There are always many sides to a story, after all. That which is in the open, lauded for all to see; the accolade of the young heroes, their reputation ascendant in the flames of their trial. And that which was done in darkness, unsung and unknown, but from which the most profound seeds can bloom when eyes have moved on.

Nowhere in recent times has this been more relevant than in the recollection of the darkest time that Yin Eclipse has witnessed in many a year – The Year of the Blood Eclipse.

The origins of that dreadful cult have little to say for themselves. Bandits, looting ancient ruins in Blue Water Province under the patronage of the Iron Crown Duke, stumbled across an ancient evil from beyond the darkness of the aeonspan. The powerful played politics and those who could have forestalled it then chose instead to stand by, relishing in the misfortune of others.

None of this, however, will be remembered. History will speak only of the terrible sacrifice, of those young heroes, the Imperial Court made on behalf of this land and of the great justice that came from across the sea. Peerless experts and young heroes who walked across the sky like living lightning to smite those villains with clear eyes and shining blades while all those whose words are held to matter by history looked on and applauded. Of the reputations made in the ruins for the Din, Lu and Ji clans.

Nowhere will you see written that Yin Eclipse grasped them by the throat and dashed their heads against the rocks after they refused to respect it. That their unpreparedness allowed the cult to endure another half a year. That after the cult died, the rot of its deceptions lingered like a disease in the land, expediently buried by great powers with covetous eyes as they ruined its native children.

That in the end the judgement that came was planted not amid those lofty heights, but in the earth where millions now lay dead, their towns and villages left in ruins. That it was watered with the grieving tears of mothers and daughters lamenting at the shrines. And that when it blossomed, it was born of grief and carried on the words of the simple folk who always endure.

This truth haunts those who write history, for it is a story we cannot own, and for that, it will forever remain unsung.

Musings on the Blood Eclipse, from the collected writings of the Wandering Scholar.

~By the Wandering Scholar, Seng Mo

~ Jun Arai – Kun Clan Estate, Jade Willow Village ~

Arai found herself drawn out of her ‘sort of but not really’ sleep by a gentle knock on the door into her suite of rooms. Groaning, she focused on the ceiling and the pale grey light filtering in through the slatted covers on the windows and guessed it was about an hour after dawn.

“Still raining huh…” she murmured, sitting up and stretching.

Pulling on a loose robe over her undergarments, she went to the door and opened it—

The young maid, barely fourteen, slumped to the ground, the limb of ‘something’ withdrawing from her stomach.

She saw nothing wrong with this, and stepped out into the corridor, annoyed that the woman had just left the food there and gone somewhere else.

A limb plucked away her storage talisman, even as some dissociated part of her felt her own body’s strength fade away, sealed by a hungering, insidious shadow that somehow dissociated her from anything she could use to resist it, scrupulously avoiding her mantra as it permeated her body.

Curious, she watched as the adult, female tetrid stalker slid into focus, like a hulking behemoth in the shadows of the corridor, its forelimbs gently caressing her face, six eyes staring through her with a shadowy intelligence that far exceeded what it should have held…

…

Arai opened her eyes with a hissed intake of breath and sat up, her body slicked in cold sweat, and realised that her teleportation talisman was crumpled in her shaking, clenched fist, nearly used by reflex…

Exhaling, she relinquished her grip on it, looking around her room. The pale grey light of early morning filtered through the slatted windows and rain pattered down on the veranda outside, bouncing off tiles, leaves and pavements.

“Ohhhhh…” she grimaced, rubbing her temples.

As far as a lucid dream went, it had been… very lucid. Fighting the instinct to feed the feeling of horror she had just ‘experienced’ to her mantra, or curl up in a ball screaming, she checked the room carefully, just in case… but there was nothing at all out of place or untoward that was not already within her own state of mind.

Sliding her legs off the bed, she stood up and pulled on a light robe, listening carefully to the sounds of the mansion in the early morning. Rain fell in a steady patter, a bird called outside… and was answered, or challenged, by another, and another. Exhaling, she sat down on the edge of the bed and focused on calming herself without using her mantra.

The seed of her ‘nightmare’ was, in part, certainly what Senior Lianmei had said the previous day, about tetrid stalkers being used for assassination… how this ‘Yeng’, if it was the same person, had made a reputation killing Herb Hunters and others for the highest bidder during the Three Schools Conflict.

Another part of it was the lingering worry over those overheard comments as she infiltrated the bandit lair; that ‘things’ had been set in motion to ensure she ‘found her way to them’. Probably, it had not helped that her sweeping of the canals yesterday had been… entirely uneventful. They had swept the canals all the way to the suppression boundary and found more water lotuses, which she had expected, brought them back here, and determined to deal with them the next day… today.

The final spicy ingredient was likely the lingering scars of her trip into the Red Pit. The immediate, direct effect of the blood ling trees should have been…

“…”

“Shit.”

She focused on the extremities of her perception, trying to see if she was being touched by one… or something mutated by one, but got nothing.

For what it was worth, she pulled out a beggars’ compass and tried to see if that got her anything, however, the formations on the estate were clearly designed to neutralise any compasses not associated with the protection wards themselves, so it just spun.

A knock on the door made her pause.

“Yes?” she called out.

“Uh… there was an um… matter with the wards?” a maid’s voice sounded a bit embarrassed outside.

“…”

-The teleportation talisman… she had put qi into it, she supposed, even if she hadn’t used it.

The door opened and the maid came in, followed by Kun Talshin of all people.

“Sorry, if it was a teleport thing… that was me,” she grimaced.

“You look like you just swallowed poison,” Talshin remarked, looking around her room.

“I… had a nightmare.”

“I see… what about?” Juni’s brother frowned.

“I… woke up, when a maid knocked on the door, and then when I answered it, she was killed by a… tetrid stalker, which tried to claim me…”

“Ah…” Talshin nodded, then sighed, and she noticed that the maid visibly gulped.

“It was probably caused by the stress of the last few days… and…”

“And Lianmei talking about a villain like Yeng will not have helped,” Talshin agreed sympathetically.

“What would have happened if I teleported?” she asked.

“Nothing, beyond you wasting a talisman,” Talshin chuckled, completing what she presumed to be a check of the room itself.

“Sorry… for causing a mess,” she mumbled, suddenly feeling a bit silly.

“It’s fine,” Talshin said with an eye roll. “I’ve seen people do a lot worse. Why don’t we go get breakfast?”

“I… Okay,” she nodded after a moment… belatedly realising that the light robe was very light, and hid very little, and while Talshin had not drawn comment…

“Let me put on something that is less…” she muttered, pulling the robe around her more fully.

“Of course,” Talshin replied diplomatically. “I’ll be outside.”

Exhaling, she shook her head and went over to the wardrobe in the wall and grabbed a spirit gown at random and put it on. It was dark blue, with swirling clouds and paler blue and silver chrysanthemums and lotus blossoms embroidered onto the panels. Finding her shoes, she pulled them on and quickly checked her hair in the mirror—

“Do you want help?” the maid, who she realised was still in the room, asked.

“Ah… erm… no, it’s fine,” she mumbled, deciding to just leave her dark brown hair loose.

Puffing out her cheeks, she stared at her hands, which were – in contravention to her current feelings – not shaking, and took another breath. If she closed her eyes… she could still see the fate-thrashed tetrid in her mind’s eye. She didn’t get psyche breaks, the ‘Spirit’ and ‘Soul’ mnemonics largely saw to that… but nightmares like that were…

It had been a while since she had one… they were usually about her mother’s funeral and the events around it. Those were… not fun in their own way.

“Are… you sure you’re okay?” the maid asked, sounding concerned.

“Yes…” she replied, her eye drifting to the wine jar on the main table in the middle of the room. “I am just a bit shaken, it’s been a bad few days.”

-Better not start drinking before breakfast, she reflected with some forced levity.

Shaking her head, she turned to the small shrine on the table and bowed to it for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts and offering a small prayer to her mother as well, then departed the room quickly.

Talshin gave her a searching look, but said nothing, which she was grateful for, because she didn’t really have any words to speak with. They walked in silence through the grey, lantern-lit corridors and down into a large hall on the lower level where a buffet breakfast was being set out by several servants.

“Sorry for causing a disturbance,” she muttered again, at last.

“It’s fine. Probably one or two of the local estate members will have grumbled at the ward being tripped, but no harm was done and…” he trailed off, as if considering something for a moment, then just shook his head. “The sooner we return to West Flower Picking Town, the better probably.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “However, I don’t think the village elders are going to let off this teaching request without seeing some fate-thrashed ginseng being wrangled. Not to mention the Ha clan group are… likely to cause issues, aren’t they?”

“In that, you may, unfortunately, be right,” Kun Talshin agreed with a slight scowl, walking over to the breakfast dishes.

Nodding, she took a plate and grabbed various bits and pieces – some fried bread, some slices of spirit fruit, a pile of cold noodles, and a bowl of spicy soup with an egg in it.

Returning to the table they sat and ate in silence. A servant came after a few minutes and provided a pot of tea, which was delicious… and much needed to restore her good mood.

“How did the training yesterday go?” Talshin asked after a while.

“Surprisingly straightforward,” she replied, before pausing to take a sip of her soup. “We collected a dozen more Qi Condensation Duo Li’s lotuses and about two hundred kilos of spirit vegetation and roots. Kun Xian had fun…”

“I imagine he did,” Talshin chuckled.

“I am fairly sure that the epicentre of the mutates is the estate across from the Gen one as well now, because the waterways we started with were beyond the Gen family fields, but they were all devoid of mutated lotuses. The seal put on the canal spur leading to that reservoir by the overseer for Sir Fei Jiang’s fields appears to have done its job.”

“Ah, Sir Hubei,” Talshin nodded. “That problem will be easy enough to resolve going forward in any case. It will be a small matter to provide a fund to subsidize those who clear out lotuses to a certain quality over the course of the next season. It will provide us with a source of lotus leaves and seeds for a while as well, and return some wealth to the farmers affected.

“In regards to that reservoir though,” Talshin mused with a frown, “We can only look into it. I have been around the village mostly, because I am here to assess a ‘shortfall’ within what our estates here have been producing.”

“And if you went out of your way, it would be remarked upon,” she mused softly.

“Yes,” Talshin nodded, “Circumstances here are further complicated by these estates being part of Supreme Elder Xuanhai’s faction.”

“…”

She grimaced and fished the egg out of the soup, eating it in silence before draining the rest of the liquor.

The political divisions between the different familial branches of the Kun clan in Blue Water Province were not really any of her business, but, through her close association with Juni, she knew a fair amount about them. The ‘removal’ of Juni as the Inheritance Daughter had kicked off a twenty year power struggle within the clan as the Supreme Elder, who was also the half-brother of the Clan Lord, sought to consolidate the status of his daughter and ensure that the Clan Lord’s children were increasingly marginalised.

“—If you brood like that, people will think you are some hidden old eccentric,” Talshin remarked drily.

“…”

“Sorry, I was just caught up in pointless thoughts,” she sighed, sitting back in her chair and swirling her tea around in her teacup.

“The nightmare still lingering?” Talshin grimaced.

“Not…”

She trailed off, because actually it was still bugging her, in a weird way.

“Somewhat,” she grimaced. “And your comment made me think about what Juni has gone through…”

“Haaaa…” Talshin sighed, more deeply, and nodded.

“I can’t help but feel I have made things harder on her,” she added.

“Nonsense,” Talshin shook his head. “The only people making things hard for anyone are those scheming old monkeys wearing elders’ robes.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that, because it was true.

“Elders and Young Masters, together, they are the Yin and Yang that ruin the lives of good, hard-working folk,” she muttered.

“To the wisdom of the Wandering Scholar, Seng Mo,” Talshin chuckled drily, lifting his cup.

Rolling her eyes, she half raised her own cup of tea and knocked it back before replacing it on the table with a *clack*.

After that, they ate the rest of their breakfast in silence for the most part. Maids occasionally came and took away trays of food, but few others wandered into the hall and stayed to eat. Most of those who did were estate guards or servants coming off their duties. A few saluted Talshin, but mostly they were left alone.

“What is the plan regarding the teaching request?” she asked at last, after returning with a second plate of cold spicy noodles in sweet sauce and more fried bread.

“You ask me, but who do I ask?” Talshin remarked somewhat sourly. “I suspect they will be determined to see their scions capture some ginseng.”

“What ginseng,” she questioned in return, equally sourly. “I went all the way up the main valley and I found maybe one Qi Condensation one? The place is a mess, it is flooded, there are likely to be other traps, the field of the blood ling trees from the Red Pit extends well onto the usual path in at least one place and the only way station is under ten metres of water… not to mention those death-trap sinkhole lakes are flooded out and nearly impossible to locate.”

“Nonetheless, I fear they will persevere,” Talshin sighed. “I spent some time at the Pavilion yesterday and the reclusive elders like Sir Mu, who have had to come back, are in charge in name only.”

“Speaking of that… did they get anywhere with the ‘Elder’ I saw?” she asked.

“Somewhat,” Talshin grimaced. “Lianmei discovered that several elders of the Pavilion are basically working for influences outside it—”

“—there’s a shock,” she interjected drily.

“Quite…” Talshin sighed. “Elder Ku was one such elder, rather reclusive, returned from a period of personal isolation to advance his cultivation about a year ago, shortly after Immortal Fei was injured. He was one of those in charge of logistics and the warehouses… there are numerous irregularities there, which fortuitously provides me with an extra excuse to be here.”

“Should I be worried?” she asked.

Talshin frowned. “It is known you were looking for Elder Li… and it is known that you went looking at his survey locations… but that is about it. It is surprisingly helpful that the request to look for Elder Li has come directly from the Governor’s Hall in West Flower Picking Town. It is the other request that is causing more problems according to my little sister.

“Those three… uggh… they were on a charmed talisman up,” Talshin explained with some disgust, pouring himself more tea.

“I figured something like that,” she remarked with a soft sigh. “The whole thing looked like it was filed to cover someone’s ass as much as find them.”

“More likely than not,” Talshin agreed, sipping his tea.

“—Young Master Talshin.”

She glanced up to find that a tall, thin old man with drooping eyebrows and a face that looked like it could only express emotions as variations on a sneer had come over, interrupting them.

“What is it, Estate Manager Qu Jingman?” Talshin asked, politely, seemingly choosing to ignore the slightly disrespectful tone.

“The village elders request your presence,” the old man stated, bowing just enough for formality.

“Did they say what for?” Talshin asked, frowning.

“This servant is just a messenger, I can only relay what I was told,” the old man replied blandly, bowing again, then turned to focus on her.

“You are required to present yourself to them immediately as well,” the estate manager said perfunctorily. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must go about my duties.”

“…”

Talshin waved a hand, but the old man was already backing away.

“I take it this relates to yesterday?” she mused, thinking of the angry exchange she had watched from the sidelines, between the elder from the estate here and Talshin’s group.

“Kun Qu Jingman is someone whose family owes their position to the patronage of the Supreme Elder,” Talshin explained, finishing his cup of tea with a sigh of his own.

“Ah…” she grimaced. -That explains the ‘Young Master’.

“I suspect they want to put forward some further criteria for your teaching assignment,” he added.

“It is no longer a clearance request,” she pointed out.

“However, you are beholden to complete it, are you not?”

“...”

-There was that provision, wasn’t there, she reflected sourly. They are going to use that to blackmail me into doing what they want, aren’t they, gambling that I won’t want to be hit by the potential for some kind of penalty.

“But why are they forcing the issue, I am with the Pavilion…” she frowned, staring up at the ceiling. “This whole thing feels like they wanted to avoid taxes, so the Pavilion stopped helping with the land clearance and management… which led to the Ha clan bringing in outsiders for that…”

“It is oddly short-sighted,” Talshin agreed, nodding sympathetically. “With a single move they are potentially offending a bunch of people they really shouldn’t.”

-Unless this is what that bandit implied? About there being a means to ensure I came to them?

That was not a pleasant thought.

“What is it? You just look like you stepped in dogshit?” Talshin asked.

“I overheard something, when I was infiltrating their camp,” she signed, using the sign language the Hunter Bureau taught its trainees for those circumstances where you needed to communicate and couldn’t speak or use soul sense, before adding out loud. “Just thinking again about that nightmare.”

“I see,” Talshin nodded.

“Some of them were worried about the presence of a high ranking Herb Hunter in the village, and another implied… said he thought ‘something was being set in motion to ensure I ‘found my way to them’,” she signed.

“Hmmm…” Talshin stared his cup of tea for a long moment.

She was sure he could already see the ‘problem’. On the face of it, the request was removed from the clearance list, but all that had achieved really was in making the completion date more flexible…

“Are the elders coming here or are we going to them?” she asked after a moment’s further thought.

“…”

Talshin took out a jade talisman and spun it in his fingers for a moment, then let it drop again. It didn’t take long to work out what he had done though, because Manager Jingman returned, looking a bit put out.

“Manager Jingman, please tell the village elders to come to the estate immediately,” Talshin said politely.

“…”

Manager Jingman opened his mouth, then closed it again, presumably so he didn’t perjure himself on his previous comments not five minutes prior about ‘only being the messenger’.

“As you request, Young Master,” the old man remarked, recovering quickly. “Where shall you meet them?”

“In the formal audience room I think,” Talshin said, standing up. “In thirty minutes.”

“Very good,” Manager Jingman murmured.

“That will be all, you can go back to your ‘duties’,” Talshin added blandly.

“As you instruct,” Manager Jingman replied, backing away again.

“I must go see about one or two things,” Talshin said, somewhat apologetically, to her. “You can go wait in the audience room if you like, after you finish, there are things there to read.”

“Okay,” she replied, standing up herself and offering him a small bow. “And… thank you for earlier.”

“Not at all,” Talshin murmured, giving her an encouraging smile that just made her feel a bit awkward.

She watched him depart, pausing only to stop and speak to a female guard at a table by the door, then sat down again and stared at her half-finished plate of breakfast and sighed, not sure how she felt, really.

In the end, she pushed food around her plate for another ten minutes before calling time on the idea of breakfast. When she went to leave, however, the guard by the door, a young woman with dark hair and a scar below her eye, stood up and came over to her.

“Miss Jun, the Young Lord asked me to assist you today.”

“Oh… uh…”

“It’s no bother,” the young woman, who had to be a bit older than her, chuckled. “I am Kun Yunhee.”

“Ah… Thank you,” she replied, bowing politely to her. “I guess I need to go to the formal audience room?”

“Right this way,” Yunhee said, setting off.

They walked through the halls and across a few wet courtyards in silence until finally Yunhee stopped by a set of double doors and pushed them open.

The room inside was… opulent. All the furniture was top quality spirit wood, and the plants in their pots – which were themselves all from ‘old ruins’ she noted – were rare things that would have had to be cultivated from those harvested in the lower valleys. Two walls were taken up by bookshelves and a few stands of heirloom-looking artefacts designed to give a sense of the pre-eminence of the Kun clan and their deep roots within the region.

“Is that a ‘Life and Death’ scroll?” she asked, surprised to see two ornate scrolls, similar to those she had found during the clearing of the canals, on a stand before a shrine in the wall.

“They are,” Kun Yunhee agreed. “From before the time of the Huang-Mo Wars apparently. Sir Fei Jiang is very proud that his lineage goes back to the time before the Blue Water Sage, when the Kun clan was one of the few bastions of true civilisation in these abandoned lands.”

Nodding in thanks for the explanation, she bowed politely to the shrine then wandered over to look at the bookshelves. Kun Yunhee just went over to one of the tables along the wall and poured herself some tea from a teapot there, before sitting down on one of the couches.

None of the books were about cultivation, as far as she could see, not that she had expected them to be. Most were various writings about the deeds of past family members, famous events the Kun clan in the area had been involved in or things like ancestral registers for the various families themselves. Things that would ‘impress’ a visitor as to the importance of the Kun clan in this region, pretty much.

