Just as there are multiple ‘Queen Mothers’, one for each cardinal direction, so too are there multiple ‘Wise Emperors’, each broadly representing a particular virtue espoused by the ‘Grandfather of Heaven’, the Great Emperor of Heavenly Jade and True Prince of Pure Felicity, who is their spiritual senior and the source from which they draw much of their moral authority.

On Eastern Azure, the celebration of the Grandfather of Heaven falls on the fourth and fifth day of the week between years. On these days, families, clans and sects come together, to honour their ancestors and lineages, and give thanks to the filial piety of their descendants.

The common rituals of this two day festival start formally, during or after sunset on the fourth day of the week, with a dinner, where, after a day of celebrations, the children will cook a meal for their parents, an affirmation of filial piety that is the core of all honouring of ancestors. At dawn between the fourth and fifth days, there is traditionally a ritual to honour the Grandfather of Heaven as the adjudicator of all Good Fortune on behalf of the ‘Celestial Venerable of the Primordial Beginning’, then, at noon, a ceremony where descendants and disciples will present proof of their year’s industry to their family, sect or clan, followed by a further grand banquet where ancestors salute the achievements of their successor generations. Traditionally, this is when successors are appointed, sects announce their recruitment for the coming year and divinations for the year ahead are pronounced formally.

In that line, much like the Empress performs a grand ceremony to the Queen Mother, so does the Emperor, on the evening of the second day of the festival, lead a grand banquet honouring the founder of the Dun dynasty, the mythical Dun Fang, a figure who, so the stories tell, overthrew the very heavens themselves to build a better future for Eastern Azure before ascending to even greater heights as a follower of the Wise Emperor of Celestial and Heavenly Kong.

Excerpt from – The Celestial Paradigm and the Four Courts of Heaven on Eastern Azure.

~By Scholar Qing Qingshi.

~ Kun Juni – Kun Estates, West Flower Picking Town ~

Juni opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her room, tracing the fish dancing through clouds as hazy sunlight drifted through the carved shutters and drifting curtains.

-No rain huh? she mused, listening to the rustle of the curtains in the humid morning breeze as she let her qi slowly cycle through her body like a warm current, relaxing her like she was lying in a pleasant bath.

Exhaling, she sat up on her bed and stretched a bit… and flinched as she realised she was not alone in the room.

Sitting on the couch, across the room from the end of her bed, was a woman who could have been her, were she a little shorter and smaller in the bust… and had streaks of silver and gold in her hair.

“G-grandmother,” she gawked, grabbing the loose sheet and pulling it around herself for some modesty, as she was basically half naked, having stripped off the dress and gone straight to bed once she got back a few hours previously.

Kun Liang also opened her eyes and fixed her with a gaze that was akin to staring into a placid, deep pool and smiled warmly at her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” her grandmother murmured, standing up and walking over to the bed to sit down next to her, showing her in the process that the gown she had discarded on the couch was now laid out properly.

“Ah… not at all,” she replied, still a bit shocked, moving around to face her properly. “You are out of your retreat?”

“Yes,” Kun Liang murmured, a faint grimace flickering across her flawless face before vanishing.

-Is there some problem in the clan? she wondered, because her grandmother had almost completely stepped back from the day to day workings of the clan.

“Why?” she asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“No greetings for your grandmother, just questions?” Kun Liang retorted archly.

“S-sorry,” she muttered, suddenly feeling about twelve for some reason.

“Hah…” Kun Liang shook her head and moved over beside her, producing a comb from somewhere and starting to run it through her hair, which was a bit tangled. “It is good to know you can still make that kind of face.”

“…”

Looking at her reflection in the mirror across the room, she saw a young woman with a deeply confused expression having her hair combed.

“I heard that you got caught up in my stepson’s stupid games?” her grandmother added. “They even dredged that atrocious dress out of the vault for you to wear.”

“Erm…” she could only nod, gently, given the comb.

“It was stupid of them to honour your grandfather Mingzhu’s request that all his children, even those he had by that Xuanmei, be given functional roles in the clan,” her grandmother grumbled, her familiar disdain for her late husband Mingzhu’s second wife, married for a treaty with the Kun clan in Golden Jade Province, clear in her tone. “I told him at the time that it would cause trouble, given how Xuanmei’s father is. That bunch across the Teng Strait only see the other two arms of the clan as branches they have not yet reacquired.”

“…”

“It seems to have worked out in the end,” she pointed out, given that the evening had gone very well, when considered objectively, in spite of the problems that the Imperial Acknowledgement of the Ha clan had stirred up.

“Hah!” her grandmother laughed, setting the comb down and starting to plait her hair up. “Yes, I suppose from your perspective it did…”

“Ah…”

In a flash, she understood what her grandmother meant. From the perspective of the Kun clan, it had gone well.

She had mostly mitigated the loss of face there by impressing the Patriarch and generally being dazzling. Her guests had excelled, given Bai Jiang had won the alchemy competition and Arai, who was not really ‘her guest’ but considered by many to be her close friend, had placed highest of anyone locally in the painting competition. Kun Xian had defeated a lot of people and Kun Baotan, from the Nine Moons Kun clan, had won the senior tournament with some style.

“The elders are hopping like monkeys, aren’t they?” she murmured, suddenly feeling both angry and sad at the same time.

“They are, rather,” Kun Liang chuckled. “And I understand you got Xingjuan introduced to this Imperial Princess and her Huang companion.”

“I am not fulfilling my promise as a glorious failure or an inauspicious child very well then,” she joked.

“No, you are not, and that is making some people pass blood from anger,” Kun Liang agreed.

“There are days when I wonder if that was not just a political scheme by my uncle,” she murmured.

“…”

“Sadly, I was there when that divination occurred,” Kun Liang grimaced. “I can assure you that that part is very real, though I and a few others are having cause to wonder if perhaps this divination was not a little too literal, especially today.”

“I am not sure I follow,” she replied, turning so her grandmother could start on the other side of her hair. “Has something happened in the clan?”

“Hmmm…” Kun Liang frowned. “I suppose it is fair to say that this year is not going to start in a particularly auspicious fashion. It was problematic enough that your father has come back early from Blue Water City and is having a shouting match with my half-son, your uncle, and the various other elders.”

“Oh dear,” she grimaced. “What about mother?”

“She came and got me,” Kun Liang sighed. “Which is fair, because your great grandfather is a hard man to track down, nearly as elusive as Xianfang, though he has also shown up, so that is something.”

“He is training Cousin Xian,” she remarked.

“Yes, but he never answers his talismans and with his realm, only someone higher than him can find him, which is basically me, your great grandfather, or one of the other old recluses.”

“Ah…” she nodded politely as her grandmother continued to grumble away about others not doing their bit as she finished fixing the other side of her hair.

“So,” she asked at last, when she was freed from that to go put on a light gown. “What is the problem?”

“Stop there,” her grandmother said drily, grabbing her before she could take more than a step or two. “Stand there and let me look at your cultivation for a moment…”

“Erm…” she stood there, as commanded, basically naked, and tried not to feel embarrassed as her grandmother walked in a slow circle around her, staring at her with an intensity that was… disconcerting.

“Hmmm… so Old Ling was not lying, about what he said,” she pronounced at last. “How interesting, that old fellow will have to explain himself.”

“Erm… what do you mean?” she asked.

“Your physical cultivation, its effect on your body, on your potential… given your circumstances,” Kun Liang mused. “He claimed it would work, even if you were not an inheritor, but that it would take a few years…”

“You mean, the adjustments it is making to my physique?” she asked.

“Yes… well, no, not just that,” Liang said, stepping back and eyeing her critically. “I don’t know if I should be amused or angry that that Dongfei mistook us…”

She had to smile at that as her grandmother’s appearance shifted subtly, the faint traces of age fading from her face and the silver in her hair vanishing, returning her locks to a sort of dark auburn as they plaited up in the same style she was now wearing.

“I suppose we do look alike… The Kun clan has always produced beautiful daughters,” her grandmother chuckled, grabbing her a light gown from the clothes closet by the wall and passing it to her.

She gratefully pulled it on and tied it off at the waist, while her grandmother clapped her hands and then shook her head and walked over to the door and stuck her head out.

“Seriously, the service in this house,” Liang grumbled, presumably not finding any maids in attendance.

“I got used to it,” she sighed. “I left most of my own household in Blue Water City in any case, and came back here after visiting the Ling clan.”

“Huh… I did not know you were friendly with them,” Liang blinked.

She stared at her grandmother, her own recollections of past conversations spinning for a moment through her mind’s eye, and found that they had not really conversed about that kind of thing in a few years a least. Her last two meetings had mostly been to relay messages with minimal socialization.

“I am,” she confirmed. “Ling Yu is a friend…”

“…”

Her grandmother stared at her for a long moment, until she realised she needed to explain who Ling Yu was. Flashing her an apologetic grimace, she gave her grandmother a quick rundown of… life in general while she went over to the side board and fixed them both a pot of tea and served it out.

“Now this stupidity really makes sense,” Kun Liang murmured at last, putting her cup of tea aside and sighing deeply. “Did nobody ever tell you that in the face of idiots like my step-son, a pretty girl like you needs to fail publicly every now and then?”

“I—” she was about to point out that she had had quite a few ‘failures’, some of them rather public, a few quite unpleasant – like the one that had led to her being demoted from a nine-star ranked Hunter to an eight-star one, despite being a full official in the Bureau thanks to her Envoy role – when her grandmother held up a hand and cut her off.

“I mean social ones, dear. Have a fling, flirt with boys, get someone beaten up… That Han boy was the last time I heard of you flexing any petulance, and even then, it was your brother who was the orchestrator.”

“Erm…” she stared dully at her grandmother, who was looking at her with something approaching pity.

“You did your best to be the dutiful daughter, and not betray your parents’ faith in you even after everything you were owed was taken away from you and given to your cousin, but you are simply a better seedling than Xingjuan,” her grandmother sighed.

“My cultivation would disagree,” she pointed out.

“Pssh,” Kun Liang shook her head, looking both amused and dismissive. “You know full well what I mean. I am not suggesting you be promiscuous or anything, but you could show some actual flaws once in a while. Your problem, even when you were an angry teenager, was that you just have this heaven-sent gift for excelling … except, it seems, in the art of looking flawed.”

“…”

She opened and shut her mouth a few times, not quite sure what to say to that until, in the end, she resorted to sipping her tea in silence while her grandmother just stared at her pensively.

“So, what has occurred in the clan?” she asked at last, returning to that topic, as much because it was somewhat surer ground than this strange conversation about why she was the source of such frustration to those who wanted to undermine her father.

“The clan has a herb problem,” Liang said after a moment’s silence. “And I rather fear it is going to be blamed on you.”

“It… I… what?” she asked dully, because that was not what she was expecting.

“You got the in, with the princess, and gave the elders the opening to participate much more equally in the auction…”

“Uh….” she tried to find something to say to that, but actually had nothing.

“And then, the auction was apparently sabotaged, this thing the Ha clan has snatched all the plaudits for,” her grandmother continued. “So now, we have thousands of mid-grade herbs that may be contaminated by blood ling intent and a few hundred high rank ones, including several spirit trees.”

