The problem with geomancy is that everything is a leading question. To get the right answer from it you must not only know what the right question is, but be keenly aware of what the wrong ones could be. Because, as you seek to get a leg over on the world at large, the world you are trying to scam will perfectly happily follow along with you, nodding and offering its support. Right up until you walk over a cliff, into a dragon’s den or onto someone else’s sword, never seeing the knife you made for your own back in the process, whereupon the world will abscond without a sound, leaving you to wonder right up to the very last how your wonderful plans all came to naught.

Excerpt from ‘On the Joys of Divination (or why I burnt down my own temple)’.

~ Author unknown.

~ Lu Ji – Blue Water City ~

Lu Ji sat in the strategy council lead by the Blue Duke, feeling like he wasn’t quite sure what was real and what was not. For someone of his cultivation experience, it wasn’t exactly a common feeling, and he was of the view that he was becoming a trifle too used to it of late. In this case, though, it seemed entirely warranted, as news had just come through from a whole host of sources that the Imperial Astrology Bureau and a bunch of other influences had just been plunged into abrupt anarchy. The Imperial Astrology Bureau in particular, which was something of a lynchpin of the current Imperial Throne’s influence in the Central Continent, had been especially badly affected as well, which gave him a warm glow of happiness rather at odds with the more problematic reality it was now unleashing.

“Sir! The updated casualty list has come in,” a functionary announced, darting into the room and passing over a jade scroll to Cao Leyang.

“Huh…” the Duke skimmed it and then tossed it on the table and rubbed his temples.

Without comment, he swiped it and skimmed the alleged numbers, whistling appreciatively.

Within the Imperial Astrology Bureau itself almost 4,000 mid-level functionaries from various clans associated with the Jade Gate Court, Heavenly Supremacy Sect, Red Sovereign Sect, White Storm Sect, Gan clan, Leng clan, Hao clan and Mung clan had all been caught up in the Fated Execution. This message further clarified that four Imperial Elders attached to the Bureau were ‘missing’ and a bunch of other influential or promising individuals had either keeled over dead in broad daylight or were also now ‘missing’.

He passed the list to Hao Shen, who looked at it and sighed then handed it over to Ling Jiang, who read it, snorted in disgust and threw it back onto the table.

“It’s quite the list, isn’t it?” Hao Shen said with a sigh.

“None of your juniors?” he asked the General.

“If there are, they deserved it – useless idiots,” the old man sniffed.

He nodded; it was hard not to smirk about it, to be honest. The level of disruption the Fated Execution had caused was almost unprecedented in his lifetime. The disruption of the last series of proper clashes between the Huang and the Mo clans some 18,000 years ago came close... maybe.

“Do we have confirmation yet that several of the escapees from the Black Cage are actually headed in this direction?” 5th Continental Legion Commander Hao Shen queried a functionary waiting nearby

“Sort of, sir!” one of the functionaries said with a grimace.

“Diviner Yung?” the General said, turning to an elderly man who was standing with his back to them, pondering a complex board that was the communications array.

“Apologies,” the old man said, turning and bowing to them. “The Imperial Astrology Bureau is stonewalling again on the exact nature of the ‘breach’ and arguing that letting us know who exactly got out would be counterproductive to their efforts to divine their locations.”

“Faugh,” the Duke scoffed.

“Um… sir… if I may?” Diviner Yung went on a bit more nervously, shooting a sideways glance at the parties on the other side of the table.

“Go on?” the Duke waved a hand, “You may speak without fear of repercussion.”

“There is some… er… emerging evidence, both amongst our own divinations and regarding some reports that are being sorted out as we speak, that… some of the missing parties were, in fact, missing before the damage to security in the Black Cage.”

“Preposterous!”

“An outrage!”

“This is a blatant—”

Regional Bureau Chief Ling Fei slapped a hand on the table, cutting off the muted swearing and outrage from the members of the Blue Water Civil Authority also present in the room, and turned to the local Imperial Astrology Bureau Chief.

“Well, Chief Feng?”

Chief Astrologer Qiao Tao Feng, a weedy man in his middle years with a very inadvisable beard, was slumped low in his chair with the body language of a man who wanted to be anywhere but here. The problem as such was that that wasn’t because he was afraid, but rather because he still held rather vainly to the belief that the parties here had no power to tell him he should be here. He had been grabbed at the Bureau Teleportation Gate, about to head to the Grand Imperial Astrologer’s abode floating over the southern mountains, by two Adjunct Generals and a squad from the Central Bureau Enforcers. An act that was entirely justified in the circumstances, but hadn’t gone over well.

Now, Qiao Tao Feng was ignoring Ling Fei and reading some message on his jade slate with a sour expression.

“Astrologer Feng.”

The Duke's voice at least made him look up for a second.

With remarkable patience, Ling Fei leant forward on the table and tried to look accommodating. “Look, Brother Qiao Tao Feng… we appreciate that you are not personally responsible for any of this, but you have a responsibility to Shan Lai as well as the Imperial Court to be clear on this. Why is everything pointing to this originating HERE?”

“That hasn’t even been confirmed, the Imperial—” one of the Imperial Envoys sitting beside Qiao Tao Feng tried to cut in.

“You appreciate that this is not an Imperial matter, this is a thing for the Azure Astral Authority,” the Duke said a trifle more crisply than was perhaps necessary.

Not for the first time he rued that Shan Lai had managed to let the Astrology Bureau get away from them in the way it had. Technically there was the ‘Astrology Bureau’ and the ‘Imperial Bureau of Court Astrologers’, but in the last two dynasties, the latter had basically subsumed the former in its entirety and short of provoking an outright war over the control of the Bureau – which, given how diviners and geomancers were, few were willing to do – it had become what it was.

-Contested worlds are a nuisance, as his aunt would say.

“Look… Brother Fei, Envoy Jiang… While I certainly appreciate that the optics of this are really somewhat awkward… and what with the allegations that Di Ji resurfaced…” Qiao Tao Feng started in a mildly derisive tone.

Lu Ji groaned. Not for the first time in this meeting he had wondered if the Astrology Bureau appointed their regional heads in some weird means whereby their seniority was inversely proportional to their ability to read the mood.

Pre-empting Ling Jiang before things got ugly, he addressed the Astrologer directly. “Chief Astrologer Feng, the ‘optics’ are all anyone has to go on at the moment… and they do not look good.”

“Exactly!” the Astrologer nodded, looking far too pleased. “This is all just smoke and mirrors until the Three Eyes—”

“Yes, yes, really, this imposition, you should be explaining why you are preventing the Chief Astrologer from taking what he knows about the local—” with a wave of his hand he cut off another of the Imperial Lords who had just interrupted.

“Look,” he said, leaning across the table and narrowing his eyes. “First there was this proclamation, then that great ritual you all did for the 'prosperity' of this generation’s 'endeavour', then that truly terrifying tribulation, after thousands of years of that fate-accursed hell-hole being a boring bunch of mountains for the most part, then the burial of almost 17,000 – and counting – leading talents of this generation in that spatial collapse immediately after, and now THIS.”

“Well… that’s just a matter of—” Qiao Tao Feng said, slipping back into his prepared spiel.

“The ‘optics’, yes, Astrologer Feng, so you keep reminding us so eloquently. However, as someone with a little bit of experience with divination and geomancy myself, I feel compelled to remind you that the entire fate-thrashed Dao is the interpretation of the nameless-accursed ‘optics’.”

There was a lot of nodding from the others around the table.

“So, when you look at the optics of this event, to all of us it looks like the Astrology Bureau kicked over this shit-can and is now trying to run away having made a mess and pin it all on us? This is the Imperial Court’s hot gourd.”

Cao Leyang nodded, not smiling any more. “And to claim that the Bureau Authorities here hold responsibility and must give an account to the Imperial Court… A bunch of people who have their collective hands so far up the arse of the Astrology Bureau their fingers seem to be its tongue—”

“HOW DARE YOU SIR!” one of the Imperial Lords snapped.

