Awareness comes slowly, like fog lifting before the morning sun.

The first sense to clear is my qi sense, sharper and wider in range than ever before, and I immediately pinpoint two familiar qi signatures nearby.

The first, weaker and with a strange… unformed feeling to it, is right beside me: Meng Yi. Sitting by my bedside, no doubt.

The other, fierce, powerful, though dwarfed now by mine even though she still technically surpasses me in cultivation, approaches from some distance away: Xiuying.

My sense of touch begins to awaken too, making me feel both of Meng Yi’s hands holding one of mine, and the cloud-like softness of my bed beneath me.

Hearing follows as I pick up the quiet sound of the door opening, and Xiuying’s soft footfalls as she makes her way to my bedside.

“Still not awake, huh?” Xiuying asks softly. “Can’t blame him, I guess. If I advanced three layers and a phase, I’d want my beauty sleep too.”

“Don’t bother,” Meng Yi says, voice just as soft as Xiuying’s. “No amount of sleep is fixing that thing you call a face.”

To my surprise, Xiuying actually snorts in amusement. “You’re such a bitch,” she says without real heat.

“Simply doing my best to keep you humble,” Meng Yi jokes, and both women settle into silence for a few moments.

By now, the activity around me has well and truly pulled me from unconsciousness, and I’m just about to open my eyes when Xiuying’s next words cause me to keep them closed and eavesdrop instead.

“You look like his wife,” she says.

I practically hear Meng Yi’s blink at the other woman’s words. “Do I?” she asks.

“You know you do,” Xiuying answers.

“Do I?” Meng Yi asks again, a smile in her tone this time.

“His family is never going to let him marry you. You know that right?” Xiuying says, completely surprising me, because I hadn’t known that was something anybody had thought about. “They probably won’t even accept you as a concubine.”

The ruffle of cloth and the movement of Meng Yi’s hands in mine suggest that she shrugs. “Maybe,” she says.

“So, that’s it?” Xiuying asks after a moment, sounding like she can’t wrap her head around it. “You’re still willing to warm his bed? Bear his children? After he raped you for years?”

I feel Meng Yi’s grip tighten momentarily in mine. I almost squeeze back.

“You can’t take what was given,” Meng Yi says simply.

“Given? Is that what you tell yourself?” Xiuying asks. “That you gave yourself to him?”

Meng Yi’s grip tightens again, and while as brief as the last time, she squeezes a lot harder. Hard enough that, if it weren’t for my cultivator physique, I’m pretty sure I’d be needing a trip to the hospital to put that hand back together.

Her control is slipping.

What the hell is Xiuying doing asking her these questions?

“Maybe it is,” Meng Yi says. “But that is irrelevant. Young Master Xian is not that man.”

“No,” Xiuying agrees, “but he bears his face.” She pauses, and, though unwitting, it only serves to make her words hit me harder. “You deserve better.”

Meng Yi laughs. “Better?” she asks like Xiuying is delusional. “Better than what? Than the man who has shown me and you nothing but support and compassion? Better than the man who I know is willing and able to protect and care for me and mine? A man who has won my loyalty and respect in the short time I’ve known him? Tell me, Xiuying, who is this mysterious, better man you speak of, and where can he be found?”

Silence reigns in the room following Meng Yi’s words, and I feel a warm glow bloom in my chest that has nothing to do with my cultivation.

“I’m not questioning his character,” Xiuying says finally. “I’m just…” she trails off.

“You’re what?” Meng Yi pushes.

Silence again, and I lie there, my ears straining for information.

“He’s in the Sprouting phase now,” Xiuying says, voice soft. “A noble rank cultivator. And who knows what other treasures he still has from that Hidden Realm.”

“You said, not even a week ago, that you trust him,” Meng Yi says, reminding Xiuying of her words to me on the morning we’d told her about my subjugation technique.

“And I stand by that,” Xiuying says. “I trust him.”

The emphasis she put on the last word doesn’t escape me, but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what she’s implying.

Meng Yi must be in the same boat, because she asks, “What are you saying?”

“What if his enlightenment fades?” Xiuying asks.

