“Wh— Ye-xiong!”

The first to snap out of his shock, Wan Yu rushed to the three men, checking their pulses. All dead. “You just— without a single question!”

Without drawing his weapon, too, with only a swing of a palm; but these things Wan Yu didn’t notice, preoccupied as he was with the absoluteness of Ye Xiyang’s actions. Du Yu’an and Du Yuxun both had backed away, terror shining in their eyes. Wan Yu turned to Ye Xiyang. “Who are you to judge them in the wrong without knowing the full story?”

Ye Xiyang gave him a strange look. “Do you think demonic sects would be so proper as to leave signs that it’s their doing?”

As if spurred by that, Wan Yu checked the bodies— all of them were in nondescript robes, looking for all it’s worth like they’d been bought from some readymade shop in this very town. Ye Xiyang walked over, stopping a few paces away. “You won’t find anything. They’re not stupid.”

“Absence of proof doesn’t mean guilty,” Wan Yu spat. “And now they’re dead and we can’t make sure.”

"Don't you think I know how they operate?" Ye Xiyang did him a favor, yet here he was.

But Wan Yu wasn’t about to listen to him. He ruffled his hair hard enough it almost undid his bun, before jumping back to his feet and letting out a loud, harsh exhale. Muttering to himself, “calm down, get back to work,” he then knelt beside the three people again and started rummaging through their things. With Silvergrass as a lamp, he examined their belongings. They only had some change of clothes, blankets, several trinkets and specialized tools— one of them had a stack of papers wrapped with care, clearly for talismans. All of them had swords; two dao, one jian. Ordinary quality; their blades reacted to Wan Yu’s qi, indicating more common swords sold in stores rather than forged for individuals. Wan Yu saw that the daos had signs of more repeated sharpening— the jian owner was the talisman and array cultivator, so it seemed to make sense that he might not rely as much on his sword for fights. Whetstones, cloth, oil… dull pieces of jade, looped with twine.

Jades of varying qualities had been used by both cultivators and mortals alike throughout the ages. From the Six Ritual Jades to differentiating official ranks within the empires to being the material prized sect magical treasures and weapons were made of, both the stone’s societal and spiritual values had been the forefront of its use— likewise, in the jianghu, not everyone could afford such a thing. In the Vermilion Sun Sect, jade belt-plaques were only given to inner gate cultivators who’d taken a student, or outer gate disciples who’d shown exemplary achievements. Immortal Master Ning Shan himself only had jades in the form of weapons— the weapons he’d hoped would never see use again. Less sophisticated, detailed pieces had been used by sects all over the factions as entry tokens for their disciples. Tassels and other decor had been the distinguishing feature for that last one, as carving a mass-produced item into detailed shapes took more skilled labor and money than any sect would have to expend.

Did these three people have to be from a sect just because they were found with jade tokens on their persons? No. But the fact that these jades seemed to be dulling by the minute told Wan Yu that these stored qi, just like normal entry tokens. They had always been set to expire upon the death of their owner, as to not fall to the wrong hands. As for what sect they might’ve been from, hell if Wan Yu knew— there were at least three dozen sects large enough to be using jade tokens in both righteous and demonic factions, and he’d only ever seen two. The only one he got a close look at was Vermilion Sun Sect’s.

And even then their token for their disciples were simple circles with red tassels. Only the elders of the sect got ones carved into the shape of the sun.

Wan Yu grabbed these tokens anyway.

It seemed that he had been watching Wan Yu all this while; when the young man pocketed the jades, Ye Xiyang turned to Du Yu'an. "It's good you have a grasp on character, but you're wrong in that I'm not involved with these people."

Du Yu'an looked awkward, though another appropriate word would be ‘rather terrified’. “I… My apologies.”

"Don't apologize to him," Wan Yu snapped, turning around. "Not involved with these people yeah sure whatever, you're still— oh. Fuck."