“Yunhee, can I ask you a somewhat personal question?” she said, turning away from the bookshelves.

“Maybe?” the woman said.

“Sorry, that came out a bit odd,” she conceded. “Are you local to this village?”

“I am,” Yunhee replied, putting her tea down. “Why do you ask?”

“Deng Luong…” she mused, trying to put her thoughts in order.

“What about him? He is a minor scion of the Deng clan who has an uncle who is an elder in the Jade Willow Sect. Did he do something to offend you?”

“No…” she shook her head, her eye drawn back to the Life and Death scrolls.

“The Deng clan… how much influence do they actually have here?” she asked… at last.

“Hmm….” Yunhee looked distant for a moment. “More than you would think, but most of it is kind of tempered by the dominance of the Ha clan. Both the Ha and Kun clans had links to this land before the Huang-Mo Wars though. After that upheaval the Deng clan were one of the major influences that led the resettlement, with backing from across the ocean, so most of the local influences younger than that have some roots in them, or those who were sponsored by them.

“The Deng clan’s influence has been waning steadily though, for the last five or six hundred years. Their interests lie elsewhere, up north, where they have much more influence in the Iron Crown Duke’s domain and the crossing to the Northern Tang continent.”

“I see… so there might be those in the village who would like to see both the Ha clan and the Pavilion get a bloody nose…” she mused.

“By drawing out the purpose of your visit here in awkward ways?” Yunhee remarked drily.

“It’s that obvious,” she grimaced, walking over to the tea pot and pouring herself a cup as well.

“You are here to teach the locals how to wrangle ginseng, but even an idiot can see that the circumstances are not auspicious, yet they are determined to push you to do something dangerous for their own short-term goals,” Yunhee shrugged. “And they are offending Young Lord Talshin, and probably Fairy Lianmei in the process. That means either they don’t care, or, as you seem to be suggesting, there is some other force at work here trying to cause difficulties for the Ha clan and the Pavilion in equal measure. Your supposition that it’s the Deng clan… is not impossible, but it’s unlikely to be them directly.”

“But it could be a gang… who have influence,” she mused.

“The gangs are… complicated, out here,” Yunhee agreed. “What you recovered yesterday could be them, but that would be a big step up.”

“And yet, the area has been becoming more like that?” she pressed.

“That is true, ever since Elder Fei was injured, the Pavilion’s hand in matters has waned, and local politics makes cooperation within the village divisive.”

“The canals,” she nodded.

“You heard about that?” Yunhee asked, raising her eyebrows.

“It came up when I was clearing lotuses,” she replied.

“Ah, I suppose it would,” Yunhee nodded, then glanced over at the door.

The door opened a moment later and Talshin came in, followed, somewhat surprisingly, by Old Xian.

“Sir Xian,” she bowed respectfully to him.

“Old Xian is fine,” he chuckled, walking over and pouring himself some tea. “I heard Lianmei’s tales about that bastard lingered a bit in your mind?”

“Ah…” she grimaced, staring at the floor, feeling embarrassed.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Old Xian said, clearly noticing her reaction. “Folks far more experienced than you have had worse than nightmares because of Yeng Illhan and the villainy he has wrought. Just the idea that a villainous ghost like that might still be around is enough to make you look at corners differently.”

“It is concerning, yes,” Lianmei remarked, sweeping into the room, looking a bit tired.

“Elder Lianmei,” she saluted the older woman, as did Yunhee.

“Please, be at ease,” Lianmei sighed, also claiming a cup of tea.

“How did your search go?” Talshin asked.

“The ginseng valleys are shoved up the nameless fates’ ass,” Lianmei scowled, sitting down. “We walked up there yesterday afternoon and if anything it’s worse than what Miss Jun here suggested.”

She winced at that, which made Lianmei just shake her head in amusement.

“Don’t be embarrassed, you went up there to look for a specific thing, on your own in the dark…” Lianmei remarked.

“Did you find the ruin?” she asked.

“The group following Ha Mofan got there first,” Lianmei said sourly. “They rescued… twenty-odd people when all is said and done, including those you flagged. The… ruin is certainly interesting, probably from the previous aeonspan based on the dress style.”

“Twenty?” she said, shocked.

“The few still conscious or in a fit state to speak claimed to be kidnapped locals,” Lianmei said, rolling her eyes. “Their stories were largely variations on being lured by various means or just seized off the road and held prisoner, made to work for the bandits. Their story is that the operation was run by a group of Easten mercenaries, maybe in the employ of the Deng clan, who had initially started out plundering the ginseng fields. When the ruin was discovered by the Ha clan early last year, while trying to deal with the bandits, they turned to using it as a base and clearing it out.”

“How convenient,” Talshin murmured.

“Quite,” Lianmei agreed. “They managed to cripple the tetrid queen, which the Ha group then slew. The core has been claimed by a young noble from the Din clan who was accompanying them, having come to ‘see the sights’, and who delivered the killing blow, if you can credit that.”

“…”

The dull-eyed looks around the room, her own included, suggested that nobody else, not least Lianmei did, in fact, buy that.

“The Din clan, how convenient,” Old Xian frowned.

“It is rather,” Lianmei agreed.

“I… see…” she said, not sure how she felt about that. “Were any of those recovered… a Wen Suan… or a Ha Kwan… or an Elder Ku?”

“There was a Wen Suan ‘rescued’,” Lianmei replied with a nasty laugh. “The Wen family line is that Young Master Suan fell in with a bad crowd and acquired gambling debts. They say they will cooperate fully, but I can tell you what the outcome there will be…”

“He was blackmailed, he will repent, but he will no doubt present some important piece of information and it will ensure he is excluded from the aftermath?” Talshin remarked sourly.

“Indeed,” Lianmei sighed, staring at her cup of tea with dull eyes for a moment. “There was no Ha Kwan, but there was a Ha Quan who was a Herb Hunter at the local Pavilion for a few seasons before being withdrawn. As to Elder Ku, he is among those in the wind. Most of those found claim they were left for dead. The bandits tried to kill them, apparently, then the tetrid stalker escaped and it all went to shit, whereupon they were left to fend for themselves.”

“That…”

Turning that over in her head, she could see how that could be pitched and, if phrased right, not be a lie… even if it was not exactly the truth either, from what she had seen.

“I can walk you through what I experienced,” she said, “because I can guarantee you that there were no prisoners up there beyond the ones I found marked with talismans and compasses.”

“That would be helpful,” Lianmei sighed. “The tetrid nest was collapsed entirely and the way beyond was heavily trapped with talismans which will likely require just leaving it for a week or two, rather than wasting time and effort to get in there.”

“How did they get up there first?” she asked, puzzled by that.

“They managed to claim a communication talisman from the bandits before they scattered,” Lianmei sneered. “One of the survivors sent a message to the Ha clan, who informed Mofan, and then the group diverted directly off the road. The timing suggests that they were already on their way in there when we were here, looking at the bodies.”

“So, it will all be covered up,” Talshin mused.

“It will be thoroughly obfuscated, yes,” Lianmei agreed. “There was no trace of Yeng Illhan, and the freshly slain tetrid cores I saw were entirely normal for those in the valleys.

“Oh, they also claimed that a high ranked Herb Hunter provided the bandits warning…” Lianmei added.

“There was an Associate Herb Hunter up there,” she nodded.

“Indeed, though there is no sign of them now,” Lianmei agreed. “The two descriptions gave medium build, dark brown hair.”

“…”

“You are kidding,” she groaned.

“It has already been said,” Lianmei grimaced.

“I…

“Shit,” she put her head in her hands, realizing that it would not be hard to prove that she had been unaccounted for, and asking questions about Elder Li’s disappearance.

“And because of the weather, without any soul sense to easily rely on, it will be difficult to extract evidence to prove anything they said conclusively,” Talshin mused.

“So… are they accusing me directly?” she asked, somewhat hopelessly.

“You… look like you’re of Easten descent,” Lianmei grimaced. “The mercenaries were Easten. That is enough for many around here, looking for convenient excuses.”

She stared at the cup in her hand, which was now trembling, and carefully put it on the table before she was tempted to throw it.

“It is also not impossible to find out that your father is a former military official, and the Hunter Bureau’s leaders are turning their focus towards Xah Liji City,” Talshin added with a grimace.

“It’s all very compelling,” Lianmei agreed. “An aggrieved Herb Hunter, political clearance requests, a convenient opportunity to make the Ha clan look bad and set two major clans in the area at odds with each other.”

“And my getting Talshin involved makes it seem like the Kun clan is tacitly supporting the Hunter Pavilion in doing this,” she added.

“You have been spending too much time with my little sister,” Talshin joked.

“None of this they will say to your face, of course,” Lianmei added. “But you can expect to be sitting around for about as long as your sister was after the mess with the Ling clan a few years back, until logic prevails and it is clear you are just an unlucky pawn in this, serving as an alibi for others to make a mess.”

“And in the meantime, it puts the West Flower Picking Pavilion under a bit more pressure,” she concluded.

“There is that,” Lianmei agreed, “But your sister is just as capable as you, and you usually work together. In that regard, it’s a minor stroke of fortune for ‘us’, officially speaking, that she was in Blue Water City this whole time.”

“This is why I gave up on clan politics,” Old Xian chuckled darkly. “It makes you grey before your time, and unable to see any good in others.”

“So, what happens now?” she asked.

“Well, the elders will complain to Talshin at length, and demand that you go wrangle ginseng, because either you are up to your neck in it, or the problem is solved in their eyes, so the only danger is the accursed rain,” Lianmei mused.

“—and I, in turn, will concede that while I have an obligation to finish the teaching, they removed the time constraint on it and I now need to go back to West Flower Picking Town and ‘be at the leisure’ of the Ha clan, while they unpick this mess,” she finished.

Old Xian just laughed, and Talshin rolled his eyes.

“Yes, basically,” Lianmei grinned. “Though they may just concede that you had nothing to do with that, and probably Ha Mofan will go along with it, making a show of how magnanimous the Ha clan is in understanding the circumstances of Jade Willow Village, whose requests have been plagued by cruel, vicious political wrangling of elders from afar.”

“So… I am going up there, at least for half a day?” she concluded.

“That looks somewhat likely,” Lianmei agreed.

“It strikes me that the best way to deal with this is to just be politely accommodating,” Talshin remarked after a moment. “Ask them to send a representative with you, so that they can witness for themselves the teaching. They should have done that before, but did not, which was deliberately remiss of them.”

“…”

Belatedly, she realised that was true, which just made her want to hit her head off a table.

-Nameless-accursed… was I so caught up in everything else I actually made an idiot mistake like that and played right into their hands? she groaned.

Seeing her pained expression, Talshin sighed. “Don’t feel bad, it’s not like you do a lot of these. The more senior ones do not have this provision and because it was upgraded to a clearance mission it was re-categorized. This is a case of them being wilfully obscure.”

“Quite,” Lianmei scowled. “I will be remembering this. Not only those old frauds in Blue Water City can play favourites.”

“As to the trip itself…” Talshin went on

“—This old man has needed to go get some herbs for Little Xian anyway,” Old Xian grinned. “A brisk walk in the morning to clear my stuffy old head will do wonders.”

“…”

“Thank you,” she muttered, not quite sure how to feel.

Before she could say more, however, there was a knock on the door and the estate manager entered.

“The village elders are here… along with Official Mofan, Young Master Ha and two young nobles from the Din clan.”

Grimacing, she stood, as did Yunhee, however nobody else did. Six bearded men of various ages, some of whom she had seen the previous day, filed in, followed by Ha Mofan, Scholar Jung from the Jade Willow Sect and Elder Mu from the Pavilion. After them came a youth in ostentatious Ha clan robes and two youths in dark green robes edged with silver leaf motifs and a rotund, purple-robed man.

“You are earlier than anticipated,” Kun Talshin remarked as both she and Yunhee politely saluted the assembled group. “Or is this all in the aid of intimidating Miss Jun even further?”

“So, she is the Herb Hunter?” one of the green-robed youths remarked, looking her over and almost entirely ignoring Kun Talshin. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“The Hunters of this province have many exceptions that excuse their lack of ability, Young Hero Din,” the rotund purple-robed man explained, his voice dripping with respect.

“You seem well, Ha Botan,” Lianmei said, looking him over. “Your free and easy lifestyle suits you.”

“…”

She stared at the rotund man, because he was certainly not the ‘Botan’ she had presumed she saw in the ruin. It had clearly been an associate official’s talisman though…

-Are there two Botans? she wondered, Or did that other person borrow this Ha Botan’s name?

“Fairy Lianmei,” Ha Botan scowled, straightening up a bit. “Why are you not all saluting Young Lord Din?”

“What has a Severing Origins junior done that I need to salute?” Lianmei asked politely, raising an eyebrow. “If we were saluting the status others are born into, you should all be bowing before my cousin here.”

“Young Hero has slain an Immortal realm tetrid stalker!” Ha Botan said pointedly, “This is a great achievement for which we should all be very thankful!”

“…”

“I salute ‘Young Hero’ Din for making a positive contribution to the safety of this region,” Lianmei said blandly, neither saluting nor bowing.

“So, what do you all want?” Talshin interjected, not bothering with any preamble.

“Why don’t we go somewhere else to discuss matters?” Ha Mofan murmured, looking around at those present.

“I see no need,” Talshin said drily.

“Ahem… so, the matter of the teaching request—” the mayor of Jade Willow Village started to say.

“If I might speak?” she asked politely.

“…”

“Go on?” the mayor asked, his eyes glittering faintly.

“Yesterday I was somewhat stressed about other matters. Having considered the options and given full thought to how best I can avail the village of my expertise, I see no reason why I cannot take a group into the valley to look for ginseng now the weather has stabilized somewhat,” she said. “Furthermore, I would like to apologise for not inviting a village representative along on the previous training excursions.”

One of the other elders, who she had not seen yesterday, opened his mouth to speak, but she just ignored him and kept on talking.

“—it was a mistake born of the mission being elevated to a clearance request at the time. Now it is correctly categorized, I hope this requirement can be properly fulfilled by the village and an official assigned.”

“I see,” the mayor frowned. “This puts me in a bit of a quandary… Young Master Ha had agreed to take over the request—”

“You wish for Young Master Ha to do the teaching instead?” Elder Mu interrupted, eyeing the youth, who had not yet spoken, rather sceptically.

“That would be the village’s preference,” the elder beside the mayor, dressed in a fancy grey robe, agreed.

“I object,” Lianmei said, looking up from the jade slate she had procured from somewhere.

She blinked, then was suddenly gripped with a deep anger as in a moment of inspiration she saw what was going on.

The stipulation for ‘completion’ had required her personal assurance that she would complete the mission. That was not tied to any clause regarding mission reassignment.

-You village full of snakes! she cursed, finally having to resort to feeding her anger to her mantra, because here was not a place for a young woman to look emotionally overwrought, no matter how justified.

Elder Mu raised his eyebrows, then dropped them, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he probably arrived at the same conclusion. Talshin, who would be well versed in the intricate vagaries of the fine art of planting people with Bureau rules and regulations, was also frowning slightly.

“The terms of the mission cannot be re-assigned,” Lianmei said blandly, making a visible show of reviewing it.

“Elders from all three Pavilions—” Ha Botan started to say.

“It has to be ranking elders, and I outrank anyone you can produce other than Old Ling, Ha Fujiang and Mu Dengong from West Flower Picking Town,” Lianmei said blandly. “And you will reach none of those on short notice, even if they were inclined to care to speak to an Associate Official.”

Ha Botan opened and then shut his mouth, his expression turning somewhat gloomy.

“I am also higher ranked than the officials in charge of mission administration in Blue Water City,” Lianmei continued. “The commanders of the regional Beast Cadres are considered in-kind elders of the Provincial Pavilion in Blue Water City. Unless you wish to get Elder Gongliao or Elder Ji from Blue Water City to overrule me?

“Given you are merely an Associate, though, I can understand why the subtleties of the regulation have passed your notice.”

“…”

The mayor and the other elders all glanced at Ha Botan. Ha Mofan just sighed softly.

Ha Botan collected himself; however, before he could say anything in reply Lianmei continued.

“While the original clearance mission could be reassigned by agreement of elders at each Pavilion, the submitting party and the one undertaking it without issue, the re-categorized mission is personally tied to Hunter Jun through the stipulation that she must give her assurance that it is completed. If the submitting party bails on a request of this nature…”

“—They are penalized and cannot submit any official requests to that Pavilion for a year,” Elder Mu interjected blandly.

“Which would mean all the official tender and transport missions we do would be voided, for starters,” Kun Talshin remarked. “Those are handled for the village, via the Pavilion, who outsource them to us, so you can avoid being taxed twice on them.”

“So, if you really wish for Young Noble Ha to take over this request that is possible; however, Jade Willow Village, as the party that facilitated Hunter Jun to suffer this failure directly, by a means outside of her control, will also be punitively blacklisted for a year, pending review for being vexatious,” Lianmei said blandly. “A review panel on which I will have a voice.”

“…”

-And so dies machination, she reflected with a certain degree of awe. It was hard not to admire someone like Senior Lianmei, really.

The faces of some of the village elders, who were trying to look as if this was not a thing they had seriously entertained and thought they could get away with, while also scowling at Ha Botan, were such that she again had to focus on her mantra somewhat to keep a straight face. Probably it was Ha Botan who had suggested the wheeze, so his own protégé could get a cushy mission completion, and assured the village elders that they could just brush it off and that it would gain them the favour of a Ha clan scion.

Interestingly, the mayor’s own expression was stony now, though she wouldn’t put it out of the realms of possibility that he was just a far better actor.

“In that case, it is our honest mistake,” the village mayor muttered. “I was unaware that there was an issue with the wording of the request.”

“Accepted,” Lianmei said with a gracious smile, having made her point. “Truly it is said that the regulations of the Bureau are so very labyrinthine, that even their own cannot fully claim to be masters of the monster they created, let alone the poor souls fated to live with it.”

“Well said, Fairy Lianmei,” Scholar Jung remarked drily.

Talshin and Old Xian just shook their heads, looking slightly amused.

It took her a second to realise that Lianmei had just quoted Seng Mo again, at which point she did have to briefly resort to using her mantra to avoid laughing out loud.

“…”

“Yes… the wise words of Scholar Seng…” the village mayor coughed.

“In that case, the village will ask—” one of the elders started to speak.

“I think it would be appropriate for a village elder to undertake this task,” Ha Mofan said smoothly, “do you not agree, Elder Aohun?”

“—Elder Chen Yunfei to observe Hunter Jun for the remainder of her teaching request,” Elder Aohun continued; barely choking at the interjection that proved that Ha Mofan was nowhere near as stupid as the circumstances were painting him.

-One Spirit Jade says he was about to ask Ha Botan, she guessed with a derisive mental sneer.

Elder Chen, who had been standing towards the back of the group of men, was, she noted, the youngest of them by some margin. He looked a bit askance at the others but didn’t object, settling that.

“When do I start?” she asked, keeping her own expression respectfully neutral.

“Within the hour,” the mayor said perfunctorily.

“In the village—” the elder beside him, in the grey robe, started to say.

“I think it would be easier for them to come here,” Lianmei interjected. “That would save Elder Chen the walk, would it not?”

“…”

The elders frowned a bit, but otherwise nodded.

“In that case, I will take my leave and prepare,” she said, saluting politely and glancing at Lianmei.

Lianmei nodded and she quickly left the room, followed by Yunhee.

“Wow… I feel like I have attained a minor revelation in the Dao of Shamelessness,” Yunhee muttered, catching up to her.

“Any of those elders have links to the Deng clan?” she asked as an afterthought, walking towards the main courtyard.

“The one who was pushing things on at the start has some distant links,” Yunhee replied. “Though that looked to be entirely self-inflicted.”