“How can they claim that that was my fault?” she complained. “Are they saying that because I didn’t move faster on the bandits, with Arai or something?”

“…”

Kun Liang stared at her again, over her cup of tea, with the expression of someone asking for explanations.

Sighing, she quickly gave her grandmother the rundown on that saga as well, given the two were now clearly connected to varying degrees.

“I see,” Kun Liang mused at last. “No, actually, and I did not know those were linked. Though you are being blamed, tangentially, for that as I understand it as well. Mostly for not pushing hard enough so that the Kun clan was also visible enough to be acknowledged.”

Listening to her grandmother, she had to fight the urge not to throw her teacup away for a moment.

“Well, I suppose it was a nice morning until I asked some questions,” she reflected after a moment.

“Ha hah!” her grandmother laughed, shaking her head, before continuing. “No, anyway the circumstance is that those idiots took every valuable herb bar none that had a bit of pedigree and put them in the auction and now they are either sold, for spirit stones, or potentially contaminated. The problem is that there is a rather worrying rumour that the Shan Emperor is asking for a gift from the province for the New Year.”

“Oh…”

The pieces slotted into place far faster than she would have liked.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“Without that auction? I imagine there would have been a lot of cursing, but it would just have meant drawing down the clan stockpiles a bit. With the auction, and the fact that everyone else is likely in the same position, clans, bureau, maybe sects and even the town?”

“Everyone saw an opportunity to offload their surplus for prices that are next to impossible here,” she sighed. “And now we have lots of spirit stones, but the gift won’t be spirit stones… will it?”

“Given we are sitting right beside the most famous herb garden in ten starfields?” her grandmother remarked sarcastically.

“So, they are blaming this on me… on father?” she asked dully.

“And Talshin, given he was put in charge of much of that after he was injured, to give him something useful to do while he recovered. That the elders exercised their authority and withdrew it doesn’t matter, because those shameless old men are doing the accusing and not many people in the clan outside the upper echelon knew anything about it. What they do know…”

“—is that my uncle has been very generous with his patronage in the last twenty-odd years, and sought to expand the clan in various ways, and now it looks like we have ‘sabotaged’ his generosity?” she postulated.

“You do have a good instinct for this stuff,” Kun Liang remarked with a soft sigh. “Yes, that is largely the line being taken. I expect that you and Talshin will be held up and a council of elders called for the whole clan.”

“…”

Again, she found herself at a loss for words. That was, basically, what had happened when the divination was made, that her spirit root would be inauspicious…

“Wait… wait, wait,” she put her cup down and pinched her nose. “Don’t tell me they are claiming that THIS is because I am somehow inauspicious.”

Her grandmother clapped sarcastically.

“I don’t suppose you have any inkling of how I am going to be set up to fail spectacularly to make ‘amends’ for this?” she asked unhappily.

“Sadly not, they are arguing about that right now,” her grandmother replied with a sigh. “I do know that you attracted many eyes yesterday though, and several close supporters of your uncle have again suggested that a strategic marriage, to one of the big clans, would be one way for you to serve a purpose.”

“So, you were called out… by mother, to look after me?” she asked dully, hoping it wasn’t to stop her running away.

“In effect, yes,” Liang sighed, and because something in her expression must have clued in her grandmother, she added: “At least to ensure that they do not just summarily bundle you off in a red dress to some old elder with an eligible son for a huge pile of spirit herbs, with the excuse of ‘making amends’.”

“Like that Ha Aoji,” she muttered, sitting back and suddenly feeling as drained as she had after having to play music and ‘compete’ in feminine virtues with Ha Cao Qingluo yesterday.

Her grandmother just sighed softly and poured them both another cup of tea.

~ Lin Ling – Jun Estate, West Flower Picking Town ~

Lin Ling found herself stirred out of reading the latest copy of ‘One with the Spear’, which somehow Arai had managed to get a hold of, by the insistent chime of the communication talisman discarded on the table by the bed on which she was lying.

“Oh come on…” she grumbled, rolling over and scrambling across to it. “Who is it at…?”

“Stupid sister, where are you?! We are receiving honoured guests today! You are commanded by mother to come home—”

The words of her older brother, Lin Changfan, echoed out of the talisman for a few moments before she cut them off.

“I am working,” she sent back, “unlike you. Now stop bothering me.”

“Working,” Lin Changfan sneered. “You were at the Esteemed Patriarch Dongfei’s banquet yesterday—”

“And today I am working. If you——”

“…”

She trailed off as the communication was muted on the other end for a full ten seconds before resuming again. That kind of behaviour was typical of her older brother, who really only cared about his own role in things. His interest in whatever she had to say only extended to cases where she agreed with him or agreed to do something he said. Neither of which occurred very often these days.

“Mother orders you to come home. Do so. You are being unfilial. Do not make her go to father,” her brother reiterated. “Some menial task—”

“As I said, I am working,” she replied, then cut off the talisman and muted it, sitting back on the bed.

“May a monkey throw its shit at you and may you be robbed by squirrels,” she cursed, staring at the talisman for a moment, her mood thoroughly ruined by the exchange.

-What do they want anyway? she complained to herself as she slid off the bed, walked over to the window of the upper floor veranda and went outside.

In contrast to that unlooked-for and undesired conversation, the morning itself was atypically nice for this time of year. The rain clouds had scattered and the town was briefly caught between weather fronts, so the sky was almost blue, though kind of hazy, and the clouds were not projecting ‘imminent deluge’. The sun, which was slowly climbing through the sky, had just about climbed over the distant, cloudy peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains between them and the coast, so the early morning sky was cast in a faint hue of greenish-red—

*Kroooom*

A distant flash made the sky darken off to the west for a few seconds, the clouds twisting outwards as blue-green lightning coruscated down outside of town. It was followed a few seconds later by a scattering of lesser tribulation lightning which dissipated within a few moments.

“Oh yeah, today is the Sovereign’s Eve,” she muttered, leaning on the veranda rail looking at the swaying trees of the Jun family gardens as they stretched down towards the river.

This wasn’t the formal celebration for the rule of the Blue Morality Emperor, the aloof figure who had ruled Eastern Azure for thousands of years; that would come at the end of the week. Rather, it was the day when families and clans supposedly came together to honour the Grandfather of Heaven, their ancestors and the filial piety of their descendants.

The formal civil celebrations in which the Lin clan would certainly take a leading role in West Flower Picking Town, would focus thematically on the founder of the Dun Dynasty, the mythical figure of Dun Fang, who had overthrown the tyrannical heavens themselves to build a better future for Eastern Azure, or so it was widely believed. Personally, she was ambivalent about that, because there was very little about the ‘Imperial Court’ that did not seem perfectly tyrannical in its own right as well, as her own Lin clan had found out to their cost.

Her family, though, had survived that cataclysm largely because they had been among those who advocated against the actions that had ‘purportedly’ led to the destruction of the Lin School, at least in her father’s generation.

-No wonder they want me back there today, she reflected glumly, imagining that the whole family would be having a long and tedious ceremony ‘reaffirming’ their loyalty to that distant seat.

She had always felt, although only to her grandfather had she ever dared to say it, that her family’s reaction to that traumatic upheaval had been somewhat counter-intuitive. Rather than reject the Imperial Court, who they had advocated for and who destroyed their whole clan’s industry regardless, they had instead doubled down and become staunch imperial loyalists, even going so far as to denounce several other branches of their own clan in the intervening years as misguided or worse.

Thinking back to the banquet the previous evening, she found herself wondering if the ‘honoured guests’ her brother had mentioned were some of the party who came with the Patriarch…

-Tomorrow, will I find myself paraded at the Sovereign’s Day Banquet, just as Juni was yesterday, in a flattering dress, for old lechers and their unmarried sons? she wondered, trying to ignore the twisting feeling in her stomach.

“—Oh, you’re up!”

The words shook her out of her gloomy thoughts and she looked down to find Sana standing on the paved veranda below, leaning on a broom and waving up at her.

“Yeah… I guess,” she agreed, swinging over the veranda edge and just dropping down to land lightly on the paving—

“What are you, a cat, Miss Lin?”

“Ah!” she winced as Jun Han, Arai and Sana’s father, who had been sitting at a table in the shelter of the lower veranda, cast a slightly reproving eye at her.

“Maybe she has been swapped for a monkey!” Sana joked. “Han Shu said they were sneaking into places!”

“Mmmmmm….” Jun Han stared at her pensively.

“Are you a monkey in a blonde wig?” Sana added with a mischievous grin.

“…”

She stared at her friend and then pouted, before bowing in apology to Jun Han, who was also now looking rather amused.

“There is breakfast here,” Jun Han added, waving to the table. “Arai has not appeared either, though that doesn’t surprise me… Actually, Sana dear, would you go check that your sister is not face down in the bath or something?”

“…”

“Yes Father,” Sana sighed, putting her broom against a handy pillar and trotting off.

“Sorry,” she apologised again, walking over and sitting down at the table where there was a nice repast of light food, fruit and tea set out.

“It’s fine. Arai and Sana used to do that every morning. There was a point when they turned it into a competition,” Jun Han sighed.

“A competition?” she asked, because she had never heard either of them mention this.

“Yes, you see that pond over there?” Jun Han waved the pond about twenty metres away. “Well, one day Sana managed to jump from the veranda up there into the pond… and then Arai tried it… and well…”

“Oh…” she had to work hard not laugh at that.

“Of course, they were eight at the time,” Jun Han added, giving her another ‘look’.

She coughed awkwardly and helped herself to some of the prepared mangosteen in the bowl, pouring a sweet honey sauce over them and adding cloud rice to it.

“So, how come you are staying with us anyway?” Jun Han asked her after they had eaten in silence for a few minutes.

“…”

-What do I actually say to that? she thought somewhat glumly to herself. I can hardly answer that I don’t want to go home because of my family situation… especially today.

“I just needed a break after my missions,” she answered after a moment’s pause, which wasn’t a lie, “and Sana said it was… okay?”

“…”

Jun Han stared at her for long enough that she started to wonder if he didn’t believe her, but eventually he just nodded and sipped his tea again.

“I heard something of how stressful it has been. The end of the previous year was a trying time for a lot of folks,” he mused.

“Y-yeah,” she agreed, nodding in agreement.

“—She is asleep,” Sana, who thankfully picked just that moment to return, declared, pronouncing on her sister’s status.

“Probably she needs it,” Jun Han nodded. “What are your plans for the day?”

“Undetermined,” Sana shrugged. “There was some talk of going with Juni to show her guests the sights of our fair and verdant town, though those are not exactly scintillating, it has to be said.”

“I see…” Jun Han replied, giving his daughter a level look as well.

“Probably Sis will be going to speak to Grandmaster Li and a few others as well… We will try to get the kitchen formations sorted, don’t worry,” Sana added. “So what about you, dear Father? You were talking to Sergeant Murai until late yesterday?”