“That’s impossible,” Meng Yi says promptly.

“How do you know?” is Xiuying’s response. “Are you an expert on enlightenment? Or celestial plums?”

Meng Yi has no counter to that, and Xiuying uses the opportunity her silence presents to continue.

“What if whatever the plum did is temporary?” she says. “What if he gets his memories back tomorrow and he decides he preferred the man he used to be? What do we do then?” A weighty pause. “Yi, Xian Qigang cannot have this power,” Xiuying states resolutely.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“So, what are you saying,” Meng Yi asks, “that we should kill Young Master Xian in his sleep because he might revert to what he was?”

“What? No! Of course not.”

“Then what should we do about it?” Meng Yi pushes, and, unable to hold back anymore, I say, “You don’t need to do anything,” as I open my eyes.

Xiuying’s gaze shifts to me in surprise, but Meng Yi’s only reaction is a calm “Good morning, Young Master,” and I can’t help but wonder whether that’s a result of her composed nature, or if she’d somehow known I was awake this entire time.

Deciding that it doesn’t really matter one way or another, I return to the topic at hand.

“You don’t need to do anything,” I repeat. “Qigang isn’t coming back. If you trust me, then trust that the only way he’s doing so is over dead body.”

I hadn’t meant it as such, but Xiuying looks chastised by my words.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not that I doubt you, I’m just...” she trails off, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to finish the sentence.

So I finish it for her. “You’re scared.”

Xiuying looks at me, her normally fierce, brown eyes heavy with shame.

Seriously? Does she really consider having such a practical fear something shameful?

I mean, look how much harm Qigang caused as a peasant rank cultivator. Honestly, I don’t even want to imagine what he would do with power like mine.

And that’s before I take her history with Qigang into account.

No, Xiuying has every right to be afraid.

And while it is true that fear left unchecked is poison to the mind, in the right amount, it’s called caution, and caution has probably saved more lives than penicillin.

Clearly, not everyone feels the same way, because, to my great surprise, Meng Yi says, “Your fear is pointless. In fact, this conversation is largely pointless. Because, even before he attained real power as a cultivator, neither you nor I could do anything against Xian Qigang.

“You may think you could,” Meng Yi continues, staring at Xiuying. “Like when you told him that you would beat him to death regardless of what his family would do to you. I’m sure that felt good for you, but when he came home that night, furious and bitter, I’m the one who played on his pride to talk him out of sending assassins after you. I’m the one who convinced him, that, one day, very soon, his family would recognize his genius, and they would give him a cultivation method befitting him, and then he would have you worshipping at his feet. I’m the one, Xiuying, who he choked into unconsciousness while he fucked me on this very bed, no doubt envisioning your face as he did so.

“You were always powerless against Xian Qigang. I could barely control him, so do not pretend like anything has changed,” Meng Yi finishes, breath heavy and eyes misty.

In the heavy silence following her words, I say, “I want a new bed.”

Both women turn to me, my words taking a moment to compute.

“What?” Meng Yi asks.

“I want a new bed,” I repeat, already rolling off the damn thing.

As soon as my feet touch the ground, I grab the mattress, too disgusted with it to have it in this room even one second longer.

I lift the huge mattress with ease, the covers coming with it while pillows scatter everywhere, and both women watch silently as I take it out through the huge doors to the balcony and toss it over the railing.

Since my house sits atop one of the many cliffs in the area, and since my bedroom’s balcony juts out over the edge, the bed falls a long way before crashing to the rocky ground far below.

“Pretty sure that bed is a year’s pay for me,” Xiuying says, both women having come to peer over the balcony’s edge beside me.

“Meng Yi,” I say, and both women look at me. “I will slit my throat, before I let him take this body,” I promise, meaning every word.

Meng Yi’s eyes soften, a rare flicker of vulnerability crossing her visage. “I believe you,” she says.

“Good. Cause I mean it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Xiuying says to Meng Yi. “If I’d known I…”

“It would have changed nothing,” the shorter woman says simply.

That seems like a hard pill for Xiuying to swallow, but she forces herself to. “Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t. To be honest, I would probably have made it worse.”