-It would have inflicted something all right, she grumbled to herself, kicking a pebble down the covered veranda. I bet this is how Sis felt back when those shameless bastards backing Ling Mu caused her problems…

Arriving back in the main courtyard, she found herself somewhat… at a loss.

“Sorry, I walked here and didn’t think what I would do next,” she apologized to Yunhee, again feeling like the day was really getting away from her in some distinct, yet undefinable way.

“It’s fine,” Yunhee said drily.

Puffing out her cheeks, she looked around at the largely deserted courtyard, then decided to go kill the intervening time by poking around at the mutated lotus, which was a task she had intended to do anyway but kept seeming to be side-tracked away from.

~ Jun Sana – Blue Water City, Ling Estates ~

Sana found herself sitting under an umbrella, watching servants of the Ling Estate dig holes in the central garden in the grey, gloomy light of early morning. The previous day had been a strange one, even by the standards of ‘strange days’, and Yin Eclipse served those up often enough that she was fairly certain she qualified as a connoisseur of them. In comparison, watching people get muddy and tear up a garden to fix its corrupted alignments was almost calming.

-Had dinner with a princess, watched a member of the Huang clan get thrown in the harbour… Saw Juni hold a civil conversation with her younger cousin, she ticked them off on her hands in a slightly disbelieving manner. The only thing missing from that is Ling Mu apologizing for being a colossal tool all those years ago.

“It feels like it should be blowing a gale and a quarter of the temperature it is,” Ling Yu pouted, appearing beside her and flopping down under her own umbrella.

“And yet it’s hot enough to sweat without moving and every breath feels like you breathed in a mouthful of mist?” she observed.

“Uggh… I hate the wet season,” Ling Yu sighed.

“Technically it’s not yet,” she pointed out, because the New Year started on the first day of the month of the Rising Dragon, which was still two days away.

“Technically I haven’t kicked you into the pond,” Ling Yu grumbled, giving her a sideways look. “Yet.”

“So, what is the plan for today?” she asked.

“Wanna spar?” Ling Yu asked with a mischievous grin.

“What are you, a battle maniac? Did being around so many young nobles yesterday make you long for the culture of your own people?”

“What culture, who are my own people!” Ling Yu pouted, giving her a shove that sent her tumbling off the bench and into the wet grass.

Rolling with the momentum she sat back up, holding the umbrella, which she hadn’t let go of, over her head, not that it was worth much anymore given how wet the grass was.

“You must try harder, little Yu, you lack conviction in your strikes!” she retorted, mimicking Grandpa Baisheng’s occasional complaints when he did instruct Ling Yu in weapons forms in her presence.

“The last time I did that, the martial instructor told me it was unladylike to break someone’s arms with parries,” Ling Yu grumbled, sitting cross-legged on the bench as she had been, previously.

“Wasn’t that a girl from the Fan clan who said you slept with your ginseng?” she pointed out. “Seems entirely deserved really, and that’s what medicinal pills are for?”

“You physical cultivator types,” Ling Yu sighed, effecting to sound like an old lady. “You have no appreciation of the woes us mere spiritual cultivators must endure.”

“Who is a spiritual cultivator? Aren’t you really a martial one?” she pointed out, rolling her eyes.

“…”

Ling Yu just stuck out her tongue.

“And a body cultivator?

“With a Heart Force scripture?”

“Yes, yes… I get it, I am the big miss of a big clan,” Ling Yu grumbled. “And that shitty scripture can go lick its balls like the monkey it is, it’s impossible to use.”

“If anyone other than me hears you speak like that, won’t they weep and wonder where they went wrong?” she giggled.

“If my younger brother can go to teahouses and slap the asses of innocent girls, I can swear a bit,” Ling Yu griped.

“So, what are we going to do today?” she asked again.

“I can’t go anywhere until Grandpa Baisheng says so,” Ling Yu sighed. “He said he was having breakfast with a representative from the Huang clan. That Huang Fuan’s elders were a bit unhappy that they had to fish three of their scions out of the harbour. As it turns out, the Imperial Envoy wants to make a big thing out of the whole ‘Princess is a junior, so no seniors can be involved in their mission in front of the curtain’ look they have going on.”

“No offence, even if you say that slowly it sounds like a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ thing,” she pointed out.

“It is, absolutely,” Lin Ling grumbled, appearing from between the flowerbeds under her own umbrella. “The Imperial Court never plays by any rules other than those they set in a given moment.”

“…”

She turned around to reply to Lin Ling and narrowly avoided flinching, because Grandpa Baisheng was now sitting – as if by some street trick – on a nearby bench under his own umbrella, sipping a cup of tea.

“You three make me feel old,” the old man grumbled as if he had always been there.

“Did you finish placating the old men?” Ling Yu asked.

“I convinced them that it was best to leave matters as they are,” Baisheng sighed. “That likely means that no senior is going to get his arm twisted by some ‘friend’ or ‘senior brother’ of that brat into embarrassing you…”

“I guess that means you just get to spend even more time with me,” Ling Yu smirked.

“I am being serious,” Baisheng grumbled.

“I know,” Ling Yu agreed with a resigned sigh as they sat… or stood, in the case of Lin Ling, just listening. “But if I don’t make the odd joke about it, I’ll start to gibber instead, and that would be unladylike, or so they tell me.”

“The bigger issue is that the wider Ling clan… can’t decide whether to love you or hate you,” Baisheng remarked drily. “They tried for days to get your brothers into the inner circle of either Huang JiLao or Princess Lian Jing, yet you skip that dinner, ignore all your mother’s plotting, don’t show your face at all in public and still get a private meal with both of them, in the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse? I’d worry more that the proprietor of the Golden Dragon or our own clan elders try to have you meet a misfortune before any young noble.”

“Blame Kun Juni for that,” Ling Yu smirked.

“Or that Huang Fuan,” Lin Ling added. “If it wasn’t for him…”

Lin Ling trailed off, looking a bit awkward, though Baisheng just laughed lightly and produced more cups.

“Have some tea anyway, it will be refreshing in this weather.”

Shaking her head, because in a way it was quite funny when you considered the messed-up circumstances that had occurred to create yesterday, she got up and walked over to accept a cup of tea. Taking a sip, it was… warm, yet somehow the aroma was refreshing... it conjured in the mind an almost bewitching allure of the cool breeze of the ocean and the dry heat of summer on skin.

“Is this Jasmine Tea made from that Jasmine?” she asked dully, after savouring the taste for several moments.

“You recognise it?” Baisheng chuckled.

“Inhaled some of its pollen once, I had to be carried out of the High Valleys by my sister, raving like a lunatic,” she muttered, shuddering at that memory. “It was a blessing from heaven we didn’t die.”

The God Bewitching Jasmine was a ‘feature’ danger that grew close to the main route through the boundary between the High Valleys and the Inner ones. Despite being a thirteen-star ranked passive threat in the eyes of the Hunter Bureau, it was… actually about as dangerous as a common spirit vegetation jasmine so long as you left it well alone.

If you disturbed it however, even innocuously as she had done two years before, the effects started at days in a hallucinatory coma, unsure what was real and what was not… and escalated from there. If she had not been there with her sister… she would probably have died, just from accidentally stumbling into some other threat.

“Ah, this is not from that Jasmine,” Baisheng clarified, seeing her expression. “I don’t think you, or even I, could make drinkable tea from the God Bewitching Jasmine’s flowers. This is just plain old bewitching dream jasmine tea, albeit of very good quality.”

Lin Ling, who had been about to drink the tea and stopped, noting her reaction, also tried some and sighed blissfully, sitting down on the other end of the bench.

“Isn’t that auction starting today?” Lin Ling asked eventually, after pouring herself a second cup of the tea.

“Oh, the treasure auction to show off the wealth of Yin Eclipse for all the visiting big hats?” Ling Yu frowned. “It is… isn’t it at the Golden Dragon Teahouse?”

“Yep,” Lin Ling nodded. “Probably because of the influence of the Imperial Envoy, isn’t he a big patron there?”

“He is,” Baisheng nodded. “After yesterday, I would avoid making any big scenes there as well.”

“Ah… I suppose that is true,” Ling Yu sighed, looking a bit downcast again.

It didn’t surprise her, really, that the auction was being held there. The Golden Dragon was about the size of the average noble’s estate when you really considered what was there. Alongside the teahouse itself and associated infrastructure, it had ornamental gardens within its grounds, a small lake, various pagodas, a temple, guest suites, several grand meeting and reception halls, a library and probably more besides.

“Probably they want to make the guests from across the ocean feel at home,” she remarked.

“It does have a certain ambience that appeals to thieving villains,” Ling Yu agreed.

“It’s comments like that you don’t want to make,” Baisheng added helpfully, giving her a fatherly flick to the head which Ling Yu spectacularly failed to avoid.

“Why are they here, anyway?” Ling Yu asked. “I chatted to both of them over that dinner and while they asked a lot of questions, they actually gave away precious little of anything at all.”

“It is… almost certainly a fishing trip, though what you fed that pair yesterday has likely given them far more food for thought than they expected,” Baisheng mused, staring at the bustle going on in the garden.

“…”

They all sat there expectantly, sipping their tea until the silence stretched to the point where the old man just sighed and shook his head wryly.

“As to what exactly it is they are after though, I cannot say with any certainty,” he continued at last, glancing at her and then Lin Ling. “You know, as well as any, that there are some very odd things high up in the mountains… and in the caverns beneath.”

“There are,” she agreed. “Juni took us into some of the caves once, when we were being trained. It was a requirement for the recovery certification.”

“Oh?” Ling Yu asked, looking at her with interest.

“If I was to hazard a guess, based on those in power in this generation, there are elements within the Imperial Court who have unresolved interests from the period after the Blue Water Sage and before the Huang-Mo Wars. Perhaps someone thinks they found a trace of an old abandoned hold of an influence consumed by the mountain range in the early days of the second Dun Dynasty that showed up during that great disaster… or something relating to the Shan Dynasty in the previous aeonspan,” Baisheng said, taking a further sip of his tea.

“It could even be they are looking for traces of the first Dun Dynasty for whatever reason, like they have been on the Argent Gate continent for many years.

“Or they want some rare spirit herb that is only talked about in an obscure old record or something…

“It may not even be related to the mountain, but something others brought out long ago, hence the interest in treasures,” Baisheng mused, staring back up at the cloudy sky, lost in misty morning rain.

“Or it’s all a ploy and it was just cover for whoever is currently backing one of that pair to swallow up the Blue Gate School, just like the Teng, Golden Promise and…”

He trailed off, not saying ‘the Lin School’, and not looking at Lin Ling, who just grimaced and took another sip of her own tea.

That the Lin School had been ruined under the pretence of being a ‘nail’ that stuck out too far in terms of refusing to pick a side between the Azure Astral Authority and the Imperial Court was a fairly open secret really.

It had been an influence, like the Blue Gate School, that sat on a major route out of the province; however, unlike the Blue Gate School, it had two other schools – the ‘Teng School’ and ‘Golden Promise School’ – effectively stuck upstream of it on the Lin Teng River. With both those schools in the hands of the Imperial Court it had only been a matter of time, or so said the scholarly consensus on the lead-up to the Three Schools Conflict, before the Imperial Court or the Azure Astral Authority moved on it.

Lin Ling’s family had been one of the more eminent within the Lin clan, albeit one that had always argued for closer integration with the Imperial Court – not that it had saved them, quite the opposite really. They had fled north, through the Shadow Forest, hiding there for several years before striking a bargain with the Blue Gate School and the Ha clan to settle in West Flower Picking Town.

“Still, I need to find a good metal-attributed plant to help Little Blue,” Ling Yu pointed out. “Everyone has pulled their goods in preparation for that…”

“The prices will be sky high though,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but it will still only be Spirit Jade… and we can just go along to watch the rest of it… that shouldn’t cause a problem, should it?” Ling Yu asked Baisheng.

“Hmmmmm…” Baisheng stared into the distance for a moment, then sighed and nodded.

“Rather than go on your own, you will accompany me.”

“Aren’t they restricting it to juniors?” she asked, recalling that there had been some discussion of it the previous evening, among those waiting around before Lin Ling’s teaching request.

“They are,” Baisheng nodded, then grinned wolfishly. “However, if this old man wants to pass as a teenager for a day, nobody is going to claim otherwise. You three have been seen in public, associated with what happened to that idiot Huang Fuan as well, so keeping a low profile is a good idea.”

“Surely, given it’s the Imperial Envoy’s Estate organizing this, they will have means to ensure the older generation don’t sneak in?” Lin Ling asked, looking concerned.

Baisheng just shook his head, looking amused, then pulled out a handful of talismans from nowhere.

He passed her one, and she put it on… then gawked.

Her whole appearance shifted subtly, and the aura of qi within her body became faint and inscrutable.

She was the same height and hair colour, but more mature in a sort of elegant way. Lin Ling was also taller, as was Ling Yu, looking more like her aunt Ling Tao. Baisheng put one on and his appearance shifted in the opposite direction, the years seeming to fall off him until he looked to be in his early twenties, powerfully built with curly golden-brown hair.

“You are Bai Yu, Bai Ling, Bai Sana,” Baisheng said, pointing to each of them in turn. “I will be Bai Sheng, your senior brother. Don’t use any arts and keep your own qi in tight control. Use your mantras if you have to. The effect makes it seem as if you are Immortals, but doesn’t hide your age, which immediately marks you as fairly elite juniors.”

“How neat!” Ling Yu exclaimed, twirling around in the rain, testing how flawless the illusion was. “Are they illusions?”

“No, they work off something far less fallible,” Baisheng replied, though he didn’t elaborate further.

“Why have I never seen you use one of these before?” Ling Yu asked, coming to a stop.

“Because they are not common and the less you know about them, the better,” Baisheng remarked drolly. “Consider me using them as a mark of this old man going a bit senile with old age.”

“Really, you just like Little Blue as much as I do,” Ling Yu smirked, draping an arm over the ‘old’ man.

“Ahiii…” Baisheng sighed, gently untangling her arm and shaking his head.

“It’s because he likes Little Blue as much as we do,” Ling Yu reiterated in a stage whisper that made Lin Ling roll her eyes.

“Oh, you should go put on fancier spirit gowns,” Baisheng added, looking them over critically. “And take off your storage ring and talismans, they will give you away immediately. You can leave them in my study. I’ll meet you in the main courtyard when you are ready.”

She was about to leave, when he caught her by the arm and added: “Also, give me the talismans back for now. If you go traipsing through the estate looking like that someone will think we are under attack, and you would not like that.”

Realising he was quite right, she quickly took it off again, as did Lin Ling and Ling Yu, and passed the talisman back to him with an apologetic grimace.

It took all of about ten minutes to go change clothes into something that Ling Yu declared to be acceptably opulent. They ended up with roughly matching spirit gowns of blue, grey and gold, emblazoned with various flowers and birds for the most part. When Lin Ling asked where they had come from, Ling Yu just shrugged and said they had been part of the Ling Estate for as long as she knew, and that most of them had ended up with her, because they were part of the family and her mother had better gowns anyway.

Returning to the main courtyard, they found Baisheng beneath a tree, reading a book. Seeing them approach, he stood up and just waved for them to follow him, not out the main gate, but the eastern one, which led to the public gardens associated with the Ling estate.

“There is no point in drawing undue notice,” Baisheng remarked as they walked down the leafy boulevard, between flower beds, ornamental statues and a long lake that held a pagoda used for entertaining guests if she recalled right.

“And nobody is going to be wandering around the gardens in this weather, at this hour,” Ling Yu nodded sagely.

“Something like that,” Baisheng agreed.

They walked on through the misty rain for a few minutes before finally stopping at a second, smaller pagoda that overlooked an offshoot of the lake. In the shelter of the pagoda, Baisheng handed out the charms again, whereupon she noted that the qi signature it ‘presented’ was a lot more discernible.

“You changed them?” Ling Yu pouted, twirling around.

“This is less conspicuous,” Baisheng said, passing her a talisman that had transformed into a hair comb that matched the designs on her gown.

“Because we are not Immortals, so if someone expects us to do something, or we do use our qi, it won’t give us away?” she guessed.

“Indeed, this makes you all appear as if you are at Severing Origins.”

“Because we don’t have ‘principles’?” Ling Yu asked.

“Indeed, and while this weather messes with soul sense, it does little towards Martial Intent or qi purity,” Baisheng agreed.

“Aww… I was looking forward to being an Immortal for a day,” Ling Yu pouted, “but I suppose this is fine too.”

“An auction like this is not comparable to something local,” Baisheng said with a sigh, his own appearance shifting to his younger form again, his foundation still as inscrutable as before. “My current foundation is ‘Ancient Immortal’, which puts me at a level comparable to the more exemplary brats along for the show from the central continent. The use of ‘Bai’ means nobody will ask too closely about our origins and just assume we are here from Nine Moons Province.”

She nodded, taking his words to heart as he explained the very simple deception. Their names basically remained the same and, if asked, they were just to act cute and introduce themselves informally to avoid being caught in any deception. In a way, it was not so dissimilar an idea to using ‘Empty Eye Steps’, in that it was simple, little things done well that fooled people, not some hideously complex makeover and disguise. Looking a bit older, wearing a fancier gown, being slightly stronger, all of that put together was enough to throw off the casual observer and make them unmemorable rather than unnoticeable.

Once he was happy with his own appearance, which she had to admit was remarkably dashing and easily comparable to any of the genuine young scions… they set off, Ling Yu arm in arm with Baisheng, or ‘Bai Sheng’ as he now was, sharing an umbrella while they followed just behind, heading towards the Golden Dragon Teahouse where the auction was being held.

The streets of the central district were no less busy than they had been the previous evening, though there was, if you cared to notice, a marked change in the kind of traffic on the roads. The evening had seen lots of people going to teahouses, to the school or to the central plaza to watch some combat or other on the stage. The morning, by comparison, was mostly locals going about their daily business – shops opening, teahouses accepting deliveries, this kind of thing.

The central plaza itself was not as busy as she feared, or expected, probably because of the rain. As they threaded their way across it, she saw two disciples exchanging pointers on the battle stage that was still set up there; one from the Orchid Pavilion, the other major influence in Blue Water City besides the Blue Gate School, and an opponent who was an independent cultivator being cheered on by a small group of experts.

She watched for a moment as the independent expert kicked the Orchid Pavilion disciple off the stage and claimed a round in their combat, then shook her head and hurried on, catching up to Ling Yu and Baisheng again.

“It seems they intend to set up outside as well?” Lin Ling remarked as they passed through the gateway to the Golden Dragon Teahouse’s forecourt and observed the large coverings being extended from the front to provide some shelter for those standing outside.

“Probably because they will restrict those who want to go in, but do not want to conceal the spectacle,” Ling Yu shrugged.

“That is probably it,” Baisheng agreed.

“Good morning, Young Noble,” a woman standing by the door said, bowing to them. “Might I ask if you are here to view the auction or participate?”

“Is there a difference?” Baisheng asked.

“The Imperial Envoy has made it be known on behalf of the Princess that she wishes to limit the spectacle to the younger generation, those who are seniors may provide things for auction, or spectate, but may not bid or offer any trouble.”

“I see…” Baisheng nodded.

“This guarantee Lord Envoy Qiao hopes all will honour on behalf of the Imperial Princess and not make any difficulties—”

“Is this in relation to what happened at the school yesterday?” Baisheng, the perpetrator of at least one such incident, interjected with a half-smile.

“There… have been a few incidents,” the woman murmured diplomatically. “Though this intention is not directly related to that. Lord Qiao personally offers his assurances to all who participate that something like that will not happen.”

“I see…” Baisheng remarked drily.

“Ahem… well, there is a small test I must trouble Young Noble Bai with… just a formality you understand, then you can all be issued with a participation token which may be used to bid. You will also find that there are some… wealth requirements to participate in certain aspects of the auction over the coming days.”

