Only now did Alex realize how impossibly fragile his magical realm truly was, stable as a soap bubble floating upon the gentlest eddies of spiritual energy, perilously close to a realm so stark, solid, and crushingly real that it would obliterate his world as easily as a tanker’s blades would shred a rice paper boat.

A fragile dream of a world at risk of blowing to nothing the minute he dared make a single mistake, allowing a single dark power access into his realm, or forgetting even once to never enter this realm within a day of daring the Waters of the Dead. And who knew what other perilous mishap would send the fox’s wildest and most wondrous creation fading away to nothing, a precious world seed with no allegiance to any realm, a true seed of chaos and change that shouldn’t even exist?

But it did.

A dream transformed to something real and tangible. The final flickering thoughts of a once dying soul reborn as the rustling promise of countless leaves in endless forests, all resonating with a new truth, a new world seed blossoming upon the bowers of the Tree of Life that was simultaneously the multiverse, and the ideal of all that was and could ever be.

You have accepted Sacred Forest Communion!

Reality itself rings with the forging of a new realm.

Your patron’s clan is less than pleased.

Multiple Cards of Fate are now in play, seeking your realm’s absolute destruction!

Alex howled in a state between bliss and agony as his soul was ripped and shredded to oblivion, pierced by a thousand needle-thin roots tearing into his flesh, feeding upon his rich sustenance, divine blood nurturing the crimson blossoms of life itself as the magnificent pair of twin Sacred Trees and the forest entire began to grow and expand in ways striking and profound, consuming Alex utterly and completely, until nothing was left.

Saving Throw versus oblivion made!

Nothing save the memory of his resolve, the fierce determination that had seen him face down his darkest nightmares, time and time again. In this life, fighting to rescue the girl who had claimed his heart. Fighting for the sake of friends whose nobility in a ruthless world had touched his soul. Fighting against the awful despair that comes from a body wasting away from an illness utterly beyond his control.

Fighting anew to rescue and forge a world now serving as salvation for over 400 desperate souls just a single gasp away from being no more than a dream… a world that could eventually be home to countless souls savoring all of life’s joys and wonders over countless lifetimes before souls ascended to the brilliant sparkles of transcendence that graced whatever awaited existence beyond these realms.

Fighting just to be.

Second by second, as thousands of trees became millions in a world blossoming in ways majestic and profound, priceless potential invested in a world that countless millions might one day call their own.

You have invested Rank 6 Silver Soul Stone in World Seed! (Eternal Garden is now Rank 21.) Each Silver Rank invested in size doubles Circumference. Your World now has a diameter of 2048 Miles!

The insights you have gained in your communion have altered you in ways striking and profound.

All Spiritual attributes have increased 1 Rank!

For countless hours, centuries, or seconds, Alex was the forest. Every rustling branch, every swaying tree stabilizing a world’s existence among countless others, every ripening fruit alive with the promise of endless potential, a boon of impossibly sweet fruity flesh and a bounty of spiritual energy to be embraced by anyone willing to gift hopeful seeds with midnight soil.

For an eternal heartbeat, Alex was all of these things, savoring the sweet halcyon joy of communing with reality itself, until he was no more than the crumpled young man whose rich blood had brought divine vigor to the pair of Sacred Trees with bowers now heavy with impossibly sweet and luscious fiery gold apples, Eternal Fox the only thing keeping him alive as Dong Xiao rushed his sacred charge to the most luxurious of quarters, ignoring the shocked glances sent their way as the entire realm seemed to tremble and shake, hoping only that he would arrive in time.

Chapter

“Alex?”

Alex felt his heart swell with joy as he gazed at the vision of beauty before him. Soft, heart-shaped features graced by lush lips and gentle eyes that never judged him, her gentle smile enough to set his heart ablaze.