She looks so miserable admitting that, and Meng Yi’s agreeing “Probably,” definitely doesn’t help.

“I’m sorry, Yi,” she says.

Meng Yi nods quietly, accepting the apology.

I sigh. “Qigang, Qigang, Qigang. Everywhere I look, that bastard’s hand taints everything. Even my own cultivation taunts me with his memory.”

“What do you mean?” Meng Yi asks me, her and Xiuying watching me curiously.

I scowl, the memory of that asshole enough to sour my already rotten mood. “The Sun Emperor, the guy I’ve been having cultivation visions about, I met him. He’s an asshole,” I tack on, needing to let that be known.

“You met the spirit of your cultivation?” Xiuying asks slowly.

“I guess? Is that a big deal?” I ask, though her reaction tells me that yes, it is a very big deal.

“Maybe he achieved congruence?” Meng Yi asks Xiuying, though she sounds doubtful.

“No way,” Xiuying disagrees immediately. “We would know. All of Silver Springs would know. It’s not the kind of thing you hide.”

“What is congruence?” I ask, the familiar word catching my ear. “The Sun Emperor mentioned it too. Said that it’s ‘real power’, but that it’s forever lost to me because we’re incompatible.”

Meng Yi and Xiuying share another look.

“Why would he meet you then?” Xiuying asks.

“How would I know? He didn’t tell me anything. I don’t even know what congruence is,” I say, a little irritated now.

That cryptic bastard has really gotten under my skin.

“Young Master Xian, please, tell us everything from the beginning.”

I would much rather have answers first, but I oblige.

When I’m done, Xiuying and Meng Yi don’t seem any closer to comprehending why what happened to me happened.

I sure hope that doesn’t stop them from explaining what all the fuss is about to me though.

“Maybe it’s because of his enlightenment?” Xiuying speculates.

“You think so?” Meng Yi asks carefully, and the other woman shrugs.

“What else could it be? You don’t meet your cultivation’s spirit unless you attune to it. The only thing about him that could make his situation different is the celestial plum he ate.”

Meng Yi hums noncommittally.

No surprise there. We both know that I’m as enlightened as a bag of cement, and the closest I’ve ever come to eating a celestial plum is lying about having eaten one.

“Is attunement the same as congruence?” I ask, bringing focus back to me and my yet unsatisfied need for answers.

“It is,” Meng Yi says.

“Attunement is the more common name,” Xiuying adds.

“It is the merging of cultivator and method,” Meng Yi pitches in. “The two essentially becoming one. It is incredibly rare.”

“Supposedly, there’s only like a hundred attuned cultivators in the whole Empire,” Xiuying says.

A hundred? Damn. Silver Springs alone has several times that many cultivators.

If the empire is as huge as I suspect it is, then that’s a tiny, tiny percentage indeed.

“And this attunement, how does it work?”

“Beats me,” Xiuying says, and a glance at Meng Yi reveals that she too is ignorant of the workings of attunement.

“All I know is that it happens upon advancement into Sprouting phase,” Meng Yi says.

“You get a vision, meet your cultivation’s spirit, and you come out of it with more power than mere advancement could ever give,” Xiuying elaborates.

I quiz them on it some more, but they have no more knowledge to share, and in the end, I give up, accepting that this will be something that I’ll just have to be largely ignorant on.

When my questions end, Meng Yi says, “By the way, Young Master, let me belatedly congratulate you on your advancement into Sprouting phase.”

“Uh... thanks,” I say, feeling a little awkward to be congratulated for this.

In part, it is largely because I haven’t earned any of it. Largely everything I have has just fallen onto my lap, and I’m under no delusions about that. Also though, it’s because, while I’m much stronger now than I was just a few days ago, against the people I’m actually worried about, I’m still an ant.

To a family like mine, I doubt the first layer of the Sprouting phase means anything, noble rank or not.

“Wanna spar?” Xiuying asks out of the blue then, and I blink at the woman, the growing intensity of her gaze a little unsettling.

“Uh... What?”

“Good, let’s spar. Come on.” And with those words she pulls me along as she makes her way out of the room.

What the fuck is happening right now?