“Oh, that, just some catching up on matters,” Jun Han sighed. “I was away for nearly a week longer than anticipated, thanks to the rains. As to what I will do today, it seems I will have to go speak to the Kun clan, then Lady Shi… and then go to the Town Guard’s main pavilion.”

“So, whoever is home first makes dinner?” Sana asked.

“Probably, yes,” Jun Han agreed drily. “Or just gets takeout, assuming you are not eating a meal out somewhere again.”

“I dunno,” Sana frowned. “We might, but then again, after yesterday, I half expect there to be some other silly thing.”

“That’s easily solved,” she pointed out. “We just go via Mrs Leng’s market stalls this morning and reserve a table for later?”

“That works,” Sana agreed, nodding at her suggestion. “And it is— ——…”

Sana trailed off as a particularly loud peal of thunder tore across the horizon, the sky darkening rapidly off to the south as a second gyre of darkening clouds billowed out of the early morning haze.

They watched in silence as several bolts of azure lightning tore down, followed by a barrage of deep blue bolts a few seconds later.

“Dao Seeking,” Jun Han mused, watching the distant show. “Probably someone from the Ha clan.”

The blue bolts continued, one after another, for almost a minute, until, on the ninth, the clouds spiralling around there twisted and seemed to fold upwards—

*Foooooooooom*

The blast of humid air, carrying with it charged particles of qi that danced across the early morning sky like flocks of ephemeral birds, swept through the sky, making her vision waver. A few wards on the town walls triggered, leaving mandala-like shapes hanging high in the sky.

A few seconds later, a flickering bolt of purple lightning, twisting to form a raging dragon as it descended, struck at the distant point outside town.

Given there was no point in saying anything while the deafening peals of thunder were still echoing everywhere, they all simply continued to watch as bolt after bolt of purple lightning, each in the form of an ever more furious dragon, crashed down, until, on the twelfth, the sky twisted upwards again.

“Huh… that is unusual,” Jun Han frowned.

“What is?” Sana asked as the thunder faded away.

“This is going to be a light-show. Whoever is doing that is trying to refine their Principle as—”

Before he could finish explaining, the distant sky collapsed upwards and hundreds of bolts of lightning skittered everywhere, flashing across the early morning sky like effervescent cracks—

Sound faded from the world and the colours seemed to grow dim as a thin golden line, edged with purple, descended out of the twisting heavens to strike.

Even if she wanted to look away, she found she could not. Something about the scene now ‘commanded’ her attention in a strange way, and gold and purple flowers, shaped like little bells, fell from the dark clouds like rain. Where they hit the town formations, they vanished with small thunderclaps, scattering novas of multi-coloured lightning everywhere, a few even breaching the wards themselves to hit trees. A few darted towards the Green Fang Pagoda, only for some power to repel them forcibly, sending them back up into the sky.

The golden line seemed to oscillate, pulsing in a very disconcerting manner as she watched, until, at the ninth, there was a flash of black amid the gold, like some of the darkness of the clouds themselves had been drawn down to the ground… and then the clouds scattered aimlessly, rolling outwards as the twisting dark gyre of tribulation clouds faded away.

“Did it succeed?” Sana asked, curious.

“Yes,” her father nodded.

“So what were they doing with their Principle?” she asked, curious, because while ‘Intent’ got talked about quite a bit, ‘Principles’, which were a thing you created in Dao Seeking, were less widely discussed.

“They developed their Principle within the tribulation,” Jun Han clarified for them both, sipping his tea again. “Usually, when you cross from Severing Origins to Dao Seeking you will then have to spend time refining your Principle, hence the title of seeking the Dao, because your ‘Principle’ is basically the start of your own ‘Dao Path’. However, if you found your Principle within or due to that tribulation, then the nature of Dao Seeking changes and rather than being a Dao Seeking cultivator, technically you are a Quasi-Immortal, because all you need to do is prepare sufficient resources to attempt the breakthrough at that threshold.”

“Oh, I see,” Sana murmured.

“Thank you for explaining,” she added, with a bit of a wistful sigh, because that kind of threshold was so far away as to be nothing more than a dream to her, especially given she was stuck with a law that women ‘traditionally cultivated’ in the Lin clan, which was not especially good for her.

“It is a long way away,” Jun Han added drily to them both. “Not something you need to be worrying about before you form a Golden Core or Mantra Seed. Do not dwell on it too much!”

“Gold lightning is kind of rare though?” she remarked.

“Hmmm… on a world like ours, at this step, heavenly lightning like that is, yes,” Jun Han agreed. “On a Mortal World, however, you can experience it in Mortal Step tribulations.”

“Eh?” Sana blinked. “Isn’t that a bit counter-intuitive?”

“Not really,” her father shook his head. “That is also why minor realms are much more important in lower worlds. It would take a once in a thousand years genius or some very privileged scion placed there from a higher world to form a Golden Core in their mid-teens, like is common here on Eastern Azure, and they would probably get a tribulation akin to what you just saw a moment ago.

“To become an Immortal in your fifties or sixties, never mind your twenties, as many in the great sects and clans are able to achieve, would be nigh-unthinkable.”

“The methods are just not good enough?” she asked, having recalled hearing something to that effect.

“That is part of it,” Jun Han agreed. “But mostly it is just to do with the difficulties of manipulating qi in those worlds and the lacking state of spiritual qi there. Not everyone is born with a spirit root; in fact the vast majority are not. Spirit vegetation is rare and spirit herbs, even common ones like those five-elements hyacinths we have planted in the border there, would be considered miraculous treasures found only in the gardens of the wealthy and powerful, or in rare and mysterious places…”

“So the density of qi is less and their comprehensions of the cycles of nature are limited because of it?” Sana concluded as she helped herself to some mangosteen from the pile on the table.

“Exactly,” Jun Han nodded to his daughter. “Even something like spirit stones, which admittedly are not so common among the poor here, are far, far rarer, even on a rich and prosperous Mortal World. Arts to make them would be the rise and fall of nations and spirit stone mines and the like are the lineage treasures of world-controlling powers. Such things would be used for cultivation to supplement the progression of the rich and powerful, or the lucky, not for money.

“Even knowledge is hoarded to an extent you cannot imagine. The contents of a single tablet at a night-market here would be a treasure trove countries would war over in some worlds and even your father here would be considered a reclusive old expert at his age by the average cultivator…”

“…”

They both looked at Jun Han, who only appeared to be in his late thirties to early forties, older mostly, she thought, because he sported a beard. If he shaved it off and put on a robe in the style popular amongst people their age, he would be indistinguishable from a junior…

She tried to picture him as some reclusive old fellow, looking a bit like her ‘teacher’ in the Pavilion, Old Ling, but the two images just refused to connect in her mind.

Seeing their doubting gazes, he shook his head wryly. “Anyway, the end result, given the repression of the heavenly laws, is that qi, even in its most basic forms, is harder to perceive.

“Incidentally,” Jun Han continued, after the tribulation bolts faded away, “this is the week such ascensions tend to happen as well, by and large, because the alignment of our Great World’s axis is at its least chaotic, so connections form much more easily.”

“Oh,” she replied, having not known that, though it made sense in retrospect.

“Most who ascend usually join a sect or a clan if they are a junior, or, if not, become a guest official or enter a clan or the Bureaus as retainers and the like. Tomorrow is the day that happens, incidentally,” Jun Han added. “This is why juniors who break through from such a world are so prized in worlds like ours by major powers… They have exceeded the crest of their world’s wave by a remarkable margin and, having experienced tribulations like that regularly, their comprehensions are usually excellent.”

“Do they still… have to break through… within a hundred years?” she asked between eating mouthfuls of her breakfast.

“…”

“To be considered a ‘junior’?” Jun Han asked her, pouring more tea for all three of them.

“Uhuh,” she nodded, accepting her cup.

“Yes,” Jun Han sighed, “which, as you can imagine, is a source of much frustration to many. Most who ascend would not qualify as juniors—”

He had to stop speaking for a moment as another rumble of thunder echoed through the sky, followed by a flash of lightning.

“That seems kind of unfair,” she noted after the disturbance had passed.

“It is indeed, and greatly skews those who ascend in favour of mortal scions planted into those worlds by clans or those who have lineages in worlds like ours,” Jun Han agreed, sitting back and staring at the slightly greyer sky with a sigh. “Few who arrive on a higher world find it to be as they expected, I imagine.”

“…”

“Are there many mortal ascenders in the province?” Sana asked, curious.

“A few,” Jun Han mused. “The Blue Gate School, Deng and Ha clan have some. Elder Fushang Caopei of the Green Fang Pagoda is one of the few who are still local to here. The Blue Duke’s court and the Imperial Envoy’s palace both have a few as well. Most who ascend do not give much thought to their roots, so those who are older tend to integrate thoroughly…”

“—Ah, sorry I overslept…”

She glanced around to find Arai had materialized on the veranda, looking a bit tousled, in a light robe.

“Not at all, rest is important,” Jun Han said with a broad smile. “Sit and get some breakfast.”

“So, what is the plan for today?” Arai asked, taking a seat beside her.

“Well, I would like to have a small ceremony in the shrine,” Jun Han said drily. “Then I must go out to run messages, it seems.”

“Oh… okay,” Arai nodded, turning to her and Sana. “So are we still acting as a guided tour?”

“As far as I know,” she replied, while Sana just nodded.

“I did get a message from Han Shu,” Arai added. “He wants to know if we have any spare bromeliads in the arboretum.”

“Uh…” Sana narrowed her eyes for a moment. “I’d have to look. I think I planted a few in the trees earlier in the year. Did he specify a species?”

Arai stared at the talisman in her hand for a moment, then shook her head. “I think he wants one that will condense spirit-infused water though.”

“So, any of the larger ones,” Sana mused. “Tell him he is welcome to come look. We can discuss the price.”

“Okay…” Arai nodded, then murmured something under her breath to the talisman for a moment before tossing it on the table and helping herself to some of the food.

“So… what are we going to do about this ginseng?” Sana asked after a moment.

“Ginseng?” Jun Han asked.

“Uh… did I not say something about that?” Sana asked.

Jun Han stared at his daughters, then shook his head.

“We didn’t mention it while out and about,” Arai said absently. “Or at least I didn’t.”

“Ah, true, and then everyone was knackered last night,” Sana agreed. “I assume you got the low-down on Sis’s travails in Jade Willow if you saw that painting?”

“I… did,” Jun Han nodded. “I wanted to speak to you about that in more detail dear, if you were willing and it was not too traumatic…” he added, turning to Arai.

“I… can do it this morning. Better sooner than later,” Arai said after a short pause.

“I assume that is why there is a new shrine in ours as well?” Jun Han added.

“Er… sorry about that,” Arai grimace. “I just felt that they deserved something…”

“Not at all, it is nothing less than would be expected,” Jun Han said simply.

