Shin Sumi had thought about it for a long time before they reached Hoyan River. Of course, she wanted to repay Wuije for the trouble she had given him.
She was even more inclined to do so considering the man hadn't hesitated a single second before lying to the guards about her and paying the hefty price of a copper coin for her.
She had seen his days' work being paid by old Ren ten coins and Wuije had already parted with two just entering the city.
Wuije opened his hand, feeling what Shin Sumi had left inside.
It was a pearl, large as a coin and whiter than snow.
"An Empress Tooth!" the man exclaimed, his eyes wide with disbelief. He attempted to push his hand forward in a motion meaning he couldn't accept the gift but Shin Sumi's own small hand retracted promptly, a smile forming on her face.
"Keep it, I have no use for it. This is only a small payment for your hospitality and the trouble I caused you."
Wuije wanted to retort something for a second but eventually closed his mouth after a second of silence. He was smart enough to read Shin Sumi's honest expression.
A smile of gratitude echoed Shin Sumi's own and a small nod expressed his thanks.
"Have a safe journey back to the mountains, I'll be on my way now" Shin Sumi parted ways with the woodworker, making her way through the streets of Hoyan River City.
Pearls white enough to be called Empress Tooth were not that uncommon but the demand of such a luxurious item still made it very valuable. With the one Shin Sumi had given Wuije, the latter would probably be able to spend three to four months without ever looking at his coin purse.
Shin Sumi had bought it from the market of the upper valley in the days previous to her leave. In fact she had bought a few of them, knowing they were a good source of money in the mortal realm.
For the price of a low grade spirit stone, nine Empress Tooth remained in her bag of holding.
In the sect they only served as a vain decoration female disciples liked to add to their hairpin. In the mortal realm, the use was very similar but only reserved to high status women.
For Shin Sumi it meant being able to easily get metal coins for food and other things important to her she had thought about for a long time.
Food was more of a guilty pleasure to Shin Sumi who didn't need it to survive. She didn't need sleep either and wouldn't need to spend money on a room at night. Travelling in Wuije's cart had been nice but terribly slow for Shin Sumi whose legs could be faster than a horse's by using the slightest amount of Shinsoo.
But she definitely needed money for what she had in mind.
She spent the better part of the afternoon walking the streets leisurely, basking in the sun and the anonymity of a large crowd. Asking questions here and there to the few individuals that didn't look at her with lecherous intent, she soon began to build a map of the country in her head. The roads she needed to take, the cities she could stop at and those she could avoid.
She also managed to exchange all of her pearls but one, in a small shady shop far from the main streets of the bustling city. The man she sold the pearls to seemed happy with himself. She had gotten ripped off compared to what she could have fetched for eight precious pearls in a market, but the man also offered discretion and Shin Sumi wanted it more than the money.
Haggling at the open market would surely raise eyebrows. A young girl like her with eight pearls was bound to raise questions. Even after she sold them, a young girl with a lot of money was bound to raise even more unwanted attention.
Shin Sumi then stopped at a few stationary shops, avoiding the open market for now. She bought a dark grey cloak, the kind that was thick but without looking expensive and would hide her face and her silhouette. To compliment her new cloak she also bought a couple of dresses that were more appropriate for a country girl.
Wuije had called her a city lady before with her bright robes but she wanted something more suited for travelling and discretion.
Not changing her clothes yet, Shin Sumi moved to another part of the city. The richer part.
The smell of luxurious spices and fragrant incense soon replaced the smell of the horses and the commoners' market. Shin Sumi couldn't help but feel out of place in a neighborhood like this one.
She quickly entered a shop, then another before finally finding what she wanted in the third one.
Most of the metal coins she had exchanged were gone by the point Shin Sumi left, a smile of contentment on her face.
She left Hoyan River by foot, crossing the long wooden bridge to the other side of the river, the eastern side.
After an hour of two, the main road became more and more empty, the few crossways she had passed thinning the number of carts.
A slight relief progressively went over her face when the sun started setting down. From the obscured valleys of the Dark Sky Starry Sect, she had become more familiar with less light. It would also make her disappear in the shadows more easily.
A faint green glow briefly illuminated the inside of her cloak. Nuan whimpered curiously. The Lion Bat had come out to find herself trapped under the cloth, trying to make sense of the foreign fabric before Shin Sumi helped her out laughing.
"Here you go, girl! You're free as the wind here!"
Out in the open, Nuan opened her black eyes and stretched her wings. She jumped from Shin Sumi's hands to her shoulder, then propping herself upwards by putting a paw on the top of her head.
Nuan sniffed the air, disoriented and confused.