The collective gaze of four Generals and two Military Authority Elders landed on the unfortunate young Lord, who wilted as if nailed to his seat.

“As I was saying, for you to demand this solely on the basis of some divinations – made by those who are neck-deep in this shit – that someone from this province, affiliated tangentially with the Military Bureau, is responsible for both that tribulation and the deaths of 4,747 members of your Bureau is…” the Duke snapped his fingers as if looking for the word.

“Farcical?” one of the Military Bureau Adjunct Elders finished helpfully with a dismissive sneer at the Imperial Envoy.

“Thank you, farcical, yes,” the Duke replied.

Qiao Tao Feng almost expanded in size as he began to refute the Duke. “You are doubting the divinations of the Three Eyes? Not to mention we have clear evidence that it was someone in the Authority Bureau who facilitated the reduction in oversight that—”

“Ahem”, Lady Yang, the other main influence sitting in on this meeting coughed lightly, cutting him off.

“Might I remind the austere Chief Astrologer that there are a great many issues with that event as it is? Starting with how that kind of censure document ended up in the hands of some Golden Immortal brat from the Din clan who was seeking to exploit insider knowledge on that proclamation?”

“There... There is no evidence that the Astrology Bureau was related—” Qiao Tao Feng was caught out momentarily by the sudden change in tack. “The Astrology Bureau exists to oversee the fate of this realm, to suggest that they are not adequately—”

“According to my sect’s Fairy Ancestral Founder, someone from the Red Sovereign Sect ran off with one of the swords…” Lady Yang murmured, far more demurely than she needed to.

“Now… there is no…”

“Are you going to doubt Lady Meng in this? Personally?” Lady Yang asked.

She then proceeded to spectacularly stick the knife in his view by adding. “It was done using a heavenly Fate-Locking Talisman of the Worldly Venerate level, with the intention of stealing all seven swords, except they were a bit slow and clearly didn’t expect Ancestor Fu to come in person so quickly. I only know of three people capable of making those on this realm plane who are not in our sect or the Shu Pavilion and all of them are so surprisingly close to the Imperial Throne… While it is admirable that your reserves of filial piety are this deep, that you are willing to cover for your boss and his cronies who are holed up in their flying fortress above the mountains to the south, that you are even going to drag the—”

“The... the Heavens have eyes, Lady Yang! That is disrespect to the Imperial Throne to allege that the treaty would be broken for a mere wooden sword.”

Qiao Tao Feng gasped with the slightly theatrical horror of someone well aware that he was protected by all kinds of protocols in this situation and so could mouth off as much as he liked. Allegations against the Throne were something he was on much more solid ground with than most of his compatriots, especially here where there was already quite a bit of friction in that regard before this whole mess ever kicked off. Not that Lady Yang would have realised that, or cared even if she did.

“I wonder what the Serene and Honourable 3rd Princess of Vast Obscurity Grove would have to say about that…” Seven Sovereigns School Old Ancestor Tan murmured. “To call her treasured artefacts ‘mere wooden swords’, have you forgotten what happened the last time an imperial seat of this world made light of her possessions?”

There was a moment’s reflective silence around the table as many inner eyes turned towards their knowledge of that misfortunate event from ancient history, before the Imperial Envoy finally spoke up.

“That was then… alluding to ancient history, Old Ancestor, have you forgotten that the heavens have changed?”

“They have? This old man must get his eyes checked,” Ancestor Tan mused. “I distinctly remember the air being a touch freer of spirit in my youth.”

“Uhh,” the Imperial Envoy opened and shut his mouth a few times as he recalled that he had just insulted an old monster who was born before the current dynasty was ever in power.

“Nobody doubts the sanctity of the Three Eyes… I have every faith that Fairy Ancestor Meng and the relevant parties will sort that out appropriately.” He cut back in politely.

Lady Yang gave him a sideways look for a second but backed down, which was good because he was going to lob a proper explosive talisman now, in order to salvage what remained of his family’s endeavour in these lands, not that they would appreciate it in the immediacy he was sure.

“I may have some light to add to this mess, Sir Duke, Lady Yang. I was going to present this immediately, but it took us longer than expected to work through the Chief Astrologer’s narrative,” being polite was important after all.

The dig got some laughs from those surrounding the table.

“As many of you are aware, all my school's Inner and Core Disciples were ‘invited’ to accompany Young Noble Huang JiLao and Princess Lian Jing at the personal request of Imperial Teacher Dun Jian. The politics of that request are clear so I will just say that I decided to give them as much of a chance as I could and gifted each one a good fortune talisman from my Ancestral Grand Uncle along with various other artefacts and talismans from the school treasury such as remained un-purloined. They were meant to be personal teleportation talismans, but they also have a certain auspice function in case of accident… They were the future of my school after all and… well… there was no way I could have foreseen that others would stoop so low in the eyes of heaven.”

He gave a frustrated and sorrowful sigh. “Still, although the teleportation aspect of my Grand Uncle's bestowal was unable to save them, their sorry fates may shed some light on our predicament, Fate and the Heavens truly work mysteriously…”

He pushed out the talisman, and it showed a flickering scene of a young woman sprinting through the forest, fumbling with something. There was a flicker and her body was bisected brutally by a strike that clearly contained Law. She screamed soundlessly in her last moments and turned to view her attacker, a red-armoured youth wearing a robe with the symbol of the Red Sovereign Sect.

“What is the point of this,” Qiao Tao Feng snapped; he seemed to have fully recovered his obnoxious manner. “It just shows your student being killed because they were weak and that even one of your so-called Grand Uncle’s talismans couldn’t save them.”

He rolled his eyes mentally. If he knew the ‘Grand Uncle’ in question was actually the Blue Water Sage, Qiao Tao Feng would not be quite as glib, he was certain.

“Please wait for it,” he replied, mustering the sour tone of one who was watching his school's vitality being ruined by petty politics outside his control.

The viewpoint shifted and started to track the killer.

“Oh…..” Lady Yang raised her beautiful eyebrows… “This is a Binary Eyes Charm.”

Nodding, he motioned politely for them all to keep watching.

They all watched the killer make his way through the forest and kill two more people, one from the Blue Gate School and another seemingly from the Ran clan.

“How come the Blue Gate School has some of these?” the Imperial Envoy asked, a touch of greed creeping into his eyes.

Smiling, he shook his head, “True, the talismans are a bit rare, but the school has a bunch that remain from the Blue Water Sage’s time. As to the controlling array which is, I concede, truly hard to craft. My personal estate has one crafted by Lady Xiao. It was in the time of my father’s tenure, when there was cause for students to occasionally enter the valleys and risk anomalies for various tasks. The Binary Eyes Charm cannot be interrupted by the dimensional dissonance emitted from the mountains’ anomalies. It is a work my Aunt spent quite a lot of effort on.”

The Imperial Envoy’s enthusiasm wilted a touch, but only fractionally he was amused to note. Clearly he didn’t fear his Ancestral Aunt anywhere near as much as he probably should with an attitude like that.

“Isn’t that…?” the Duke leaned forward to watch the fight being spectated upon.

Several youths; two women and three men in Blue Gate School garments, two in Ran clan armour, a boy in dark gold armour wearing a Meng clan symbol wielding a spear and a woman in white armour wielding a sword were under siege from a dozen attackers in indeterminate clothing.

“Yes… Those are core and elder arts from the Jade Gate Court and Red Sovereign sect.”

“Some Hanshu and Gan arts in there are well,” one of the Generals supplied.

“And their talismans and charms are—” the Hunter Bureau Chief, who had been largely silent, broke off.

One of the ones on the backline used some object that wasn’t quite in view and then the entire scene went nuts as the suppression abruptly shifted and a bunch of Dao Immortals, Ancient Immortals and Golden Immortals all started to let loose with total abandon while the defenders desperately replied with what little resources they had left at their disposal.