For an endless moment, he didn’t know if he was awake or dreaming, and perhaps it didn’t matter as he lay on fine cotton sheets atop a wool stuffed mattress beside the lush dancer’s body his beloved Hao Chan had done her utmost to train with a warrior’s intensity, now radiating the sweet potent energies of a recent breakthrough, which pleased Alex to no end. To know that the girl that he adored and hoped one day to claim as his own, continued to strive and push forward, despite all the obstacles placed before her. Placed before them both.

Her trembling fingertips caressed his cheeks as tears streamed down her own. “Alex! It’s really you, isn’t it? After all these months away from you. Connected by a single dream I pray is true. That I need to be true. To see you before me on the eve of my breakthrough, to feel the vital fire behind your gaze… to know you are no dream, that I dare not kiss you, embrace you, as I have a hundred times before." She smiled, her tears now running freely down her heart-shaped features. "And I welcome that ache of denial, just to know that the man I adore is more than a vision, is more than a tired girl’s desperate dream.”

Alex smiled as he gazed up at his beloved, even as the fires of hungers too long denied blazed with sudden, unexpected intensity, catching sight of a silken shift hugging curves too tightly, sensual hips revealing a dancer’s powerful thighs and secrets he had been desperate to explore since the day she had first captivated him with her exquisite, sensual dance. For all that Heartbreaker and Broken Wings kung fu had been a trap, one he had done everything to free her of teaching her, forging within her a martial style worthy of his her exquisite coordination and lithe, sensual grace, his heart had indeed been broken, since the first time she had claimed his soul with her impossibly beautiful dance, and a smile so sweet it had left him speechless.

As he was now, transfixed by her sensual beauty, feeling his own cheeks blaze when her anxious stare was transformed to gentle disappointment, then the sweetest of smiles.

“Ah. A dream after all.” She gave a throaty chuckle, her smile widening as she held his gaze before loosening the jade pins from her hair, allowing her lush midnight tresses to pour down the perfectly smooth caramel skin of her powerfully built shoulders as she slowly slipped free the knot holding tight her kimono falling to the ground in a puddle of silk, her exquisitely lush prizes freed at last of all constraint, impossibly perfect breasts seeming to defy gravity itself as his hands were led to caress their dusky aureoles, Hao Chan arching her back and gasping softly before biting her lip as her questing fingers sought the desperate ache he had kept under fierce control ever since the moment he had first laid eyes upon her.

And the smoky look in her eyes as she bit her lip and smiled at his involuntary gasp filled Alex with a hot fiery passion that nearly consumed them both.

Before stumbling back with a cry when a short, sharp ache made all too clear the peril they risked, daring to let blaze the smoldering fires that could burn their Dantians to ash.

Hao Chan’s eyes widened with shock, before her cheeks blazed. Yet whatever embarrassment she felt didn’t stop her low, throaty chuckle as a gasping Alex did his utmost to recover from the all too visible hunger he felt. “Hello, Alex.”

Her husky voice sent shivers down his soul.

The way she said those words both inflamed his cheeks and warmed his heart.

“Hello, Hao Chan.”

Her impish grin widened. “You’re really hear, aren’t you? Not just a dream. Not the way my womb just lurched as if I had skittered upon the precipice of oblivion… for all that I wouldn’t mind the fall, if I was in your arms.”

Alex swallowed. “Yes. I’m really here.” He swallowed; eyes helplessly drawn to the voluptuous figure whose exquisite curves hid the incredibly powerful physique of a girl well on the way to mastering the deadliest of dances. A dancer who could break bones with lightning fast kicks at maximum range, and shatter stone when she committed fully to her spinning heel kicks. And that was without channeling any special attack at all, save the natural flood of Water and Metal Qi that now infused her peripheral meridians so vividly before his gaze that he was now certain she was already as strong as any Rank 1 Bronze.

It was as if she had ascended already.

And then he gasped, eyes widening, Soul Sight at last glimpsing a secret that had been so perfectly hidden that he doubted anyone could have possibly spotted it, had they not been visiting their heart's desire in the most visceral of dreams, connected to each other by a desperate hunger threatening to consume them both, body and soul.