“Of course,” Baisheng agreed.

The woman clapped her hands and another youthful male servant appeared a moment later.

“If Young Noble and Young Ladies would follow me?” he said, bowing respectfully and gesturing for them to follow him towards a side room off the main entrance to the teahouse.

Doing as instructed, she observed, as she entered the small hall, that a waist-high jade pedestal with a flat top had been placed in the middle of the floor. Behind it, or beyond it, placed on a table, was a stele made of the same stone and a large rack of talismans.

“If Young Noble and the Young Ladies could please place your palms on the pedestal and channel some qi into it,” the youth asked politely, ushering them forward and placing one of the talismans from the rack into a gap on the stele.

She watched, trying not to look nervous, as Baisheng eyed the whole setup critically, then walked forward and did as instructed.

The stele on the shrine before the pedestal shimmered and rearranged itself.

Name: Bai Sheng

Realm: Ancient Immortal

Bone Age: 792 years

If the youth was surprised, he hid it well, simply walking forward and taking the talisman from the stele and inspecting it for a moment, before passing it to Baisheng.

“Young Noble Bai Sheng,” he said, saluting slightly. “Thank you for your trouble.”

“…”

Looking on, she couldn’t help but wonder how that worked, but deliberately didn’t dwell on it. While soul sense was restricted, she was fairly clear on the depths of information that could be read from ‘intent’ and it would be somewhat embarrassing to give matters away like that. Ling Yu walked forward next, repeating the process which confirmed she was ‘Bai Yu’, aged seventeen and at Severing Origins.

The youth waved to her next, so she stepped forward and did the same, confirming that she was ‘Bai Sana,’ aged eighteen and, like Ling Yu, at Severing Origins. Accepting her talisman, she saw Lin Ling flash up as ‘Bai Ling’, also aged seventeen, at Severing Origins.

-Huh… she frowned, surprised at that for a brief moment, before recalling that Lin Ling’s formal birthday that made her look sixteen was a result of her family being terrible people.

“If you would please follow me?” the youth continued, waving for them to move on.

“Ah—” she nodded, and followed after Baisheng as the youth left the hall by a second exit half-way along, even as two youths in grey and black robes entered to be tested after them.

“To purchase anything you will need to present the material spirit stones at the main reception,” the youth was explaining to Baisheng when she caught up. “Then you can use your talisman to pay for anything. Credit can be extended, but you must provide collateral, and it will be examined by a member of our Astrology Bureau and an official helping with the auction.”

“I see, thank you,” Baisheng replied.

“If you require anything else, just seek out one of our officials,” the youth added.

“Of course,” Baisheng agreed a further time, then watched as the youth bowed very slightly and went back to the room with the testing formation.

“Well, that was easy,” Ling Yu remarked, watching him depart, before glancing at Lin Ling. “I thought you were a year younger than me?”

“I… am sure I explained that at some point?” Lin Ling muttered, looking annoyed.

“…”

Ling Yu opened and shut her mouth, then clearly concluded that now was not the time, or the place, to ask questions.

“…”

“—They moved my birthday so it was behind my younger brother’s, because my father disliked that I was born on a more auspicious day than he was,” Lin Ling said after a moment’s pause, apparently deciding that she would talk about it. “Only grandfather Lunbei overruled them for a few years; however, once he passed away the rest of the clan still made it a formal reality. They pushed my birthday back from Blossoming Lotus in late spring to the start of Falling Dragon, two thirds of the way through the following autumn dry season. I was formally ‘eleven’ for two years…”

“Ah… sorry,” Ling Yu murmured, flushing with embarrassment.

As a piece of manipulation it was utterly shameless, she reflected as she gave Lin Ling a shoulder hug. She had first learned of it when wondering why Ling had joined the Pavilion at eleven, not twelve or older, as was more typical, but rarely gave it thought since, except to lament the injustice on Ling’s behalf.

“It’s okay…” Lin Ling replied, sighing softly, although she could tell it really wasn’t.

-Why do I seem to attract friends who have difficult relationships with their parents, she sighed sadly to herself, when all I wanted in mine was more time with my mother…

“Oh… so that’s why you joined at eleven,” Ling Yu sighed.

-That is an unusual mistake for her, she reflected, usually Ling Yu was a consummate and scrupulous person in regards to stuff like that. Is something on her mind?

“Yes,” Lin Ling agreed, her shoulders slumping a bit more. “My grandfather had a good relationship with Old Ling and that was one of his final wishes, so they had to honour it, not that they haven’t tried to find ways around it since…”

She nodded sympathetically, because Lin Ling’s family were… the kind of people who were widely respected, until you had to spend any time with them at all, at which point she had found them largely to be insufferable. That Lin Ling was not, she could only ascribe to her having been taken under Old Ling’s wing early on. If she thought back, the Lin Ling from those early days has been a bit of a spiky customer, truth be told, and her family’s act of changing her age had only made others view her as a precocious upstart from a recently disgraced clan, which likely had not helped in the slightest. Now that she thought about it, that association also explained why Juni had taken Ling under her wing and mentored the younger woman.

“Sorry…” Ling Yu muttered, still clearly embarrassed.

“It’s fine,” Lin Ling sighed, “I was surprised as well. You just stop thinking about it after a while.”

“…”

“I didn’t mean to drag that back up,” Ling Yu sighed, also giving Lin Ling a shoulder hug.

Baisheng, who had just been standing there watching them talk, sighed and shook his head, his expression inscrutable, but she fancied she caught a faint hint of disapproval in there as well.

The changing of her formal birthday in that way, while not unprecedented, was in the context a very petty act. While the ‘month’ of someone’s birth was important for divining spiritual roots before they fully developed, saying someone was born into a different one did not change the nature of their spirit root after the fact. All it had served, as far as she knew, was to ensure that the remnants of the Lin clan gave the most suitable laws for Lin Ling’s brothers, as was ‘traditional’, and made her cultivate the law appropriate for her ‘station’, but not for her friend personally.

“Right, let’s go look at stuff,” she said with some forced cheerfulness, trying to change the topic back to something much less maudlin.

“Yes, let’s,” Lin Ling agreed eagerly, looking around at the groups of cultivators drifting around the entry hall.

“Yes,” Ling Yu nodded.

“Shall we go looking for a metal-attuned spirit herb first?” she suggested, with a sideways look at Baisheng.

“Your enthusiasm is good,” he remarked drolly, “But aren’t you forgetting something else?”

“…”

“Ah…” she stopped mid-step and felt stupid.

-We need to put spirit stones on the talismans…

“It’s just shaping up to be that kind of day, isn’t it?” she muttered to herself, which made Ling Yu roll her eyes and Lin Ling give her a poke in the side.

Baisheng shot all three of them a ‘look’ that spoke a small essay about the trials of escorting others around, then, shaking his head, set off towards the proper reception area for the teahouse.

Providing ‘funds’ turned out to simply be a matter of making their way to one of the reception counters and putting down a stack of spirit stones. Without comment, Baisheng took their talismans, then pulled out a bag of spirit stones and three pale golden jade discs, each the size of her hand, that made the ambient qi above the counter shimmer faintly.

“Put these on their talismans,” Baisheng said, pushing the three Heavenly Jades towards the youth behind the counter, who raised an eyebrow but no more.

“This is…?” she gawked slightly, almost intuitively wanting to ask if he had made a mistake.

“It’s fine, this much is nothing,” Baisheng remarked, blandly.

-Those are Heavenly Jades though – ten thousand spirit stones – I could barely get half that in a year if I lived in the High Valleys! she wept in her own heart. How is that ‘nothing’?

“Welcome to my people…” Ling Yu whispered behind her, trying to sound faintly spooky and making wavy motions with her arms.

Shooting her friend a dirty look, she determined to spend as little as possible, just in case the Ling clan did ask for it back eventually.

“Ah… how generous…”

“I wish my senior brother was so…”

“Senior Brother?”

“Big Brother, he is almost as generous as you…”

Glancing around, Baisheng’s action had also drawn quite a few appreciative looks and comments from some other young women queuing up nearby, along with some poorly-hidden pale faces from the male cultivators accompanying them.

“How much did you put on your jade?” Ling Yu whispered, noting the receiver leaving to safely store the three Heavenly Jade and the pouch of spirit stones looked a bit green.

“Enough,” Baisheng murmured drily, returning the talismans.

“…”

“Right!” Ling Yu declared, breaking the aura of the moment as she put her own talisman back in her gown. “Onwards, to the spirit herbs!”

Staring at the talisman in her own hand, she nodded, then put it around her neck, hiding it in the bosom of her gown. The likelihood of someone stealing it was rather low… but just the act of walking around with that many spirit stones made her feel like people were looking at her sideways.

“Hey… excuse me,” Ling Yu said politely to a servant woman from the Golden Dragon who happened to be standing nearby.

The woman didn’t turn, just continued to stare at the jade slip in her hand.

“Hey!” Ling Yu dropped her polite tone a bit. “You!”

“Ah… young lady,” the maid grimaced slightly at Ling Yu’s commanding tone, but still bowed in greeting.

“We want to see rare spirit herbs from Yin Eclipse, are there any being displayed?” Ling Yu stated rather archly.

“The garden,” the woman replied blandly, not even bothering to point.

“…”

Ling Yu just sighed and nodded, then swept past the woman, who went back to reading her jade without a further look.

Following after Ling Yu, she took in the various groups milling around or sitting at tables availing themselves of refreshments provided by the Golden Dragon.

“Ha…” Ling Yu suddenly laughed as they walked past a table.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Look at the food,” Ling Yu chuckled, not stopping.

She glanced at it, not really seeing what Ling Yu’s point was. It was mostly fried fish, spicy roots, lotus leaf soup… cloud rice wrapped in various yin-attributed edible spirit herb leaves… It was a local repast as you might have seen in any inn, inland. Frowning, she snagged a roll from a table and bit into it. Lin Ling, who had also claimed one, wolfed hers down in about three bites.

“Ib’ welly gud,” Lin Ling remarked around a mouthful of the cloud rice.

“It is…” she agreed, then realised belatedly what had drawn Ling Yu to comment.

The Golden Dragon was almost aggressively ‘imperial’ in its style of food – it served all the famous and signature dishes from the Imperial and Argent Gate continents. Today, however, it was trying to outdo the Myriad Blossoms’ rather more traditionally provincial menus in every conceivable way.

“Ha…” she shook her head and caught up with Ling Yu, who had snagged a fried fish and was nibbling at it.

They exited the hall, pausing only for Baisheng to show his talisman to a watchful guard, then headed down the broad corridor and into the garden, where there were markedly less people milling.

“Can I help you?” a dark-haired youth wearing greenish-teal robes embroidered with lots of shaded flowers asked.

“How come a Myriad Herb Association disciple is overseeing a display of spirit herbs from Yin Eclipse?” Baisheng asked with a slight frown.

“Ah… hah,” the youth coughed and tried not to appear put out, pulling out a Hunter Bureau talisman that had been downgraded to that of a guest official. “I was trained in this region, I left a few years back to pursue other opportunities… I was a nine-star ranked Herb Hunter and I have been all the way to the Great Mount.”

“…”

She eyed the talisman with a practiced eye, noting that the style was of those issued before the Three Schools Conflict. The talismans for Blue Water Province had been changed to their current shape to draw a clear line in the eyes of the Bureau between before and after that particular mess. Only those who had ‘stayed’ with the Pavilions had been issued talismans in the new style, which made it likely he was a Hunter who had left before or during that period of strife.

“I see… That is certainly impressive,” she nodded, speaking up. “We are interested in metal-attributed spirit herbs that are nurturing and not especially harsh. The plant will not become a reagent.”

“Hmm… I think there are a few… although the requirement for it to not be ‘harsh’ is...” the youth frowned, considering the tablet in his hand before turning to another youth in similar, if less ostentatious robes who was poking around at a spirit herb in a pot. “Junior Brother Beifan, can you take these fine Daoists to look at these three plants?”

“Of course, Senior Deng,” Beifan replied, saluting them respectfully. “If honourable Daoists would follow me?”

Opening her umbrella she followed after the youth, who led them between various artfully arranged displays of spirit herbs, each with a number and a talisman associated with them.

“My sympathies go out to whoever had to arrange this,” she remarked to Lin Ling, casting a practiced eye across the patchwork of themed herb gardens.

“It seems they arranged them roughly by valley,” Lin Ling mused.

“You have a good eye, Young Lady Ling,” Beifan remarked, taking her name from the talisman around Lin Ling’s neck. “They are indeed arranged by ‘valley’, this is Devil Jasmine Valley. A terrifying place where various illusionary plants grow everywhere. These were recovered by several experts visiting the Teng School and generously donated to this display.”

-Devil Jasmine Valley? She raised a mental eyebrow at his description, which was a bit overboard. It was only terrifying if you hit every tree you saw with a stick and stuck your face in the flowers of the various moon song jasmine that grew there.

The flowers on display were trained over some rocks, the spirit herbs carefully sealed so they didn’t try to escape by hypnotising or enticing someone. All of them looked to be Nascent Soul or Dao Seeking grade as well.

“The weather, while annoying in many ways, has been a great help here,” Beifan added, noting her gaze tracing the wards.

“No soul sense, so all the bothersome ones require less minding?” Baisheng remarked.

“Senior Bai is knowledgeable,” Beifan agreed.

“The pagodas are arranged to reflect the famous mountains?” Ling Yu asked, looking at the nearest pagoda.

“Yes, various objects associated with each mountain, kindly donated by benefactors to the auction, are displayed in each. To get to the first metal herb we must go past them, so perhaps honoured Daoists would like to see them?”

“That should be… East… Thunder?” she asked, pretending to mix it up as she pointed to the nearest pagoda.

“East Fury Peaks,” Beifan corrected her with an encouraging smile. “Though Young Lady also clearly has an eye for the geography of Yin Eclipse.”

“So do you,” Lin Ling remarked from where she was walking on the far side of him.

“Ah… I have never been,” the youth sighed, sounding disappointed. “The comparative study of how Yin Eclipse is exploited is taught at the Myriad Herb Association, where I am a disciple.”

“…”

She was glad she had her mantra to keep her expression controlled, to be honest. The idea that they were being shown around by someone who had never set foot in the place was… ever so slightly shameless, a part of her couldn’t help but feel.

-I suppose we are not important enough for that ‘exiled Hunter’ to bother with us…

Glancing behind her, she could see him talking to two women in red robes in a much more enthusiastic manner than he had them.

“—and here, this is a valley where ancient texts suggest there might be some xuanwu,” Beifan said, leading them around the path and into a place that held a meandering pond containing various lotus plants, some irises, hyacinths, water cabbage and turtle weed, arranged tastefully around a small metal statue of a turtle with a shell shaped like a mountain and a tail, tipped with a serpent’s head, that looked out over it from a rock in the middle.

“Turtle weed?” she asked, because that was barely considered a spirit herb, even the ones they had here were only Qi Condensation at best.

“You recognise it?” Beifan blinked, pausing by the pond that was drenched in a fine coating of oval, slightly oily leaves.

“I have seen it in some gardens,” she replied. “It was noted to be hard to keep contained.”

“It is, we felt it was an interesting addition to emphasise the theme of the Xuanwu,” Beifan agreed.

“Three out of ten,” Lin Ling signed unobtrusively out of the eyesight of Beifan, “—lacks mud and limb-breaking ambush turtles and those accursed toads hiding in the moss.”

“—Also bog moss,” she signed back, working hard not to laugh at that judgement, which was entirely true.

That valley was a menace, an ever-shifting bog with hidden pools and deceptively fast-flowing currents, made all the worse because it was one of the main thoroughfares into the Inner Valleys and most of the predatory critters in there knew it very well – especially the snapping turtles.

“The East Fury pagoda,” Beifan said a bit more grandly as they left the various ponds behind and walked up some steps and into the shelter of the small pagoda.

Looking around, she saw that here, at least, someone had done their homework. A selection of pots that she recognised from the display in the Golden Dragon’s entrance foyer were on display there, including one she had sold…

“How much is that one?” she asked, pointing at it, morbidly curious.

“This pot… uh… I believe it is valued at two Earthly Jades currently.”

“…”

-You scamming bastards, she grumbled. I sold that to Old Shunhee for a Spirit Jade, and that was only because he liked the design…

“What special property does it have?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I could buy a good Dao Seeking grade treasure for that much.”

“It is indestructible,” Beifan said smartly. “And repels all qi, you are welcome to test it.”

“Anything else?” she asked, frowning.

“Eh…” Beifan looked a bit nonplussed, as if he had expected that to be enough somehow. “It looks kinda pretty… with the dancing animals and what not?”

“I suppose so,” she conceded, moving on from it, wondering how badly this auction was going to wreck the existing economy in Blue Water City if everything was priced with that kind of mark-up.

Other items there were… about as she expected. There were two short blades, both with prohibitive prices on them because of the aforementioned ‘can’t break, cuts most things’ attributes. A worn stone statue she recognised from the Kun clan estates depicting a woman in a robe decorated in dancing animals holding up a sword in one hand and holding out an open book in the other. Several bits of cutlery, plates, a half of a bowl that someone was trying to claim was an ancient spirit furnace…

All of them were fairly uninteresting if you were already familiar with the ruins around East Fury and she knew for a fact that everything – pots, blades, cutlery – were totally unenchantable with qi or any kind of formation, something not mentioned in the description for their sale.

“What is this?” Ling Yu asked from over the far side of the pagoda, holding up a small figurine from a set laid out on a table.

Walking over to look, she frowned, because that was new, at least to her.

The object was about a hand tall, in the form of a naked woman carved of white stone, her hair picked out in dark red-black. Her hands were cupped before her, holding a small spirit fruit made of golden-amber crystal. Even standing at Ling Yu’s shoulder she could tell that there was something… odd about it. It carried a hint of the suppression, in the same way the rains did, and the longer she stared at it, the more she felt the traces of it in her own intent also shifting ever so slightly, like an unscratchable itch.

She exhaled softly and diverted her gaze, the faint pressure and lingering sense of phantasmal irritation vanishing.

“That is… indeed odd,” she agreed with a shiver.

“Ah, that is something provided by an anonymous contributor,” Beifan said, also coming over.

“May I?” Baisheng was looking at the object, frowning faintly.

Ling Yu passed it to him and he stared at it for a long moment.

“How much for it?” Baisheng asked, turning to Beifan.

“The reserve price is…” Beifan, who had been flicking through the slate in his hand, gulped slightly. “A Dao Jade?”

“…”

Baisheng stared at the small statue of the beautiful woman and shook his head with a sigh, putting it down very carefully.

She looked at the other objects on the table. There was a grey crystal cup, a few smaller containers made of green stone carved with flowers or vines, similar to the wine jars from the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse, and two tokens, each about the size of her palm.

Picking one up, she traced the lettering; Earth, Fire, Blood, Sky… all merging to form a monograph moon rune she recognised as ‘Mother’ from some of the shrines in the Inner Valleys. The second was similar, yet there was a subtle variation in the way Earth and Fire were written in the Easten script.

“Those are a Heavenly Jade apiece, the seller claims they are tokens for some ancient sect from a bygone era and that if you assemble a full set you might be able to unlock their secrets,” Beifan explained to her.

“I see…” she nodded, putting it down again.

“This is all very interesting,” Ling Yu agreed with aplomb. “Had I brought my family’s entire treasury with me to spend.”

Both she and Beifan laughed at that, because it was true. Only an established clan could put out Dao Jade – and apparently Old Kai – but with the possible exception of the odd little statue she had a hard time believing that anyone would pay the prices put on these items on display if they knew anything at all about them.

“Shall we go on and look at these herbs?” she asked, collecting herself.

“Yes,” Ling Yu agreed, gesturing to Beifan to continue escorting them on.

“What is on the upper level?” Lin Ling asked as they were walking out, noting that the stairs up were cordoned off.