“WHAT!”

Lady Yang leant forward, and the table started to smoke under her hands. Several weaker members, particularly in the Imperial party, staggered a bit. He also let himself take a half step back. As far as most here were concerned he was merely a Dao Sovereign, after all. Ancestor Tan whispered something in her ear Lu Ji didn’t care to catch and she slumped down, looking annoyed. It was clear she recognised the object, just like he had. Nobody else mentioned it and just took her reaction for general shock at seeing the absolute suppression lifted so easily.

They turned back to watch the unfolding combat. Principles distorted the landscape, trees turned to dust, rocks shattered and the three Dao Immortals all smashed their arts against a series of barrier talismans and a formation that the defenders, mainly Golden Immortals, had desperately managed to throw out.

The massive distortion collapsed the entire valley floor, dropping it down into a cavern below that was dominated by several pools and a murky lake containing a rocky island filled with tree-sized sickly green/white mushrooms. All the attackers hovered in the air as the victims splashed down in the water around the island. The attacker they were following drifted down, now able to fly easily with the suppression lifted, and killed two disciples from the Ran clan as if he were chopping wood. The combat was still flaring around the edge of the valley as well.

“An Eldritch Moon Mushroom colony!” one of the Hunter Bureau Elders standing by the Bureau Chief hissed in shock.

“Shit. It looks like that’s the end of the road for Young Noble Huang and Princess Jing, anyway.”

The attacker whose viewpoint they were following lazily descended to the shoreline, avoiding the edge of the death field from the colony, and with a sweep of his sword bisected one of the Blue Gate School youths fleeing drunkenly from the water. A young woman with messy brown hair in Blue Gate School robes made it into the dark dragging Huang JiLao, who was showing signs of the corrosion from the mushrooms.

“It seems Princess Jing managed to avoid falling.”… someone pointed out a figure who was clambering off the rock ledge high above.

Several talismans shot down at her, along with a sword art that looked very unsuppressed.

“She was also caught in the effect of the mushrooms?” one of the Imperial Lords frowned, looking concerned.

It was funny, watching this now, the onlookers were by no means easily split. Dun Lian Jing was an Imperial Princess and a fairly high ranking one at that, while Huang JiLao was an important scion of the Huang clan in this world. If those two perished here, to Dao Immortals from the Gan arm of the Huang clan – affiliated with the White Storm Red Sovereign sects – that might actually turn two of the main pillars supporting the Imperial Court in on themselves in rather spectacular fashion.

“It seems the attackers brought something capable of lifting the suppression?” the Duke frowned, glancing towards the Adjunct Elders.

“It’s possible Sir Duke, I do know of a way it can be achieved, but nobody in their right mind would pay that price. It is not efficient for the return…” the Hunter Bureau Elder trailed off, looking very embarrassed and sweating faintly.

He certainly knew what item the Gan clan Dao Immortals had wasted to achieve this ‘impossible’ feat.

“Too right it isn’t.” Lady Yang sniffed, still angry through knowing the reality of the means.

The battle unfolding before them had shifted to the darkness now. There was a scream and another youth from the Blue Gate School died.

“These attackers are all Dao Immortals…” General Cang interjected, watching a youth in brown robes dressed as a vagabond flit across their view ahead of them.

Clearly, the princess’s party had been badly seeped, had been his initial reaction to this, yet there was certainly more to it than that. There were altogether too many Dao Immortals involved in this for it to have escaped the notice of the organisers. He shot a look at the Imperial Envoy, Lords and the Astrologer who were all looking… genuinely... confused.

“Red Sovereign Sect Elders hiding with their juniors? Others hiding as independent cultivators? Truly shameless behaviour.” General Hao muttered. “Shameless, truly shameless and despicable.”

Others were nodding as well; given how grandly everything had been set out, and the fact that contribution was limited to those below Ancient Immortal, that meant that these Dao Immortals were only here to pervert proceedings and, while they were taking pains to hide their arts in a way, that juniors might not grasp their origins, a Dao Immortal was to a Dao Lord or a Dao Sovereign – never mind a Dao Eternal – as a mortal was to an Immortal.

The Dao Immortal made some taunt and killed another in the gloom. They watched as he cut down the last remaining disciples and finally caught up to the brown-haired girl, another darker-haired girl, and Huang JiLao. Other accomplices, two Dao Immortals, an Ancient Immortal and then a Golden Immortal from the Red Sovereign Sect all engaged in the battle.

Huang JiLao was critically injured, the brown-haired girl was smashed into a rock by her attacker and then stabbed, while the Golden Immortal and the Ancient Immortal fought with the other woman with dark hair. The scuffle lasted a short while, leaving the three dead along with the Dao Immortal they had been following, killed by a talisman from JiLao. Now over JiLao’s viewpoint, as he had killed the Dao Immortal, they got to watch as the survivors conferred. The Golden Immortal walked over and took Huang JiLao’s storage talisman and tossed it to the female Dao Immortal, who wiped its seal before their surprised eyes and examined it.

“This is all very well, but all it shows is a bunch of rogue cultivators aiding a school to kill juniors from another school. Nothing else is provable beyond conjecture.” The Chief Astrologer said sounded bored.

Another Dao Immortal then walked over to JiLao and pulled out a talisman, using it on him. There was a twisting and a blue-green feather flowed out of his body into the grasp of the Dao Immortal, who nodded happily and stashed it in his storage ring. Then, the same Dao Immortal drew out a reddish orb about the size of an apple.

“Isn’t that…” Lady Yang said with narrowed eyes...

“One of Lady Shan’s Feathers?” the Duke finished, also with narrowed eyes.

“This Huang Jilao had a relationship with Lady Shan?” the Imperial Envoy sounded a bit dull, as he might, given he was from the Gan clan.

“She hardly gives out Luan Feathers like they are candy. To think one would be stolen like this... if this lands in her hands the Gan clan is going to have to do a lot of explaining,” Ancestor Tan mused in a tone that made it quite likely that this was going to find its way into Lady Shan’s hands somehow.

The Dao Immortal laughed and conferred with his companion over the reddish orb. The woman held up the knife, and they laughed again, walked over to the two corpses of the women and stabbed them with the knife. The whole scene changed abruptly.

The five victors became prisoners on the ground, while the two women were back alive now, standing there debating the knife and the orb, looking at the injured Dao Immortal that had originally been targeted by the Binary Eyes.

The darker-haired woman took the knife and walked off with it, returning a few moments later, shrugging and miming dropping it into water. The other laughed. They then turned to the Dao Immortal who had the Binary Eyes’ vision tied to his soul. One strolled over and knelt down beside him, showing him the orb. This close it was possible to make out very clearly the features of the orb, but the woman was largely obscured still.

It was, however, possible to see the shock, terror and panic flickering through his face at whatever was being said. The two stared at each other again for a long moment as if conferring, then the orb was dropped in the lap of the Dao Immortal and the woman placed a hand on his head and did…

It was hard to make out what it was, but there was a ripple and the Dao Immortal in their perspective twitched a few times and fell dead. Both figures shook their heads in some amusement and then just turned and walked off into the darkness without a care, leaving the image to disperse into monochrome shades of grey and then finally turn black.

Lady Yang was the first to speak. “What in the…”

He nodded as well, “In truth, I am unsure what to make of this, but it seems to shed some light on these events. What is pretty clear is that someone involved with those Dao Immortals is framing the Huang Wuli and the Bureau with this.”

“I am going to assume that these two are the sisters that were divined by the Three Eyes,” he said, eyeing the Imperial Lords and Envoys who now had faces like they had just been kicked in the balls.

“Do you know who the girls are?”

“One is Mo Xiao, an Inner Disciple of some talent from the Blue Gate School. The other is, I think, Mo Lu, another Core Disciple who was in cultivation retreat until very recently. They are half-sisters through their father.”