"The Shinsoo out here isn't as good as in the sect, right? It took me a while to get used to it too" Shin Sumi admitted.
To compensate for the lack of ambient Shinsoo, Shin Sumi offered Nuan a few spirit berries. The spirit creature gulped the fruits down ferociously. As she looked for a moment at the tiny pointy teeth and remembered the countless times she had been bitten, Shin Sumi was glad that Nuan was only as long as her arm, from head to tail.
"Nuan, can you show me Elder Zhu's techniques?" Shin Sumi spoke softly, petting the Lion Bat.
Under her hand, a small vortex twisted the yapping beast. By reflex, Shin Sumi retracted her hand. She didn't know what could happen if the vortex touched her. Would it twist her hands into a mush of torn flesh and broken bones?
Shin Sumi shook the grim thought away. Putting the floating book on her lap, she began to flip the pages with her fingers. The bark-like cover felt warm on her knees, and the paper-thin leaves that formed the pages felt frail.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Despite Nuan's growth since she hatched, the book had had no visible change. It made Shin Sumi question Nuan's origin once again, the biggest mystery in her life so far.
Quickly finding what she was looking for at the end of the filled pages, Shin Sumi concentrated.
She would always get lost in her books as soon as her eyes saw written characters. It had always been like that. She didn't even hear the Copper Bell ring once when the night had become too dark for her to read properly and a gentle diffuse light appeared from nowhere just for her eyes.
***
On top of the highest peak of the Dark Sky Starry Sect, an old man was standing, his eyes peering downwards through the clouds, as if they could see past the opaque curse.
"Patriarch," a voice called behind him, "I have retrieved Yunhai's bag of holding. The ceremony is going to begin soon so whatever you wish to do, you should do it now."
Patriarch Sen turned around, thanking the Great Elder of the sect, Chu Xuanba. The bag of holding that once belonged to Elder Zhu floated quickly from one man's hand to the other's.
Chu Xuanba frowned slightly but didn't speak.
"If you have something to say, say it, old friend" the Patriarch sighed.
"Most people would curse at the sight of somebody going through a deceased ally's possessions... It would be best if the bag was cremated along with the body."
Patriarch Sen's eyes darted upwards to meet the stern look and the cold face of the Great Elder before returning to the matter at hand.
"If anything was stolen, we could track Yunhai's killer. I'm only looking for clues and I will return the bag before the ceremony. I will see you there, Great Elder," Patriarch Sen dismissed Chu Xuanba with a wave of his hand.
After another stern look under his eyebrows shaped like swords, the Great Elder turned into a blur and left the mountain top.
Patriarch Sen relaxed. Part of it was due to Chu Xuanba leaving, part of it was because he couldn't find any clues incriminating Shin Sumi. Had he found some, he would have lied of course but a Ghost had to cover their traces.
After a brief second, his divine sense fell upon the scrolls and spirit jades. One of Patriarch Sen's eyebrows curved upwards.
"Strange," he muttered before opening one of the scrolls, his eyes widening slightly more for every scroll he opened.
"How peculiar... They are all empty."
***
Shin Sumi forced herself away from the book on her lap. She had started reading, hiding behind a tree, in order to wait for the night to cover the land.
Her eyes were still bright with the flame of knowledge inside her. She had been close to getting a grasp on the first technique from Elder Zhu's bag of holding, however with her experience she knew that she needed more time.
She decided to let the words, runes and impressions the page had given her run wild in her mind while she travelled. At the same time, her Shinsoo Sea was churning lazily.
Normally, Shin Sumi wouldn't have been able to run at full speed while meditating, but the lack of strength of the muddy Shinsoo in this part of the mortal realm made it more than easy to cultivate while moving.
When the pink rays of morning sun appeared in front of her, she had covered more ground than a horse pulling a cart could hope to achieve in a day and a night.
She hadn't yet slowed down, her cloak fluttering straight behind her, but a distant noise forced her to stop her running and walk like a mortal.
"Sir messenger, how long is it until Chen Fort?" she asked the man riding his horse when he finally closed the distance between them.
On his saddle were two heavy leather bags, one on each side, and a rolled up blanket at the back. Messengers were easy to recognize, always carrying news and deliveries between cities, sometimes sleeping on their horse or the side of the road.
The sight of the strong looking man reminded Shin Sumi of the day she had left East Seaside Village. A man just like this one had scared her away from the road at night.
She smiled to herself just before the man replied, knowing how foolish she had been at the time.
"On foot? Maybe two hours," the man scratched his beard while thinking.
"Are you coming from the Silver Sea Region?" Shin Sumi continued. The man nodded.
"Is the road to East Silver City good?"