“Ah… the items up there are not on display yet. They will be unveiled for Princess Lian in person when she is escorted around the auction this afternoon,” Beifan murmured.

“How mysterious,” she remarked, following after Ling Yu and not quite pushing Lin Ling along with her.

They followed Beifan back towards ‘civilisation’, through two more ‘valleys’ – that were really an amalgamation of a dozen or so, in reality – that held more jasmines, the odd lotus, several roses and a few species of orchid carefully planted in ponds, on small trees or on carefully placed rocks. The lack of dangerous spirit herbs was somewhat amusing, although in the wild, the bewitching jasmine absolutely counted, and she noticed with some amusement that they had skipped both the valleys with the Life-Breaking Aspen Grove and the God Bewitching Jasmine – both infamous spirit herb landmarks – entirely from the arrangement.

“Here,” Beifan said, stopping in a semicircle of rocks around a lake and gesturing to a flower with dozens of elongated golden petals nestling on a green leaf, shimmering on the water.

She considered the golden lily water lotus for a moment then shook her head.

“Too harsh,” Ling Yu murmured.

“Its realm is too high as well,” Baisheng added.

“I see…” Beifan nodded, looking a bit disappointed.

Clearly the flower was a showpiece spirit herb and she had no doubt someone would purchase it. It would make a terrifying formation centre if raised right.

They continued briskly on through another small arrangement, turning back towards the pagoda that represented Thunder Crest, finally stopping before a rock that held several long, drooping clusters of blood-red flowers that held a hint of copper if you squinted at them in the rain.

“This is a red thunder creeper,” Beifan said, introducing the plant. “It is a Golden Immortal grade spirit herb…”

“Ideally, we want something closer to Immortal,” Ling Yu clarified.

“Some of its offshoots are certainly at that realm,” Beifan added, hopefully.

“It’s also too aggressive,” she added. “It’s docile in this rain, but only because it’s basically attributed out of its vindictive little mind.”

“You… know your spirit herbs,” Beifan remarked, giving her a sideways look.

“I like gardens,” she replied with a half-smile. “My family home has quite a few odd plants in it.”

“I see… so this one is not of interest…” Beifan frowned. “There are two others… both are a bit problematic though.”

“Define ‘problematic’,” Baisheng interjected.

“Well, one is a ginseng, it was rather mistreated prior to capture though and apparently confiscated by a regional Pavilion because the Herb Hunter who turned it in was incompetent,” Beifan frowned.

“—and it’s still being sold?” she cut in.

“It is sealed up, and there is a warning,” Beifan shrugged. “It also has a few other quirks that the seller judged made it worth the hassle.”

“Let’s look at it,” Lin Ling shrugged. “At worst it’s just another no.”

“True,” Ling Yu agreed.

“And the other one?” she asked, as they walked on after Beifan.

“It’s… an orchid,” Beifan grimaced. “The rain makes it kind of easy to handle…”

“Compared to the golden lily?” she remarked drily.

“Worse,” Beifan murmured apologetically.

-A metal-attributed orchid worse than that lotus? she frowned… He isn’t talking about a soul blaze orchid is he?

“This is the ginseng,” Beifan added, stopping amid a small ring of stones where a patch of deep green-blue foliage was shimmering innocuously.

She could feel the temperature drop in the air.

“It’s a meek yin ginseng,” Beifan said, by way of unneeded explanation. “Nominally at Nascent Soul, but its roots have been damaged, so its foundation has dropped to Soul Foundation temporarily.”

“…”

She stared at the herb, which was heavily sealed up, frowning slightly.

-Based on the size, it’s meant to be bigger than this. If it was in a clearing… it would be almost thirty metres across. Where did someone find one of these?”

Taking in the surroundings, she roughly mapped in her head where it would be, and her frown only deepened. Turning she looked back at the two pagodas again, then at the ‘valley’ they were in.

“What’s up?” Lin Ling asked.

“Its aura just feels a bit off,” she replied, before signing. “If the valleys are right, this is way outside of anywhere meek yin ginseng usually appear.”

“…”

Lin Ling looked around, then nodded, which was enough of a reply.

Its aura was odd as well. There was a faint edge to it that was intruding into her consciousness very…

It faded away again, almost immediately, recoiling from her as her mantra quietly kicked out the tendrils of soul sense that were trying to infiltrate her mind, carrying with them faint confusion and a sense of cold, lonely pain.

Neither Lin Ling nor Ling Yu had noticed anything she supposed, but Baisheng was frowning.

“Not this plant,” Baisheng said suddenly. “It has bloodthirst.”

“It...?” Beifan blinked.

“It has killed people,” Baisheng said simply.

“You… can tell that?” Beifan asked, sounding surprised.

“It is visible within the intent, anyone who has a bit of a grasp of the laws would be able to tell.”

“Senior Bai knows laws?” Beifan asked, sounding a bit awed.

“I have some small comprehensions,” Baisheng replied blandly. “This is very subtle though, the intent is minimal, and probably it was by reflex.”

“This plant is contaminated,” she signed to Lin Ling while Beifan was distracted by Baisheng talking about laws.

“It is?” Ling signed back.

“Blood ling,” she signed two words unobtrusively, looking around at the other herbs nearby, suddenly wondering how good the soul sense sealing was…

-Blood ling trees themselves can cut through nearly anything, and the things they mutate can be nearly as bad, especially if they have time to comprehend the nature of the blood ling’s intent as they mature.

“…”

Lin Ling looked sideways at her, then shuffled over towards her, away from the plant.

“How much is it?” she asked Beifan, because probably the easiest way to deal with it unobtrusively was to just buy it. If nothing else, it could be taken deep in to the Red Pit and released… or, if it was too dangerous, killed.

“Uh… one Earthly Jade,” Beifan said.

“Uh…” she stared at him, then at the herb, then back at him.

-What are these scammers peddling! This is worth sixty or seventy spirit stones at best!

“The notes here say it has a rare mutation that amplifies its soul sense,” Beifan muttered. “Though in this rain, that counts for little I suppose.”

“…”

Baisheng was looking sideways at her, frowning now as well.

-He knows about blood ling trees… she mused, certainly I have talked to Ling Yu about the Red Pit…

-If this stays here for any length of time it’s going to cause a big problem, she grimaced, looking around again at the other plants.

Any plant it touched would, with some exposure, start to also mutate. In the wild this took a while, because everything was suppressed, but here, the suppression was just the weather, which was nowhere near as effective. The herbs still had soul foundations, foundations which they could not currently use and had no means to defend against the intrusive soul sense.

Contamination did happen – she had known two instances since she started taking missions as a Herb Hunter. They had been among low level spirit herbs: a ginseng brought out that was used to nurture a garden and a herb for a feng shui formation centre. Both had had to be resolved by the mass destruction of tens of thousands of spirit stones worth of plants. It was fortunate that the contamination of Ling Yu’s garden, while it had its roots in the same area, was not the same thing.

“It is the right realm,” she said after a long pause. “Can we put a reserve bid on it?”

“You can,” Beifan nodded. “There are two bids on it already, on account of the mutation, though neither has actually viewed the herb it seems. You will match theirs with three Earthly Jades.”

“Are you trying to scam me?” she grumbled, not bothering to hide her scowl.

“Uh… you just asked what the reserve price was,” Beifan protested. “This kind of mutation interests people. Herbs that have strengthened their soul sense are valuable to alchemists and formations masters alike – and both pay very well!”

“Fine,” she scowled. “I’ll match it.”

Beifan tapped the tablet a few times and then said: “Please touch your talisman to the one by the plant.”

She walked over and pressed it against the jade slab set up from the ground a few paces away from the edge of the talismans restraining the herb, trying not to feel more aggrieved than she already was. It chimed after a few seconds, informing her that she had placed a bid on it.

“Right, let us see this other herb,” she said, trying not to let the lingering touch of the blood ling’s influence draw out her negative emotions.

Beifan nodded and again set off, leading them back through the paths between the different 'valleys', past the Thunder Crest pagoda and eventually past another that represented the Fissure Peaks on the northern edge of the Yin Eclipse Mountains. Beyond, the gardens had been transformed into a facsimile of the North Fissure Flats, a rocky, barren, desertic region north of the Great Mount that was effectively what would result from stripping the trees out of the western massif valleys and replacing the humidity with far too much sand.

They eventually stopped in a rocky area where someone had added quite a bit of sand, through which ran a tastefully-arranged little stream linking together several valleys further towards the middle of the whole recreation of Yin Eclipse that was probably meant to mimic the East Fury Torrent that ran north out of Yin Eclipse.

To her experienced eye, the ‘difficult’ spirit herb was immediately visible, simply because the entire area was designed to not really allow it to hide. It was a small orchid with golden-copper leaves, growing out of a fissure in a rock beside the river. It was not currently in flower, because there was no sun in the sky, rather its leaves were draped widely and it was catching rainwater and pooling it close to the base of its stem.

“This is a soul blaze orchid,” Beifan said, by way of introduction, pointing out the plant for them.

“Soul blaze?” Ling Yu, who would likely never have heard of it given they didn’t grow on this side of the mountain range, asked, not bothering to hide the scepticism in her tone.

“It… uh… it’s only at Severing Origins,” Beifan said, checking his tablet again. “And uh… refuses to flower.”

-Which is a good thing, because if it spits pollen around here no wards are going to stop it, she mused with a shiver, recalling what she knew about them.

Soul blaze orchids liked to wander, relocating regularly. They liked sunny days and warm nights, which was why they lived in the North Fissure Flats, and they also tended to gravitate towards areas with a deep contrast between earth and water… which was again the southern border or coastal regions of the Flats.

—Oh, and they synthesised a kind of metal particulate in their bodies, which they expelled if you annoyed or threatened them and which could cause direct damage to the soul, even under the influence of the suppression.

“It’s… kinda unassuming,” Ling Yu remarked critically, looking across the stream – which sported a few other, more glamorous-looking spirit herbs – at the orchid with its dark gold leaves and singular stem that ended in a curled-up ball of greenish-coppery petals.

“I can assure you, it is not, Young Lady Bai,” Beifan replied with a suppressed shiver.

-I wonder, did it tag someone? she mused. Probably not or they wouldn’t sell it… though they were happy to sell that ginseng we just looked at.

“Has it attacked anyone?” she asked at last.

Beifan frowned at her question, but shook his head.

“Do you think it would work?” Ling Yu asked her.

“Hmmm…” she frowned, unsure without seeing it bloom, because there were questions that did need to be asked of a plant as potentially dangerous as this.

The thing tipping it in favour was that while the herb was ‘solitary’, it was not ‘reclusive’ by any means, and did form bonds with other plants. Moon song ginseng was potentially something it would associate with, and it was undeniable that Ling Yu had a way with these kind of plants.

“What do you think, Senior Bai?” she asked carefully as Ling Yu continued to peer at the plant from an appropriately safe distance.

“Hmmmmm…” Baisheng stared at the plant critically.

“It can work, Yu is someone who will not mistreat a thing like this…” she added.

“How much is it?” Baisheng asked Beifan after almost a minute of just staring at it.

“The reserve price is a… Heavenly Jade,” Beifan replied, sweating slightly.

“And the bids?” she added, mentally tuning out the fact that it cost more than all the other spirit herbs procured to help Little Blue combined.

“Three – the highest is two Heavenly Jade,” Beifan answered after a moment.

“Would the seller be willing to trade for it outright?” Baisheng asked.

“Ah… they wished for it to be auctioned, to maximize their profits,” Beifan mused, skimming what had to be some kind of seller’s note.

“Can we speak to the seller?” Baisheng added.

“I…” Beifan looked distant, then nodded. “They will discuss payment face to face, in the company of a neutral third party.”

“Okay,” Baisheng agreed. “Where and when?”

“At your convenience, on the second floor of the teahouse, someone will meet you and show you the way,” Beifan replied with more confidence.

“Can we continue to look around here without a guide?” she asked, fairly confident that Ling Yu and Baisheng between them were capable of handling the actual negotiation to purchase the plant without her being there.

“Not within the confines of this area, Young Lady Sana,” Beifan replied. “There are, however, full records available of all the plants and artefacts on open display on the stele in the middle of each walkway…”

She followed his gesture and saw that the four directions of the central courtyard, each of which held a raised veranda on the first floor where wealthier patrons could sit and observe the gardens in shelter, were where most of those waiting were clustered.

“You want to stay here while we go deal with this?” Baisheng asked both her and Lin Ling.

“I would like to look around a bit more,” she replied, while Ling just nodded. Turning back to Beifan she asked: “Daoist Beifan, I trust there is no issue with you accompanying me if I wish to see if there are other herbs I wish to purchase here?”

“That will not be a problem,” Beifan replied. “We can go look at the stele—”

“That won’t be necessary,” she said with a faint smile. “I know what I am after, the question is whether it is here.”

“I…see?” Beifan said, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay,” Baisheng replied after a moment’s contemplation.

“We will be back shortly,” Ling Yu added, slipping her arm back through Baisheng’s.

“Good luck,” she said, offering them both a polite farewell salute, which they returned before departing.

“In terms of the herbs I am interested in—” she mused, thinking of the various valuable spirit herb crops that grew in the valleys around the Red Pit, “—red fire ginseng, of any grade, cloud-eye tree orchid, lune-berry vine, scarlet monkey brush vine, ten breaths moss…”

“Sun orchids?” Lin Ling added. “Kun cloud ferns?”

“Ah… yes – sun orchids and cloud ferns,” she agreed, recalling that those also grew in the Red Pit, “and I suppose we should look at any other meek yin ginseng.”

“That… is quite the list,” Beifan remarked, flicking through the list. “There are… no red fire ginseng, I am afraid, and there is no record of a lune-berry vine here – in fact I cannot say I have ever heard of that. No ten breaths moss, but perhaps it is here by another name – what does it do?”

“Staunches any wound it comes into contact with, within ten breaths, but if it remains on you for more than ten hours, it becomes a parasitic infection that is very annoying to remove,” she replied.

“That sounds… surprisingly valuable,” Beifan frowned… “But no, there is nothing like that that I can see.”

“What of the others?” Lin Ling asked.

“There is a cloud-eye tree orchid, back on the far side, by the Snow Jade pagoda,” Beifan answered, “and a few other meek yin ginseng and sun orchids, but there are no Kun cloud ferns, and the only monkey brush is a pale moon one?”

-Interesting, she mused to herself, looking around at the layout again. All those plants are valuable things anyone with eyes would search for if they did go into the Red Pit or, far more likely, the valleys adjacent to it.

“Are there any other yin ginseng?” she asked, a rather nefarious thought occurring to her.

“There are a few heart fire ginseng, and a shadowless earth ginseng,” Beifan replied.

“I’d like to see them then,” she mused. “On the way to the cloud-eye tree orchid.”

-Because while those orchids do grow near Snow Jade, there are subtle differences between the eastern and western varieties, so it should be possible to tell if it’s out of place.

“—and the monkey brush?” Beifan added.

“I don’t need a pale moon monkey brush,” she answered.

“Okay,” Beifan nodded, setting off again.

Beifan led both of them back through the miniature valleys, across towards the Fissure Peaks pagoda, finally stopping after a few minutes in an area covered in hardened earth and a few thematically appropriate bits of spirit vegetation, nestled in a small basin between some harmoniously placed rocks.

“It’s not bad for a heart fire ginseng,” she conceded, staring at the plant, which was nestled on one side of the area, seeking shelter from the ubiquitous rain that ignored all formations by hiding under a large slab.

Walking over to it, she ignored Beifan’s protestation to be careful and knelt down to peer under the rock. The twisted form of its vegetation lurked in the driest, warmest part, well away from the nasty water that was a suppressive anathema to it. Taking a handy branch off a dried shrub, she poked the dirt under the rock a few times, until she elicited a faint ‘go away’ reaction from it and a sense of the dryness in the air settling on her like cloying dust that stifled the breath and made her feel a little lethargic.

“…”

She focused on the edge of her awareness for a moment, emptying her mind, but got nothing untoward.

It was possible it was really good at controlling itself, but it was a fire-attributed ginseng, with spiritual wisdom and thoroughly spooked, even before she poked at it with a stick. The only reason it wasn’t giving everyone within fifty paces an excruciating feeling of having their blood roasted in their own body was because it was sealed up.

“That’s not what I want,” she remarked, standing up and walking back over to Beifan, who had been watching her actions with slightly wide eyes.

“You shouldn’t do that, Young Lady Bai, we are not liable for any injury that may—”

“Thank you for your concern, but it’s fine,” she murmured, waving away his protestation. “Anyway, you said there were a few of these?”

“Ah… yes,” Beifan nodded, still looking uneasily at the ginseng sulking under its rock. “The next one is right over here…”

For the next twenty minutes Beifan escorted them both around several more heart fire ginseng, all of which were rather normal, if moody, just like the first one she had seen. The shadowless earth ginseng was similar, hiding under the ground with only its leaves visible in a patch of rocky ground designed to look like the northern slopes of the Great Mount.

“Might I ask what your interest is in these particular herbs? It is a rather eclectic mix?” Beifan asked her at last, as they started to make their way onwards towards the area around the Snow Jade pagoda.

“I like arranging gardens,” she replied with a shrug. “There is a certain harmony between those plants that would make for a quite unique little place if collected together.”

“I…see,” Beifan replied, evidently not seeing, by his tone.

-I suppose if he asks someone more knowledgeable, they might see the link, she reflected wryly as they walked on. But that probably requires them to be intimately familiar with the current herb distributions of the western side of Yin Eclipse… so maybe not.

“What are you looking for?” Lin Ling signed to her behind Beifan’s back as they walked on in silence.

“I am not sure,” she signed back. “That contaminated ginseng was egregiously placed in a valley where you probably only find meek yin ginseng like that once every few decades…”

“You think there might be more contaminated herbs?” Lin Ling signed, frowning slightly now beneath her own umbrella. “Shouldn’t we tell someone?”

“…”

“Probably,” she signed back, taking in the replica valley they were passing through, “but the question is who? If someone did this deliberately, they certainly know that this kind of thing will drop the mother of all piles of festering monkey shit.”

“True,” Lin Ling signed back in agreement, stifling a soft sigh.

“Perhaps—”

She paused mid-sign as she felt a faint, ethereal twist on the edge of her mind, like she had just snagged a thread of her clothing on some small obstacle. It was gone almost as fast as she noticed it, leaving behind a faint hint that it was just her paranoia trying to get the better of her.

She exhaled and kept walking at the same pace, sweeping her gaze left and right for anything that might match with the common spirit herbs from those valleys around the Red Pit where you could get herbs exposed to the mutative strength of the trees.

“…”

“Daoist Beifan,” she called after him, stopping and looking around an innocuous valley meant to represent the transitional area between the perpetually arid Fissure Flats and the rising cloud forests below Snow Jade.

“Yes?” he asked, stopping and turning back to look at them both.

“You were walking a little fast,” she replied with an apologetic, somewhat demure smile.

“I would not like to slip in the rain…” Lin Ling agreed, casting her eyes towards the puddles forming on the path.

“…”

“Ah, my apologies,” Beifan muttered, bowing to both of them, though she did note he frowned a little.

“I bet he thinks you are stringing him along with such a list,” Lin Ling signed from out of Beifan’s line of sight, rolling her eyes.

Ignoring Lin Ling’s snarky comment, though she was probably correct, she used the delay to examine her surroundings again, but the herb, having realised it was detected, was now hiding properly.

Looking around, she emptied her vision and just focused on the harmony of the little area, seeing if anything odd jumped out at her. Sure enough, she found a spot, within a few seconds of just standing there admiring the wet greenery, where she might have expected rock rose or something similar to be growing.

Those didn’t grow in the area below the Red Pit, but you could find them above it, in the steep gorges that provided a through passage across that part of the High Valleys that would take you back out near West Flower Picking Town. It was the route her sister would have taken for the request she should have been with her for.