The Duke nodded “I have only ever heard accounts of Fate Seizing Orbs and their uses. They are hardly common.”

Authority Bureau Chief Fei nodded and added. “First it must be confirmed that there was no doctoring of the record… I... Your estate, the Blue Gate School, is willing to hand over the original transmission jade? Under certain assurances, of course.”

The Duke nodded grimly, “I guess that the latter half of this is the genuine thing based on their divinations. Thee first half is likely an elaborate hoax to sow further discord.”

“I doubt that will hold much water if the whole recording gets out.” Lady Yang said dryly.

She slid her gaze slightly towards him for a moment, and he gave her a wan smile. He was certain she recognised the truth of this, even if the means eluded her.

“What are the casualties in the end among the Blue Gate School?” the Head of the Hunter Bureau asked, turning to him.

“Complete.” He said sorrowfully. “All fourteen Inner Disciples and nine Core Disciples that were taken with Huang JiLao and Dun Lian Jing have had their soul jades broken and their fate anchors dispersed. Quite a few show evidence of having been brutally soul scoured before death as well, targeting aspects of the Blue Water Sage’s Inheritance they had learnt.”

There were sympathetic nods and dark looks from around the table at that, which made him feel a bit weird inside, really.

“It is what one would expect if a bunch of Law Condensation old elders were running around swatting Immortal juniors for fun,” he finished, letting some of the pent-up anger of the past weeks creep into his voice. “It seems my time as Headmaster of the Blue Gate School is at its end, the vitality of the school and its inheritance is broken with this.”

“… That seems a bit drastic,” a Hunter Bureau Elder said. “There is surely some support that we can give—”

“In that case, why is he still here” the Chief Astrologer snapped, standing up.

“Excuse me?” Ling Jiang said, stepping forward.

“It is cruel to say it, but if Headmaster Ji no longer has a school, he is just a civilian cultivator and early stage Dao Sovereign from the Lu clan branch,” Qiao Tao Feng said with a faint smile. “He has no place in this meeting now, if we are to discuss important matters.”

“Quite,” the Imperial Envoy said, directing him a dirty look. “We will of course relay our condolences regarding the loss of his school, but this is now something that we must take forward.”

“Be that as it may,” the Duke said, frowning at them. “Lu Ji—”

“With great respect my lord Duke, you were just complaining that the Astrology Bureau was being facetious regarding protocols and now you are suggesting this flagrant breach of the same rules.” The Imperial Envoy said blandly. “We are discussing Bureau matters that are of the highest authority. As Headmaster of a school at the apex, Sir Ji had a right to be here but if he is not, by his own admission…

“You there. General.” The Envoy waved a hand to one of the Imperial Generals that had accompanied their group and was now standing by the door.

“Sir Envoy,” the General, a peak Dao Sovereign, saluted, stepping forward.

“Escort the obviously overwrought Sir Ji to another room where he can calm his nerves while we discuss on.”

“Yes, quite,” Qiao Tao Feng said, waving a hand and sitting back down, much more at ease.

Ignoring the idiot who was now trusting to his Dao Sovereign cultivation and the two Dao Eternals at his back to seize back the initiative, he shook his head and went on as if he hadn’t heard a word Qiao Tao Feng said.

“We… it's fine… Ling Tao will make the formal announcement and wind up the school. Its vitality has been cut and its reputation was thoroughly subsumed by the influences from the Imperial Continent at this stage, Ancestral Fairy Xiao was right, it’s not good to put too much attachment to the things of one’s youth if they stop all parties moving forward…”

With an external sigh and an inner eye roll, he undid the cultivation seal on the charm at his waist. The room creaked and the air grew so oppressive that only those who were Dao Ascendants were able to feel at all comfortable.

The Dao Sovereign Chief Astrologer was flattened against his chair, which was slowly cracking under the pressure despite being made from Primeval Boundary Wood. The Imperial Envoy, who was also a peak Dao Sovereign, wasn’t much better. With a faint smile, he sealed both their Dao Sovereign Cores. The two Dao Eternals standing behind him were trembling, blood dribbling from their mouths, their skin white under the pressure. They were peak Dao Eternals, so sealing them as well wasn’t really possible, but neither of them had particularly impressive foundations. Qiao Tao Feng stared at him with dull, horrified eyes as blood ran from his eyes nose and mouth and his cultivation base was screwed down and totally suppressed by his own quasi-truth.

His Aunt did grumble that he wasn’t making enough progress, but he was still a quasi-Dao Ascendant who had unified all his Law comprehensions. The only thing stopping him from actually stepping across the threshold to Dao Ascendant proper at this point was what she liked to term ‘Perspective’. Over the last two weeks, he had seen more than enough shifts in that, both big and small, and heard enough of Bright Dream waxing lyrical about the ‘Supreme Geometry’ – which was, he was certain at this point, a term for the same fate-thrashed thing by a different name – to actually make some small bit of progress there as well.

There were groans of pain from the various Astrology Bureau Adjuncts and Imperial Lords who were all pressed flat on the floor. The two Imperial Generals were both on their knees now, supporting themselves with their swords and sweating hard. Idly he focused on them and they dropped onto their hands and knees, blood dripping from their noses onto the floor.

Eyeing the rest of the room, he took in their reactions within the moment. Ancestor Tan looked a bit surprised, but more so because of his quasi-truth’s nature, he suspected. Lady Yang, who was at the same realm, was a bit shocked as well but hid it masterfully. The Duke had already seen some of this before and wasn’t the focus of his oppression. Ling Jiang was similarly unsurprised, if a bit wan under the unavoidable pressure. Ling Fei looked like someone had just hit him in the head and told him he owed a god money. The other Bureau Chiefs, Elders and even a few Generals other than General Cang, who was only here as a clone, were somewhere between terrified and stunned. Then again, he wasn’t focusing on them at all.

One of the Elders behind the Imperial Envoy finally stammered out “Unified… Law… Dao Eternal?”

Smiling faintly, he inclined his head towards the room at large. “I believe I can formally introduce myself as the new Authority Elder of the Blue Pavilion, personal Inheritance Disciple of Lu Fu Tao and disciple of Lu Xiao.”

“… B… Blue Water… Sage..?” the Imperial Envoy stammered weakly.

“So you have heard of my ‘so-called’ Grand Uncle, I shall be sure to pass on your esteem,” he observed.

At that, something died a little in the eyes of the Envoy. Shaking his head, he looked back to the room. That little bit of remaining ignorance was a mercy the idiot didn't deserve, really, but it would be a bit petty to crush the hope that anyone in the Dun clan would step forward if word got out. If he knew what realm his Grand Uncle was now, let alone those esteemed companions who walked with him towards new heights, he was sure more than just a little of the man's soul would fly away.

“Anyway. As of this moment, any disciple, teacher or remaining elder of the Blue Gate School who has remained loyal to my Grand Uncle’s teachings and principles can be considered an official of equivalent station within the Blue Pavilion. Of which my Ancestral Aunt, Lady Xiao, is the Founding Pavilion Leader.”

Eyeing the Imperial Envoy and Qiao Tao Feng, who both looked like dying fish now, he shook his head and turned to the Duke and Lady Yang, then gave them a proper bow as befitted their new relationship.

“It would be the Blue Pavilion’s esteemed pleasure to aid you, Sir Duke and Lady Yang, in seizing back the local initiative in this matter. This is not how I wished this to play out, in all honesty.”

Cao Leyang accepted his bow with a respectful nod.

Lady Yang looked around the hall and just started to laugh.

~ Shu Tian – Blue Water City ~

In his personal travelling abode on the outskirts of Blue Water City, amid serene surroundings, Shu Tian, the current Headmaster, 6th generation, of the Shu Pavilion paused mid-sip of tea and cast his soul sense towards the Duke’s palace.