“I went to the Queen Mother’s temple as well,” Arai added. “And paid for them to have a funeral…”

“Ah…”

For a moment she saw something approaching… not annoyance, but sadness, flicker across Jun Han’s face. The worst part, for her, was that it was almost an alien expression. She could not imagine either of her parents being at all concerned about the deaths of a few lowborn flower sellers, for all that their family had narrowly avoided such destitution mere decades earlier.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to drag that up first thing in the morning…”

“It’s fine, Father,” Arai sighed. “This is just the world we live in… Life and death are equally cruel in their own ways…”

“Yes, yet that is not the kind of words I want my dear daughters muttering first thing in the morning!” Jun Han declared, giving them both mock-serious frowns. “I understand you ended up having a training session with Old Xianfang?”

“Er… yes,” Arai nodded. “I didn’t know who he was at the time though!”

“He was quite forthright in his praise, which is hard to earn, you know,” Jun Han added.

“I duelled with Ling Yu,” Sana added, pouting a bit. “Lady Ling Tao and her grandpa Baisheng both said I did very well…”

Jun Han stared at his other daughter for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “In that case, I can only give thanks that both my daughters are diligent!”

“Bleugh!” Sana retorted, feigning to flounce back in her chair slightly and sulk.

“Maybe I should see what you have both learned then… once breakfast is done,” Jun Han chuckled, before glancing at her with a slightly encouraging look and adding, “And you, Miss Lin, your family’s martial arts are quite something…”

“…”

She stared at him for a long moment, knowing that he had meant well by what he had said…

“I… wouldn’t know. Only my brothers are taught,” she said with a grimace. “I learned what I learned from Old Ling in the Pavilion, and from Kun Juni and Ling Yu.”

“Ah… sorry,” Jun Han grimaced, giving her a longer look. “I misspoke.”

“…”

“I have seen Lin clan martial arts. If you like, I can show you a few moves,” Jun Han added.

“You have?” she blinked.

“Of course. Lin Fanghai was a good friend of mine, back in the day,” Jun Han replied.

“Lin… Fanghai?” she frowned, trying to place the name. It was slightly familiar, she had to admit, like she had heard it in passing somewhere.

“Ah… he is… dead now,” Jun Han grimaced, realising he had perhaps misspoken again. “In the Three Schools Conflict, so probably before your time.”

“It’s… fine,” she replied, “My family has distanced itself from those events anyway…”

“Yes, they have,” Jun Han agreed, frowning slightly she thought. “Ah well, if you want to see…”

Thinking it over, she found she did, actually. Her brothers were always trained behind closed doors and she was largely left to her own devices, especially since she joined the Hunter Pavilion.

As a law, the ‘Seven Spirits Thunder Light Manual’ that came from her family was a ‘non-inheritance’ version anyway, intended for daughters who would marry elsewhere and, in due course, giving as many benefits to whomever the clan decided her partner would be as it did her. At the time she was given the manual she had not really understood what that meant, just being happy to practice a cultivation law like her brothers. It was only later that she realised she was practising for someone else’s benefit.

Since she gained her mantra she had barely touched her spiritual cultivation anyway, just letting it advance naturally in accordance with the changes her physical cultivation was slowly effecting on her body and meridians. That was why she was still at Qi Condensation with it, when even Juni was basically at the peak of Qi Refinement.

Old Ling had been fairly clear that she should be prepared to abandon that law entirely at Mantra Seed in any case, something she had few complaints about, though she imagined her family would not be quite so sanguine.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I would!”

Jun Han gave her a further smile and nodded happily. “I might even have a manual of Brother Lin’s around somewhere. He was not from your branch, in case you are wondering, so there should be no difficulties there.”

“Oh…” she blinked, surprised by his generosity there.

“Probably I can’t let you take it away though, given that others might desire it,” Jun Han added apologetically…

-I bet they would, she reflected sourly.

Her own family had pursued several lesser branches that had escaped the calamity of thirty years ago, mostly for their teachings, which had been scattered.

“—but when you visit here you are more than welcome to look at it, and anything else in our family library, for what little is there,” Jun Han added. “I would have offered before, but I did not realise you didn’t already practice those arts…”

“It’s fine,” she murmured, giving him a bow, again feeling somewhat… complicated.

It was hard not to feel envious of Arai and Sana in a moment like that. Their father was everything she had wished hers would be…

“Thank you for your generosity. I will try to live up to Ancestor Lin’s expectations…” she murmured.

“Heh! He would be quite pleased I think,” Jun Han chuckled. “He was a very carefree fellow, but loved to help others and was always generous with his instruction…”

*Ahem*

“Please pass the teapot, Father…”

Arai coughed and held out her cup for some tea. Jun Han stared at his older daughter and shook his head, the teapot shifting across with a brush of qi so deft she barely even caught it.

“I’ll go find that book, then you can look through it while we see to the family shrine,” Jun Han said, standing up.

“Oh… um, thank you,” she bobbed her head again in thanks, to which Jun Han just waved a hand airily.

“Think nothing of it, or consider it a New Year’s gift from us,” Jun Han added, giving her a bright smile before heading off into the house.

“…”

“Don’t overthink it; not every family is as stuffy as yours,” Arai, sitting opposite her, said with a coaxing smile.

A part of her wanted to declare that that wasn’t quite the point, but she couldn’t bring herself to; largely because she knew all too well that her friends had their own difficulties. In a way, that was why they were all together, in the Hunter Pavilion – it was a place that didn’t care too much about what those troubles were.

A local sect would never have taken her, even before her family circumstances, because her water element spirit root was, while not bad, awkwardly attributed enough that she would not have passed any open entrance exam when she was younger. Similarly, one would never have taken Arai and Sana, because they were pure physical cultivators and barely any sect bothered to recruit them, same for Han Shu. Juni would have been a political calamity for any sect with less influence than the Supreme Elder of the Kun clan as well.

Even among the other higher-ranked Hunters not affiliated with a major clan, they all came from poor backgrounds or unfavoured prospects, which counter-intuitively allowed them to rise, because the Bureau judged them less likely to be a waste of resources as they would be less prone to just taking the benefits and quickly deserting.

“If you think about maudlin things, you will look old. That was what mother said once,” Sana added, making a stupid face at her.

In reply, she just stuck her tongue out at Sana, who shook her head with amusement. “Today is our day off… Remember what we said last night?”

“May the new day be better than the old one!” Arai declared, drinking down her tea in one gulp.

“We can but hope,” she agreed, more than happy to move the conversation on from things that kept drawing her back to her own woes.

In the end they chattered away for a full ten minutes, mostly about things she and Sana had seen and done in Blue Water City, before Jun Han returned with a somewhat battered manual in hand which he passed to her after sitting down again. On the cover, someone had written in rather sloppy calligraphy ‘Seven Thundering Monkeys Manual’, which had then had added underneath it, in better writing, ‘Volume One’.

“Seven Thundering Monkeys?” she asked dully.

“Ah, the name, yeah, don’t think too hard about that,” Jun Han chuckled. “Have a read through it and then I’ll answer any question you have later?”

“Thanks…” she murmured.

Opening it, she found the book divided up into seven ‘chapters’, each focusing on a part of a martial form that had a total of thirty-three moves to it.

“Where does the ‘seven’ come from?” she asked, recognising one of the names at least from the martial manuals that her own family kept.

“Oh, that has to do with the way the three sets of moves divide up,” Jun Han clarified. “You will see when you read it.”

Nodding, she flipped through the first chapter, which had nine basic footwork movements in it, and found that she actually knew two of them, though oddly not the first two. Somewhat vexingly, she didn’t even have a complete codex of her spiritual law, so she could only go off what she recalled, but it certainly seemed like what she was working with was oddly advanced and yet lacking in some of the clearer instructions provided in the text Jun Han gave her.

-Wait… she stared at the different moves, visualising their fluid steps and spins, are these two the most attractive of the bunch?

“…”

It certainly seemed like it at first glance. Both were to do with moving quickly from one place to another, whereas many of the others were about closing distance or adjusting your stance quickly.

“We will be back in a bit,” Jun Han added, having stood up again.

“Okay,” she replied, standing up and bowing politely as Jun Han led Arai and Sana back inside.

Someone had written extensively in the margins about how this kind of understanding was vital in both armed and unarmed combat and that neglecting it was the kind of thing only idiots who wanted flowery moves without power did. That that was largely what her own limited Lin clan martial arts seemed to be, made the comment a bit depressing really.

The third chapter was a selection of eleven basic strikes and kicks, while the fourth chapter combined all that into a set of twenty-one basic moves in three sets of seven which could be practised individually or in sets and pairs. It even outlined martial techniques, some of which she again recognised, having seen her brothers practice when she was younger. However, the versions set out in the text seemed rather different from what she recalled seeing…

Curious, she put a hand to the page showing one and imbued it with her qi, letting the Intent captured within the scene of the technique being used—

{Knife Monkey Kick}

She stood in a leafy courtyard, watching a muscular youth with sandy hair tied back into a loose ponytail execute a driving front kick into a tree, which shook and rained cherry blossoms everywhere.

{Stabbing Monkey Kick}

He retreated then lashed out with a second kick, in a movement that really did remind her of watching a monkey fight.

{Three Thunders Stamp}

The youth slammed his foot down in a rapid dance that confused her for a second until she recalled there had been a footwork move that was similar. As she watched, the youth exhaled, stepped back and then repeated the sequence in a slightly different way… again, and again, and again. In fact, no two moves were quite the same, but after watching for several iterations she understood that that was the point. The minutiae of the technique was irrelevant in a way; it was all about how they flowed together and found a sort of harmony…

“Don’t tell me that has some relation to grandfather’s Seven Bamboo Rods,” she frowned, then realised she had spoken out loud.

“Seven Bamboo Rods?”

She flinched as the youth turned to see her standing there.

“Ah, it’s been a while since someone other than Jun Han came to talk!” the youth remarked pleasantly.

“Uh…” she nearly broke the connection with the book, such was her shock.

“Oh… hmmm… you are from my Lin clan,” the youth mused, looking her over speculatively.

“Lin Ling…” she replied, nervously.

“Ah, don’t be afraid. I see why you are surprised. At your realm you didn’t think an object like this could exist, I imagine,” the youth chuckled.

“At my… realm?” she blinked.

“I am Lin Fanghai,” the youth grinned, snagging a jar of wine from where it had been sitting near the tree. “Or at least a facsimile of him, formed of the qi and comprehensions he left behind in this tome.”

“Ah… erm, I have seen tomes like this,” she murmured. “I was just surprised. I didn’t expect this to be one…”

“Oh, I understand I suppose. It is not some fancy jade slip, after all. I was indebted to Fairy Ruliu for capturing the images so clearly… She really is talented.”

“Oh, uh… yes,” she nodded. “She was, by all accounts…”

“Oh, yes, she passed away,” the youth sighed, looking wistful for a moment before giving himself a small shake and looking at her critically again. “So, you are here to learn about my ‘Seven Thundering Monkeys’ style?”

She nodded politely, because that seemed like the correct answer.

“Your foundation is a bit…” the youth eyed her for a long moment then shook his head. “Ah well, it doesn’t matter. The worth of the manual is in aptitude of the teacher, not the student. Any idiot can teach a talented child, but only a talented teacher can teach any idiot, as they say.”

Even though he said it with a mischievous smile, she still felt a bit miffed at the way he phrased it.

“I am just unskilled,” she muttered.

