Path, Clan, Nation, Ruler, and then Elder. These are the things any person, not just cultivators, should hold to. Keep your path as your foremost priority and even the most pacifist of merchants can achieve unimaginable heights. But forsake your elders and you throw away the wisdom of an entire life, lived well or not, that someone accumulated for you to learn from. – Liu Xing of the Jade Scales, Elder of Papers.

* * *

Hanako smiled widely at the little girl. “I think we can arrange that. When we get back, though, will you help me do some cleaning? Some of the linens need to be changed in the house, and I just haven’t had the time to do it.”

“Yep,” Xinya agreed. I smiled at the two, thinking that Hanako was an excellent mother figure to the little girl.

The bell in the front room rang again. Hanako squeezed Xinya’s hands gently before standing. Before her sleeves fell over her hands, though, the apothecary subtly waved for me to follow. I nodded back before standing and stretching. As I did, I pulled a strand of hair from Chiho’s tight grasp, and the pin flew into a flurry of angry trills and whistles.

“Easy, easy! You’ll put someone’s eye out flying around in here,” I protested. “Wait here, Meimei. I’ll be back when Chiho stops fussing.”

I made a show of trying to catch the flying pin as we joined Hanako in the front. To my surprise, Tenri was leaning against the front counter, despite the sun still being high in the sky.

“What are you doing here?” I asked softly, trying not to let Xinya hear.

“What? I’m not allowed to come see my wife after work?” he asked.

“Given that you never get off work before the moon is high in the sky…” I let the sentence hang. Tenri adjusted his glasses and smiled.

“Well, I do believe you both have been telling me to take a break for quite a while. Why not now?”

I spun around the counter to stand next to him before nudging him playfully. “Look, Hanako, our Tenri is all grown up and setting his own boundaries.”

“I’m so proud,” she added with a mischievous smile. Tenri’s ears began to turn red.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he muttered, but we just stared at him. In the months since regaining my freedom, this was the first time I’d ever seen him take the afternoon off, let alone a whole day. It took him being bedridden and half-dead to get him to ditch work. It was no way to live.

Hanako placed her hands over his and smiled more warmly this time. “Genuinely, I feel like the luckiest woman alive to have you come see me. Perhaps you can help with a little mystery we just received?” Tenri cocked his head in confusion and Hanako gestured for me to explain.

I sighed. “I just brought Xinya in with injuries on her wrists.” Tenri stood up straight in alarm, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing serious. Someone took a discipline switch to her, and she won’t tell me who. She’s insisting that she tripped.”

“She doesn’t want to be a snitch,” Hanako offered gently. “But, I have no such qualms. I will point fingers. Lin, it’s your mother.”

“Why would my mother discipline Xinya?” he asked, brow wrinkled in concern. “She always seems so happy to see her.”

“When you and Tsuyuki are around, yes.” Her expression darkened with concern and she looked away. “When you’re both away, though, she gets irritable. It’s mostly with me, but Xinya is not exempt either.”

“You still haven’t said why.”

Hanako looked conflicted, and I didn’t envy the position she was in. In this part of the world, a good wife was meant to submit to her in-laws. Hanako was more spirited than most, and the fact that she and Tenri had no children was an act of defiance against the cultural norms already. Standing against her mother-in-law would spawn rumors that would bring her virtuous spirit into question. It could ruin her and her family, especially since she was married to such a high-profile man as Tenri. In the end, though, she took a deep breath before speaking extremely softly.

“She’s jealous,” she said simply.

“Jealous? Of Xinya?” I asked incredulously. “Xinya is nine!”

“No, she’s jealous of you. Xinya just so happens to be attached to you.”

I flinched. In a sick, twisted way, there was sense to her words. I was not ignorant of the rumors in town that swirled around Tenri and I. I was a mysterious man who’d appeared out of nowhere before introducing myself as Tenri’s core-sworn brother, despite only knowing the man for a few weeks. To the rest of town, it looked as if we were sneaking off to frolic in the woods together. Since our beast hunts took us to the forests together for business reasons, the rumors only grew.

The other night, after everyone had gone to bed, Hanako, Tenri, and I had laughed about them over a jug of liquor. It was the idle gossip of fisher folk, and nothing we could do would change that. I lived in Tenri’s home, was close friends with his wife, and trained my disciple in his courtyard.

“She has been getting restless with her desires for grandchildren,” Hanako continued. “The fact that Lin seems to be favoring you over me is a threat to that desire.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“If it’s not prying, why don’t you two have children?” I asked. “You’ve been married for, what? Two years?”

“Almost three,” Hanako corrected. “It’s my fault. When I was born, my mother had a vision that my first child would grow up motherless and lead a life of suffering.” She looked down. “I…I can’t bring myself to create a life like that. Lin respects that and has never touched me. I can’t tell his mother because…”

“Because she’ll accuse you of being selfish,” I finished. My distaste for Madam Tenri was growing with every word spoken, but I forced a mischievous smile. “If you’re looking for volunteers, though, I can be your child. I already grew up motherless and led a life of suffering!”

Hanako tried to stifle a laugh. “Mind your manners, Little Ru-ru, or I’ll send you to bed without dinner.” I stuck out my tongue.

“I’ll have a word with Mother,” Tenri promised. “Please, Tsuyuki, accept my apologies for letting this situation go unnoticed and unresolved. Your disciple was injured because of my incompetence.” He bowed politely, but I waved a dismissive hand.