Much to his servant Elder’s shock he then spat the tea out and stood up abruptly. “Call Old Gateway Ancestor Shu Shen!”

The Elder bowed and rushed off, returning a few moments later accompanied by an old man who looked close to a walking skeleton.

“What do you need this esteemed person for?” the old man said bowing.

“It seems the Imperial Astrologers’ plot has become a bit unravelled. We may need to take action accordingly to avoid being caught up in what will likely be a bit of a collateral mess.”

“Ah, so that is why my divination for the day said ‘Interesting, with a chance of tears’…” the old diviner muttered.

"What did it say about me?" he asked, eyeing the old man.

"Erm... that you have no luck with tea," the old diviner eyed the spilt cup of tea from a moment earlier.

Leaning back with a sigh, he closed his eyes and thought through the various permutations, and more specifically about Cang Di. A talisman in the shape of a stylised bronze jar appeared in his hand and he stared at it blankly.

“Is it necessary to bother Myriad Bronze about this?” Shu Shen asked deferentially

“Young Di is his disciple, and he dotes on the boy.”

“Di is in some kind of danger?” the serving Elder said, also sounding concerned.

Without comment, he pushed his qi into the symbol. A moment later an acknowledgement returned. Sighing again, he put the talisman away and turned to look at the spires of the Blue Pavilion.

“I would like you to go over to Imperial Advisor Huang Leng,” he said to the old servant Elder.

“Tell him…

“Tell him that I shall seek him out at his convenience about a certain matter.”

“Of course, Honoured Master.” The elder bowed and departed with haste.

“Something has occurred?” Shu Shen asked, pulling out some divination bones.

“I can save you the nosebleed,” he answered, “It seems that girl Lu Xiao has run out of patience with events as they stand and made her move... and like the overconfident morons that they are, the Imperial Court’s finest have all just set themselves up in a line in front of her knife and bent over to get stabbed.”

~ Huang Leng – Blue Water City ~

Huang Leng was sat in meditation within his personal abode when the fluctuation from the Duke's abode drew his attention. On one level he had to think that something like this had been on the cards for a while; the plans of those in the Imperial Court and elsewhere had been unravelling step by step in a rather inexorable fashion, after all. What was surprising, he had to acknowledge, was the manner in which this little sub-farce, the Imperial Astrology Bureau’s mysterious evisceration, was coming undone.

However, it was secondary to the unease he was feeling regarding his son Huang Ji. The boy’s involvement in this whole endeavour of Dun Jian’s stank of politics over his head within the Huang clan. It had been advocated by the clan's Senior Elders, a reclusive bunch that normally held themselves to be ‘above’ the machination between the various arms of the Huang clan with influence in Eastern Azure, but only an idiot or a junior would actually believe that. However, short of revealing the nature of the piece in play to those old schemers, and thus dragging his mother into this, he had just opted to watch how things were progressing.

His son was talented, but had been somewhat lacking opportunities to prove himself at a grander stage, so the Elders’ selection of the boy to partake in this endeavour as a show of the Huang clan’s support for Imperial causes broadly coincided with his own agenda, or it had until very recently.

-Still…

Surfacing from his meditation, he stared into the distance, in the direction of Dun Jian’s abode. There had been a subtle but significant fluctuation in the vicinity of that as well…

-Nope, Dun Jian was not someone he could bring himself to trust to the degree that those old men seemed happy too. All too easily people forgot that that one had only ever had one interest, having ensured he would never become emperor and thus be tied to this world… himself.

“Milord,” the servant that was waiting nearby bowed respectfully.

“Have we learned why the Gan branch was sending Dao Immortals into the trial disguised as mercenaries?”

“We have not, milord, however…”

He raised an eyebrow and motioned for the man to continue. He was a trusted adjunct and afforded some latitude after all.

“There may be a matter with young lord Ji’s group.”

His heart stilled…

“In what way.”

“Umm… there appear to be some irregularities with the mercenaries that the White Storm Sect's Yan Ju hired to accompany them… there was an inconsistency in the Gan spy’s stories that put us on to it. It may be nothing… but we shall keep you informed.”

“Do so, if there is any hint that the Gan clan are aiming for little Ji…

“Also, when you go, let it be known that I do not wish to be disturbed for a while, I must think about matters.”

“Of course milord, we will move appropriately,” the servant bowed and departed.

He watched the servant leave. He and all the others with him were trusted people he had at his side since he came to this world, picked from his mother’s household by her personally, but even so certain things should remain unclear. When the man had left the annex entirely, he sat back and finally spoke out loud again.

“Lady Shan,”

“Yes, Young Lord”, said the young woman who suddenly stood at his side.

She was, by any measure, a beauty beyond compare. Today her purplish-blue locks were plaited and tumbled ornately, affixed in place with a series of blue-green feathers, framing a face that was the epitome of youthful beauty. She wore a vibrant white, blue and gold dress patterned with feather-like embroidery that was both fashionably spectacular and also displayed a lot of her assets in a rather bold fashion. Such was her style though, and it was probably more than his wellbeing was worth to suggest that she not show quite that much bosom.

“You heard that?”

“Of course,” she said, sitting down lazily on a nearby chair. “The suppression in that place is posing some problems for the talisman I left little Ji, although it could also be related to the spatial collapse. I have tried to connect to the feather you persuaded me to give him, but that is also… obscured. It may be nothing, but if the Gan branch are involved…”

“Something about this whole thing stinks,” he said, pouring himself some wine.

“The Gan branch as a whole stinks. They should have been cut away when Wuli ascended,” Ju Shan’s voice contained uncharacteristic venom.

“You do not care for Gan Hao?” he asked drily.

“No… no I do not.”

“If the Elders heard you taking a political position—”

“The brat is not even as old as this dress I am wearing; to suggest what he did at that meeting, in front of the elders no less…” Ju Shan’s aura, for a split second, made cold sweat roll down the back of his neck. “If the elders wish to make an issue of my dislike, I am more than happy to take my response to their views outside… and those old bird bags know it.

“But you haven’t called me here to complain about the Gan clan, what is bothering you?” she asked, sitting back and sighing.

He winced; even that action was… distracting. She didn’t mean it, didn’t even care really, but his mother’s handmaiden was naturally hypnotic in a way that only World Venerates who were already beauties without compare before they reached that realm could be. Probably only Meng Fu and Lady Teng Kai could be considered more stunning than her within Eastern Azure.

“How do you consider the Blue Pavilion?”

“This relates to that boy Lu Ji’s... uh… demonstration a few moments ago?” she said, sounding amused.

“His quasi-truth is… interesting,” he mused.

“It is, the Blue Water Sage brought back more than he let on it seems.”

“You buy that?” he gave her a look.

“That is why you ask me about the Pavilion?” Ju Shan said, waving her hand and acquiring a cup of wine.

“Your tone suggests you know something beyond common knowledge about it?” he pushed.

His mother’s handmaiden looked into the distance with a pensive expression and sipped her wine quietly. They sat there like that for a full minute before he coughed politely.

“You want me to pry into the Pavilion and find out why Lu Ji is so confident in it?”

“Well, Lu Xiao is…”

“Unpredictable, yes,” Ju Shan said, changing her posture and leaning forward. “You are concerned that the eradication of the Blue Gate School and her relationship to Lu Ji will cause an issue for the Huang clan?”

“…”

He stared at her before sighing himself. “It would be an extra inconvenience we don’t need, and it has not escaped my notice that you are… always leery of provoking issues with her.”

“…”

Ju Shan eyed him with a look that really did make him squirm now. She was allowed a huge degree of latitude by his mother, but her situation here was somewhat constrained by the Huang clan as a whole. As such, her portfolio was basically to be his bodyguard and not interfere in Huang clan business except when it made the mistake of interfering with her.

She again stared off into the distance and then sighed. “Unwanted prying can provoke odd reactions.”