“Not to worry,” the youth grinned. “Why don’t you show me what you know?”

“Uh… isn’t this just for that technique?” she asked, glancing at the still gently shaking tree and the cracked tiles.

“Eh? What…? Oh, no,” Lin Fanghai shook his head, again looking amused. “You can watch each bit, but as the spirit that guides this manual I can teach you anything from any picture. Otherwise someone could just skip to the end and take this bit or that, and that sort of disordered learning kind of defeats the point of this manual in the first instance.”

“Oh, I see,” she nodded, understanding at last. “In that case…”

She quickly demonstrated what martial arts she knew, mostly as forms, which it had to be said were rather a mish-mash of styles adopted for various purposes. There was little requirement for it in Yin Eclipse, as Old Ling had frequently pointed out, since plants did not go for that kind of thing and qi beasts and insects fought instinctively, so most of what she had that she used was focused on either mobility, helping her use what Intent her physical cultivation afforded her, or for those few instances where it was helpful to be able to punch something.

“Hmm… not bad,” the spirit of the manual remarked after a bit. “I see the thesis that has been instilled in you. Are you a Herb Hunter?”

“Uh… yes?” she blinked, surprised at how quickly it arrived at that conclusion.

“Don’t be that surprised,” Lin Fanghai chuckled. “I… have most of my memories. I suppose you could call this aspect of me a piece of my soul sense imbued into the manual for the purposes of instruction. I recognised your movement art. You are also a physical cultivator, which is probably a wise choice, given the law you practice.”

“You… know it?” she blinked.

“I was an inner disciple of the Lin School,” Lin Fanghai remarked drily. “I know quite a bit about the Lin clan’s arts as well. My father was the Master of Arms for the clan, before he perished in the Year of the Blood Eclipse.”

“Your… father was Lin Fengtian?” she gawked, realising at last why the name was familiar. “Lord Fengtian?”

“He was,” the spirit form of Lin Fenghai sighed.

“My great grandfather was Lin Lingzheng,” she murmured.

“Old Diviner Lingzheng?” Ling Fengtian mused, “I knew him, yes… A powerful old man with eyes beyond what many others saw… More should have listened to him. That they did not, and believed what they did, was a tragedy. That does explain why I can feel the aura of the ‘Seven Bamboo Rods’ divination art from you.”

“My grandfather Lingfan inherited it… and passed what little of it he felt he could to me before he passed away from injuries he sustained when the school fell,” she said. “My family… were not happy about that.”

“You are Elder Lingfan’s granddaughter… interesting, interesting,” the spirit Lin Fanghai mused. “I must thank Jun Han; he has given me some things to think about. Anyway, we are getting sidetracked and your qi is not unlimited. Do you know only the martial arts of the Lin clan that come from the ‘Seven Spirits Thunder Light’ manual?”

“Barely even that,” she admitted. “Let me show you…”

The spirit watched as she ran through a much, much lesser display of what little she knew, nodding occasionally.

“Tcch… what a waste,” Lin Fanghai muttered after she finished. “Your aptitude for Sky Flower Steps and Maiden Casts Flowers is excellent and yet they gave you just enough to be a pretty flower and no more. Your teacher should be ashamed.”

A part of her was somewhat gratified that that prognosis of her aunt’s very basic instruction in those arts was that dismissive.

“In that case, let us start at the beginning. I will demonstrate for you the basic strikes and you will follow,” Lin Fanghai mused.

Nodding, she matched his posture and threw the first punch, then the second, following him as best she could for a few tries, before he stopped her, looking amused.

“Just watch first,” Lin Fanghai said. “If you practice like that, you will have a lack of focus. You cannot look at both me and yourself at your realm.”

“Oh… um… okay,” she stopped, feeling a bit embarrassed.

Seated on a handy bench, she watched as Lin Fanghai ran through the moves one after another, pairing a movement with a strike, threading them together slowly and deliberately so she could see not just his physical movements but also how his qi moved naturally in accordance to the movements and how it promoted his Intent to manifest in subtle ways.

“Now, you try,” Lin Fanghai said at last, after he had completed the full set.

…

By the time Jun Han and the others returned, she had had to finally stop using the manual and was sitting staring at the garden, recovering her qi and turning over in her mind what she had just experienced.

“I see you managed to convince it to show you a few things,” Jun Han said with aplomb.

“I… did,” she nodded. “It was a bit surprising. I was not expecting it to be such a precious object.”

“Eh… it has mostly sentimental value,” Jun Han mused, flicking through the pages for a few moments before closing it again. “Though I suppose it would cause some questions if it were in an auction house.”

“The… spirit, said you helped make it,” she added.

“Oh, yes, I provided the framework to help incorporate the martial teachings into it,” Jun Han nodded. “Lin Fanghai let me keep this copy as it was a bit experimental, then later the Lin School, well, you know about that I am sure… and in the end there was nobody left to pass it on to.”

“He knew my grandfather and great grandfather…” she added, staring at Jun Han. “What realm was Ancestor Fenghai?”

“Realm… hmmm,” Jun Han stared out at the garden. “He would be considered a quasi-Ancient Immortal. Had he not died he would have broken through in a decade or two.”

“…”

She had expected ‘Immortal’, but to hear that the figure she had been speaking to was so close to the peak of the Immortal Step…

“What happened?” Sana asked, also curious it seemed.

“He died, when the Lin School fell. Assassinated by unknown forces, along with almost every other disciple and clan member with prospects in the Lin School who had not already deserted,” Jun Han said softly. “The ones who killed him, nobody ever caught them. All anyone knew was that the killers were not seniors.”

“Not… seniors?” Arai frowned. “But only… oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’, indeed,” Jun Han agreed, not quite looking at her, or his daughters.

‘The Astrology Bureau has powerful friends, and Prince Fanshu has means that our Lin clan, despite their untold years of endeavour, could not hope to match’ – those were the words that her grandfather had once spoken to her when she asked him that very question.

“They didn’t get what they sought anyway,” she muttered, thinking about the curses that the abandonment of the school had brought into being.

“No, they did not,” Jun Han agreed with a sigh, before giving himself a shake and turning to Arai and Sana. “Well, I did promise I would see how much the two of you have improved from your little masterclasses…”

“Uwaaaaa…” Sana pretended to groan, but still walked over to the lawn and started to stretch.

Arai followed suit a moment later, snagging one of a pair of short staves that Jun Han tossed to his daughters out of the air.

“Recover first,” Jun Han added to her. “It will take you a little while, I imagine.”

She nodded and settled down to watch, absently taking another mangosteen from the table to nibble as Arai and Sana started to circle their father, looking for openings as he just stood there, arms by his sides, looking very neutral and waiting…

~ Han Shu – Han Estates, Blue River District ~

By the time he escaped the Han estates and the attentions of vexatious distant relatives to actually undertake the errand his mother had sent him on, to procure a new bromeliad to replace the one a bunch of monkeys had made off with from the family gardens the previous day, it was pushing for mid-morning.

Street vendors were out in force as he walked along the main thoroughfare of the Blue River District, hawking their wares in the dry spell between weather fronts. The town was bustling, much as it had been on the Queen Mother’s Day, although in this instance it was with smaller, local ceremonies for the most part, and the occasional bit of street theatre or small procession to one of the many smaller shrines dotting the city neighbourhoods.

Teahouses were full and everywhere you looked, people were out and about enjoying the good weather. Crossing the Wusheng Bridge to the north side of the river, he found, to his total lack of surprise, that the streets were even busier as people from every district descended on the Yu District gardens by the river, again to take advantage of the lack of rain to have celebrations outdoors.

As such, it was with some relief that he finally made it to the Jun estates, only thirty minutes later than he had originally expected to get there, being met at the door by Arai after a wait of only a few minutes.

“Sorry about that,” Arai apologised as she led him across the courtyard and back into the house. “I hope you didn’t have too many people try to sell you celebration firecrackers and firework talismans?”

“Not that many,” he replied politely, which was a lie really, but complaining about how busy the town was felt somewhat churlish. “Sorry for being back so soon. I didn’t anticipate having to buy more herbs off you.”

“It’s fine,” Arai said. “Why do you need a bromeliad anyway?”

“Monkeys stole the one from my mother’s garden yesterday and she doesn’t want to lose face over it being missing after having bragged about it a lot at the Patriarch’s banquet yesterday,” he explained, trying not to look as embarrassed as the stupid errand made him feel. “I recalled you had a few in the arboretum?”

“We do,” Arai confirmed. “I can…”

They both stopped as someone else banged on the door.

“Ah, head on through,” Arai sighed, “I’ll get that…”

He nodded politely as she turned on her heel and walked back out of the hall into the front courtyard. Making his way through the hall to the courtyard adjoining the garden, he was greeted by the sight of Jun Han easily evading the combined attacks of Sana and Lin Ling, occasionally blocking one of them and sending them rolling across the grass.

“Hey!” he waved politely to them, letting them know he was there.

“I suppose we will finish it there,” Jun Han remarked, glancing over at him and then fending off a joint attack from both Sana and Ling, sending them both to the ground again. “I trust you can see a bit better how that works now, Ling?”

“I can, thank you,” Lin Ling replied, picking herself up and bowing respectfully.

“Sorry for the intrusion,” he murmured, noting that they still had breakfast on the table, and that it was a far cry from what Arai had previously served him. “I should have come later…”

“It’s fine,” Sana waved a hand as she used qi to remove the grass and odd leaves from her robe. “Arai said you were looking for a bromeliad?”

“I am,” he confirmed. “Either to borrow or to buy.”

“Renting plants…” Sana shook her head in amusement. “I’ll go see to this, Father?”

“Okay,” Jun Han nodded, before turning back to Lin Ling. “So, the basic strikes you were shown go like this…”

He watched for a moment as Jun Han fluidly executed a series of punches, kicks and sliding steps, one after another, while Lin Ling observed attentively.

“Coming?” Sana asked, giving him a poke in the back.

“Oh… sorry,” he blinked, realising he had gotten distracted. “Yes, lead on.”

“I didn’t know your father knew Lin clan martial arts,” he remarked as they set off across the garden.

“You and me both,” Sana agreed, brushing her hands across the damp vegetation as they walked. “He had some old friend from back in the day and offered to show Ling a bit on a whim after we got talking about my sister’s travails.”

“I see…” he replied, glancing back as Lin Ling now ran through the series of strikes while Jun Han watched critically.

“So, why do you need a bromeliad anyway?” Sana asked, turning the conversation back to herbs. “Your Han gardens have some exceptional specimens as I recall?”

“Had,” he corrected her. “A monkey ran off with two of them, got into the arboretum, ate the spirit fruit on the trees and then took the bromeliads and fled.”

“You still have difficulties there,” Sana mused.

“Yeah…” he sighed. “They are definitely holding a grudge. Anyway, my mother is really proud of them and was boasting about them to various folks yesterday at the banquet… and then we got home to discover that the garden had been broken into…”

“That is bad timing,” Sana noted.