“Hao Chan?”

She swallowed, breath hitching, deceptively powerful hands clasping his own as she stepped close, both of them savoring the sweet agony of their hunger, a storm that would consume them, just a single moment of weakness away.

“Yes, Alex?”

Heart pounding, Alex forced himself to think past the tumultuous storm of his own desperate hunger, his need to take this vision of heavenly beauty in his arms and claim her for all time, regardless of consequences, here and now.

Her smile grew. “Take me.”

All of reality seemed to hold its breath, their perfect dream so still it seemed ready to burst, and it was all Alex could do to resist.

Instead he said the words burning in his heart.

“I love you.”

Her bronze cheeks flushed with pure happiness, her smile touching his soul. “And I love you. More than you can possibly imagine.”

Alex swallowed. “Hao Chan?”

“Yes, my heart?”

He took a deep breath, both awed and terrified by what he might find as he gazed upon the matrix of her soul, a meridian configuration so closely mirroring a friend he now considered a kung fu brother, only now recognizing so much more.

How similar her chin was to Cheng Lei’s own. The cast to their features. Amber eyes where her brother's had been a striking shade of blue, before his had transformed to the brilliant jade green of WiFu’s own, after ascending to the first Jade tier of the stairs serving as a waterfall of spiritual energy feeding this world. A path that lead directly to the heavens above.

So many questions desperate for release, almost as badly as the yearning of his soul. But all he said was. “You had another breakthrough, did you not, my heart?”

She flashed a fierce, proud smile. “And you. Radiating so much power and potency, as if you had ascended to a heavenly throne.”

She gasped when his lips softly brushed her own, before his lips caressed her ear. “It was your eigth, my heart. Was it not?”

Her eyes widened, the warm sensual seductress and dancer of her dreams transforming at once to a shell, hard and cold. Stinking of old fear. No… more than that.

Alex swallowed, lowering his gaze, feeling ashamed of glimpsing secrets it was not his right to view.

All he said was. “I’m sorry.”

Words that made her tremble with fear. “No. You can’t. There’s no way. Not even you could possibly know that, Alex!”

He swallowed, raising his gaze to meet her own, for all that it broke his heart to sense her sudden fear. “We speak in your dream alone. So long as you but nod your head, so long as I am the one to speak, I think… I pray we are safe to say what needs saying.”

She paled, trembling before him. “Alex…”

He darted forward, caressing his lips with her own. She gasped with surprise, before kissing him back with a fierce hunger that nearly burned them both.

“Alex, you can’t!”

He chuckled softly. “But how sweet is the fire we dare hover about like foolish moths to flame.”

She flashed a wicked grin. “I know that at least as well as you, future lover.”

“Future wife.”

She blinked, gazing at him with a fierce, sudden intensity as Alex blinked at the words uttered by his heart.

“Truly?”

He swallowed. “I’ll do everything I can to make that dream come true.”

“Alex?”

He gazed into her anxious eyes.

“You can tell no one. Ever.”

He smiled. “You have twelve fully intact and perfectly positioned meridian gates. I think even Cheng Lei would envy their size.”

Her eyes widened. “How could you possibly…”

“I ascended the Golden Steps, just as far as they would take me. I’ll leave it to you to guess who walked by my side.”

She trembled and swallowed. “Alex, if only you truly understood what you’re saying…”

Alex clenched his jaw, suddenly hot with killing fury. “That bloated monster of a merchant knew who you were. What you were. His vile fingers are in too many pies, even now, for me to think otherwise.”

“No. Oh gods above, no! I saw you kill him, Alex. I saw him fall!”

Alex flashed a twisted smile. “And my enemies used a Card of Fate to bring him back in a twisted form none but an infernalist could hope to rise from. But rise he did, his cohorts even now infecting and enslaving cultivation schools with cursed contracts that corrupt armies are happy to use, forcing cultivators to join their ranks, even if it damns them for all time.”