“So what is it you know that you won’t admit to?” he pushed a bit more directly. “Is there some secret knowledge about it?”

“You are not going to let this go are you…?” she asked, at last, pouring herself a second cup of wine.

He was about to affirm that he was indeed not going to let it go unless she said flatly that it wasn’t any of his business, when she spun on her chair, dangled a leg over it and stared up at the sky.

“Not as such. Rather, it is some gossip within a rarefied circle of my peers and a small matter of personal experience.” Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she went on.

“You know, I do not take a public stance on matters of the clan on this world. That is a matter for the elders and your own authority...answering this puts me in a bit of an awkward position.”

“…Yes, Lady Shan,” he said, trying not to roll his eyes. “In that case, can I ask you in a personal capacity what this… gossip might entail?”

“You wish to know of the wittering of young girls and their dubious attentions…” Ju Shan snickered.

-Who is young, you look like you’re barely eighteen, but you’re actually old enough to be my mo—

Her eye caught his, and he caught that thought and executed it decisively.

“Yes?” was all he said in the end.

She hummed pensively for a few moments, staring at the sky once more. Even that act was traumatically charming, she really was going to make him sweat for this, wasn’t she.

“I guess if things really get out of hand, it might impact on you. However…”

She waved a hand, and the world shifted subtly. “As you know, the heavens in certain circles have ears to spare…”

He eyed the sky, which rippled faintly. It was impossible not to be impressed. With a single gesture, she had just opened up a tiny enclosed world within the courtyard, totally excluding this world’s fate. This was the ‘prestige’ of a World Venerate of her calibre. From the outside, nobody would notice unless their attainments in that area were quite a bit better than her, and more importantly, nobody below Celestial Venerate would be spying on this conversation even with the stolen eyes and ears of the world itself.

“Now that the potential for unwanted ears is excluded,” she said with a mocking gesture at the sky.

Turning to look at him for a second before going back to staring at the sky, she continued her explanation. “You have to understand that this is a very old rumour, from when I first became involved with your mother. In certain circles, it was believed that Mo Zhao visited this world at that time and took an Inheriting Disciple that caught her eye.”

It was an effort not to drop the wine cup. He tried to process that calmly, but it was hard given the status of the individual involved and her notoriously adversarial nature.

“Mo Zhao… you mean that Mo Zhao? Just to be clear.”

“I do mean that Mo Zhao, yes.”

“The Demon Saintess of Binary Ruination visited this world… and took a disciple from here.”

“As I said, it’s a very old rumour, of the same era as the Vast Obscurity Grove’s travails, with parasol trees being turned into latrine furniture…”

He wanted to say that that didn’t make it any better. Mo Zhao was infamous in ways that those of these generations, of this aeonspan in fact, could only stare up at in awestruck horror. She was someone who oversaw a side, who resisted the might of two Heavenly clans and three Starfield Alliances almost on her own merits. Unless the Divine Sages of the Heavenly clans lowered their heads and got involved directly, she was someone who could pretty much skip sideways when- and wherever she liked.

“It is merely a rumour...” Ju Shan said with an amused smile. “I was one of a number who were directed by the Huang clan in that time to make enquiries regarding it. An endeavour led by your mother among others.”

“But what does that have to do with the Blue Pavilion? It is an influence only 30,000 years old… not..—”

“It does not... directly,” Ju Shan cut him off and continued on.

“However, just now, when my gaze brushed the pavilion in the totally innocent and innocuous manner of someone appreciating rather... unique architecture…”

“Of course,” he deadpanned.

“—in a totally innocent and innocuous manner, the ward that deflected me, oh so innocently and innocuously, contained fundamental architecture derived from the Fate Eclipse Scripture, among other things.”

“I cannot say I am familiar with it?” he said with a frown. “Does that hold some significance?”

“Well… it is not so much that it would draw attention… The eyes in this era are a bit new to turbulent waters though. I have seen Inheritance Daughter Mo Xiao, Mo Zhao’s blood daughter. I even duelled with her once when she came to High Tree Supreme Court as her mother’s ambassador.

“I see your surprise,” Ju Shan said with a wry smile. “It was a long time ago…"

"Ah… ah… now you make me remember how much that little… erm... Forget I spoke of that.”

Her smile shifted from charming to somewhat ominous, and he nodded without really thinking too much about it. How was someone of his station going to gossip about that anyway? Even if Ju Shan didn’t discipline him personally, his mother or father probably would reprimand him. The implication was clear that the duel was not a particularly pleasant memory and involved some small inconvenience to their Hall within the Huang clan, given this was the first time he had ever heard of it.

“Anyway...” she recomposed herself and went back to looking at the sky. “There is a small chance that whoever set up this Blue Pavilion has a connection to Mo Xiao in some way.”

“They have a connection to Lady Mo as well?” he felt compelled to check that.

“Mmhm…” Ju Shan gave him a look but didn’t elaborate.

“…”

That she wasn’t willing to say anything told him more than any words could have, though. So Lady Mo was either an Incarnate for Mo Xiao, or had some other direct relation to the Mo clan. There were other arms beyond the Venerate Binary Ruin – something that many in their haste tended to forget, even in the Huang clan – all of them dangerously problematic in their own ways.

“It goes without saying that this doesn’t go to those old elders.” Ju Shan said, sipping her wine again.

“…Why?” he asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.

-To avoid stupidity and stop word leaking to the younger generation, who are far too hot-headed of late.

“To avoid stupidity primarily. I would counsel a healthy dose of diplomatic caution in how you deal with the Blue Pavilion going forward. Our Huang clan doesn’t need another source of trouble from outside when we are already gnawing on our own innards with the conflict between ‘Young Noble Teng’ and ‘Young Noble Gan Hao’.” She finished with such distaste in her words that the grass around them started to physically wither.

“Ah.”

That would be a problem.

Their rivalry was why he was so worried about the elders here. The various authority Halls within the Huang clan were starting to become rather splintered now that there had been quite a few millennia of relative outward peace and influences were starting to shift to accommodate the pair with an eye to the future. His parents supported neither of those two and were part of the faction that had views about how that conflict was playing out on the wider stage. All while the Supreme Sovereignty Alliance was sat on the side-line dangling an ‘Inheritance Young Lord’ seat in front of the two with an eye to stealing a few choice bits of territory from the Azure Astral Authority Alliance. Probably starting with places like the Eastern Azure within the Azure Four Worlds quadrant of the Azure Astral Starfield.

“And there is always the chance that they might decide to tilt at a historic stupa for the sake of their own self-aggrandisement,” he observed.

“That as well, although I would dearly love to see Mo Xiao dismantle Gan Hao,”

They both shook their heads and sighed.

“It is possible that there is nothing to it, and it just happens to be a derivative scripture that has made its way into the hands of either Lu Xiao or Lu Fu Tao,” Ju Shan said pensively. “But on the off chance it is not, I would strongly counsel to let that potential thorn sit and not become a risk to our clan… in my personal and entirely unofficial capacity, of course.”

“Of course,” he nodded in agreement.

Sitting up, she snapped her fingers idly, and the isolated world folded away as if it had never been.

He was just about to speak again when Ju Shan vanished as if she never was, even as the idyll of the garden was disturbed by a servant trotting up carrying a message.

“Begging your pardon, milord,” the servant bowed deeply

“What is it? I thought it was clear I am not to be disturbed,” he said a bit testily.

“Apologies milord, I have messages from Sir Tian of the Shu Pavilion, and also the Imperial Grand Astrologer has summoned all the advisors...”

~ Ha Kai – Ha Clan Old Ancestors ~

“Ha! I love it when plans come unravelled, especially ones that involve those hypocritical Kong bastards.”

Ha Kai watched with mild bemusement as his father threw a wine cup at the viewing rift and then danced a little backwards shuffle while making an obscene gesture at the scene playing out before them.

Ha Leng was staring, as he probably should at this point, with mute incomprehension. All his lofty ideals about terrifying old seniors continued crumbling into the fantasy they were born from.

