At the sound of the servant girl’s voice, Hui looked up hopefully.

White hair flashed. White robes floated after, touched with red at the neck and sleeves, skirts parting to reveal a flash of red rope. Bai Xue gazed around the room, red eyes narrowed, brows slightly furrowed.

From where he sat, Hui smiled and waved.

Bai Xue’s expression relaxed. She grinned back at him and leaned down to the servant. A few quiet words passed between them.

The servant paled. She backed away a few steps, then dropped to the ground, kowtowing repeatedly to Bai Xue.

Waving her away, Bai Xue jogged over to Hui and his master, her staccato steps familiar to Hui’s ears. “Well, well, look who woke up!”

“Greetings to elder,” Hui said.

Bai Xue rubbed his hair. For once, Hui didn’t try to dodge. She deserves it, after Master caused all that trouble.

“Ah, if I’d known you’d be coming, I would’ve prepared a seat of honor for you,” Bai Xue said, shaking her head.

Hui shook his in return. “This small disciple is grateful you’re willing to overlook our, er, missteps. That’s already enough.”

“Missteps?” Weiheng Wu asked, sitting up.

“Ah! Is this your Master? The much-rumored Weiheng Wu? The honor is all mine,” Bai Xue said, cupping her hands at him.

Weiheng Wu inclined his head, agreeing with her.

“And the Golden Merchant? I wasn’t aware we’d invited such an illustrious cast,” Bai Xue said, cupping her hands to their table companion.

The Golden Merchant smiled. “You didn’t. This seat wasn’t cheap. But I do quite like the upgrade package.” She glanced aside at Weiheng Wu, and her smile deepened.

“Upgrade?” Hui asked, furrowing his brows. But Master doesn’t want to buy anything.

“Who you sit with matters almost as much as where you go and what you do there,” the Golden Merchant replied sagely. “Having the reputation of having good standing with an unparalleled genius like Weiheng Wu is worth sacrificing my reputation with the Azure Fang Sect. They’re a bunch of miserable miserly dogs, anyways.”

The group of blue-robed cultivators approached Bai Xue. She stepped a few feet away and bent to listen to their complaints. They jabbed their fingers at Hui and his master, but Bai Xue shook her head. She smiled knowingly and nodded, then gestured, leading them to a new table being prepared on the other side of the floor. The Azure Fang Sect cultivators hesitated, then nodded, frustrated but unwilling to press it further.

Hui leaned his head against his hand, idly watching her. I’ve never seen this competent side of Bai Xue before. As a fighter, sure, but her being serious and taking care of people’s problems, not teasing them to death? It feels… weird.

As if feeling his eyes on her, Bai Xue turned and grinned, tossing him a wink. Hui rolled his eyes away and turned elsewhere. His gaze landed on the stiff-backed cultivator again, who still glared at them with stern eyes.

“Master, who’s that?” he asked, nudging Weiheng Wu.

His master turned his head. He searched the crowd, then nodded. “Mmm, that’s Gui Delun. He’s a genius of an exorcist sect, renowned for his control of life qi and dedication to the traditional arts of exorcism. He once exorcised a hundred fifth-stage ghouls in one breath, or so rumor holds.”

The Golden Merchant nodded. “I understand he’s been pushing to examine Bai clan for quite some time. I believe he says they’re harboring a fourth-stage ghoul here? Why, he even went so far as to claim Young Master Bai Xue over there was the ghoul! She looks perfectly lively to me.”

“Eh,” Hui said flatly. His face twitched. Bai Xue, don’t tell me. That was the kind of secret that could get you killed? You went into another clan’s secret realm with no plan to hide your own deadly curse, aside from hiding in caves at night? There's a limit to confidence, you know!

“From what I understand, he heard it from the Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect. I didn’t know Bai clan and Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect had a bad blood between them, but, well, it’s something to keep an eye on. Seems Bai clan will have a need for plant materials in the future, and if the Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect isn’t looking to supply…” she chuckled darkly, golden eyes flashing.

“Ah, I see,” Hui said, edging away from her. Is what the world looks like to those who have money? Scary, so scary! Those of us in debt could never understand!

A second later, he paused. “The Bai clan will have a need for plant materials?” After their run-in with the lotus, why would they try to cultivate plants again… or does she know something I don’t?

“Any clan will. When it comes to potions, pills, and other medicines, materials are usually cheaper and yield better results than buying the medicine from someone else. Though of course, if they’d rather, I can always provide.” She pushed her gold hair over her shoulder, then paused. “Hmm? Why would you say that?”

Oh, right. Plant materials could be plants for pill cultivating, not materials to cultivate plants. Though…

She doesn’t know about the lotus?

Ah, it makes sense. It was only a few moments between when we scared off the cultivators and handled the lotus. Likely very few, if any, managed to warn the city, and those who did were likely dismissed immediately by Bai clan as making trouble, pulling a prank, or something similar. If it was openly known that a branch of their family almost massacred Twin Heavenly City, after all, I doubt we’d be having this dinner in such an orderly fashion.

He peered around the room subtly. At a glance, it seemed ordinary, but on second glance, the Bai clan was out in force. Cultivators stood in every corner, hurrying to meet the guests’ needs, bustling around, hurrying eagerly here and there. After a few moments of watching, he caught the same pair of cultivators rush back and forth across the room twice for no reason, carrying the same half-full wine jugs.

This is as much a show of force as a welcoming for the newest member of the Bai clan, Hui realized. To the demonic cultivators in the know, this dinner reminds them of the Bai clan’s many and deep ties to other sects and cults. To the righteous cultivators in the dark, this dinner takes place far too impossibly close after a supposed crisis, when, surely, no one would dream of holding a banquet. If anyone comes back and claims the Bai clan to be weak, or a demonic cultivator starts a rumor about what happened, the Bai clan can point to this banquet of proof that it couldn’t be.

There’s no way to cover up the missing wing of the Bai clan entirely, or for long, but internal affairs are a clan’s own problem. Other clans have no right to interfere. As long as they postpone anyone noticing the missing side family until they come up with a reason to dispose of Bai Fenfeng’s family publicly, that should be no issue. And in a cultivation world, where betrayals are as commonplace as swords, coming up with a story to dispose of a branch family is far from difficult.

Gold flashed in front of his face as the Golden Merchant waved her hand in front of him. “Hello? Little cultivator, are you there? Why would you say that, hmm?”

Hui jolted back to reality. “Eh? Oh, ah, apologies. This small cultivator is too fresh to the world of cultivation to understand such intricacies. Please think nothing of it.”

“His name is not little cultivator. His name is Weiheng Hui,” Weiheng Wu corrected the Golden Merchant.

“Xiao Hui is fine, too,” Hui said absentmindedly.

“Xiao Hui? Are we already that close? How bold. I like that, Xiao Hui,” the Golden Merchant said, nodding.

“A-apologies! This small cultivator was distracted, I meant no disrespect,” Hui stuttered.

She chuckled. “Fear not, little cultivator. I took no disrespect.”

Bai clan cultivators came around with the first dishes, and the conversation stalled. Hui turned to the food, happy for the escape.