Her eyes widened, mouth opening in speechless horror.

He kissed it closed.

Pulling back at once. “I will spare you the details. Lest any name save my friend be a whisper dark sages could hear even from a dream’s lips, for all that I’m a world away. But I think you’re far more than the dancer that I fell in love with.” He chuckled ruefully. “Not that I really give a damn, one way or another. I love you, Hao Chan, no matter who you truly are. Whether the humblest dancer who claimed my heart, or so much more. My only concern is what I can do to keep you safe, devising a path forward that will help you reach heights even kings would envy.”

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, tears slipping freely down her cheeks. “Alex…”

“Your mother isn’t really your mother, is she?”

Hao Chan curled up in a ball. “She’s dead.”

Alex bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

She flushed and swallowed, refusing to meet Alex’s gaze. “Before it happened… my most recent breakthrough, I had thought my life, well, close to perfect. My childhood idealic.” A tentative fingertip gently brushed Alex’s chin. “And my wildest dreams of a hero to sweep me off my feet, a lover, a hero to call my own… answered.” She bit her lip, a twinkle in her eye. “Except for the lover part. And that I had so hoped to explore with you, in time.”

“But all that changed,” Alex said, his voice equally husky.

She swallowed and nodded. “Changed forever, just a few days ago. When I had finally broken through.”

“After clearing your eighth.”

Hao Chan sighed and nodded. “And the look in Jidihu’s eyes… I won’t lie, Alex, I was terrified when she insisted on leading me into the depths of the library without saying a word. And Yinzi, somehow, could taste my fear, popping out of the shadows with an angry glare, warning her mother not to hurt me… even when she wilted under her Jidihu’s stare.”

Alex smiled. “Sounds like Yinzi.”

Hao Chan grinned. “Completely. So Yinzi and I learned together what it meant… that eighth open channel.” Alex felt his hand slide into her warm embrace, squeezing so tightly as she lowered her head. “And awful, awful memories of childhood dreams I had had… of being gazed at by old men in flowing silk robes gazing at me like I was less than dirt… images of a beautiful woman dressed in sea-dyed silk covered in golden dragons, her hair done up in a dozen jade pins, with and the most elegant hat and wimple you can imagine, crumpled to the grown and sobbed. How terrified I was… frightened and alone and being forced to… and then the awful dream stops.” Hao Chan broke off a sob. “And yesterday… yesterday I was struck by the dream so fiercely I woke up screaming, forced to face the fact possibility, the awful, awful possibility that it was no dream at all.”

Yet the look in her eyes spoke of so much more. "But that dream wasn't the end of it, was it?"

She trembled in his arms. "No, Alex. No, it wasn't. It was the key that unlocked a door of bitter truths and living nightmare. One where the woman I had loved as kin shared no blood with me at all. A world of serpents and treachery, of dark secrets and unspeakable vice." She bit her lip, haunted gaze lost in her own reflections.

“My tale starts a decade ago, when I lived the life of a fairytale princess, before being torn away from my mother’s arms by a woman who said she would do anything she could to protect me.”

Alex frowned, sensing so much being left unsaid, but all he did was give a tentative nod.

She choked back a sob. “I knew she wasn’t perfect. Even as I pretended to forget my childhood, and then, somehow, that farce became my reality. The naive facade that had kept me safe for so long became naivete in truth, leaving me so vulnerable even as I lost myself in a world of dance and discipline, and me so oblivious that only now, under Jidihu’s gentle guidance and the worldly wisdom of a hundred girls forced to walk all paths do I realize how utterly set up I had been. How naïve and foolish I was even to my stepmother’s constant haze, how low we had truly fallen as she went from daring rescuer to desperate supplicant warring between her need to save me, and her constant need to quench the hungers burning through her soul.”

Alex winced but flashed the most sympathetic of smiles, appreciating all the secrets revealed between words revealing almost nothing.