“Well… I must say that was somewhat… unexpected,” Lan Huang said, taking a deep swig straight from another wine jar.

“Might I remind you, father, that they are the reason why our plan in this has also come unravelled,” he felt compelled to point out.

“Don’t ruin the moment, son,” his old man said, still doing his dance.

“Also… how does the Blue Pavilion changing hands over a bunch of murdered astrologers count as ‘the whole plan unravelling’?" he added as an afterthought.

Rubbing his temples, he could only see problems in the short term over this. His father might be distant from the Ha clan and the Ha family, but he was still trying to effect some distant course correction to the family at least. The compromise of Ha Yun had not done that any favours. The aftermath of this was only going to cause more issues locally. The Blue Gate School had been a sort of stabilizing influence against the Imperial backing of the Teng School and the problematic politics of the Golden Promise School. With it gone, and all its low-level contacts looted by Central Continent influences, this was likely to be the fall of the Lin School in the neighbouring Province all over again. it didn’t help that he had some dim recollection of the Blue Pavilion, but was failing to place exactly in relation to what.

His father swept up the wine jar from Lan Huang and chugged down the whole thing in a single go. “For all their plotting, those old fools got out plotted. The Blue Pavilion just let them all waltz right past, and now that minx Lu Xiao is going to plant the most spectacular knife in their collective backs.”

-Oh. Lu Fu Tao, That said, his father had said Lu Xiao, so did she also have some link to the Pavilion? It made sense when you thought about it, but wasn’t that just the small bestowal that Lu Fu Tao had placed within Blue Water City to act as a sort of support for the city he helped found?

“Oh, I see… but I still feel like there is a piece of this that we are missing, father?”

Lan Huang also nodded somewhat, sharing his apparent confusion. Keeping with the theme of group incomprehension Ha Leng also nodded along, without apparently noticing he was doing so.

“…”

“Faugh! You lot are no fun,” Ha Tai sighed, putting his arms behind his back and affecting the manner of a proper old master, albeit one still holding a wine jar.

“There are only two reasons that boy Lu Ji got permission to show his fangs. His ‘Aunt’ Lu Xiao died, or Lu Xiao got what she wanted out of the Blue Pavilion.”

“Got… what... she… wanted?” he said dully. “You mean that Lu Fu Tao didn’t pass everything on to his ancestral aunt when he first got it and left her to comprehend… knowing her personality that seems a bit...?”

“Risky?” Lan Huang added with a shudder.

“What? No...” his father shook his head and waved for him to shut up as he turned back to the screen.

“Hah… their timing is really bad, doing this and that. It’s so bad it’s almost poetic. I can guarantee you Lu Xiao isn’t dead!” His father eyed the wine jar, put it back on the table, and then claimed one that was full of the atrocious berry wine instead.

Toasting the viewing screen, he started to laugh again like a proper maniacal old monster.

Sighing he shook his own head with resigned amusement. The old man had just not heard what they asked at all it seemed.

“Father... maybe you can just… be a little less caught up in the moment?” he forced as much of the exasperation out of his voice as he could, but it still crept in a little. “All I see right now is an unfolding mess and a brand new power struggle between the Bureau and the Imperial Court for a fat piece of the pie that is Blue Water Province.”

Even that didn’t manage to shake the old man out of his good mood as he took a deep drink of the berry wine and sighed, staring at the three of them as if they were unenlightened fools who couldn’t see the glory of the Dao before them.

“Well, for starters, if Lu Xiao was dead her adoptive mother and big sister would be here – with about the same relative force as that damnation tribulation you just witnessed – and already tearing strips out of whatever influence managed that miraculous feat... and we would probably be one continent less in the process, given the Mo won’t give a shit what that treaty says.”

“Father….”

Ha Tai drank down the rest of the wine and gave a sigh of satisfaction before tossing the jar away.

“Okay. She was divining a cultivation art, as I understand it. One she saw when she was just a brat in Xiao Town, when she caught her adoptive mother’s eye, when that damn mountain fell out of the sky shortly after the mess with the parasol trees and the Meng. Ever since then she has been getting itchy feet about it, to the point where she even sealed up her original body and cultivated as a clone to quasi-World Venerate. The opportunity to get what she wanted finally came with Lu Fu Tao’s expedition and she’s spent the last 30 million years or so to get the first chapter of it, if I recall the dilation settings that her teacher built into the heart of that Low-grade Celestial Venerate Pagoda Treasure of hers. Remarkable thing. Nearly as remarkable as this place, really.”

“Uh…” Lan Huang said dully.

“It goes without saying that if you breathe a word of that to anyone beyond the confines of this place, never mind me, Lu Xiao will probably find you and unscrew your mortalities by the short and smalls before you get three words out,” his father deadpanned.

“Thirty million years?” Ha Leng said blankly.

“She has a time dilation artefact?” he added just as dully.

There were half a dozen of those in the whole Great World capable of the dilation his father had just implied, all of them in the hands of people with shadows behind them long enough to make even him wary, with the exception of the one he was currently standing in.

Ha Tai turned and stared at the cherry trees, currently a shade of fate-searing pink that was impossible to look at directly and not feel depressed by.

Sighing, he turned back to them and said. “I feel like you are all latching on to the wrong things here. Anyway… That boy Lu Ji was always groomed as her successor, at least since she stopped bothering me about it. She asked me twice if I’d look after it but it was way too much trouble.”

“Why?” he felt honour-bound to ask at this point.

“Too close to those unfilial disappointments. I’d just be tempted to abandon them all and found a new clan if I had to watch them for more than ten minutes every millennium or so at this point.”

“Ah.”

He sighed, a bit sadly in all honesty. not that he didn’t share his father’s views. Living as long as they had you saw opportunities and prosperity come and go, but the prolonged determination of the Ha clan to cosy up to the Kong clan, thanks to the First and Fourth Old Ancestors, was a very good reason to grow frustrated with them.

“A shame about the school though,” Ha Tai said, suddenly pensive. “I guess they took steps to ensure that the disciples didn’t actually go in there though…”

“How do you mean?” he frowned.

“Well… Lu Xiao has a few ways to see it done…”

His father trailed off, looking pensive, and shifted the view rift a few times, seemingly at random while pacing back and forth.

“Say. How about we take the fruit cart that girl has tipped over and really rattle some cages with its contents…” Ha Tai said with a very evil grin.

“It’s been a while since we had a family day out and my instincts are telling me that this whole mess is a way to get to that Di Ji brat by another means. Not to mention I can’t divine that replay of hers and a chance to kick those pretty boys in the Red Sovereign Sect and the Huang clan doesn’t come along too often."

Before any of them could object, the space they were all in just… unfolded in the most singularly bizarre way possible and everything around them shifted.

The main hall of the Blue Water City Authority Bureau slid back into focus out of the prismatic shards of reality, leaving the four of them standing in the middle of the floor in spite of all the anti-shift wards and other restrictions against teleportation and dimension-hopping this place certainly had. The proceedings around them were frozen, in the way such austere gatherings in the process of reaching fever pitch did when a most unexpected and undesirable person or persons appeared without any prior warning.

The Imperial Grand Astrologer, Kong Di, who had been in the process of threatening the Duke and the Military Authority officials to obtain all copies of the recording, was frozen mid-gesticulation. The Imperial Advisor Huang Leng who was remonstrating with Lady Yang, current Headmistress of the Seven Sovereigns School, looked like he had just seen some ungodly abomination shift out of the void before him. Lady Yang, for her part, had the expression of someone who had just swallowed an insect. The Old Ancestor behind her was relatively more composed, but he could pick out the perspiration on his face at the appearance of his father.