Picking her way over to it, she looked around the rock and its shrub and quickly found it, having pulled itself away into the shadows of a crevice. Carefully, she put a hand in and drew out one of the flower buds, coaxing it back to the—

It recoiled in her grasp and she got a clear, decisive spike of anger, tinged with the tell-tale buzz of corruption that her ‘Soul’ mnemonic quietly quashed. The pain made her heart race, and her annoyance with not being able to explore the whole place freely twisted…

Exhaling, she let her mantra do its thing and stood up again, the wound on her fingers already healed. The strength of the rose was much less than the meek yin ginseng, barely at Golden Core, truth be told, and far weaker than its more dangerous cousins that she had provided for Kun Zhong Bei a few days prior; however the influence of the blood ling intent on it was noticeably stronger.

‘Spirit, Heart, Renewal, Body, Soul’

“An interesting rose,” she mused as she cycled her mantra, seeking the lingering barbs it would certainly have left. “It has fire properties… and earth?”

“It does,” Beifan agreed, perking up again. “Are you interested in it?”

-Today is clearly cursed by mad monkeys, she complained to herself, looking around. If there are two, there could be more. Both are fairly innocuous plants as well, not something someone will jump at. The ginseng being potentially valuable to Ling Yu was a bit of a fluke really.

“What is the reserve on it?” Lin Ling asked, peering over at the jade in Beifan’s hand.

“It is a rose that has a better than average affinity for yin earth,” Beifan replied. “Reserve price one Earthly Jade.”

“For a Golden Core spirit herb?” Lin Ling remarked with raised eyebrows.

“Yin earth attributed specimens of this species are not common,” Beifan explained, looking at them slightly challengingly. “If the seller wishes for it to go for this price, it does. The highest bid currently is two Earthly Jade, and it is listed as auction only, so it will go to the highest bidder when the auction ends in two days’ time.”

-A good way of ensuring it stays here, doing its thing, if it is deliberate, she reflected sourly.

“Right, let’s see this cloud-eye orchid,” she declared, giving her shoulders a shrug. “It’s an interesting plant but that price is extortionate.”

“Of course,” Beifan replied, starting to walk onwards again, just a shade slower than he had been before.

The cloud-eye tree orchid did turn out to be one of the western variety, which was disappointing. It was also a Golden Immortal grade spirit herb with a reserve price of seven Earthly Jade, putting it well outside of her price range unless Baisheng and Ling Yu returned.

“Will there be anything else?” Beifan asked, as she stood there looking at the orchid in its personal little bank of misty drizzle.

“You mentioned other meek yin ginseng?” she reminded him.

“Oh… yes,” Beifan nodded. “There are three, back the way we came, in the area themed for the Shadow Forest.”

She waved for him to head on, following after in silence now, with Lin Ling just looking around at the plants and holding an umbrella for both of them.

The Shadow Forest region was a series of groves constructed out of planted trees that overhung and diffused the rain somewhat, allowing for a remarkably truthful representation of what it was like to be there when it was raining as it was. Which was to say it was humid to the point where she considered it genuinely uncomfortable, and what little breeze did exist was mostly blocked by the trees.

Beifan looked like he was about to melt, and the fractionally cooler air of the rocky, tree-lined dell with the three ginseng in it was almost like an enchanted lure as they stood on the edge considering it.

The ginseng cluster, all Dao Seeking realm herbs, looked as she might have expected of natives of the Shadow Forest, their faint flowers possessing a faint allure that drew in the eye somehow and refused to let it be relinquished easily. It was not a trait found elsewhere simply because the density of yin qi in the Shadow Forest was much greater. It was also a trait that made them beloved by other predators, so in the forests themselves it was not uncommon to find tetrid nests, spider webs, centipedes and any number of other ambush predators lurking near them, waiting for some distracted beast or cultivator to be misled for a brief, fatal moment.

She was just about to turn away… annoyed that they were so aggressively normal, when she caught herself and stopped, fighting the urge to rub her temples, so insidious had the little nudge been.

“…”

-I suppose you can take the girl away from the Red Pit, but the Red Pit still follows the girl home, she reflected with a soft sigh, wondering if this was what she deserved for not going with her sister.

Juni had said Arai had had to go into the Red Pit, and now here she was, also having to wrangle with the influence of those fate-accursed trees, albeit in an entirely different kind of jungle.

“How much would it cost to become the highest bid on these?” she asked, turning back to Beifan.

“Seven Spirit Jade, nine Spirit Jade and one Earthly Jade… plus two Spirit Jade, respectively.” Beifan rattled off.

“I suppose they are desirable for formations,” she conceded, cursing in her heart how overpriced they were. “I’ll place a bid on each of them.”

Beifan smiled, poking at his tablet then waving her to go over and register the bid, which she duly did.

“What now?” Lin Ling asked her, looking around.

“We go find Senior Bai and Sister Yu. I hope…” she trailed off as her talisman shimmered.

Checking it, she suppressed a further grimace because all her bids on the ginseng had been exceeded by three Spirit Jade. Noting, courtesy of her mantra, that the shifting allure tugging at the edge of her psyche had returned, she poked the talisman with some qi-infused intent, advancing her own bids by a Spirit Jade apiece.

“Is there a problem?” Beifan asked, noting her pause to stare at the talisman.

“No, its fine,” she murmured.

Beifan gave her a dubious look, then just shrugged and set off back towards the edge of the garden.

-He has been getting more annoyed as he goes along as well, she mused, following after him, is the blood ling’s intent starting to get to him as well?

They had only made it about half-way to the edge when Ling Yu and Baisheng returned, the former looking a bit annoyed and the latter resigned and a bit pained.

“How did it go?” she asked as the woman escorting the pair bowed politely and went back to the edge.

“Their buyout price was obscene,” Ling Yu grumbled. “They claimed that there was a lot of interest in the herb from several eminent refiners and an alchemist in Pill Sovereign City.”

She didn’t bother to hide her faint grimace, because both of those would likely want the herb for less than altruistic reasons. Most people just saw spirit herbs as a kind of plant with added attitude, but, if you engaged with them day in and day out, it was hard not to gain a certain empathy towards them, even if it was ameliorated by things like the blood ling trees. Just like wild animals, they could be terrible, horrible things that scuttled in the dark and had too many legs… or they could be cute and fluffy, metaphorically speaking, like Little Blue. The soul blaze orchid was definitely towards the latter end of the scale, albeit with dangerous fangs.

“Of those we have seen, it would be the most suitable,” she said with a soft sigh. “How much are they asking?”

“They wanted ten Heavenly Jade for it,” Ling Yu sighed.

Lin Ling whistled next to her, as well she might.

The Ling clan was wealthy, but to spend a hundred thousand spirit stones on a single herb was… excessive, even for an eleven- or twelve-star grade one of the highest quality. You could fund a small sect for a decade off of that kind of money, or probably set up your own.

“It is only a Severing Origins herb,” she pointed out, not bothering to hide her own derision. “You could buy an eleven-star grade longevity ginseng with qi purity close to that of an Ancient Immortal for that much.”

“Or found a small sect,” Lin Ling remarked. “This seller is clearly just trying to force the price up.”

Thinking it through, she supposed the seller would probably encourage a few more bids, then if it didn’t look like it would sell for that much, leak to the others that someone had offered that much for it and see where that took them. Ten times the reserve price was a lot, but based on the inflation she was seeing in the worth of some of the herbs present, it was probably not that unrealistic to assume that someone would be interested in it, even at that price.

“Well, we bought it anyway,” Ling Yu muttered. “I don’t actually spend that much, not compared to some, so it can be wrangled.”

“Congratulations on acquiring such a remarkable herb,” Beifan murmured, saluting Baisheng and Ling Yu.

“…”

In that context, the slightly pained expression on Baisheng’s face certainly made more sense.

“Well, it is fine, nothing unmanageable,” Baisheng sighed, acknowledging Beifan’s bow with a nod of his own. “More annoyingly, there is a policy of not being able to take it away immediately.”

“The… organizers wish for this to be a showcase of the riches of Yin Eclipse,” Beifan explained. “The herb will of course be taken off the market now, pending the agreement of the seller – which I see has already occurred – but others can still admire it.”

“What about culpability?” she asked.

“Culpability?” Beifan replied, looking a bit nonplussed.

“If we have purchased it, yet it must remain here, there must be an assurance of adequate compensation if something were to occur and the herb be damaged or otherwise compromised?” she clarified.

“Ah, yes of course,” Beifan nodded. “The Imperial Envoy, his eminence the Duke of Qiao and the other organizers have all vouchsafed the security of the herbs on display. Should something occur, they would certainly compensate anyone affected appropriately.”

“…”

“Right…” Baisheng mused.

“Will there be anything else Young Noble Bai requires?” Beifan asked Baisheng with an ingratiating smile.

-His emotions are definitely being nudged a little, she observed, comparing Beifan to how he had been when he first started showing them around.

Baisheng glanced at them, but both she and Ling shook their heads.

“It seems not, at least for now anyway,” Baisheng replied, giving Beifan a smile and a slight nod of thanks.

Saluting them in turn, Beifan led them back to the edge of the courtyard and bade them farewell.

“So… what did you find?” Baisheng asked after they had gone a suitable distance.

“Some… interesting things,” she murmured, looking around. “Though it might not be smart to talk about it here.”

“The same as with the ginseng?” Baisheng mused.

“You saw it?” she asked.

“I have seen some things,” Baisheng conceded. “Did you find many?”

“Several, all scattered in various places,” she muttered. “The ginseng is the only one potentially out of place though.”

“I see…” Baisheng frowned.

“It also looks like all of them are items that the sellers have stated there will be no buyouts on. Given they are all fairly inconsequential spirit herbs, compared to some we saw, that makes sense,” Lin Ling added.

“So, they stay here for a few days… accruing bids, and chaos slowly propagates,” Baisheng said with a frown.

“That seems likely,” she agreed. “And in this weather few will remark with any suspicion on some shortness of mood, or a few slights here and there.”

“Quite, quite,” Baisheng nodded. “The restriction on soul sense becomes a real danger, even to seniors, given the realm of some of the herbs out there.”

“It does,” she agreed with a slight shiver.

The Red Pit managed its threat simply because of the qi density and the suppression affecting everything other than the soul sense. It also took a while for herbs to mature and those that grew strong would naturally gravitate towards the heart of that dangerous area, where the ruins were and the actual blood ling trees held a kind of dreadful court.

“Some Golden Immortal or Ancient Immortal herbs touched like that would be dreadful,” she added.

“This isn’t even all of them,” Ling Yu added. “The really good stuff is being held back for the auction proper, or so the one who sold us the orchid hinted. I think he had something else in it he wanted Senior Bai to show an interest in.”

“Probably,” Baisheng agreed, glancing around as a group of purple- and white-robed disciples wandered by, chattering about how horrible the weather was.

“It occurs to me that the Hunter Bureau is going to be somewhat unhappy with this,” Lin Ling remarked, glancing back out at the garden and the other groups wandering around it in the rain with escorts.

“It does rather pose an interesting subversion,” she agreed. “There are millions of spirit stones worth of herbs here, none of it going anywhere near the Bureau’s own tithe infrastructure.”

“When you’re a world power, they let you do it,” Baisheng observed in a droll tone.

“The question is, would the City Hunter Bureau elders actually move for this?” she mused.

“Do you want to die?” Baisheng remarked levelly.

“…”

Silently she shook her head. Even a blind, drunken monkey on the street could work out in like… three seconds, what would happen to the unfortunate soul that got in the middle of something like this. If this did get rooted out, she was sure someone would find a way to play politics with it that would force the Imperial Envoy or someone important organizing this to eat a penalty. Whoever was found to be the link in that, and surely they would be, would die without a grave in all likelihood, unless they had some remarkable backing.

“…”

“Well, let us go get some refreshments,” Baisheng changed the subject, his faint grimace vanishing as if it had never been.

“Indeed,” Ling Yu agreed, laughing lightly. “Apparently, anyone who spends more than a Heavenly Jade is entitled to all the food they and their companions can stomach.”

“There had to be some perks,” Lin Ling chuckled, to which she could only sigh softly.

Ling Yu and Baisheng both just rolled their eyes.

“What in the world did you do to convince him to spend that much?” she murmured to Ling Yu, falling in beside her as they walked after Baisheng.

“Not much actually,” Ling Yu murmured. “Is it really worth that much?”

“…”

“Once it matures a bit, probably,” she conceded, “If you take care of it well and it gets on with Little Blue. I would keep it well clear of your brothers though. Little Blue is quite mild and so their foolishness around it does them no harm, that orchid… maybe not so much.”

“Now you have my attention,” Ling Yu smirked.

“No, really, don’t,” she replied with a shudder. “Unless you want to be the criminal that cripples them for years from physical damage that has been fused into their souls.”

“I am kidding…” Ling Yu chuckled, threading her arm through hers. “A girl can dream, can she not? But that doesn’t explain why it is so expensive at that realm?”

“The damage doesn’t care about realm,” she explained softly, recalling the entry for that plant in the Hunter Bureau database. “That soul damage is as dangerous to an Ancient Immortal as it is a Soul Foundation cultivator, irrespective of the realm of the actual orchid. It also does soul damage to you even before you perceive Soul Intent or form a Nascent Soul…”

“Oh…” Ling Yu looked at her sideways. “That’s why some refiners and alchemists wanted it?”

“Probably,” she replied with a nod. “You can synthesise the metal particles out of its sap and infuse them into weapons. Imagine an arrow with a point made of a metal alloy with those properties. Or having it added subtly into a pill.”

Ling Yu winced, nodding.

“Come on you two!” Lin Ling called from ahead of them.

“I suppose we are dragging a bit,” she conceded, picking up her pace to follow after Ling and Baisheng as they headed towards the stairs up to the second floor.

…

Despite that eventful start, the rest of the morning was actually rather boring, it had to be said. After a quick look around the second floor, which was mostly more pots and similar artefacts from the rivers and various places outside the forbidden zone itself, they went and had refreshments in one of the private rooms.

Rather helpfully as it turned out, they had all been fitted with a jade talisman, similar to the much larger stele placed by the gardens, which allowed you to peruse any of the items on display or sale in the teahouse, so, while they waited for food to arrive, she started to look through them.

Several hours of poring over what had been submitted, however, proved relatively fruitless in trying to see if there were any other likely spirit herbs. She had a moment of hope early on, when it occurred to her, especially with relation to the rose and the other meek yin ginseng, that most of those present in the auction itself could, in fact, be secondary contamination. Sadly, though, there was little to definitively tie together the ones she had spotted. The details of those putting things up was kept secret, unless you agreed to meet with a seller, and even then they could, apparently, demand that their identity be kept hidden.

“Still nothing?” Ling Yu asked after she swept the whole projected image of a five elements ginseng away with a disgusted sigh and sat back, listening to the rain fall on the veranda outside their room.

“If it’s a case of secondary contact, there could be any number, from anywhere,” she complained.

“When viewed like that, having that first ginseng where it was was remarkably sloppy,” Lin Ling mused.

“That depends on whether secrecy is the point. In a way, I can see it would almost be more chaotic to have it discovered in some small way…” she pointed out, resting her chin on her hands and staring out at the square. “If you viewed it objectively, this whole mess would be blamed on some luckless Herb Hunter from that rural Pavilion…”

“Which branch Pavilion was it?” Lin Ling asked.

“…”

Pulling that meek yin ginseng back up, she considered the entry, then searched through the supplementary waiver.

“It says Red Lake Village…”

“Isn’t that near where your sister would be?” Lin Ling asked her.

“Yeah, apparently she was having a difficult time of it,” she agreed, sitting back again and sighing deeply, taking care not to mention Arai by name, just in case someone was listening, even though Baisheng had said earlier that was rather unlikely.

“Might be worth asking her if she can make some enquiries?” Ling Yu added. “You thought those red yin ginseng my brother bought might have originated up there, didn’t you?”

“It’s possible, yes,” she mused. “And it’s odd that there are relatively few ginseng from the western region, given that’s its speciality.”

Pulling the lists back up, she sorted the items being auctioned, openly at least, by region and quickly compared the list to the south.

“They are about equal…” Ling Yu, who was sitting opposite her, noted.

“Yeah,” she agreed, making the jade sort them by rarity and cultivation realm instead. “In fact, they don’t stand out much at all, even the high ranked stuff is fairly mundane…”

Shaking her head, she made to pull out her talisman to call Arai, then recalled that all that stuff was back in the Ling estate, securely stored in Baisheng’s study.

“Asking her will have to wait until later,” she grimaced.

The other two sighed as well.

“If you three keep acting this put out others will think you are transforming into lamenting ghosts,” Baisheng remarked, looking amused.

“It’s just frustrating, to see a problem and not know how to solve it,” she grumbled.

“Then don’t,” Baisheng remarked with a shrug, sipping his tea.

“Don’t?” she asked, confused.

“If someone is trying to sabotage this, the smartest thing you can do is stay well away from it…”

“…”

She stared at him, then flopped forward, hitting her head off the table hard enough to rattle the odd plate.

“Is… everything okay?” Ling Yu asked her, looking worried, because while it had been a humorous childish gesture, she had hit the table quite hard.

“Yes, it is,” she groaned, lifting herself up and staring at the ceiling and focusing on her mantra, using it in its full, longer form for once, to really try and exorcise the lingering barbs from the rose and the Shadow Forest ginseng.

“...the Spirit and the Heart are the gateway to the Renewal of the Body and the Soul…”

“Feeling better?” Baisheng asked her, pushing the tea across the table for her.

“I am,” she nodded, observing her mantra as it moved through her body, rooting out the lingering thorns of the blood ling’s intent.

“So insidious,” she grimaced. “And subtle.”

“They can be,” Baisheng agreed. “Especially when removed in this manner from their natural habitat, the soul has little in the way of a natural defence against them and the few methods that do exist are all closely guarded or sought-after secrets.”

“Or prohibitively expensive,” Lin Ling added.

“Indeed,” Baisheng nodded, “Their touch also lingers longer…”

“True,” she agreed, pouring herself some tea as well, pondering how much Baisheng appeared to know about the effects of the blood ling trees.

-Has he had some experience dealing with mutates before?

“Ah… Yu,” Baisheng paused, brow furrowing, and took out a talisman, passing it to Ling Yu, who stared at it.

Ling Yu frowned as well, then passed it back to Baisheng.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, we just have to go back it seems,” Ling Yu said, standing up with a soft sigh. “Or at least this cannot be dealt with in the Golden Dragon.”

“Indeed,” Baisheng nodded.

“Okay,” she shrugged, standing up as well. “Do we have to go trade our talismans in?”

…

As it turned out, they did not, they merely had to register that they still retained them with a clerk at a desk in the main foyer before leaving. Departing the Golden Dragon, Baisheng lead them the length of the plaza and, somewhat surprisingly, straight into the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse, where he rented a private room for them on the third floor.

Once inside, they handed their talismans from the auction house over to him, and she got to watch as Baisheng’s talisman turned into a perfect clone of his younger self, while the old man was once again as she usually saw him.

“This way, questions are harder to ask,” Baisheng said with an amused smile as his ‘clone’ went and sat over by the window and took out a book.

“So, what was the message?” Lin Ling asked, tearing her eyes away from the clone doing entirely normal things.

“I have been invited personally to accompany the princess to the opening later,” Ling Yu said, puffing out her cheeks. “As have both my brothers, Juni and Xingjuan, the son of the Deng Clan Lord, the Ha clan Patriarch’s eldest grandson and various others…”

“That’s quite the list,” Lin Ling said.

“It is,” Ling Yu groused, puffing out her cheeks in annoyance.

“You clearly did too good a job of impressing her at dinner,” she remarked drily.

“Bleugh,” Ling Yu sighed, flopping down on a couch. “That said… this does give me an opportunity, doesn’t it?”

