David

Li was right about the Skybound Path. It had an idyllic charm to it. The path was bright and sunny and sloped upwards gently. There was no bamboo, no dark slate and none of the fishy, medicinal smell of Bei'an, unlike the muddy fields surrounding the Iron Road.

Flowers of all sorts grew on and along the path, including a meadow of bright yellow tulips that Alice insisted on stopping to stare at. David had picked one to stick into her hair. It blew away as they began walking again, but she seemed to appreciate it all the same.

The Skybound Path meandered north and south, but consistently east. Sometimes it was a bridge over clear streams. At other times, it was dirt that led through fields of wheat - but the path would always climb upwards and outwards from the city of Bei'an. Alice counted the butterflies they’d accidentally murdered while walking quickly.

When David turned around, he could see the multitude of ships with their many colored sails which dotted Three Blades Bay. Were he the same boy who walked into that library just over a week ago, he wouldn't have been able to see Bei’an at all, let alone the Dragonstrait and the distant shore of the Western Continent.

Marking the halfway point between Tianbei and Bei’an was another Linking Stone which neither of them paid any attention to. David ignored the siren song of the voices trapped within. Once was enough.

Chan and Li had explained the Nine Linked Cities to David and Alice when they were in Dongjing through epithets. Some of them stood out because of their obviously derogatory names - Jiangxi obviously disdained being called the City of Ghosts, Huzhou was likely not known by its residents as the City of Syphilis. Tianbei, sprawled over the valley named for it, did not get an offensive name. It was the City of Bells.

As they passed by merchant caravans and families on horseback with their precious cultivating children wrapped in furs, Alice perked up. "Hear that?"

David did hear it - it was the sound of bells.

"It's like they're welcoming us!" Alice said, excited. The bells played a merry tune into the air as the road abruptly levelled out.

“In the morning, he begins his journey as the bells ring, his thoughts are of home as he travels in sorrow.”

Alice’s smile became bright and brittle as she stopped them and placed her palms against his cheeks. “None of that now,” she said, in English. “Home is wherever we are.”

David returned her smile because it was what she needed - what he needed. Under the clear, blue skies he could believe it too. Her hands were warm.

They continued to walk towards the sound of the bells which continued for another few minutes before falling silent.

“You know what would suck? Trying to sleep past ten in the morning in this valley,” said David.

Alice tilted her head from side to side, narrowly avoiding a big red butterfly fluttering lazily in the air. “I guess it’s like living near a train station. If you’ve heard it your whole life, you get used to it.”

They passed through a little forest of oak trees and the road turned abruptly to the right, and suddenly the entirety of the valley was visible.

A mountain with three misty peaks like three fingers thrust into the sky rose from deep within the valley up into the clouds, tall and wide and uncompromising. The base of the mountain was the size of a borough in New York - and then some, given the scale of the dwellings built upon it. Three words were carved - large enough that he didn’t have to squint - into the mountainside, one on each peak.

Di. Earth - the shortest of the peaks, stout and strong and many shades of green.

Tian. Sky - an open volcano that billowed dark blue smoke into the air.

Jian. Sword - the tallest of the peaks, and thinnest, whose apex pierced through the cloud floor. No grass grew on the loftiest mountain. Right beneath the clouds sat a layer of fresh snow.

This was Skybound Mountain, the home of the Ascending Sky sect - one of the last great sects with its foundational scripture still available to its disciples. Even by Daoist Li’s admission, it was the greatest sect in the world.

“It’s beautiful,” Alice breathed.

David had expected a mountain range to grow from the wilderness like the Shaolin Monastery in movies, but it sat dead center in a city. Tianbei was not a ratty little camp like the ‘city’ at the base of Mount Everest either - it could easily fit a few hundred thousand people.

But somehow, Tianbei didn’t feel like a city - it was a village that had grown and grown but hadn’t lost its charm. Bell towers housing bells of many shapes, colors and sizes were littered across the hundreds of streets.

Lines of quasi visible qi linked the bells to the peak named Sword. David traced the lines with his eyes.

“Those aren’t just bells,” muttered Alice. “They’re all connected, they’re all connected... It’s one big instrument!”

She put on her best smile, with as much dimple as David had ever seen. “Can we stay here? I want to play the bells.”

“Maybe we can get the saber back on good terms,” said David. “I must admit, this Bonnie and Clyde thing we have going on has worn out its welcome. I’d like to figure some things out.”

Things like diving. If Uncle Jiang could go home, why couldn’t David?

After a few more minutes of travel, David noticed that it had gotten quite crowded on the road, so he felt compelled to switch back to Chinese. They’d already gotten some strange looks from the families along the cobblestones of the Skybound Path. None of the parties were travelling as quickly as they had been, but some of them were clearly cultivators - born eavesdroppers.

“This really does look like a nice place to live,” said David.

They stood on the ridge, admiring the scenery. There was none of the claustrophobia of Dongjing or the strange fishy medicinal smell of Bei’an. Cobblestones were common, like in Ping’an, but they weren’t dark and slick and wet.