The two Old Ancestors from the Red Sovereign Sect in attendance were gawping like fish, as were the Envoys from the White Storm Sect and the Ran clan who had been in the process of confronting them. The Duke and several of his general staff were also frozen in shock at the sudden appearance. The Imperial Advisor Dun Jian looked like he wanted to run away immediately but had forgotten what legs were evolved for. The Headmaster of the Shu Pavilion, who had just been pouring himself another cup of tea, spat it out in shock. Din Bao of the Jade Gate Court had the look of a philosopher of evil arts who had just watched his prized library get set on fire by a lightning bolt from the blue.

Ignoring the mess their arrival had just caused, his father strolled over the Lu Ji and clapped the boy on the shoulder.

“Congratulations on your promotion, lad. Glad to see that squirrel-worshipping Lu Xiao finally scuttled off her tower and decided to let a fresh face take over,” he boomed jovially.

He slipped to one side, keeping an eye on the potential problems. In terms of cultivation, only the Old Ancestor from the Seven Sovereigns was stronger than him. However, Kong Di, Din Bao and Huang Leng could call on backup that might make things a bit messy, even accounting for the innate suppression of the Great World on those above the Ascendant Threshold. Lan Huang had quietly shielded Ha Leng from view, as he had himself for that matter, without really thinking about it. That none of them was being seriously marked by the others was probably a good thing in any case. He had no intention of getting caught up in what was likely to be something of which nightmares were made in due course.

“Ahh- Ancient Ancestor Ha…. What...a surprise...” Lu Ji managed… looking a bit wan, as he might, given the old man was probably stronger than his Aunt unless she got really worked up.

“Ah, of course, of course, nobody expects the... erm…”

The old man coughed and grinned broadly. “Well, I happened to be in the neighbourhood and heard a wonderful rumour.”

“Oh. Monkeyshit.”

The expressions on three-quarters of the room slipped with such synchronicity that the thought was nearly made manifest to half the city, he guessed.

"Tell you what, lad,” his father said companionably, putting an arm around Lu Ji’s shoulders. “I am sure these folks are making all sorts of threats and promises for that recording.”

He eyed the Imperial Astrologer, who was chewing air like he wasn’t quite sure what to say. If trouble came it was likely to come from that malignancy or from Din Bao.

“Say, you give me the original of that, or a copy of it – the full thing mind, with the complete definition… and hmmm…”

Ha Tai stared up at the ceiling, with celestial constellations and mythical beasts dancing across it, and paused for dramatic effect, somewhat forcing Lu Ji to look up at it with him in the process.

“You give me a copy of that video, and I swear on my wife’s birthday that I’ll cure your disciple’s niece’s problem. On both counts, actually, and even give you the ‘problem’ itself after I’ve gotten what I want from it. Do we have a deal?”

With a rueful sigh, he quietly cancelled Di Ji in his heart for the third time in as many weeks. His father was really going to hold a grudge over that Venerate Core, it seemed. Then again, he had been as angry as he had ever seen him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see from Lan Huang and Ha Leng’s expressions that Di Ji’s cancelling was very much a group affair.

Lu Ji stood there frozen for a full thirty seconds before a jade cube abruptly appeared in his hand. Without saying a word he handed it to his father, who took it, eyed it with a positively evil grin and then had it vanish in a twist of multi-coloured triangular prisms.

“Wonderful! Wonderful! Truly wonderful!” his father declared with truly theatrical grandiosity before clapping Lu Ji on the shoulder a second time and then toking both his hands and shaking them warmly. “A pleasure doing business, boy, Give your Aunt my best wishes!”

“A pleasure as always, to cross paths with you esteemed gentlemen of the current imperial incumbent,” his father said dryly, with a rather mocking half bow to the assembled Imperial Advisors, none of whom had moved in the slightest.

Not that they would be able to really – it was a quirk of that artefact that it was able to exert a truly preposterous degree of spatial locking in the hands of a talented formations master, of which his father was probably the greatest such expert native to Eastern Azure in two aeonspans. He gave the Old Ancestors a wry wave, finally making his own presence obvious to them. Their collective flinch at the realisation that a second quasi-World Venerate had been standing there all along, without them ever noticing, gave him a warm fuzzy feeling in his Dao Source.

The scene shifted, and they were back in his father’s artefact abode as if they had never left. Ha Tai stared at the jade cube with a happy smile and then pushed some qi into it, projecting two sets of scenes onto the rift.

~ Shu Tian – Blue Water City ~

The room, after the departure of the two quasi-World Venerate old freaks from the ancient depths of Ha clan history, remained in the grip of whatever unnatural oppression had seized it for a full ten seconds after the last shimmering, multi-coloured distortions in the air faded. Even after that, everyone was frozen on the spot while they tried to process the scene that had just occurred in front of them. The first to move were the two Old Ancestors from the Red Sovereign Sect, using shift charms to shatter space directly without any care for protocol or face to Cao Leyang and the Bureau, intent on warning their previous generations of the calamity that had just turned its gaze on them. Dun Jian slumped back in his chair looking like a ghost, while Kong Di and Din Bao just stared at each other dully. All their previous momentum had been completely quashed by the appearance of two properly horrifying old rogues. Unscrupulous individuals whom most in this room would want nowhere near anything in that record.

Shu Tian eyed his cup of tea and thought back on that all-too-humorous divination from earlier on about good fortune and tea and groaned inwardly.

By the table, Lu Ji looked like he was struggling not to burst into hysterics for some reason even as Lady Yang finally found voice to speak.

Looking around at the assembled group, she sounded inordinately amused. “I believe….that sound you can hear is the sound of all your machinations unravelling in the face of one scheming old man.”

That finally overcame Lu Ji’s supreme attempt at self-control and even drew a half-smile from Huang Leng, who had recovered some of his ill-humour from being somewhat sidelined by Kong Di and the now-departed Old Ancestors from the Red Sovereign Sect.

Kong Di, his face twisting in fury, turned on him and snapped; “What is so funny boy.”

Lu Ji took a few deep breaths and reformed his composure. “Ohh… it’s just the price he paid me for that recording… truly Heaven has eyes beyond these shallow skies.”

That was an interesting choice of words. The implication was that whatever deal Old Freak Ha had just made was not at all beneficial to the Kong clan.

Ignoring the spluttering Grand Astrologer, Lu Ji turned to Lady Yang and offered the beauty from the Seven Sovereigns Sect his arm. “It seems I must confer with you over a matter, Lady Yang. Might you join me in excusing ourselves, it seems this meeting has reached… something of a natural conclusion.”

With a slight frown, she took his proffered arm and left the room amid the sputtering protestations of several functionaries with the Imperial Advisors, followed by Ancestor Meng Tan and the Duke and Bureau officials in short order.

After several long moments of silence, he finally took another sip of his tea, managing not to be embarrassingly interrupted this time. Spitting your tea twice in a day was more than enough for anyone. At the same time, he resolved to have a few gentle words with Shu Shen about self-fulfilling divinations later.

Eyeing the rest of the room contemplatively, he caught the eye of Huang Leng, who should have received his earlier note by now and would certainly want to know that the Huang Gan were in this whole mess up to their necks.

“It seems I shall also take my leave gentlemen, I must entertain my old teacher. He has also expressed an interest in that recording, and I will have to find a way to tactfully explain to him that Daoist Ha has gotten to it first…. My apologies…. Sir Leng? If I might have a word with you on the way back… I believe I have an offer to a problem of yours that you will find most enlightening as well.”

Drinking the last of the tea, he put the cup down and stood, shaking off his robes, and made his way from the room. A moment later Huang Leng caught up with him. Dun Jian exited the room a few seconds later with quite unseemly haste and teleported directly from the hall’s atrium, as he probably should, given his own role in this mess was likely to require him to get the Imperial Seat on his side as of yesterday.

Behind them, Kong Di’s voice could be heard as he snarled at the remaining adjuncts. “Find out who this niece of that obnoxious boy’s disciple is, and why whatever happened to her is worth a favour from that old freak. NOW!”