Silver embroidered dragons on his uniform. There weren't any righteous sect that dared to use dragon imagery, and the only demonic faction sect that did was—

The Frozen Dragon Sect.

Wan Yu was a moron.

And even worse, he just now realized another thing. Dragon embroidery. There was no way just anybody could wear that.

Ye-xiong was probably high up in the Frozen Dragon Sect. Most likely, he was the leader.

Wan Yu was a fucking moron.

“Shifu never told me my brain drowned with the mountain flood,” Wan Yu muttered. With a frustrated growl, he ruffled his hair once again. “You win, I’m stupid.”

Ye Xiyang raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Whatever whatever whatever. Wan Yu turned to Du Yu’an. “I’m stupid. But I’m sincere when I’m telling you this: the people you’re dealing with here are dangerous. Your father isn’t just dealing with anybody— he’s dealing with Seven-Petal Moonlotus Sect, whom I’ve also stumbled across a few years back. Didn’t leave the family a corpse. Extended family, I mean; the whole family was taken. I don’t know what happened to them either. I recommend going to Vermilion Sun for this— yes, I know they’re like that and it will take ages, but they have a better chance at actually repelling another sect. I can try to send them an appeal, too, but I can’t guarantee it’ll make them move any faster.”

Du Yuxun was the one to answer. “But these aren’t just normal crossbow mounts; I saw the schematics, it’s one that makes them a lot more mobile and viable for long-distance transportation and fa—”

“Enough,” Wan Yu said. “I understand, I get it. It’s not something that should be allowed to continue. But unless you’re willing to allow your entire house to die with you, then you might want to wait for Vermilion Sun Sect to do something. I’ll be real with you— I don’t want to be there when you make the decision to die. I have my limits.”

There was a pause at that.

“We called you here because of Father and the… play Xun’er started,” Du Yu’an admitted. “This is already far beyond…”

"I didn't mean it like that— okay, I actually do. I'm with doing the right thing as much as you are, but I'm being honest when I said I have my limits," Wan Yu said. He hid his face in his hands, before shaking his head and pulling his hands off. "I wasn't ready for this to be sprung on me at random. I do have a family to go back to.”

Right. Wan Yu needed to ground himself, he was starting to get carried away by emotions again. Taking a deep breath, Wan Yu closed his eyes and held it for several seconds before letting it out slowly. Think what’s relevant. Think what’s doable.

At this immediate juncture, the issue was that of… these cultivators. It was reasonable to say that Du Yuxun was the one who hired them, maybe even with Du Yu’an’s knowledge, but he didn’t know who exactly they were— none of them did. And while it might be impossible to know for certain, given the dire lack of evidence proving their identities— by comparing it against whom? anyhow— they could, at least, try to figure out their intent. This should be doable, right?

“There were surveillance talismans at the guest rooms hallway, there was a basic one in the kitchen, there was a good one at the old house.” Wan Yu paused. “There should be one here.”

Du Yuxun nodded, then shook his head as though the full sentence finally dawned on him. “No, I only asked them to have something set up in the kitchen, old house and the work area. I only wanted to start rumors so that it’ll be taken seriously by Father. The first cultivators we hired to ‘resolve’ the problem was… bad. They just tried to ‘purify’ her ‘spirit’ without even checking to see if it was actually a soul.

“I met these cultivators again after Father got you as a recommendation from Uncle Jiang. You sounded like you’d be more thorough with your investigations, so I asked them to… well, I asked them to play it up a little bit so your attention is properly caught. I just want… I just wanted you to investigate it a bit deeper. Figure out what was happening here. Not about her spirit. I thought that if Father heard it from someone else, he’d take it seriously...”

Wan Yu let out a long sigh. Well, there was nothing he could say about that. The unfortunate thing was, Wan Yu was also powerless here; he was just a scrawny, 19 years old wandering cultivator with nothing to his name bar his shifu’s illustrious one, and even then that was not a relationship he could wave about and announce to the world. He didn’t have the illusion of authority had by older cultivators, whose age at least inspired more trust. Half the people he met called him a fool with a pipe dream.