“We did wonder about that,” he agreed. “But two monkeys snuck in when someone went to gather fruit in the evening… they were even seen fleeing. Unfortunately, mother agreed to give a few of her friends from out of town a tour of the gardens today and to have a big meal in the evening…”

“And now her showpiece bromeliads are gone,” Sana remarked.

“They are,” he sighed. “She planned to feature them prominently on the altar to the Grandfather of Heaven at tonight’s dinner.”

“If there is a risk of monkeys running off with mine, I am going to have to ask for collateral,” Sana added as they finally got to the arboretum hall. “I mean, it’s not impossible to go gather more, but they are a bit of a nuisance to bring down, especially given they rarely play nice with herb storage devices due to the spirit water ponds they condense in their flowers…”

“I am aware. I was there when we harvested the last lot, up on the western slopes of Eastern Storm Peak,” he reminded her.

“So you were,” Sana conceded, squinting up at the trees, wreathed in hazy mist in the early morning sun. “That was a fun training trip.”

“Fun is not the word I’d use,” he muttered, recalling that four day hike, through monkey territory, which had been more stressful returning than going out, because the monkeys up there had something approaching a tribal society at this point and viewed the bounty of those valleys as their personal fief.

“You mean you don’t enjoy being splattered by durian fruit and having monkey shit mysteriously show up in your pack, or food, or dropped on you out of the trees for days on end?” Sana joked, before adding, “There are two over on the right side, let’s go look at those. What realm was your mother’s?”

“It was a shining dew bromeliad,” he replied, following after her. “It was a six-star grade spirit herb, but only at Soul Foundation, and it had no spiritual wisdom.”

“Hmmm…” Sana stopped and looked up at the first plant, which had purple-green flowers and metre-long tangled white fronds falling down through the bows of the kobbin tree. “This is a white beard bromeliad, about that quality…”

Stepping off the path, he carefully pulled himself up into the tree, taking care to avoid the moss on the branches as much as possible to get a closer look. As Sana said, it was indeed about that in quality – Soul Foundation in both its qi purity and actual realm, rather than having a qi purity of Nascent Soul.

“I think mother will want one that’s Nascent Soul,” he called down.

“In that case, it will be the other one… but it’s not Nascent Soul,” Sana called back up. “It’s a golden pond bromeliad that’s about Quasi-Immortal in its qi quality.”

“Ah…” he grimaced, dropping back down to the ground and dusting off his hands. “I take it you will only lend that one…”

“Uhuh,” Sana nodded. “I can sell you a few of the epiphytes, but this was one of those we were growing to sell at maturity, in the hopes of saving up enough for a proper storage ring…”

“Oh,” he nodded, understanding her reticence. “Mother gave me ten Spirit Jades… although she will weep a bit if I spend all of it on one plant.”

“That would still be a discount,” she pointed out to him as they started off again. “They only grow in the inner ring.”

“I am aware,” he murmured.

“It’s also quite integral to the wider harmony of that part of the arboretum, so I can’t take too much of it,” Sana added.

“…”

They walked on in silence after that, around the looping path, until Sana stopped beneath a sprawling tree growing out of a small artificial gorge near where the rainbow fern grew. The bromeliads, growing almost in the crown of the tree, were just visible as hazy golden shimmers within the swirling mists above them.

“Climbing, ho!” Sana called out with a chuckle, taking a knotted rope out of her storage talisman and tossing it up over a low branch before anchoring it to a handy rock by the path.

He watched as she quickly hauled herself up, then tossed a second rope up to a higher branch and repeated the process. Probably she could have jumped into the tree, but the risk of damaging something was too great, he supposed.

“Okay, you can come up!” she called down after a moment.

Grabbing the rope, he quickly hauled himself up after her, arriving on a high branch amid the crown of the tree to find Sana sitting on a nearby branch poking around at the base of two of the golden flowers, each of which was about the size of his head.

“How many do you need?” Sana asked, looking around at the half a dozen golden-petaled plants.

“Three, ideally,” he said, recalling the number of plants his mother had had. “Though not all of them need be flowering I suppose.”

“In that case, I can loan you these two in flower… at a collateral of five Spirit Jades each,” Sana mused. “And that one over there for two Spirit Jades? With a rate of twenty spirit stones a day for the lot?”

Looking at the two flowers and further flowerless plant she was gesturing to on the branch beside her, he had to admit that was quite reasonable. If he was going to buy them, especially at short notice and with the shortages that the auction in Blue Water City was causing, each one would easily come to an Earthly Jade or more he suspected. The twenty spirit stones a day for all three was a bit cheaper than the market rate as well, especially for a day like today, when many brokerages that loaned out such auspicious plants, for ceremonies and the like, would have close to doubled their prices due to the demand.

“Okay,” he agreed after a moment’s consideration. “Though I imagine my mother will want to buy at least one of these… they are rather sought-after.”

“I’ll give you the whole plant right now if you can give me a storage ring that’s greater than ten cubic metres and doesn’t need soul binding to work!” Sana replied mirthfully as she affixed the rope to a spirit wood basket and started to transfer one of the plants into it.

“Yeah, I rather suspect that is outside even my mother’s means,” he replied with a wry grimace. “However, I am sure she will find something… Stuff like this is her second passion after ‘One with the Spear’.”

“—Here,” Sana tossed him a second basket, rolling her eyes at his comment. “You get started on that other one that isn’t flowering. I assume you know what to do?”

“I do,” he nodded, carefully manoeuvring himself over to where the two branches were only half an arm’s width apart and crossing over, withdrawing a second rope and starting to affix it to the branch above.

~ Lin Ling – Jun Estates, Western District ~

Despite only having practised the move set for some twenty minutes under Jun Han’s direction before Han Shu appeared and took Sana away, Lin Ling found that she was sweating far harder than she had anticipated as she ran through the form again, on her own, for him. There was something about the moves that, when performed as he was guiding her to, was inherently draining in ways she had not expected.

“—Don’t use your mantra,” Jun Han, standing off to one side, instructed her, about half a heartbeat before she was, in fact, about to reach for it to help push herself through what should have been a very simple series of six flowing movements.

Resisting the urge to shake her head, she twisted and spun, executing ‘Maiden Casts Flowers’ at the same time as she swept out with both hands, using ‘Monkey Slices Vines’ in what would be quite a vicious knife-hand attack, then swept low, finishing with ‘Sky Flower Steps’ paired with ‘Earth Turning Kick’.

“Not bad,” Jun Han appraised as she finished the sequence and exhaled. “A few weeks’ practice and you will be able to use those as actual martial attacks.”

“Why… not use… mantra?” she asked, gasping a bit.

“So your body can acclimatize better to the movements,” Jun Han replied. “I cannot claim to be any great expert on them, but my wife taught Arai and Sana extensively, and she always stressed that the foundation was in many respects more important than the use of the mantra itself. The mantra is a part of you, so your use of it needs to be in harmony with the rest of you… She used to say that ‘you must accept what is given to you, and work with that’, not ‘grasp it and fight every finger length over it.”

“That… is quite a different philosophy than is normally espoused,” she noted.

-Even Old Ling’s advice was not like that… she mused, recalling that he had largely just said that she should use the mantra… in accordance to her heart and intuition.

“That is not quite what Old Ling said,” she remarked, curious suddenly as to what Jun Han might say about it. “He told me that I should use it in accordance to my heart and intuition?”

“There are different ways to the same thing,” Jun Han agreed. “But the principle is usually the same. The mantra must work in harmony with what is there, whereas spiritual laws are largely about reordering what is there to provide harmony.”

“I… see,” she frowned, mulling that over.

“Let me show you,” Jun Han grinned. “It is hard to understand the difference if you do not experience it for yourself.”

“Erm… you have a mantra?” she asked, caught out by his statement.

“Hah… no,” he shook his head. “But the principles behind it are quite profound. They impact feng shui, martial arts and many other aspects besides… even buying and selling in a market, or walking down a street.”

“Walking down a street?” she blinked.

“You touched on an aspect of it yesterday,” Jun Han grinned. “When you dressed up in those fancy gowns and went to the banquet. Did you not feel that others looked at you differently?”

“Eh?” she stared at him, not quite following.

“In that moment, were you not using those gowns to re-order your appearance and how others perceived you, to change the harmony of how you interacted with the world?”

“…”

She stared at him dully, still not quite following.

“Never mind, that’s perhaps a bit much,” Jun Han chuckled. “Regarding that form… let me show you how it would look if you adopted a means of tackling it that a spiritual cultivator might use…”

She watched as he flowed through a series of fast, crisp movements, each strike leaving a faint echo of snapping air, the steps making the paving around them hum faintly. The qi in the air turned oppressive, forcing her back several steps and leaving her in a cold sweat by the time he executed the final kick, which almost felt like a bell had been rung beside her.

“That…” She tried to find words to praise it, because it was certainly impressive.

“It looked very martial, didn’t it?” Jun Han replied drily, wiping some sweat off his forehead.

“Yes!” she agreed.

“Now, watch again,” he murmured.

“…”

She looked on as he exhaled softly. The heavy air and the oppression in the courtyard faded away and it was just as it was. Jun Han flowed through the same set of movements; however, this time it didn’t seem powerful or very martial. In fact, it almost felt like a dance, but at the same time, the longer she watched, the more drawn into it she became. There was something undefinable about each movement: each attack began and ended so smoothly that she sometimes felt she was missing something, and when he finished the final kick again, she was surprised, because it had not been obvious.

“Do you see the difference?” he said, exhaling softly.

“Erm… sort of?” she frowned. “But that didn’t look like it had anywhere near as much power?”

“It did not, but power is not necessary,” Jun Han replied. “Just like muscles, or qi, you can lose power, but Intent is very hard to break unless you break the vessel itself.

“In short, the second set was practised according to the moment. I am sure you noticed that within those pictures Lin Fanghai rarely ever practised the move sets in quite the same way twice?”

“Oh… yes,” she agreed.

“This is why,” Jun Han explained. “If you are powerful, you can impose upon others, but what if someone else is more powerful than you?”

“Oh…” she sighed. “You would get beaten.”

“Indeed, but if you accept from the beginning that the other person is stronger, you would take a different path, a different approach. Power makes your thinking rigid, in life and in martial arts,” Jun Han mused. “Rather, the arts, the knowledge, your qi, your spiritual law… even your mantra, are just things you have to accept. They inform but they should not dominate. Your mantra would dominate if you rely on it to execute your arts, and while it is powerful… I am sure Old Ling has warned you that they are not infallible?”

“He has said that,” she agreed.

“Admittedly, those circumstances are rare…”

Jun Han trailed off, turning to the door to the main halls of the estate. A moment later, Arai appeared, followed by Bai Jiang, Kun Ying Ji and another woman she had never met before.

“—Ah, Arai… and Young Master Bai… and Kun Yunhee, this is a surprise…”

“Jun Han,” the woman nodded. “Yes, it has been a while since we crossed paths. I am here in the area with Lady Liang. When I learned that Young Masters Bai and Ying here were going out to see your daughters, I figured I should come by and say hello as well.”

“You… know my father?” Arai remarked a bit dully.

“Hah… yes, I will concede that that didn’t really come up in our chats before,” Yunhee said apologetically to Arai. “We have worked together on occasion.”