“And then that monster was suddenly in our lives and my stepmother seemed more clear-headed and focused than she had been in the years we had been together. Then I was introduced to my Clipped Wings kung fu instructor. And as vile as I now find him, I only found relief from the nightmares when I embraced the dance, and life became utterly clear. And for a time, I forgot who I was completely."

She gave a bitter shake of her head. “And to think, my stepfather was already leading my feet along the very first steps of the Purple Path… before you set me free.”

Eyes filled with shame, vulnerability, and gratitude met Alex’s own. “Even then I should have understood. Even then I should have known.”

Alex flashed a sympathetic smile. “It’s the most natural thing in the world to trust the good intentions of those you’ve given a piece of your heart to, and to see the good in family, not their flaws. So how could you have known if your stepmother did all she could to hide her excesses, her shame from you? Even as she did her best to honor your mother’s wishes, hiding you in plain sight, a humble yet talented dancer who might one day tour cities and find a good man to love and take care of her, forever free of games that damn so many hungry for power above all else?”

His gaze hardened. “And how could you possibly know your stepfather’s evening libations to settle an anxious heart were little more than a deadly hook to claim your soul? I get the feeling he and his kind have been netting innocent souls like your own for a very, very long time.”

Alex clenched his jaw even as Hao Chan gasped. “And I want nothing more than to choke them all with their own lures, so they might never claim another soul, ever again.”

She flashed a bitter smile. “If only I were strong enough to do just that, I would gladly fight by your side.”

Then she froze, speechless, sensing something in Alex’s gaze.

But first he had to be sure.

Sure that this was truly the right path for her.

“Hao Chan?”

“Alex?”

He swallowed, horrified by the question he would dare to ask, but knowing he must.

“Why?”

Just that one word. All it took to make the girl he endured blanch.

Her hand whipping around in a short, powerful arc, striking his cheek with such force that the room echoed with its crack.

Her gaze was one of hot fury for Alex even daring to ask.

Then she broke down in sobs.

And Alex told himself the sharp burst of pain he had felt, the tooth that had been sent flying by a blow he refused to counter, drops of crimson now caressing her naked flesh, was a good thing.

They would need to commune this strongly if his plan was to work.

Assuming she could ever forgive that question.

“How could you ask me that!?”

It broke Alex’s heart to see her features twist with bitter hurt.

“Because I have to know.”

“Why? Why the hell do you have to know?”

Sky blue eyes locked with amber, and he refused to surrender them, no matter how she trembled with what she saw in his gaze.

“Because I might just have a path forward. For you and Yinzi both. But I have to know. I have to know if you’re as much like Yinzi as I fear. I have to know if this is the best path forward for you.”

She trembled and swallowed, clenching her fists tight. And never had she looked so beautiful, so utterly unreachable as she did with her perfect features shining with innocent tears upon her cheeks. “The Wujen my father employed were very clear on that account. Even at eight years of age, they declared my fate.”

She laughed bitterly, her gaze turning reflective. “It’s amazing how clear so many things suddenly are that I had somehow forgotten until now, how many vital lessons learned as a child that were absent from the mind of a too vulnerable dancer, despite my memory for all images and passages I try to focus upon being near perfect. It's almost like, well, I'm gazing at the memories of a naive girl blind to the wolves about her who would happily tear out her throat, and I only started to come back to myself when I finally met you."

Her cheeks flushed and she looked so adorable that he couldn't resist a kiss. Yet when his lips met her own she didn't hold back as they embraced a kiss that had them both breathless and laughing at how close they truly were to embracing a flame that might consume them both.

Soul Sight Skill check made. Artificer skill check successful!

“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Hao Chan. I think it's pretty clear you were set up from the beginning. Besides, I can see the shimmer of Spirit Qi wards within your mind."