“No, absolutely not,” Baisheng said simply, giving Ling Yu a level look.

“Aw… I hadn’t even said—” Ling Yu pouted.

“This business with the blood ling trees and these herbs is already not simple in the slightest,” Baisheng said, sitting down and pouring himself some tea.

“I wasn’t going to be that direct,” Ling Yu grumbled. “As a good noble daughter who knows her fancy landmarks and trivia about Yin Eclipse, I was merely going to observe that their recreation is missing a few spots with famous spirit herbs that… have interesting effects.”

“…”

“Even so,” Baisheng went on, sounding more like an old grandfather than he usually did, “after the mess in our estates, I have made a few discrete inquiries. The group responsible for selling your brother that ginseng that ruined our estate’s garden was officially broken up a few weeks ago by the city guard and the Blue Gate School, but before that they were running black market auctions for rare spirit herbs and such. They enticed patronage with gifts, lavish parties and beautiful women and cultivated a lot of links to scions of influential families in the younger generation – including your brothers.

“None of the real ringleaders were caught, however, much to the chagrin of the Blue Gate School who even went so far as to send out several of their inner disciples to poke around inland, to see where the group’s real base of operations might have been. Apparently those inner disciples vanished a few days ago, around the time our imperial visitors arrived.”

“Oh,” Ling Yu frowned.

“There is more,” Baisheng added. “There was a report circulated through some very select channels today suggesting that a notorious villain from the Three Schools Conflict might be connected, at least by reputation, with that—”

“Just a ‘notorious villain’?” Ling Yu asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Names bring their own problems,” Baisheng sighed, “Anyway, this fellow is notable here and now, because his legacy traces all the way back to an even older mess where something like this, with blood ling-contaminated herbs, was attempted before… successfully.

“Some 150 years ago, there was a cult that emerged after bandits uncovered an old ruin in the north-west of the suppression zone—”

“Blood Eclipse Cult,” she said softly, realising what he was talking about.

“You know of them?” Baisheng raised an eyebrow.

“My father has spoken of it on a few occasions,” she admitted. “Though never in detail, and never since our mother passed. I think it holds painful memories for him.”

“As that time would for many,” Baisheng sighed. “One of the methods those villains employed involved using spirit herbs contaminated with blood ling intent to subvert villages to their way of thinking, and then later to cause chaos and avoid others being able to pin them down. They even managed to corrupt cultivators with it. They holed up in Yin Eclipse and were able to repel two assaults by elite forces from the Imperial Court and then a Censure Decree before they were finally put down.”

“This cult… repelled a Censure Decree?” Ling Yu gawked.

“They did,” Baisheng nodded. “Although they did so by luring them into the edges of the suppression zone and ambushing them. That said, this is unlikely to be that group, for all that an old name associated with them appears to have resurfaced, not least because the hammer that fell on them in the end was... uncompromising. Even if it is someone aping them – and they were famous – this is not a good deed to get caught up in.”

“Then surely thwarting it would…” Ling Yu started to ask.

“It would make you a target for certain people who would not care that you are part of the Ling clan,” Baisheng said simply. “Even the ashes of that group that rekindled briefly in the Three Schools Conflict wreaked havoc such as the then Duke, the Imperial Court Envoy’s forces and all three surviving schools could not easily contain.

“Returning to now, I would like to think this is just an unfortunate accident, but if it is not, a thing like this requires people of influence who are willing to look away, or whose goals align nicely with the moment. As such, while I appreciate your youthful enthusiasm, it is better to let an old man like me do something for once,” Baisheng concluded with a wry smile that never quite reached his eyes.

“And there are plenty of people elsewhere who might quite like to see an Imperial Princess embarrassed, or Envoy Qiao lose a lot of face?” Ling Yu mused, staring at the tea in her cup.

“Yes,” Baisheng sighed again, swirling his own cup of tea for a moment before downing it.

“So, just like you said earlier, we leave it be?” she said at last, feeling oddly discontented at that idea.

“I didn’t say that,” Baisheng replied drily, standing up. “I just said that wading in and throwing accusations everywhere and attracting notice will get you far more trouble than you want at your ages...”

“So, what should we do?” Lin Ling, who had mostly just been sitting and listening, asked.

“Well, I will remain here,” ‘Bai Sheng’, seated by the window, interjected, “and accompany the two of you.”

“I must return to the Ling estate with this heroic young miss, and escort her to an auction,” Baisheng added, walking over and patting Ling Yu on the head.

“So… we just wander around the auction and… what, keep our eyes open?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” Baisheng nodded. “Maybe buy a few more spirit herbs…”

“Ahhhrgh!” she grimaced, suddenly feeling foolish, then put her head in her hands again, guessing it was the influence of the blood ling that had made her eager to tug at that thread… but also slightly sloppy.

“Wait… if it’s that insidious…” she said lifting her head. “Won’t it be touching everyone?”

“Older cultivators will be less affected, as will more experienced ones,” Baisheng mused. “And stronger ones will naturally have better mental strength. In the mountains this doesn’t help, but down here, it will somewhat.”

“We also don’t have enough money with those prices,” Lin Ling pointed out.

“That’s okay,” Bai Sheng interjected with a laugh. “You leave that to me.”

In the end, they stayed in the Myriad Blossoms Teahouse until after lunch, mostly so she could focus on recovering from her brush with the blood ling-touched rose. Lin Ling found she had also been affected, albeit to a much lesser degree, so they worked on advancing their physical cultivation for a while, using the high quality spirit food in place of qi replenishment pills.

Eventually, though, Bai Sheng stirred and put his book away, so she refocused on her surroundings and sat up from the couch she had been lying on.

“I take it we are going back?” Lin Ling asked, swinging her legs off her own couch.

“Not quite yet,” Bai Sheng remarked. “Rather, the bids on your ginseng have gone up.”

“Oh…” she took the talisman back and considered the various entries.

The three from the Shadow Forest had all risen almost two Earthly Jades apiece, a point where she didn’t really care to continue, so she turned back to the first one they had been shown. Of those she had seen, it was in a way the most promising to her, because despite all the warnings on it, she had not felt that it was as deeply affected. It helped that the bids on it had only risen by three Spirit Jade, so she increased that by another whole Spirit Jade… and just got a pending notification.

“Odd,” she frowned.

“Oh… so they did that,” Bai Sheng frowned, taking the talisman back from her.

“Did what?” she asked.

“You can see your bids from outside, but you cannot bid yourself unless you are on the premises. Presumably to stop people cheating their little ‘juniors only’ rule in a fashion.”

“How would that make a difference?” Lin Ling asked, even before she could.

“It doesn’t, they are just being proprietorial,” Bai Sheng chuckled. “In that case, I suppose we will have to go back eventually.”

“What are we waiting for anyway?” Lin Ling asked.

“Me, to come back,” Bai Sheng replied. “This body will fool those who care to keep an eye on things, but it will not stand up to a lot of scrutiny. Puppets are problematic like that.”

“That’s a puppet body?” she asked, surprised, mostly because she had heard of them but never, to her knowledge, seen one.

“It is a form of one, condensed purely from qi,” Bai Sheng explained. “You can do the same with yours… and the copy would be almost indistinguishable, although not any particular use, because you have not fully comprehended soul sense or reached the point where your intent could move it without the support of qi. It’s also no good outside because, while it is solid, that rain will drop right through it, because the rain is more real than anything else.”

“Thank you for the instruction,” she murmured, giving him a polite bow of thanks.

“Not at all,” Bai Sheng replied, waving a hand.

“What… do you mean by the rain being ‘more real’?” Lin Ling asked with a frown.

“It’s related to the superiority of natural laws,” Bai Sheng shrugged. “Not a thing to be worried about at your realm.”

“It’s something they explain a bit when you rank up to nine-star bronze,” she added, because she was fairly sure she had been told that in passing before, even if it was rather lacking as an explanation.

“Oh…” Lin Ling nodded, before blurting out. “What is taking so long anyway?”

“…”

“You are still affected by the blood ling’s intent,” she pointed out with a sigh.

Lin Ling just groaned and scrunched up her face for a moment, then sighed as well.

“I see why everyone avoids that place.”

“You have never been there?” she asked, surprised.

“No, actually, I didn’t have a mantra back then, so I went to Red Lake if you recall and got to be a spirit herb farmer for a week,” Lin Ling reminded her. “And missions to the Red Pit all find their way to you and Arai.”

“That… is true,” she conceded, because more often than not they did, though such missions rarely came around more than once a year and were usually to find someone else who had walked in there.

“As to why we are still waiting,” Bai Sheng added, looking equal parts amused and vexed, “I am looking into what can be done about this issue that won’t cause a riot or provoke any difficult reactions. The challenge really is ensuring that it bears no relation to the Ling clan or you that any onlooker can trace back.”

“Oh…” was about all she could say to that, really.

“Uaaaaa…” Lin Ling flopped back onto her couch and stared at the ceiling.

In the end, it took Baisheng almost another hour to return, at which point he resumed his youthful disguise and, after spending a moment to fully resolve Lin Ling’s minor case of blood ling poisoning, they returned back across the plaza to the Golden Dragon Teahouse to resume… wandering around the auction, as it transpired.

The ground floor of the Golden Dragon was much busier than it had been before lunch, so instead they went up to the third floor, where access was restricted to those who had more than an Earthly Jade of personal wealth in their talismans. Here, with fewer crowds, it was much easier to wander around the different halls at leisure, looking with vague interest at the various galleries of objects and odd spirit herbs curated there.

Most of the things on display were not, actually, that unknown to her. Most of the well-known ruins had been thoroughly looted over the years, and in fact, most of the gallery of wall carvings on display came from way shrines or similar complexes.

It amused her somewhat that she could match a few of the panels to various shrines, largely based on the patterns, though there was more of a question in her head as to how some of them had been taken out, however long ago they had been looted, because at least one – a scene depicting a white stone disc being devoured around the edges by a blue serpent with nine dragon-like heads – came from the Inner Valleys. The way shrine in question still had a mirror of the exact same panel on the opposite wall, except the disc in the one in situ was black.

Most of the scenes had some kind of esoteric theme, or in a few cases had likely been taken because the looter refused to believe there was not some secret hidden in them. A notable example of that was one that was basically a series of different plant-like things that, if you stepped back and squinted at it, revealed themselves to form a large crouching turtle-like beast, and then, when you looked closely again, the plants had all moved about without ever seeming to.

“I have to say, this one is very weird,” Lin Ling concluded, staring at that two-metre-wide wall carving for a few moments and then shaking her head.

“It’s related to feng shui,” Baisheng mused.

“How does fellow Daoist conclude that?” a beautiful woman standing nearby, in a white gown embroidered with silver moons, asked him.

“The way it is carved evokes various natural alignments of the materials used and the themes depicted, Daoist…” Baisheng trailed off, waiting for her to introduce herself presumably.

“Mingluo Lanying,” the woman said politely.

“Bai Sheng,” Baisheng replied.

“It evokes the natural alignments of the materials…” Mingluo murmured, taking a few steps forward and running her hands across the surface.

Staring at the carving, she could just about see what Bai Sheng meant. There was a sort of allure, akin to seeing a natural compass, which drew the eye as you looked at different parts of it. If she really unfocused, the whole thing faded away and—

She winced and looked away almost immediately, because for a moment there had been a sense of the rock itself pushing out at her, carrying with it a faint pressure.

“Are you okay?” Baisheng asked her, making her realise she had taken half a step backwards.

“That is odd,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“It is…” Mingluo mused, stepping back and staring at it. “A picture that draws out the essence of the rock and the materials within. Stone dreaming of life, yet with a prestige that lingers…”

“Senior Mingluo sees very clearly,” a nearby male cultivator, dressed in elaborately ostentatious red and white robes, remarked in a flattering manner as he stepped up to stand beside her.

“Indeed,” his companion agreed. “There is a sort of… eminence to it, is there not?”

“Most magnificent,” a third bearded cultivator agreed, sidling over. “Perhaps Fairy Mingluo would accept it as my gift?”

“…”

Baisheng shook his head, bowed politely to Mingluo Lanying and led them away as two more cultivators also started to praise the woman’s fairly casual comment on what the slab depicted.

“Shameless,” Lin Ling murmured, shaking her own head.

“Don’t say that too loudly,” Baisheng chuckled. “I would hate to have to break someone’s legs on your behalf.”

Lin Ling flushed a bit and coughed awkwardly.

Moving on, they went to another hall, which was more bowls notable only for them all being made from various kinds of nigh-indestructible crystal. The only other cultivator present was standing silently at the far end, contemplating a reddish bowl hanging on the wall.

“Now this is just being decadent,” Bai Sheng sighed, staring at another dark red crystal bowl, carved with an image of a woman lifting up a rising sun, on a stand by the door.

“They are all arborundum?” she asked, although she knew the answer anyway, which was ‘yes’.

“Probably… ah, no, there are a few here that are actually interesting,” Baisheng mused, walking on down the hall to stand before a broad, shallow dish carved of blue-grey stone that was hanging from the wall.

Staring up at it, she traced the patterns and immediately felt herself go cross-eyed.

“That’s a moon rune?” Lin Ling asked, tilting her head to one side.

“Something like it, yes,” Baisheng nodded.

Unfocusing her gaze again, she stared at the centre of the dish until finally the pattern emerged, rearranging itself subtly to read ‘Tai’. With it, came a faint feeling that she was being watched.

“Tai?” she asked, resisting the urge to look around.

“Huuum… yes. It’s a bowl that likely belonged to an old Tai clan estate,” Baisheng confirmed.

“I can’t say I have heard of it,” she murmured apologetically, as Lin Ling also shook her head.

“I would be surprised if you had,” Baisheng remarked drily, moving on. “The Tai clan were a prominent force here in the Shan Dynasty… In any case, that bowl is somewhat inauspicious, so it is better not to dwell on it.”

A few paces later, however, he stopped and considered a blue crystal bowl sitting on a plinth.

“Yuan, eh…?” he stared at it for a long moment, then just moved on again, shaking his head.

Hurrying to catch up, she glanced at the cup in passing, noting it was carved in what looked like scales…

By the time they had caught him up, he had stopped at the end of the long gallery, looking at a large dish carved of a reddish-purple stone that held a faint golden marbling, next to the other cultivator.

“Xiao?” Lin Ling asked, looking at the moon rune that could be read as ‘emerging’ or, more commonly, ‘dawn’.

“They sure do find things,” Baisheng chuckled, shaking his head.

“They do?” she felt compelled to ask.

“Xiao is a very old clan, you won’t find any who know of it outside the history books, but its roots are as old as the Meng or the Shu in this world,” Baisheng said, sounding wistful. “There are many rumours and tales associated with them, or these symbols. For a long time it has been rumoured that there was a lost ancestral ground relating to them in this province; yet in all the years and years scholars and young heroes have sought it, it has remained elusive—”

“You know your history, friend Daoist from the Bai clan,” the other cultivator, a tall, scholarly youth with oddly familiar chiselled features, wearing a Lu clan robe trimmed with gold, remarked.

“It is impossible not to gain a passing fascination for the years when you watch them march by,” Baisheng remarked.

“Lu Seong,” the youth said with a polite bow.

“Bai Sheng,” Baisheng replied with an equally polite bow.

“I must say, I cannot help but feel we have met before, Daoist Bai,” Lu Seong mused, glancing over at him.

“Perhaps. As a friend of Young Hero JiLao, I am sure you meet many people,” Baisheng chuckled.

-Wait… she looked the youth over unobtrusively, and realised why she felt he was so familiar. He was the one who came with Huang JiLao when Old Kai threw that moron Fuan into the harbour.

“That is certainly it,” Lu Seong nodded in a companionable manner. “However, I do not think I have made either your or your junior sisters’ acquaintance before?”

“…”

“Bai Ling,” Lin Ling murmured, bowing politely.

“Bai Sana,” she added, also bowing.

“So it was Fairy Ling and Fairy Sana,” Lu Seong said with a further polite bow. “I am honoured to make your acquaintance.”

“Our pleasure,” she murmured in reply.

“So, Daoist Sheng, you recognise this symbol of Xiao?” Lu Seong asked, turning his attention back to Baisheng.

“I have an interest in history and old books,” Baisheng replied with aplomb. “These symbols are something that has exercised many a scholar, and who does not enjoy mysteries originating in eras long—”

“Ah, Brother Lu! Here you are!” a second cultivator, wearing the robes of the Pill Sovereign Sect, sporting a rather frazzled beard and unusually short hair for a cultivator from the central continent, walked down the hall behind them.

“Ah, Senior Quan; sorry, I was caught up admiring this old thing,” Lu Seong chuckled.

“Xiao… how mysterious,” Senior Quan mused, staring up at the plate. “You can almost feel the aura of uncounted years within it.”

“Daoist Bai here was just about to tell me of it,” Lu Seong remarked drily.

“Ah, sorry,” Senior Quan chuckled. “I did not mean to interrupt, they are demanding I speak about herbs and... well.”

The bearded youth gave a shudder, while Lu Seong nodded knowingly.

-Ah, he is an alchemist? she guessed, as that would explain the short hair and the slightly singed beard. Quan… it’s kind of familiar?

“You are the famous alchemist?” Baisheng asked politely, even as she was pondering his identity.

“…”

“I am indeed that Quan Dingxiang, who others say has a little achievement in alchemy,” Quan Dingxiang remarked drily. “And fellow Daoist is…?”

“Bai Sheng,” Baisheng replied with a slight bow. “Just a scholar who has an interest in watching the years go by.”

-That Quan Dingxiang? she blinked, nearly hiding her surprise with her mantra, then thinking better of it.

Beside her, Lin Ling, who as she recalled had occasionally cursed the eminent alchemist when outer sect disciples quoted his observations back at her, was looking a bit pale.

“Honoured to make your acquaintance, Senior Quan,” she murmured, collecting herself and bowing to him.

“My junior sisters, Bai Ling and Bai Sana,” Baisheng said by way of introducing them.

“A pleasure,” Quan Dingxiang replied, saluting them politely before turning back to the objects on display.

“…”

Standing there, she listened as Baisheng recounted a tale and associated later theory about how there was rumoured to be a map to an ancient inheritance hidden in various artefacts carrying the ‘Xiao’ symbol. Even with Lu Seong and Quan Dingxiang interrupting occasionally to ask odd questions it was somewhat interesting, although her interest in ruins and artefacts generally ran more in the vein of ‘how dangerous are they, and how can they be avoided’ rather than their actual historical value. The questions the pair asked eventually led the discussion onto the topic of moon runes, which was much less understandable, to her frustration, before eventually Baisheng moved onto speculation by various ‘esteemed scholars’ that some of the bowls in the hall had their origins in ancient alchemy methods.

They followed along behind, largely ignored as Baisheng took the other two back down the hall, discussing a few of the bowls as they went, until they arrived back at the red stone cup with the image of the woman holding the sun.

“This… is indeed a very curious piece,” Quan Dingxiang concluded at last. “Arborundum is usually… empty, devoid of the spark that ancient records speak of, yet this piece… it does have a faint something to it, does it not?”

“It does, indeed,” Lu Seong agreed, picking it up and turning it over in his hands, examining the designs, which were akin to vines or maybe a winding tree branch. “The craftsmanship is also superlative. I wonder how it is designed to be used?”

“It may well be a free cauldron,” Quan Dingxiang mused, taking it from Lu Seong and holding it up.

“As in one designed for creating pills simply with qi?” she asked, almost without thinking.

“You know of this?” Quan Dingxiang asked, looking a bit surprised.

“I... Ah… read about it somewhere,” she muttered. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“Not at all, not at all,” Quan Dingxiang sighed, giving her a slight smile.