The man nodded once again, eyeing her in a strange way. She looked no older than sixteen or seventeen and from the questions she asked she wanted to walk all the way across half a region.
If East Silver City was her destination, she was looking for at least two weeks of walking. More than what a lady's legs could usually afford.
But Shin Sumi didn't look like a lady. With her simple grey cloak she looked like any farmer's girl. Pretty but unsophisticated.
However farmer girls didn't tend to travel very far.
His mind full of confusion, the messenger shook his thoughts away, telling her roughly the distance she would face between here and her destination.
They soon parted ways, Shin Sumi walking with determination. The horse rider made a mental note to himself to inquire about a missing young girl or concubine to the lords of the next city he would stop at.
Confident there was no other person nearby on the road, Shin Sumi accelerated. She looked calm and for a second an onlooker would have thought she was simply walking when in fact each step of hers covered more distance than a grown man running at full speed would.
Chen Fort was two hours away but Shin Sumi passed the guard outpost twenty minutes after she had met the messenger.
She found a clear water fountain to refill a small gourd she carried in her bag of holding. At this time of the morning, the markets were still asleep and people were not yet out on the streets.
Hesitating for a short time, Shin Sumi allowed Nuan to come out. The Lion Bat splashed in the water for a few seconds while she filled her gourd. After motioning to the spirit creature, Nuan disappeared inside Shin Sumi's wrist again.
Shin Sumi drank a few gulps of fresh water, feeling Nuan's powers still lingering in the liquid. The dull headache that had begun in the night slowly faded away.
Shin Sumi breathed slowly.
"Immortals don't get headaches like that yet it is the second time it has happened to me in less than five days," she muttered.
Probing her body with her divine sense, she didn't find anything out of the norm. Having no choice other than ignoring it, she shrugged and continued walking until she reached the outskirts of the city on the eastern side.
Patiently, she walked along the side of the main road, waiting for the night to come and the passing of carts and horse riders to become more sparse.
An entire day would seem like a long time but for Shin Sumi it passed like a breath of time. Focusing inward, she spent the day focusing on meditating despite the poor amount of Shinsoo as well as reviewing in her head the techniques she had been trying to comprehend the night before.
For four nights and four days, Shin Sumi alternated between walking when passersby were there and running like a shadow under the cover of darkness.
The sun was only starting to set when she spotted the sparse lights of a city in the distance.
Shin Sumi breathed a sigh of relief, a long breath of mixed emotions. Melancholy, excitation, nervousness and even a tinge of anxiousness.
"East Silver City, the Big City where Second Uncle lives" she spoke softly, just for herself.
With a strange twist of her mind, Shin Sumi chuckled despite herself.
"It took me three years to walk to the Big City from East Seaside Village. I have to be the slowest walker in all of the realms."
Shin Sumi was standing on top of a small hill, on the side of the road, peering intently towards the city lights. In her memory East Silver City had always been the Big City, the largest city she had ever known. Now that she was older, taller and more knowledgeable about the world, she realized how foolish she had been.
From one side of the city to the other, the entire area was barely bigger than the upper valley of the Dark Sky Starry Sect. Granted, for a mortal it was large, spanning a few kilometers in every direction, but it was in no way gigantic.
As her face laced with emotions looked forward under her cloak, a crystalline sound rang in her ears. In the span of a few breaths her face turned stern as her lips became redder, her eyebrows thinner and her cheeks higher.
When the girl in the cloak finally decided to stop staring and sit down on the ground, Yan Yan's face had taken over her own.
"Come out Nuan, we're stopping for the night here, there is no use in advancing at night anymore."
The Lion Bat flashed outside of the leaf pattern on her wrist and immediately looked at her. Nuan was not very expressive, her black eyes unreadable most of the time, but Shin Sumi still felt the question.
"I need to become Yan Yan because I don't know if my parents are still looking for me after all these years. Disappearing people are not that common and I wouldn't be surprised if a merchant walking on this road recognized me as a picture he's seen placated on the walls somewhere," she hesitated before adding "and I can't definitely go to the library as myself."
Nuan expression didn't fade away, because there was no expression on her face to begin with. Shin Sumi gently petted the Lion Bat, "It's true, I might be a bit scared to do this. I'm afraid I would be recognized... Or that I wouldn't."
Falling into a long drawn silence, Shin Sumi's hand pet Nuan mechanically until the tiny beast flapped her wings around, flying awkwardly around at the height of a person and attempting to survey the area.
That night, Shin Sumi didn't meditate. She didn't sleep either. She simply sat there, her back against a tree, occasionally looking towards the city with reminiscence in her eyes.
No one knows what thoughts crossed her mind that night.