The colors of Tianbei were pastel yellow and red roofs, lilacs, daffodils and bright green grass. No house looked the same as its neighbor, though everyone seemed to appreciate a consistent style of soft lines and curves. Modern, yet steeped in tradition - like the young scion of an old family who was destined for great things.

David could see why even the Emperor sent his relatives to cultivate at the Ascending Sky.

“Aren’t you two a little old to apply?”

On each major avenue, all of which had been decorated with different species of flora, there stood soft grey bell towers with no entrances - all of the same make, even if the bells themselves varied. From even five miles away, David was able to see little spiderweb cracks along the foundations and walls of the towers. They were made of concrete.

“Are you deaf?”

The valley curved inwards and levelled out very dramatically. Tianbei was well named - Heaven’s Cup.

“This one deigns to speak to you!”

Alice, who’d looped her fingers between his own, turned slowly. “Are you talking to us?”

David listened for the sound of the Song as he turned and heard the drumbeat of a heart - systole, diastole. Badump. Badump. It was consistent, but wayward and followed no greater scheme of thought.

The Song belonged to a girl who wasn’t much younger than them. She was standing alone, ten paces from them - but ten paces behind her was a trio of men, two of which balanced a palanquin on their shoulders bearing a gauzy red veil. The third man had a long beard and longer robes. David heard the clash of his Song - dutiful, strong, disturbed. The man was establishing his foundations.

On all sides of the palanquin was a word stitched in gold - Zhu. It was a name that David recognized - the name of the Zhu Emperor Who Taught the People. The other travelers on the road passed by without even staring. So they recognized the name too.

The people of this world were all quite pretty, and thus were only distinguished by the way their characteristics reflected their personalities.

Jiang Sanli had been brave and mischievous - that had made her eyes and her smile gleam in low lantern light. Li Qingshui had been acerbic and somber - that had hardened her otherwise soft features. Wen Cheng had been insecure and thoughtful - that had made the sharp lines of his jaw flex.

This girl was a bully and had been bullied. Her eyes were hard and cautious even as her lips stretched into a fake, angry smile. David wondered what sort of upbringing could cause a fourteen year old to stop a pair of strangers on the road.

“Who else would I be talking to, trash?”

Alice’s fingers tightened. David studied the foundation establishment cultivator with the beard. The man looked rather put out. He had a short sword at his belt, and carried himself with experience, but David figured he could take him.

Alice discovered the reaction which would infuriate the girl the most. She turned back around and continued to admire the scenery. David, who had learned to enjoy infuriating people, turned around as well.

Tianbei was very beautiful.

“How dare you turn your back to me!”

David turned back around. “Do I know you, miss?”

The girl gave an angry stomp. She was wearing a white silk hanfu, a wispy two-piece robe over a dress which fell all the way to the ground. It had the same close-fitting cut as Alice’s sect robes, but while the robes of the Falling Leaves showed most of Alice’s thighs, the hanfu fell to the girl’s ankles and flared outwards. Her hair must have taken hours to do considering the number of pearls that hung from it. They shook from her anger.

“Of course you do!” The girl folded her arms and harrumphed, pushing her chest out. “Everyone on this continent has heard the name of Zhu Feiyan, the eleventh and youngest princess of Xijing!”

The foundation establishment cultivator’s eyes found his own. The man was inclining his head, as if in prayer. His mouth moved in a soundless plea - for mercy, to cleanse his karma when he touched the wheel.

“You must forgive my offense, princess. We’re simply musicians from the Southern Continent.”

David shot forward and pulled the girl to the ground as the man’s sword whistled over the space where the girl’s head had been. The man wasn’t done - he brought the sword downwards in an angled stroke, intent on killing Zhu Feiyan.

Alice flew through the air with her foot out, her arms clasped behind her back. Her bright white sneaker collided with the man’s chest and there was an almighty crack as she split his sternum down the center. The man’s ribs forced their way out of the back of his chest, skewering his organs. Blood sprayed from the man’s mouth and nose and ears, all over Alice.

“Unhand me, peasant!”

David, whose hands were firmly on the girl’s shoulders, pushed off of her and stood.

The girl examined the dead body and gave a long sigh. “I knew Advisor Cha was shady.”

Feiyan then turned to David. “Now listen here, I was perfectly able to handle myself. I don’t owe either of you anything! At all! Not me! Also, you’re forgiven! Now, help me back to my palanquin.”

David, who was almost certain that if he hadn’t pushed her down there would only be ten princesses from Xijing, nodded. “You don’t. But your ride is long gone.”

The two men who had been carrying it had run away with the palanquin. In their place stood Alice, who was feverishly rubbing the blood out of her sneakers with fistfulls of the grass growing on the ridge.

Zhu Feiyan burst into tears. “No! All my dresses! All my jewelry-”

“Shut up,” snapped Alice, who’d had enough.

The girl shut up, sniffling and weeping softly.

“And stop pretending to cry.”

The princess scowled.