He flashed a reassuring smile at her sudden look of horror. “Whatever damage you might fear, it’s been in place for more years of your life than not, so it’s not like its affecting your intelligence or psyche. Whatever block it put upon your memories has clearly failed, and with Jidihu and her charges as friends and fellow students, I'm pretty sure you're learning whatever lessons on how to survive the intrigues of court and the street alike that any good survivor should know." he flashed a gentle smile. "So long as you can sense the snakes for who what they are, you certainly have the tools for keeping them at bay. And with the Eternal Fox you and Yinzi practice…”

“I still want it out of my head, whatever it is,” Hao Chan whispered.

“Agreed. But please be careful seeking aid. It is, after all, in your mind.”

She paled and nodded. “And either way, I’m sensing things a bit clearer than I have in a very long time, dreaming with you.”

“So, what happened when you were eight?”

She trembled, cheeks flushing with hot shame. “I was told to my face that I was an abomination. Something that desecrated my father’s very presence.” She choked back a sob. “My mother screamed in protest, said my gateways mirrored my father’s, and were the largest of all my siblings. Then that damned Wujen laughed in her face and called her a worthless concubine, unworthy of my father's… harem.”

She trembled as she whispered the words, Alex wordlessly gathering her up in his arms, holding her close as she sobbed, forcing himself to endure her closeness, the scent of her musk, the taste of her sweat and tears…. Just needing to be there for her in the way she needed him to.

The dependable shoulder of her future husband who didn’t give a damn about the quirks of her configuration. A man who only wanted his woman to be free of all regret, all pain, to feel fierce and free and filled with joy and hope once more.

“Alex?”

“Yes, Hao Chan?”

“Are you sure you want to be with me?”

He pulled out of their surprisingly chase embrace, holding her at arms length. “That’s a stupid question, Chan. Do you really think I’d love you any less, whether or not you can forge cords of Qi the way everyone else does?”

She smiled through her tears. “Alex, I can’t lie… I won’t lie to you. Even those with a royal set of twelve can take the first steps along the path of a commoner’s seven. Jidihu’s own Golden tomes make that clear.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I should know. She showed me that passage the minute she figured out I had actually broken through.”

“Again.”

“Again. Eight cleared channels, and she knew what that meant. Just as well as you seem to. Anyway, that tome made it clear I would be a fool to seek anything but royal cultivation tomes, and it was at least enough to get Lady Ning Jing off my back about incorporating the cultivation paths shown in the manual from which our forbidden art was forged. But it’s still enough, Alex.”

“Enough?”

She nodded. “If I truly was worthy of my father’s regard, it would have been nothing for me weave cords aligned to my elements mirroring the patterns within the Silver Swan tome. Even if I ultimately relaxed the pressure and refused to incorporate it fully. But it’s just as that damned Wujen declared before the entire court, a decade ago. Even trying to forge filaments, threads, and fibers, a prelude to the royal cords of my clan, causes me to cry out in pain, as if I was pulling apart my own foundation!”

She sobbed, giving a bitter shake of her head. “That bastard was right. I’m not good for anything! All I can do is grow as a basic cultivator and embrace the dance of Silver Swan without ever ascending to Bronze, let alone Silver!” Her despairing gaze broke his heart. “My twelve ‘glorious’ gates just mock me with what I could have been.”

She then squeezed Alex’s fist with surprising strength, laughing bitterly. “So that damned bastard Hao Zei won in the end. I was taught the one art that can only doom me, no matter how deadly my kicks or powerful my throws. I will never ascend. I can never make love to my heart’s desire without rupturing my Dantian, saved from a slow death only because of how diligently I practice Eternal Fox!”

She choked back a bitter sob. “I lose myself in dance and sparring every day, Alex. I train with Yinzi and every other girl who will challenge me, because the alternative is sinking into crushing despair. And worse, Lady Ning Jing now hates me!”

Alex’s eyes widened at that. “Why the hell would she do that?”