He wasn’t even enough to save one life for good. The people he stayed with, their lives might’ve crumbled back into what it used to be after he left and he wouldn’t even know.

“Back to, ugh, this. Well, they put up surveillance in front of the guest rooms. So they’re watching who’s staying. Didn’t check how old those were, though… but what they choose to watch can tell us something. The ones in those places you mentioned were so that they could do the scaring thing more effectively, I guess. The guest rooms, I’m not sure. They could be checking who we are— I guess Ye-xiong over here also threw them off-guard. Don’t know for sure, they’re dead. But then you gotta ask, if they’d put talismans there without your knowing or asking, where else would they put it? What kind would they put?”

Silence fell.

If there was one set up to watch Du Yuxun, maybe even eavesdrop on him, then the cultivators collaborating with him weren't helping him. They were playing with him.

“...Were they waiting for me to…” Du Yuxun’s voice trailed off, almost hollow in how lost it sounded.

Wan Yu put up his hands. “We don’t know yet. We haven’t checked. It’s just a possibility.”

It was a harrowing thought— Du Yuxun noticing his father’s actions and going to someone for it, only for him to be turned into a sort of… tattle, for the sect, against his own wishes and without his knowledge. That they wanted to watch him to know how far Du Patriarch had failed on his ‘duties’.

“They want to make sure Father didn’t falter on the bargain?” Du Yu’an asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Or that we, his sons, don’t?”

“Another way to see this would be, your father’s sick and might die soon, and inheriting his business would be your older brother,” Ye Xiyang said. The Du brothers startled at his voice. “They already have the schematics, but it’s a waste of resources and a disruption to the flow of production if they just kill off the Du family, as the workers here were unified under its patriarch. Upon catching wind of you finding out the schematics and this entire collaboration, they’ve been looking to use you as a leverage not against your father, but against your brother.”

“Because Du Patriarch has been complicit all this time,” Wan Yu realized. “He doesn’t need convincing to keep things under wraps, he’s been doing it on his own volition for this long. I can even see him not intending his younger son to know at all, only his eldest needed to.”

There was silence before Du Yu’an sighed. It was a tired, disappointed sigh. “Yes. I reckon so, too.”

And the worst part of it all was, they didn’t know which it was. They probably never will. It might as well be both.

It probably was both. Two birds one stone.

“We should check th—” Wan Yu paused, and turned to the bodies. “Let’s take care of this first. Fuck.”

There was surveillance in the old workshop. More specifically, an eavesdropping array. Wan Yu swept through their bedrooms too, for good measure; there wasn't anything inside, but there was another eavesdropping array in Du Yu'an's study.

It was clear now, what their intent was.

Du Yuxun was silent.

"Send a new request to Vermilion Sun Sect and when asked, tell them your problem is at indigo level," Wan Yu told Du Yu'an. "It's their internal codeword for this kinda stuff. They might not resolve things immediately but they should send people over pretty quick. Have people sweep through the beams too if you have the time; just burn the talismans off for good measure."

Du Yu'an looked at him. "Would it be possible for you to also stay?"

Wan Yu looked back. "I'm only one man."

"I understand."

"In the morning, I will tell Du Patriarch some bullshit about needing to not forget the past and getting lost in the nebulous promises of the future or something. Don't mind it too much, just smile and nod." Wan Yu ran his fingers through his hair. "All right. Let's go sleep. Tomorrow morning will suck."

The morning, indeed, sucked. Actually, the night did too— they must've slept at like, one or two shichen before sunrise, Wan Yu felt groggy waking up. But he crawled out and washed his face with water he cooled further with qi, staring into the bronze mirror in the room.

He was okay, he was fine.

He can do this.

Leaving his room, Wan Yu bumped into Ye Xiyang, who only offered a breezy smile before they headed off. Du Patriarch wasn't as spirited as yesterday morning, but he had enough energy to talk at length— to talk at length with Wan Yu about the job he'd done, that is.

