" She was not speaking to any of them but Jing was willfully unaware because he believed he had discovered a kindred spirit.

"It's disgusting, isn't it?" Jing's smile widened. "But an honored guest must really enjoy it."

The woman wasn't listening but she must have heard the words because there was a sudden bloom of realization on her face. "This is for the Patriarch."

And then the Song rose from her again - unsteady and wild, agitated. It seemed to be strong, but there was a hollow quality to it. It was flat like notes missing overtones and empty like chords missing notes. David frowned.

But it did not stop her from exacting her punishment onto the carefully packed pewter, each jug with straw in the spaces where they made contact with one another. The woman smashed one jug after another, with a furious animal anger.

Jing did not say a word. When Wen opened his mouth, the glare that Jing threw him silenced him immediately.

When but a single jug remained, she hoisted it up and threw it overboard, where it sank into the river.

She was out of breath - but it wasn't from the exertion, rather, it was from her rage. "You may have fifty taels as compensation," she bit out. She looked around, hoping there would be more jugs for her to destroy.

There was a bit of murder in the air - heavy and deep and disconcertingly potent. Jing was still as stone, his head bowed. But the feeling hadn't come from him.

It was Alice.

"Honored Jiang, I purchased them for four taels apiece from the south, all the way up Sky River," Jing finally said. That was a mistake.

The woman trained a pair of beady eyes on him - bloodshot with fury.

"It seems you do not know what generosity is," said the woman, breathing heavily between every word. "You will get nothing. Leave, or-"

She didn't finish her threat, choosing to pick up a large piece of pewter from the deck. She crushed it into dust between her fingers, then hopped off the boat. Instead of requesting the return of the rope, she produced a knife from within the folds of her robe and cut it free with a lopping motion.

The woman then placed a foot on the ship and forced them off the dock with an almighty shove towards the Outer City.

Jing steered wordlessly toward an uncrowded dock.

"Is there a reason we shouldn't kill her?" Alice asked. Her words were bright and cheerful but David heard the sound of silkworms and the murder in the air thickened.

Jing did not respond.

"I'm being entirely serious," whispered Alice, showing a bit of it in her voice. She tapped the hilt of her sword. Wen was doing the same. He looked very excited. David knew Alice had never killed anyone before - and if he were a betting man, he'd claim Wen hadn't done so either.

He'd also never seen Alice this angry before. There was a sort of beauty to it - ethereal and absolute. David would have to stop her.

Jing did not turn to face them but he did speak.

"I envy you," Jing said quietly. No other ships were docked here, so he could be heard easily.

"You are able to do what you want. To kill who you want. To bear no insults because you carry the sword of heaven with every word."

Jing took a deep breath.

"To pour silver onto my deck like water, to have never eaten a dried out bun. To have the right to spite karma, to never bow, and to never allow the stars to decide where you belong."

The ship touched the dock with a small thud. Jing dropped his anchor and then hopped off the deck and onto the dock, with the length of rope that had been his only payment for transporting fifteen jugs of wine that he had bought with his own money. He tied the ship to the dock.

Wen left immediately and Jing wandered off as well without a care for the mess of pottery and sorghum wine that slowly seeped into the wood.

After Jing was gone from sight, Alice sat on the deck, with her back hidden to the world by the hull. The buildings here were not tall enough for anyone standing on a roof to see anything but a hint of her dark hair.

David watched Alice count out a hundred taels and slipped it under Jing's blanket.

They, too, left without a word.