“Because I’m a fool, Alex. Because Yinzi and I lost ourselves to mastering all the arts you taught in your tome so deeply that now she’s a disciple of our forbidden art as well.”

Alex blinked and swallowed. “And she’s a kitsune.”

Hao Chan chuckled bitterly. “And everyone assumes she’s doomed, because even Jidihu claims their hungers inevitably get the best of them, and certainly Ning Jing isn’t the only one who warms Jidihu's bed. But if that was truly the case, why isn’t Yinzi suffering for it even now?”

Alex’s eyes widened at everything being revealed, before flashing a bemused smile. “Because I halfway think Yinzi is something of a romantic, and will hold off until a boy wins her heart. And I think her mother just might be a bit wilder than most. Someone very close to me happens to be kitsune, and she has been absolutely steadfast in her commitment to the one man who won her heart.”

Hao Chan grinned at that, before furrowing her brow. “Wait… you said a girl very close to you?”

Alex chuckled, raising his hands in mock surrender. “It’s not what you think, I promise!”

The arch look she gave him spoke volumes. “Unless you’re going to tell me you’re somehow related to a kitsune…”

“I am.”

That stopped her cold.

Alex winced, lowering his gaze. “This stays between us, okay, Chan?”

Soft fingertips stroked his own. “I will keep all your secrets close, my love.”

Alex smiled at that. “You see, it’s just that, well, you might recall me mentioning that this might not exactly be my first time being, well… me?”

Hao Chan nodded. “Jidihu swears your Silver Fox’s eternal disciple. Forever reborn looking just as you are now, living a few short glorious years fighting by your mentor's side before twisted fates claim your life yet again.”

Alex winced at that. “What you have to remember is that, for me, the last few years and the memories of a dying youth being frozen alive in a desperate effort to save himself are all that I remember. All that defines me. Mostly.”

He took a deep breath, losing himself in Hao Chan’s sympathetic gaze. “And that must have been how each version of me felt. And at least one of those clones… or versions of myself… fell in love with a kitsune girl.” He flashed an arch smile. “Actually, I think that might have been a reoccurring theme for me. Anyway, their children had children and those children had children, and you get the drift. So now there’s an incredibly talented young kitsune woman I know and love as much as would any cousin, who just might be my direct descendant, ten or so generations back.”

He smiled into Hao Chan’s speechless gaze. “So yeah… there’s that.”

Her lips quirked up in the cutest grin. “Should I call you grandfather, then?”

Alex laughed. “Don’t you dare! I’m twenty, Hao Chan, in every way that counts.”

“Save having kitsune descendants who consider you… what, their revered ancestor?”

Alex blinked. “How’d you know?”

“I don’t know how I feel about courting a grandfather,” she said with a teasing smile.

Alex chuckled. "Maybe this will change your mind," he said, before sweeping her up in a passionate kiss that came too close to spelling disaster as they both stumbled back, hearts roaring in each other’s ears, Alex now feeling so connected to his love that it was as if they were two halves of a whole.

Exactly the state they needed to embrace if what he was going to pull off was to work.

“Alex?” She sensed something in the intensity of his gaze. Eyes widening when he summoned forth the memory of his pair of enchanted bronze sharktooth dao, strapped them to his waist, and claimed her hand, kitted once more in the bronze warring states armaments he had first embraced as a cultivator by Liu Jian’s side, what now seemed a lifetime ago.

He smiled into her questioning eyes. “Come on. Let’s head to the sparring area. There’s something I want to show you.”

Her eyes widened. “Alex? How can you…” She shivered as he opened the door and led them through, her equipment now mirroring his own. Almost as if they were both really there, in the flesh, not simple dream.

And when Alex sensed curious shadow trailing them as they made their way to the courtyard where he would forge his future wife in the crucible of conflict and motion, he couldn’t help but smile.

Because the Pearlescent Path, cultivation based on compression, an art he had forged in the living dream that was a world’s transcendence, was for Yinzi’s benefit as well.