"I understand her concerns. But growth has been of immense help to our community, and will give these sons of mine a better starting point in their lives once I'm gone. But maybe we will benefit indeed from keeping humble and remembering our roots…"

Bullshit bullshit bullshit. Wan Yu laughed and nodded, and refocused his fraying attention to his food. Du Yu'an and Du Yuxun's wooden smile added to the cloying atmosphere.

But at last, he was freed. Just him, Wan Yu, disciple of Immortal Master Ning Shan. The Du sons would have to live in an agonizing play-pretend with their father for a while longer, but after breakfast Wan Yu was ready to leave. Du Yu'an, almost seeming to know exactly what Wan Yu wanted him to do, simply gave him the money on the way out.

"I'll try to help in ways I can," Wan Yu told him.

Du Yu'an gave him a wan smile. "Thank you."

When they left the house, Wan Yu stopped right in front of the gates.

“That was the most draining breakfast I’ve ever had in my life,” he said, running his hand over his face. “Ye-xiong.”

When Ye Xiyang turned to him, he was almost pelted on the face with two gold ingots.

“I’m off.”

Hopping onto Silvergrass, Wan Yu left without another word.

Looking at the coins in his hand, Ye Xiyang almost laughed.

Many li away, after a day's turn.

"This young master, how may we serve you?" the middle-aged madame of the flower house asked, tone sugary sweet. Behind her were a lineup of the girls, along with some boys, all dressed to impress; their lavish scents permeated the air, almost to an eye-watering point. It was simply unfortunate that the young, elegant guest did not seem to be swayed. Ye Xiyang tapped his finger on the table, the rings on his left hand glinting in the afternoon glow. The madame promptly shut her mouth.

"Yue Ge," Ye Xiyang said.

"Y-yes, my lord. I will call for her." And with that she retreated, taking the rest of this little entourage with her.

It took some time, but the clacks of wooden shoes grew louder, and a woman entered at last. She was tall, her hair done in a bun, pinned in place with milky white jade. The corners of her eyes were lined to sharpness in turquoise, accenting the sharp lines of her face. Dressed in white and translucent midnight blue, she looked as if she brought the night sky over snowing mountaintops with her to these warmer lands.

When she spoke up, though, her voice was distinctly deep and husky. "Supreme Leader. Where have you been? We've been looking for you; you departed so suddenly it almost threw the sect into a frenzy."

Yue Ge clapped once; two young servants entered, head bowed, and placed down two trays. One was tea. The other one was a single plate of savory refreshment, and a book beside it.

After sitting down, Yue Ge poured him tea.

“I've been out and about. There was something that interested me.” Ye Xiyang accepted the cup and drank it, sighing after a sip. Only his sect members seemed to know how to make them right, though Ru Ge deserved a special mention. “I trust you enough with the wellbeing of the sect while I am gone. Ru Ge, or should I continue with Yue Ge?”

A laugh. “Supreme Leader knows that I do not mind either.”

The Frozen Dragon Sect was a bit different from other sects, or even other communities. After so many generations sequestered away in a freezing mountain, it developed many beliefs and traditions and folklore exclusive to it, and these 'strange' values sometimes got cited for what made Frozen Dragon Sect borderline heretic or a cult. For one, rather than mere yin or yang energies, his people talked about energies corresponding to the winter or the mountains— the former being feminine and active, the latter masculine and passive.

Ru Ge was a winter-ascending man. With such strong feminine influence, anything that followed was only natural. They were never particularly of either gender; they often walked around being whoever they wanted with no one the wiser. Shi Ma, on the other hand, was a mountain-grounded woman who was firmly female. Taller than Ye Xiyang himself and nicknamed the Red Wolf of Supreme Leader Ye, nobody would dare question her on anything anyhow.