“I am honestly as curious as to how you met my daughter,” Jun Han remarked, gesturing for them all to come sit at the table. “Please, help yourselves to some light refreshments.”

“So… you are actually a senior?” Arai asked Yunhee, who nearly spat out her tea.

“No, she is someone like Ha Shi Lian,” Jun Han chuckled, glancing at Yunhee, who was looking a bit depressed. “You are still being trained by Kun Xianfang?”

“A little,” Yunhee replied. “When I am not waiting on Lady Liang or keeping Young Lady Juni company. Lady Liang is out of seclusion, incidentally.”

“I imagine the Kun clan is sweating slightly over that,” Jun Han mused.

“They… well today has been a bit fraught, so we decided to get out of the estate,” Yunhee murmured while the other two nodded, somewhat over-eagerly she felt.

-Is there some fallout from the banquet? Or is it just that the sheer number of people visiting the estate for the day means it is not that enjoyable to be there?

“I am sort of standing in for Juni in that regard, as she is with Lady Liang this morning,” Kun Yunhee added.

“Where is Brother Feng?” she asked Bai Jiang and Ying Ji politely from the side of the conversation. “Did he stay in the estates?”

“He and Senior Brother Baotan were invited to a Dao Discussion,” Bai Jiang replied.

“You didn’t go with them?” Arai added, curious.

“Invites were extended only to those who fought in the tournaments yesterday,” Ying Ji sighed. “Not that I feel that bad about it really. I must say, by the way, Sir Jun, your estate garden is quite marvellous.”

“It always has been a highlight, yes,” Yunhee agreed.

“—Oh, you are here,” Sana, returning with Han Shu, each of them carrying a broad spirit wood basket with a radiant golden bromeliad in it, remarked as she came up onto the veranda.

“What is that?!” Bai Jiang almost gawked, standing up and staring at the golden flowers in the baskets. “What a marvellous spirit herb…”

“It’s a golden pond bromeliad,” Sana clarified, putting hers down on the edge of the veranda carefully.

“—And it even has spirit dew inside it!” Bai Jiang exclaimed, shuttling over to examine it. “There was one of these in the auction in Blue Water City, an inferior specimen, for two Earthly Jades!”

“…”

She caught Han Shu looking slightly awkward, even as Sana rolled her eyes.

-I guess she is selling or loaning it at local prices then, though who could afford the crazy costs that they charge over the ocean anyway…

“This close to the mountains, these things are not so uncommon,” Sana shrugged.

“Do you know the cultivation boosting pills you can make with this stuff?” Bai Jiang murmured, still squatting down beside the plant, admiring it.

“…”

“Oh?” Sana asked with an ‘interested’ expression.

“If you had some of this to spare, I would be more than happy to purchase it,” Bai Jiang added. “And furnish you with a few pills as well…”

“These ones are sadly spoken for, but I do believe we have some,” Sana mused.

“Why don’t you show them the arboretum and the garden?” Jun Han added, “While I catch up with Yunhee?”

Arai nodded as both Bai Jiang and Ying Ji looked interested.

“Follow me then,” Arai said, waving for both of them to follow her, before glancing at Sana and Han Shu.

“I have to head back to the Han estate fairly quickly,” Han Shu said apologetically. “But I suppose I can walk around with you for a bit. I’ll call someone to come help transport these…”

“Okay,” Sana nodded. “Do you want to come, Ling?”

She pondered it a bit, but then shook her head. “I want to think a bit about what your father has shown me,” she mused, noting that the manual had vanished from the table before their visitors had arrived.

“You should go,” Jun Han remarked with some amusement. “Just let it sit for a while…”

“…”

Taking the hint, she nodded and stood as well, following after the others as Arai led them across the lawn towards the outside pond that was a focal point of that part of the sprawling garden.

“This estate is much bigger than it appeared,” Ying Ji remarked as they arrived at the water’s edge.

“It is fairly average,” Arai replied with a polite shrug. “There are plenty larger…”

That was true, she had to admit, but at the same time, the Jun estate was only home to three people. Most other estates this size had whole extended families living in them. The wings on either side of the garden had all been repurposed at this point into things like a training hall, a library, the arboretum and the storehouse for herbs and the like.

“Did you gather these herbs yourself?” Bai Jiang asked, admiring the pond.

“Mostly, yes,” Sana nodded. “It is fairly easy when you are already taking trips into the mountains regularly… and arranging a garden like this helps enhance your knowledge of how plants work together and on their surroundings.”

In the end, the tour of the garden took around thirty minutes, with Sana and then occasionally Arai explaining the stories behind some of the herbs and trees incorporated into it as they walked between the flower beds and carefully arranged thickets and little vales of plants to finally finish in a pagoda in the middle that was mostly used as a summer reading house and occasional place to cultivate. At that point, Han Shu begged his leave, as the helpers from the Han estate had arrived to transport the herbs, so they all traipsed back to the main estate and bid him farewell.

After that, they continued the ‘tour’ by going to the arboretum itself, which was, she was quite pleased to see, quite outside the expectations of either Bai Jiang or Ying Ji.

“This is amazing,” Bai Jiang declared at last, after they had walked a full circuit of the humid, misty hall and stopped by the pond.

“You even have Meng carp…” Ying Ji added, crouching down by the water and admiring the sleek, golden-bronze fish drifting lazily in the water.

Sitting down on a rock, she grabbed a few bits of spirit grass and started to feed a terrapin that was lazing in the shallows next to her feet.

“I have to say, I did not expect such a thing,” Bai Jiang sighed, running his hand across the flowering heads of the reeds around them. “And the effort that has gone into laying it out…”

“Thank you,” Sana replied, looking quietly pleased she noticed.

“It was set up by our mother,” Arai added, looking around. “We just do our best to continue it.”

“It is an excellent way to keep spirit herbs,” Bai Jiang added. “Rainbow ferns, tree orchids, those bromeliads, and the reeds here—”

“—Ah, don’t poke the lotus plants!” Sana interjected, noting that Ying Ji had been about to touch one of the blue and purple flowers. “That’s an awakened spirit herb…”

“Oh…” Ying Ji pulled his hand back quickly, looking a bit embarrassed for a moment.

“Sorry, I should have said,” Sana added apologetically. “Both lotus plants are awakened. Don’t bother them unless you want to spend a few minutes investigating the bottom of the pond at their leisure…”

Ying Ji coughed and stood up.

“It is quite unusual to keep awakened herbs,” Bai Jiang noted.

“Not so much, here,” Arai said. “You can find quite a few in the Kun estates—”

“Well, assuming they didn’t send them all to the auction,” she added, to keep herself engaged in the conversation as she continued to play with the terrapin.

“They help order the ambience,” Sana mused. “And both provide useful benefits. You said you wanted the spirit dew from some bromeliads?”

“If you are willing to sell it,” Bai Jiang agreed. “There are several interesting pill recipes that help with advancing cultivation…”

“Sure,” Sana nodded. “They are over here…”

Standing up, she followed them over, watching as Sana scaled the tree quickly and returned after a few moments with a vial full of a slightly viscous, qi-rich liquid.

“Do you need anything else?” Arai asked Bai Jiang.

“Hmmm… a few pieces of spirit vegetation to act as elemental catalysts,” Bai Jiang mused, looking around.

The next few minutes they spent trekking back and forth until Ying Ji had a small armful of bits of spirit vegetation, some pieces of bark, the leaves of two yang element shrubs, along with the flower of a tree orchid and a piece of cloud fern.

Watching the pile of ingredients assemble, she had to admit she was quite curious about the whole thing. None of them had any experience with alchemy, beyond the basics of preparing herbs after gathering them, and what was sometimes rather dismissively termed ‘herb compounding’, which was not so much making pills out of them, but turning them into salves, or infusing them into liquids and such.

“Okay…” Bai Jiang declared at last, once they had exited the arboretum and gone back to the paved area outside the kitchen. “I can’t promise success, but I can pretty much guarantee I won’t explode the cauldron…”

“Please don’t do that,” Jun Han, who had come over with Yunhee to see what they were doing, remarked. “What pill are you going to try to refine?”

“Five Elements Harmonious Gate pill,” Bai Jiang said.

Jun Han eyed the pile of vegetation and nodded, sitting down on the somewhat low garden wall to watch.

“No pressure there, then,” she signed to Sana who rolled her eyes in reply.

She watched with interest as Bai Jiang took out a small bronze-coloured pill furnace and put a few spirit stones into the openings on the side. Alchemy was not something you got to watch happen up close very often. In the Blue Gate School, that was mostly because disciples doing alchemy in open spaces tended to fail more often than they succeeded. Elsewhere, alchemists guarded their secrets closely and tended not to take disciples openly either. In town, the Alchemist Association was possibly the hardest one to get any kind of ‘in’, with.

They rarely took female apprentices either, because women with Yang spirit roots were very rare, and the common alchemical methods overwhelmingly preferred yang-attributed fire, earth or wood roots which were much more common in men. Yin roots, particularly yin wood roots, were useful for alchemy, she understood, but typically fell under more specialized methods relating to poisons and the like with their own requirements. The only female alchemists she knew of were part of the Blue Gate School itself, like the vice-headmistress, Lady Ling Tao, Ling Yu’s aunt.

As they looked on, Bai Jiang poured some spirit alcohol into the top of the furnace, then added some of the spirit vegetation and bark to it, staring with steely focus at the shimmering swirls of qi exiting the top of the furnace.

“The first part will be a bit boring,” Ying Ji commented after a moment. “The various impurities within the herbs need to be purified so that they can be balanced with the orchid flower and the other bits…”

She nodded as he continued to explain, step by step, what Bai Jiang was doing, adding and taking away different herbs, adjusting the temperature so that different herbs and vegetation had their vital attributes required for the pill infused into the slowly thickening liquid inside. The last ingredient of that phase to go in was a few drops of the spirit dew, which turned the haze of qi above the cauldron into a rainbow-coloured cloud for a few moments before it was slowly but surely drawn down into the cauldron.

When all of it was inside, Bai Jiang closed the lid and exhaled.

“The first step is done, now it needs to simmer for about ten minutes,” he remarked. “Sorry, it is not the most visually enticing experience.”

“Not at all,” Sana replied, paying rapt attention. “It was perfectly interesting…”

“Indeed, your talent is quite something,” Jun Han agreed, passing Bai Jiang a cup of tea, which he gratefully accepted.

They sat around and listened to Bai Jiang chat about alchemy and the importance of the various steps he had just conducted, until at last, he was satisfied that it was ready and took the lid back off, glanced inside and then poured in more of the spirit alcohol before adding the first of the spirit herbs.

The whole process from earlier repeated itself at that point, as he distilled down the essence of each herb in turn, the ‘liquid’ in the furnace turning ever more viscous and multi-coloured, until at last it was time to add in the spirit dew itself. This he did rather warily she thought, until Ying Ji noted that this stage in these kinds of recipes was usually when the furnace would explode if you did something wrong.

“Saying it doesn’t help,” Bai Jiang muttered, much to their collective amusement, as he added the liquid, drop by drop, into the cauldron.

