There was something about having a blade at your neck that made the difference in cultivation levels and relative strength meaningless. I hadn’t realised why people seemed to freeze up and become unable to think when someone started to threaten them with a knife, but I was starting to realise why.

Having your life in someone else’s hand, was scary as fuck.

“Why were ya following me?” Su Lin asked, keeping the knife to my neck.

I gulped, trying to think of a suitable reply. “Thought I’d see where you were going, and if it was you indeed. Guess I was right,” I replied, my voice surprisingly not wavering in the slightest.

Su Lin stared at me for a while, a frown covering his eyebrows. “Well, whatever. I’d thought it were them Zou’s lackeys following me.”

I sighed internally as the knife was pulled away from my neck, trying not to show any distress in my expression.

“Has anyone told ya that you've changed Lu Jie? I’d thought ye were a timid one, sticking to yourself and not mingling with others much and the last defeat had been enough to get you desperate. I’d get that. I’ve been desperate too. But that’s not it with ya is it? You're just… different now.”

I stood frozen, staring silently at Su Lin. Lu Jie barely had anyone who he could call a friend, most of them had either given up on finding their talents lacking, or moved on leaving him far behind. And I’d felt relatively safe with whatever personality change may have been observed because of that, using Lu Jie’s memories as a guide to help me out with his behaviour from time to time. Something I relied on frequently with the Old Man.

“Well, whatever. You do you. What’chu need from me?” Su Lin asked, hiding his little knife in the back of his waist cloth.

I paused, unsure of what to say. The goal had been to see what Su Lin was up to, not to end up with him holding a knife to my neck.

“I was told about an old lady who sells alchemy stuff somewhere near here, trying to find a way there,” I said, deciding it’d be best to make use of this opportunity to get back on track.

Su Lin looked at me with an expression that I couldn’t quite place. “Old lady that sells alchemical stuff. Has an annoying cat and loves to cackle madly to herself. Is that the one?” He asked, and I nodded my head.

“Well, perhaps it was the will of the heavens then. Follow me,” Su Lin said, walking ahead. I stared at his back for a moment, unsure of what he meant before I began to follow after him.

The pathway turned narrower as Su Lin walked into a side path. The smell of herbs was the first thing to reach me, soon after which the familiar sensation of the Qi from spirit herbs came within my senses.

I saw a tiny little shop, with dried herbs hanging from its door frame. The sound of grunting and mumbling came, alongside the noise of metal clanging with metal. Qi pulsed all over, swirling and churning in a familiar motion, yet one, far more skilled than I’d seen before. Someone was doing some serious alchemy there.

“Hey old hag! The guy I’ve been getting pills from, Lu Jie is here,” Su Lin shouted. I heard the clank of utensils come from inside as the Qi thrummed faster and faster inside.

“Well, she ain’t gonna be listening while she works. Just head on in,” Su Lin said, walking ahead into the shop.

I stood outside for a moment, taking in the rickety little shop. The place was made of wood and in an oddly inconvenient location inside an alley. I wondered how whoever worked here got any customers at all.

Deciding that waiting outside would not help, I shrugged and decided to head inside.

The inside of the shop was not much larger, and built more like a home than any kind of shop, with a large portion of the inside filled with herbs and bowls lying everywhere. Occasionally interspersed with parchments and wood slips with various characters written on them.

My gaze stopped on a black cat, its deep yellow eyes looking back at me. I felt a strange sensation that I couldn’t place, as if the cat was seeing through me, and I covered the pouch Labby was sleeping in. It was probably a good thing that he was, I couldn’t imagine this going well.

The cat eventually got bored, yawning as it stretched its feline limbs, before getting up and walking away with all the arrogance and pride of a cat strutting in its home.

This place was seeming more and more like a witch’s hut. Just a cultivation version of a witch.

“You’re Lu Jie?” a boy asked, walking in from the inside of the shop. He had broad shoulders, and roughly the same height as me, with a tight bun of hair tied behind his head.

“Uhh, yes. I’m Lu Jie,” I said, wondering what this might be about when, with a sudden motion, he bowed to me.

“May the Heavens grace you. The pills and money are really appreciated,” the boy said, raising his head.

I stared at him, still unsure of things. I could tell that Su Lin was selling the pills to this shop, maybe even keeping a few pills for himself. I hadn’t found any errors with the amount of money he gave me every week, so I didn’t particularly care what exactly he was doing with the money. It wasn’t like those pills could harm anyone. Even non cultivators would just feel slightly more refreshed when eating them.