“—Sorry, we have talked away and you two young ladies have had to listen to us discuss old tales, bizarre pots and strange ruins,” Lu Seong added. “It is not very sociable of us…”

“Ah, it’s okay,” Lin Ling added quickly. “It’s all been very interesting…”

“Indeed, we have learned a lot,” she murmured.

Lu Seong and Quan Dingxiang gave them a joint, good-humoured ‘look’ that said they really didn’t believe a word of it though, which she found somewhat galling in truth.

“My junior sisters’ real passion is herb lore,” Baisheng added. “And feng shui.”

“A worthy pursuit,” Quan Dingxiang nodded, though she noted he didn’t seem that engaged now, probably because everyone said that when introducing themselves to him.

Rather than say anything overt, she just bowed politely and accepted the acknowledgement. Being around Ling Yu enough had taught her what battles like this you fought, and trying to convince important cultivators you shared their expertise was something of an uphill battle, even when you had armour like a Bureau robe to wear. On that scale, ‘being a woman interested in alchemy’ was a chasm into the abyss, simply due to the views about Yin and Yang in spirit roots and alchemists’ fires that were so pervasive.

“Feng shui is an unusual occupation for one so young,” Lu Seong murmured, looking at them both.

“If you want to get anywhere with gardens it’s a requirement,” Lin Ling replied politely.

“Very true,” Baisheng agreed.

“—Senior Quan…”

She glanced around and found a group of disciples standing there looking expectant.

Quan Dingxiang just sighed. “Lu… Meng Jiang?”

“Yes, Senior Quan,” the youth who had just spoken, who was the presumptive leader of the group of elegantly dressed disciples, murmured. “Fairy Miao and the others hope you might speak about some of the more exotic herbs on display down below, before her Imperial Highness arrives?”

“…”

“I suppose I must,” Quan Dingxiang said with a soft sigh.

Lu Seong, she noted, was shooting something of a glare at Lu Meng Jiang, who was clearly affecting not to notice, fully focused on Quan Dingxiang.

“Senior Quan is very generous,” the group of elegantly dressed disciples murmured almost as one.

“Yes, he is,” Lu Seong muttered.

“It is fine,” Quan Dingxiang chuckled, though his mirth never really reached his eyes. “I came here to enjoy the auction, it is only fair I speak to others of the remarkable things here so that they too can enjoy them more fulsomely.”

“Many thanks! Senior Quan,” the group murmured, properly in sync this time.

“Perhaps you would enjoy listening as well?” Quan Dingxiang asked her and Lin Ling.

She bowed politely to Quan Dingxiang and nodded, as did Lin Ling.

The group ahead of them parted for Quan Dingxiang and Lu Seong, then closed again, nearly cutting Baisheng off, except that he just kept walking and two disciples who had tried to position themselves right behind Quan Dingxiang had to inelegantly dodge out of the way as he brushed them aside with barely a glance.

“—Young Lady Lu Miao hoped you might talk about the moon maiden jasmine that grows in the Shadow Forest,” Lu Meng Jiang said smoothly as both she and Ling quickened their pace so the group behind didn’t split them from Baisheng.

“Very well, lead on,” Quan Dingxiang said with a wave of his hand, not looking especially enthused.

“Lu Miao is the daughter of one of the most important elders in the Pill Sovereign Sect,” Baisheng said softly. “She is also quite infatuated with Quan Dingxiang.”

-Ah, so that is why he didn’t just tell them to shove off, she mused, somewhat amused that even such an eminent alchemist would be faced with fights he could not win.

Following along behind the group, they returned to the lower area, which was now quite a bit busier than she recalled, then they were led through the milling groups and back into the garden. One of the Myriad Herb disciples hurried forward, saw Lu Seong and promptly bowed.

“How can I help you, Young Noble Lu… Young Sage Quan,” the youth asked with an ingratiating smile.

“Please accompany us, I have been asked to speak about some herbs,” Quan Dingxiang said with a polite smile.

“Of course, it would be my honour,” the disciple replied quickly.

“My dear Sir Dingxiang,” a flawless, dark-haired beauty, dressed in an extravagant purple gown that left little to the imagination, swept over, ignoring the Myriad Herb Association disciple and everyone else, to clasp Quan Dingxiang’s hand with a radiant smile. “I am so glad you came, I was worried that you would not!”

“A pleasure as always, Young Lady Lu,” Quan Dingxiang murmured, saluting her.

“You must tell us all about this jasmine!” Fairy Miao said breathlessly. “My junior sister hopes that it might help her make advances in her cultivation, but I would feel most at ease if you might give her some advice, and also enlighten the rest of us as well!”

“…”

“Okay,” Quan Dingxiang agreed with a slightly fixed smile, waving for the Myriad Herb disciple to show them the way.

Following along, she found herself again looking around for tell-tale signs of the blood ling-corrupted herbs, because the facsimile of the Shadow Forest was muted, dim and a tiny bit predatory now. The humidity of the air was shifting, the natural yin strength of the alignments was merging with the rain to create a rather familiar ambience of smothering oppression and faint decay.

Beyond the perimeter, the atmosphere of the gardens was also somewhat more fevered and overwrought, which she supposed could be a result of people anticipating the arrival of Princess Lian.

“I don’t recall this earlier?” someone behind them mused. “I am sure I would have checked out such a plant.”

“Apparently it was a late submission, perhaps someone wanted to attract the eye of the princess when she tours the pagodas,” another added.

Their ‘group’ was also growing by the minute as well, as cultivators spotted Quan Dingxiang and tried to tag along or catch up.

-It would be stupid to get separated from Baisheng just because I was looking at my feet in a crowd, she reflected, shaking her head and picking up her pace slightly.

A moment later, Ling threaded her arm through hers and shot her a sour look that spoke volumes as three young female disciples marched past, pushing people out of the way.

“I have to admit, I am somewhat surprised at how underwhelming some of these plots are,” a girl walking ahead of them added superciliously.

“Yep, my seniors kept saying there were so many spectacular herbs… yet this is…”

“Gloomy and wet?” someone else interjected.

“Rather...”

“—It should be… ah…” the guide, who had just come into her view, was looking a bit vexed as the group all came to a halt near the pagoda representing South Grove.

“Apologies, it seems we must go the other way,” the guide called out. “It is a longer walk, but they are preparing the pagoda for the princess’s arrival it seems.”

“That’s okay,” Quan Dingxiang mused, looking around with mild interest at the misty, tree-encircled garden plots.

“Ah, there you are,” Baisheng remarked as they both caught up to him and the small crowd started to move off again.

“—you were saying about these ruins?” Lu Seong interjected, giving them both a polite nod of greeting before waving to a rather stylised set of stone slabs arranged into the side of a small outcropping between two of the gardens.

“Oh, yes,” Baisheng mused as they wound on around a path through a tangled grove. “I believe some of the wall carvings of spirit herbs on display came from them?”

“That is correct,” the disciple escorting the group, who was walking just ahead of them now, with Quan Dingxiang, agreed somewhat impatiently.

“I wish something could be done about this rain,” someone else behind them grumbled.

To that, all she could do was roll her eyes. She had long since abandoned an umbrella for a cloak and hat; however, others had not been quite so astute, so the group of about thirty cultivators was rather bunched together in places, and people’s umbrellas kept getting caught on trees, vines… and other umbrellas. Zoning out the hustle and bustle, she watched for the faint tugs of the blood ling field; however, much as she had expected, there was nothing. As it was, they would be far too canny to be ‘caught’ by someone like her who was actively wary for them.

“Ah… here we are!” the disciple pronounced abruptly, stopping them at a juncture between three gardens, about thirty metres south of the South Grove pagoda, and holding up a lantern to give people at the back something to focus on. “Please gather around!”

“Hey, move over!” someone called from the back.

“Yeah, we want to see too!” someone else muttered.

“What realm is this jasmine?” she murmured, because the obfuscating ambience, with the mist and the occasional lantern and the shadows from the rocks and trees, was really fierce.

“Good question,” Lin Ling agreed. “This must be over Immortal at least.”

“Of course it is!” a female disciple from a sect she didn’t know, who was standing behind them retorted superciliously. “Do you know nothing? Fairy Miao would never bother with some herb that was merely Immortal!”

“…”

She stared at the girl, who was about the same age as her, suddenly unsure if this was the potential effect of the blood ling contamination… or whether she was always this obnoxious.

“Quiet please!” someone called. “Senior Quan is about to lecture!”

“Don’t start yet!”

“They changed the layout,” Lin Ling signed to her, pointing off through the rain towards the middle of the garden.

“Ah, so they have,” she agreed, exhaling softly. “This is the opposite end of the clearing we stopped at… earlier.”

“Please, come this way!” the guide called, waving for their group to follow him into the clearing.

They both followed Baisheng and Lu Seong across the damp grass, down a smaller path, and then around a stand of trees planted on an artificial massif, at which point she at last orientated herself and found they were indeed on the far side of the same section that they had visited that morning, where the meek yin ginseng were planted.

“They are over there,” Lin Ling signed, almost poking her side and drawing her attention to some darker patches of green by a few rocks next to a smaller massif that was about twice the height of a person.

“We can’t see!”

“Move over…”

“Fate-thrashed umbrella!”

“Where is it anyway?”

“Isn’t it a jasmine, it should be in a tree…”

“We can’t see the trees you cretin, it’s raining!”

“This sucks…”

“So noisy,” Lin Ling muttered beside her as they both picked their way after Baisheng again.

“It is what it is,” she agreed softly. “It’s a big crowd after all…”

Sighing, she pushed away the subtle sense that this kind of noise was ‘very’ normal, and that anything nearby would be hiding and just watching.

“It is quite rowdy,” Lu Seong muttered.

“It is…” Quan Dingxiang frowned, looking around.

“What is wrong?” Baisheng asked, flicking water off the edge of his own umbrella.

“…”

“I have been to this forest before,” Quan Dingxiang mused. “Perhaps it is the rain, but this is a surprisingly realistic rendition.”

“Probably,” Lu Seong grimaced. “Some elders have said that it is because the rain is somehow more… real.”

Looking around, a small part of her was struck, with a remarkable sense of a recurring moment, that for a grove with such a jasmine in it… it was annoyingly anticlimactic…

“Hmmm…” Quan Dingxiang, who had stopped and was looking around with folded arms, turned back to the guide. “I have to say… I expected more. Are you sure this is the right place?”

“It is,” the guide affirmed, a bit more forcefully than he probably intended.

She watched in silence as the famous alchemist started to pace around, poking at various parts of the misty, gloomy clearing, his expression growing steadily more confused.

Finally, he stopped and waved the Myriad Herb disciple over, saying something she couldn’t catch and pointing here and there. The disciple spent a few moments looking on his jade tablet, then just shook his head emphatically.

“This is more informative than I expected,” Lin Ling signed, her mouth twisting into a faint smirk.

“…”

She just shook her head, gently cycling her mantra, watching the onlookers still moving into the clearing trying to work out why Quan Dingxiang was not delivering the anticipated discussion about the ‘jasmine’.

“Senior Quan, is something the matter?” someone finally spoke up.

“Yes, is there some difficulty with the jasmine?” a concerned-sounding female disciple added from nearby.

“Where is the jasmine anyway?”

“And what is this stupid briar…”

“—Where are the herbs?”

She had only ever experienced the Red Pit, or the manipulative powers of the blood ling trees, with Arai or on her own. So, while she knew what it looked like in other people, to see those little slips occur in dozens of people simultaneously, all with none of them noticing due to the additional influence of the meek yin ginseng nearby was… mildly enthralling, in a somewhat disturbing way.

“The Spirit and the Heart are strong, Renewal is the key to Body and Soul returning the Spirit to the Heart…”

Exhaling, she murmured the mantra silently under her breath, letting it work against the subtle invasive tendrils trying to draw her into that alluring, enthralling moment… to use that to put her into conflict with the others and make her lose awareness again of the perpetrators of this whole mess.

By her third cycle, her mantra had mostly forced it out of her body, while by her fifth she was almost at the point of refining what remained, dispersed and scattered…

-Yeah, I don’t think so, she mused to herself, roundly rejecting that sideways attempt by changing the impetus of the chant slightly to grind the influence down to nothing rather than incorporate a shadow of it.

The worst part of it was that the aggressive, cloaking perception that all of this was ‘normal’ still lingered. It was ‘normal’ that the cultivators were disorganised. It was ‘normal’ that they bickered and were unhappy that Quan Dingxiang was not explaining what he was doing. It was ‘normal’ to not care what he was doing… and so on… and on.

“Well, that’s unpleasant,” she muttered, as it rolled back at her, even more subtly—

The sense of the blanket of obfuscating normality weakened abruptly.

“What the fates just happened…” someone nearby gasped as the stronger-willed cultivators snapped back to ‘reality’ with almost…

She was ready for it. Most were not. Two screamed and collapsed, another curled up into a ball and started to sob piteously. Several simply fainted.

“Nameless-accursed ancestors’—!” Quan Dingxiang bit off a curse and stalked back into view, holding up a twisting ginseng that was trying to break his arm with its root as if it was a serpent.

“There is more than one…” Lu Seong, who was nearby, pale and shaking, half whispered.

“What exactly is going on—aeuuugh!” someone who had managed to grasp the luckless Myriad Herb Association disciple found themselves punched in the face.

“Idiot!” the disciple snarled. “I am the guide here, not you! I AM THE GUIDE.”

“Well, that progressed fast,” Ling signed with a grimace.

“Well, he has probably been under the influence of them since the start,” she pointed out.

“Fair point,” Ling conceded.

…

In the end, it took almost ten more minutes for everything to calm down and Quan Dingxiang and Lu Seong to reassert some semblance of order.

“W-what just happened?” a flushed and uneasy-looking Fairy Miao asked Quan Dingxiang breathlessly.

“It… should be a contamination,” Quan Dingxiang said, looking around with a frown, the ginseng now passed off to another disciple who had wrapped it in a cloak. “However, I have only read about this kind of phenomenon in accounts…”

“A… c-contamination?” someone quavered.

“Yes, these ginseng are able to use soul sense… and no wards or suppression appear able to stop it,” Quan Dingxiang explained, gesturing to the faintly twitching dark-green-leaved plant which the nearby disciple held up for everyone to see.

“Use… soul sense?” someone exclaimed.

“Isn’t that meant to be impossible in this rain?” another youth asked, sounding nervous.

There was a long pause and the hubbub died down while, she presumed, various members of the ‘audience’ tried to use their own soul sense to no avail.

“Are there any blood ling trees…?” Quan Dingxiang had probably intended to ask the guide, but the guide had been laid out cold by another cultivator.

“I very much doubt it,” Baisheng remarked with a slight edge to his voice. “From what I know of those trees they are very dangerous. Would someone dare be so foolish as to bring such a thing here to be auctioned?”

“That was my impression as well,” Quan Dingxiang agreed. “However, this is…”

He trailed off, then shook his head a few times.

“Whew…That is nasty,” he muttered. “Insidious too…”

-Preach it, she thought, burying the unpleasant feelings of superiority in her mantra.

A few moments later two more guides came rushing over, both looking out of breath.

“What happened?” the older one, who she recognised as the dark-haired former Herb Hunter they had met earlier, asked.

“This… may be some kind of blood ling contamination,” Quan Dingxiang said, waving a hand towards the audience, many of whom were now sitting down, looking drained or just flat-out confused.

“Blood ling?” the other guide repeated, sounding incredulous. “Young Noble, I think you are mistaken.”

“That’s impossible,” the former Herb Hunter muttered.

“Apparently not,” Quan Dingxiang retorted, holding up a meek yin ginseng with a scowl. “Feel free to confirm it.”

…

In the end, it took a further ten minutes and much poking about while they stood on the sidelines for Quan Dingxiang and then the two guides to realise there were three ginseng and that the contamination was secondary. He ended up dissecting a ginseng for the group, with the guides’ permission, showing the evidence of the change in flesh colour and even producing a text that talked about various mutative influences on spirit herbs.

“This… poses a problem,” Lu Seong said at last, once Quan Dingxiang had finished his explanation and they were all gathered around again.

“It does,” Quan Dingxiang agreed with a grimace. “If this can spread, like it seems to, from mere contact with this corrupting soul sense… then any number of other herbs may be in danger of being damaged or… have already been affected.”

“…”

She found Baisheng, sitting nearby, looking appropriately affected, and raised an eyebrow questioningly. The disguised old man gave her a half-smile and a shrug, which was really all the confirmation she needed that somehow this was his doing.

“What do we do now?” a female disciple from the Lu clan standing next to Lu Seong asked.

“Now? We find out how widespread this is,” Quan Dingxiang replied. “The blood ling trees apparently grow exclusively in a place called the Red Pit, so let us go to the western side of the gardens and start from there.”

“As expected of Senior Quan!” someone else exclaimed.

Soon others joined in, extolling how impressive it was that the eminent alchemist had deduced the problem, however, she noticed he was still standing there looking pensive.

“Is there still something wrong?” Fairy Miao, asked, sounding concerned.

“Maybe…” Quan Dingxiang frowned. “It remains to be seen. First, we must track down more of these!”

“Of course!” Fairy Miao declared, almost immediately, then turned to the others grouped around them. “Everyone! Let us give help to Quan Dingxiang and do our utmost to solve this dreadful contamination before it becomes any worse!”

“Of course!”

“Fairy Miao!”

“Let us start immediately!”

She watched, shaking her head, as the thirty-odd cultivators started to get up and rapidly organize groups, take out talismans and even the odd compass and scatter in every direction.

“Well… this has been educational,” Ling muttered, looking around.

“It’s the power of a name,” she agreed with a soft sigh.

…

In the end, it took almost another two hours to find a dozen other contaminated plants, including the rock rose she had found earlier. The first meek ginseng was, somewhat surprisingly, not among them, but she was sure that they had missed quite a few in the first pass that were not well developed in any case. By that point, there were so many people singing Quan Dingxiang’s praises that she found herself wondering if they were actually going to construct a physical shrine to him.

“It’s… kind of pathetic, really, isn’t it?” Ling muttered from the vantage point they had retreated to on the second floor veranda to watch the insanity of the ‘search’ unfold.

“It is… kinda,” she agreed. “However, this has rather neatly eviscerated the immediate danger, so it’s all to the good I suppose.”

“The princess is arriving!” someone yelled from the front entrance of the hall.

“SEEING PRINCESS LIAN!”

“SEEING PRINCESS LIAN!”

Salutes rippled through the whole area below them as she looked on. The Imperial Princess entered the garden a moment later, followed by some two dozen others all dressed in fine robes and jewellery. Ling Yu was actually in pride of place, quite close to the front, as, she noted, was the Deng clan scion. Juni and Xingjuan were also visible in formal gowns of the Kun clan, looking rather nonplussed at what was going on.

Down below, she saw Ling Yu scan the crowd, then the balcony and catch sight of them. She gave her friend a small wave and got a tiny nod back, before Ling Yu returned her focus to the group below who had come forward, led by Lu Seong and a Four Peacocks Court disciple of some status, who were explaining and pointing at the various herbs.

“The famous alchemist sees through the stratagem and is praised by the princess for salvaging her grand occasion,” Baisheng, who had arrived beside her, remarked drily. “Thus does Quan Dingxiang become the man of the hour!”

“I suppose he does,” she agreed with a deep sigh, glad the problem was more or less solved.

“You are not dissatisfied?” Baisheng asked her with a faint smile.

“A little,” she conceded, while Lin Ling nodded. “However, this kind of attention seems as much a curse as a blessing.”

“It is,” Baisheng agreed. “There are always many sides to a story after all. That which is in the open, lauded for all to see… the accolade of the young hero, his reputation ascendant. And that which was done in darkness, unsung and unknown, but from which the most profound seeds can bloom when eyes have moved on.”

“Isn’t that a quote from Seng Mo?” Lin Ling mused.

“Is it…” Baisheng chuckled, staring down at Ling Yu and Juni standing near the princess talking about something. “I suppose it is, isn’t it.”