“Sorry,” Ying Ji murmured, “I just felt it fair they should know in advance that they might have to dive for cover…”

“…”

Jun Han, who was sitting nearby, rolled his eyes, making her fairly sure that if the cauldron did explode, they at least would be safe.

“—And done…” Bai Jiang said at last, putting the container down, which she noted still had quite a bit of dew in it. “Now, we have to coalesce a pill, so…”

He trailed off, staring at the furnace with narrowed eyes, then put an extra spirit stone on one side. She watched with interest as the qi currents in the air around it slowly started to twist, forming a vortex around the cauldron that drew in ambient qi through the apertures in the side. After a few minutes, he added a second spirit stone at the edge, and so on, for almost thirty minutes, continually promoting the temperature of the furnace and the momentum of the vortex, until she felt like she was sitting in front of an open fire, despite being over two metres away.

“You have to heat it like this for a few minutes,” Ying Ji added.

“This is usually when the furnaces explode,” Yunhee added with a smirk. “The biggest explosion I think I have ever seen was the one that made Lake Fengge outside of town.”

“That… was made by a pill furnace exploding?” she asked a bit dully, recalling that Lake Fengge, which was now a place where fish were farmed, was about half a mile across.

“That wasn’t a pill of this grade,” Jun Han remarked. “It was a Dao Step pill from what I recall.”

“Uhuh,” Yunhee agreed. “A Fated Accession pill, to help melt Fate Tribulations when crossing to Dao Immortal.”

“How did it make an explosion that big?” Ying Ji asked.

“Black lightning. It summoned a Fate Tribulation…” Yunhee said drily.

“…”

“…Not helping,” Bai Jiang muttered from where he was still swapping spirit stones around on the cauldron, occasionally wiping sweat from his face.

“Sorry,” Yunhee apologised.

“Should only be a few more minutes,” Bai Jiang added. “You might want to back up a bit though.”

Jun Han nodded, waving for them to retreat over to beside him. From that slightly farther vantage point, she watched as the pill furnace started to shudder faintly, the misty currents of qi orbiting it turning into small flames as they decayed in the ever-increasing temperature until at last there was a sense of ‘pause’, at which point Bai Jiang started quickly removing the spirit stones, reducing the temperature while keeping the rotation going. That continued for almost a minute, before he finally exhaled and sat back.

“Success?” Ying Ji asked.

“Yep,” Bai Jiang nodded, looking both relieved and drained.

As they looked on, he took the lid off the furnace and skilfully scooped out a handful of multi-coloured pills, each the size of a peach pit, and then considered them a bit dully.

“Nine pills…” Ying Ji blinked, “That is…”

“I must confess, I was only expecting to make four or five,” Bai Jiang murmured, looking abashed. “The recipe states that you can form as many as twelve from a batch, but I have nowhere near the skill for that… It seems that this place is more auspicious than I expected.”

“Good quality ingredients also help,” Yunhee added.

“Indeed,” Bai Jiang agreed. “Without those this would not have been the success it has been.”

“May I look at them?” Yunhee asked, holding out her hand.

“Of course,” Bai Jiang passed some of the pills over to Yunhee who eyed them critically, then passed them on to Jun Han, who also considered it for a long moment, before nodding.

“Some excellent ‘Five Elements Harmonious Gate’ pills,” he concluded after a moment, passing the pills back to Bai Jiang.

“The batch is very consistent as well,” Bai Jiang muttered, sorting through the remaining pills in his hand. “All of them are broadly mid-grade pills.”

“You tell the difference by the—”

“The markings,” she finished, giving Ying Ji a bright smile. “These ones have preserved the effervescence of the spirit dew, but do not have the mirror clarity on the surface.”

“Indeed,” Ying Ji agreed, returning her smile with a slightly questioning one of his own.

“Well, you pick up some stuff,” she remarked politely, feeling a bit pleased.

“In terms of the pills, I hope you will accept one each,” Bai Jiang added, taking out several pill bottles from his storage ring and putting one in each. “Unfortunately, you can only take them once, then the efficacy drops dramatically.”

“My daughters should at least get two each,” Jun Han remarked with a half-smile. “It was their ingredients that contributed to the success.”

“…”

Bai Jiang considered the pills then nodded. “That seems fair. I will keep three then.”

“Brother Feng will be sorry he missed this,” Ying Ji sighed, accepting his pill bottle.

She took hers with a polite bow and stashed it away in the pouch at her waist. Arai and Sana both took a single pill’s bottle each, while Jun Han accepted two from Bai Jiang, who then took the last three bottles and stored them away.

“I am sure I can spare him one,” Bai Jiang replied. “Assuming he has not taken one already. I know his family has several talented alchemists and there are a few other recipes for the same pill.”

“True,” Ying Ji agreed.

“Well, that was most interesting!” Yunhee added with a bright smile.

“It was,” Arai agreed, while Sana nodded eagerly.

“It is not every day you get to see such excellent alchemy. That was even more impressive than the win at the banquet yesterday,” Sana added.

“Quite,” she agreed. “It was really interesting!”

Bai Jiang looked a bit embarrassed at the praise, she thought, but did offer a polite bow, which they all matched with humorous applause.

“Now, I suppose something should be done about lunch?” Jun Han mused.

Glancing up, she realised with some surprise that it was indeed about noon and that they had spent well over an hour watching the pills being refined.

“Did the refinement actually finish about noon?” she asked, staring up at the sky.

“Huh…” Bai Jiang stared up at the sky as well for a long moment, then shook his head wryly, looking a bit embarrassed. “It does look that way. I was trying to ensure that I didn’t finish at an inauspicious point, but still…”

“…”

She knew that in terms of pill refining, nurturing pills were typically refined at dawn, because you wanted to seal a bit of the ‘new yang’ of the day into the pill, but after that, finishing a working at noon, especially on the two days of the Sovereign’s Festival or another auspicious day, was pretty much optimal.

“Anyway!” Jun Han said, cutting through the moment. “There is certainly some food that can be put together…”

“I mean, that really isn’t necessary,” Bai Jiang murmured. “We are already imposing as it is…”

“Nonsense,” Jun Han shook his head decisively. “Arai and Sana will go fix something quickly.”

“…”

Sana nodded, standing and bowing slightly to everyone then heading off to the kitchens. Arai followed her a moment later.

Returning to the table, she sat down again and poured herself a cup of tea before helping herself to another piece of a mangosteen. As it turned out, Bai Jiang and the others had spent much of their free time wandering around the Kun, Market and Red Flower districts, pretty much at random, looking in various herb shops and the like since they arrived, so the conversation mostly turned to the rich bounty of spirit herbs available to work with.

Arai and Sana returned about twenty minutes later with a large bowl of soup, several dishes of spirit herbs and fresh, raw fish and more tea. It was basically a traditional lunch, not particularly flashy, but nobody had cause to complain. If Arai was good at painting, it was fair to say that Sana was good at cooking spirit food, and Mrs Leng and her cooks had been more than happy to teach her and Arai the basics, to the point where Sana could probably, if she wanted, take up a job at Mrs Leng’s market stall without any difficulties.

In a strange way, it made her feel a bit odd, because when she looked at herself… the best she found she could say was that she was good at feng shui and a fast study.

“You are thinking something silly,” Sana muttered to her, shaking her out of her moment of odd reflection.

She wanted to say she was not… but truthfully, she was, she knew.

“What do you want to do this afternoon?” Sana asked her.

“Me?” she blinked.

-I did tell my stupid brother I was on a job… It would be awkward if it got back to them that I was just going around with Sana and Arai…

“Uh… An excursion out of town might be nice, while the weather is good?” she hazarded, thinking quickly.

“Could take a trip up river,” Yunhee mused. “My sister’s husband has a boat.”

Glancing across at Bai Jiang and Ying Ji, she could tell, though, that while both were looking politely interested, that kind of trip was not something that really interested them. It gave her a mild flash of annoyance, though it was hard to say why.

-Maybe I am getting too caught up with Ling Yu’s pace of things, she mused to herself.

“If it is an excursion… there is still that matter for Grandmaster Li, isn’t there?” Arai frowned.

“Oh, there was that,” Sana nodded. “What did he say?”

“Well, if we go fix his niece’s garden… he will fix the formations in the kitchen,” Arai said.

“Isn’t his niece in Misty Vale Village?” she noted.

“She is…” Sana agreed.

“Do you want a trip to the edge of the suppression zone?” she said brightly to Bai Jiang and Feng Ji.

“And then a trip back down river to town,” Yunhee mused.

Both Bai Jiang and Ying Ji nodded.

“I still need to speak to you about a few matters,” Jun Han added to Arai. “Ideally, before I go out to run these messages.”

“Ah, that was true,” Arai sighed.

“You can always join them later,” Jun Han pointed out. “The main teleport formation hops straight to Misty Vale.”

“True,” Sana agreed. “We can take the scenic route and you can meet us there?”

“What do you have to do in Misty Vale Village anyway?” Bai Jiang asked.

“Martial Flower Arranging,” Sana joked.

“Advance our understanding of the Dao of Rich People’s Gardens,” Arai added.

“…”

Both Bai Jiang and Ying Ji stared at them blankly until she translated. “Probably move some plants around in a garden and act as a feng shui expert for an hour.”

“In that case, the sooner we leave the better, unless we want to teleport back,” Sana noted, looking at the largely empty plates littering the table. “Do we need to go via Grandmaster Li’s?”

“That might be best, just to let him know,” Arai agreed taking out a talisman and passing it to her. “This is the mission talisman, such as it is.”

“Amazing,” Sana replied, reading it. “How did you get this before someone like Ha Yun?”

“Grandmaster Li has him and his bunch blacklisted,” Arai reminded her sister.

“Oh, the matter with the fight?” she interjected, recalling that.

“Uhuh,” Arai nodded. “Trashed Li Fei Gonfui’s teahouse, who is married to Grandmaster Li’s brother’s eldest daughter.”

“Never offend a talisman master,” she confided to Bai Jiang and Ying Ji, rolling her eyes. “Their means are not like you can imagine.”

“You don’t say,” Ying Ji agreed with an amused laugh. “This Ha Yun seems like quite the character, though his win yesterday was quite good, assuming this is the same person?”

“It is,” she agreed. “And that was more a triumph for local adaptability than anything else.”

“Shall we get going then?” Sana said, standing up.

“Do we need to gather anything up?” she asked, standing as well.

“I have most of the relevant stuff in my talisman I think,” Sana mused.

She checked her own, which was currently a shameful collection of this and that and in dire need of organisation, and just nodded.

“I trust this is not too onerous for you. I am sure you just wanted to go around and see the sights in West Flower Picking Town and sip wine in teahouses in the company of beauties, overlooking the river,” Sana joked to the pair.

“Ahaha…” Ying Ji shook his head.

“Not at all,” Bai Jiang said with a grin.

“Don’t get into any more trouble,” Jun Han added, glancing sideways at Yunhee.

“I will keep an eye on them, ‘Brother’ Jun,” Yunhee said with a slightly theatrical sigh.

“…”