“I can hardly blame you. I didn’t notice either until today.”

However, a concern raised in my heart. Even with Tenri’s help, Xinya might not be safe. Jealousy was a powerful motivator. We might buy some time, but eventually, she would retaliate again. She couldn’t move against me directly, doing so would be suicidal. Were I any other cultivator, even harming my disciple would be foolish, and it was only out of respect for Tenri himself that I didn’t take things into my own hands.

That said, Xinya didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Perhaps it was time to find our own way in the world. If we found our own lodging, then it would remove Xinya from Madam Tenri’s reach while dissipating the rumors that inflamed her jealousy in the first place.

But…where would we go? Her father’s home had passed to her after his death, but we hadn’t been back since returning to Saikan. It had taken a week for Xinya to work up the courage just to visit Lang Tailyn’s grave, let alone return to the home where they’d lived happily for so long. Grief was heavy in the little girl’s heart, and I didn’t want to push her too far.

Perhaps we could stay with Xi Qian at the lighthouse? It was remote, and would make for a quiet place to train, but most of the building was still in need of repairs before it could be habitable. Xi had been working hard, but progress was slow. We would be a burden if we stayed with him.

In the end, we’d need somewhere else. Until I could think of something, I’d just have to make sure not to leave Xinya alone. I could manage that much.

“Any news from the Lunar Hunt?” I asked. Tenri shook his head.

“No, which worries me. Shen Yaoxan won’t take defeat laying down,” he said. I nodded in agreement.

“At least there are two of us this time,” I offered.

“I don’t suppose you could teach me how you managed to take him and five of his men all by yourself?”

“Centuries of practice, friend. But, if you want, we can start preparing for you to advance to Silver.” I laughed sheepishly and patted his shoulder.

A thread of blue-tinted silver darted from my fingertips to Tenri. I pulled back, startled by the transfer of qi. I hadn’t summoned any technique, nor would I ever use such a thing on Tenri. As quickly as it appeared, the trace vanished, and I questioned if I’d even seen it at all.

“Let me settle into Iron first,” he relented. “Seeing qi takes some getting used to. It’s kind of distracting.”

Maybe the thread of qi was my imagination after all. Tenri hadn’t seen it, after all. Then again, his vision was poor to start with. Perhaps he just hadn’t noticed it.

“Very well, I can teach you some ways to more efficiently use qi, but I don’t know if it’ll work with wood qi.” Better not to worry him with the idle conjurations of my mind. Everything would be fine, I was sure.

“I look forward to it.”

Jaili returned to the front with Xinya a moment later. The little girl was all patched up and was wearing a smile as she fingered several candies given to her by the apothecary.

“All good to go,” she reported. “Just make sure to watch your step.” Xinya bowed politely.

“Thank you, Miss Zhao.”

“Why don’t you to go on ahead?” Hanako said. “I have a few things to finish up.” But, her sister shook her head, pushing her towards the door as well.

“Nonsense,” said Jaili. “Go have fun with your family. I’ll finish up here.”

“But!”

“No buts! Go! Shoo!”

Without any further remarks, Jaili shooed all four of us out the door. Xinya and Hanako shared a look before dissolving into giggles. The older woman knelt next to the girl.

“So, chicken dumplings, yes? Do you think we should let the boys have any?”

Xinya shook her head. “Nope! They can starve.”

“Quite right,” Hanako agreed as she took the girl’s hand and began walking away. Tenri and I followed.

“The care and affection you show for your master is touching, Meimei,” I noted with a wry smile. The girls just giggled more.

We set off for the market. The girls rushed ahead, picking out the groceries that would become the night’s meal before leaving Tenri and I to carry their bags.

“What mighty cultivators we are,” Tenri muttered with a laugh.

“Believe it or not, playing pack mule is something I’m quite familiar with,” I told him. “My sisters used to do this, too.”

“You don’t much talk about your family. I’m not sure I knew you even had sis-” Before he could finish the thought, the blue-silver thread flashed before my eyes, darting around Tenri’s feet. His foot came down on a stray rock, throwing him off balance.

I leapt forward, snatching his hand out of the air to steady him. Several of the groceries hit the ground, but at least, he was still on his feet. Though a normal tumble couldn’t hurt him at Iron, that thread of qi…my qi…was very clearly hostile. Without knowing more about what it was supposed to do, I wasn’t taking chances.

Eyes burned into us from all sides. I held Tenri in my grasp until he was able to get his feet back under him. When he was standing again, he removed his glasses to clean them, as he often did when flustered.

“Thanks,” he answered. “I didn’t see it.”

“It’s fine...anytime.”

Tenri replaced his glasses and peered at the rock. “The street sweepers must have missed it. I’ll have to have a word with them.” He paused, his brow wrinkling into a frown. “Do you see that?”

I knelt. The rock was trembling, and the brown haze of earth qi that lay within the earth quivered.

Then I felt it. The ground began to shake.

“Earthquake?” Tenri asked, his eyes darting around to find Xinya and Hanako. They were rushing over.

Soon, everyone in the market felt the earth heaving beneath us. Villagers shouted as they tried to secure their belongings, but it didn’t feel like an earthquake. In the Labyrinth, I’d experienced many earthquakes over the course of millennia, but this felt nothing like those.

This had a pattern, a rhythm.

“Hooves,” I said, finally recognizing the thundering gate. “Many hooves.”