“I ain’t told him Yun. ‘Was supposed to be a quiet thing before this guy followed me down here,” Su Lin said, walking out from the inside.

“Gratitude is gratitude brother, every little bit helps,” the boy said, and I heard a rumbling sound come from the other side of the room.

I turned to look at Su Lin, as I stood awkward in the middle. I felt like I’d just walked in on some kind of thing, and I was starting to feel a bit guilty about the whole stalking thing as well.

“Well, the old hag’s taking her time today huh?” Su Lin muttered, his eyes shifting to the other boy. There seemed to be some kind of quiet communication going on as the boy turned around and walked in once more.

“I, well, didn’t mean to butt in like this,” I said, awkwardly shuffling my hands, unsure of where to keep them.

“It’s alright, this ain’t a secret. Well, outside of the whole spirit herb thing, that would land us in trouble,” Su Lin said, snickering.

I stood around staring as his expression shifted a few times, his eyes darting around and looking at me, before they kept turning back towards the room behind him ever so slightly. I shifted my gaze to the room, its entrance covered by a cloth that prevented me from looking inside. I could feel two more people in there.

I heard a sigh come from Su Lin and I turned to see a strange expression on the guy’s face. The ever smirking and sleazy look was nowhere to be seen on him.

“I s'pose, I owe you a bit for your things and since you’re already here. Well. Come on in here,” Su Lin said walking inside the chamber.

I looked around the little home, taking in the smell of spirit herbs and feeling the dense Qi coming from them as I walked ahead.

My eyes shifted to a guy, lying on a bed, his skin red in spots and wrinkled in places as he slept. The guy I’d met just now stood inside as well, alongside one other guy sitting nearby.

“That guy’s Huo Yun,” Su Lin said, pointing to the guy with the hair bun. “That’s Cao Chen,” Su Lin said, to the other guy sitting on the floor.

“And that… that’s brother Zhan. They’re all my brothers,” Su Lin said, pointing to the guy sleeping. I could tell that they weren’t related by blood, their features were far too different from each other. I frowned as something felt off about him, outside of his wrinkled and clearly sickly look. I focused my attention on the guy, trying to find what felt wrong when I realised something.

This man had no Qi.

“How is he- why is he like that?” I asked, staring at the guy. Even those who couldn’t cultivate had a small amount of Qi present in their bodies. They were just incapable of harnessing it. Yet the guy I looked at, had none Qi whatsoever, it was like a dark void to my senses, a strange absence in the ever present Qi all around me.

“He was crippled, that’s why,” a voice spoke and I turned around to see an old woman walking in. Her face was set with wrinkles upon wrinkles, so much so that she could give the Old Man a run for his money.

The woman coughed and I smelled the Qi from spirit herbs oozing from her.

“The sect crippled him, as punishment for choosing the lives of his companions over that of the son of some cultivator,” the woman said, her cane striking against the floor in a steady rhythm. I could sense the Qi within her, and wondered how someone with a cultivation like that could age like this.

I heard the cat meow loudly, as it walked through the room at a leisurely place before comfortably sitting next to the guy sleeping on the floor.

I felt my heart pause, as I wondered if that would’ve been my fate too, had it not been for Old Man.

“Is this what you need the spirit herbs and pills for?” I asked Su Lin.

“The old ha- Granny Lang takes care of brother Zhan. The money’s for getting him treated one day, and the herbs help with the pain,” Su Lin said, in a quiet voice.

I stared silently, unsure of what to say. Did learning that Su Lin was not a greedy rat in this for his own benefit change anything? I didn’t know. I already knew that this world was a harsh place, but seeing it for myself felt more real. And the realisation of how things worked here, all the more horrifying.

I walked closer to the guy, crouching. His limbs looked atrophied, as if he hadn’t been eating anything and was suffering from malnutrition. I could vaguely sense the shattered core near his dantian, two circles of Qi laying fractured in there, unable to hold a single hint of Qi in them.

“First time seeing a cripple boy?” The old woman asked, and I nodded.

“Well, then have a close look at what fate awaits any who try to rise against those in power,” the old woman said and I stared at the boy with a grim look.

“Enough dilly dallying. Let us move out, I doubt you came in here to talk about all this,” the woman said and I got up.

Taking one last look at the boy, I turned as many many thoughts churned in my mind.

I wanted to examine him closely, to see what crippling his cultivation had done. Learn what had caused his state to be like that after being crippled, and whether it was caused by the lack of Qi in his body. And lastly, to see if I could fix it somehow.

With heavy steps, I walked out of the room.