The Frozen Dragon Sect never cared for these trifles much. This casual acceptance of extreme yin or yang body people had been used to badmouth them before, despite the fact that other than these rare cases, the Frozen Dragon Sect followed strict gender roles. But even then that didn’t matter as much in the grand scale of things; everyone in the sect must be capable, regardless of gender. Extreme yin and yang bodies were never a problem in the Frozen Dragon Sect because it didn’t matter how they achieved it, these people just had to prove their abilities, regardless of where it lay. Celestial Alignment liked to hassle them over that. They always loved extreme yin or yang bodies to serve as cauldrons for their top rankings, so Frozen Dragon Sect’s seeming abundance of them earned their… jealousy.

Ru Ge proved to be more than they could chew, though, Ye Xiyang thought with amusement. Celestial Alignment Sect never dared look at Ru Ge after they castrated the martial nephew of its sect head for daring to covet them.

"How are things?"

"There isn't much in the way of the righteous faction activities in recent months; there's only a small night-hunt planned by Vermilion Sun Sect for this full moon. Nothing at the moment conflicts with our interests. In the secular world, the Jing country continues with its struggle for the throne; there are many fugitives fleeing the internal clashes and outbreaks of consumption, and it's causing some problems on the border towns. There will be impact on our businesses, but it's nothing our finance sector cannot deal with. Shi Ma passed along her reports as well. Celestial Alignment Sect is preying on this new wave of refugees for more cauldrons; she is ready to intercept. Demonic Harmony Sect has been acting more lowkey, but that's because it's injecting more money and manpower into its numerous fake small sects and businesses to get bigger outreach and purchase more weapons. On that front, they are peerlessly bold."

Ye Xiyang tapped his finger on the table. Ru Ge looked up from their book of reports. "Names?"

“There's many… Some are Seven-Petal Moonlotus Sect, the Silk Sea Palace, ah… this merchant surnamed Li stationed in the old capital. I reckon the merchant is too afraid of the Emperor to conduct such businesses right in the dragon city.”

Ah. Seven-Petal Moonlotus Sect… heh, Ye Xiyang was not expecting to stumble into Demonic Harmony's little project while out on a trip.

“One of the beneficiaries of Seven-Petal Moonlotus Sect’s investments is the Du family in Shuangxi,” he said. “The sons seem to want to break away from their father’s legacy, however. Whether they succeed will be up to the jianghu.”

Ru Ge raised their eyebrows. “Ah? Then they will succeed, worry not.”

Ye Xiyang chuckled. He wondered how Wan Yu would feel, finding out that it was the Frozen Dragon Sect that helped wipe out Seven-Petal Moonlotus Sect, not Vermilion Sun Sect. Well, he’ll leave that up to Ru Ge to execute.

"Say, Yue Ge. Do you know much about Immortal Master Ning Shan?"

"Hm? What's the sudden interest?"

Ye Xiyang shook his head. “I met his disciple.”

Ru Ge frowned. “He has a disciple?”

Hmm. So there really was no news of him until that night-hunt. “He does.”

“Is this disciple so interesting as to have caught Supreme Leader’s attention for an entire week?”

“Yes, but not really,” Ye Xiyang admitted. The disciple was only interesting when Ye Xiyang could juxtapose his current personality to his temperament in the future— the contrast between the needlessly thoughtful and cheerfully hardworking him at age 19, and the angry, defeated man who gave the treasure he stole to a demonic sect leader and killed himself right when the righteous faction was going to take him at age 36. Without knowing what became of him in the future, Ye Xiyang reckoned he would be as interested as he did originally, in the unchanged time— that was, not at all.

“I will need some time to assemble the information in a more readable format,” Ru Ge said, seeming to have moved on from the Supreme Leader's peculiar interest in Immortal Master Ning Shan's disciple. “I do not remember many details either, as he's never made problems for us. But I do know that he only acquired the title about fifty, sixty years ago. His real name is Wan Ji. Nobody alive knew his birth name.”

Ah. So Wan Yu was given his surname as well.

“He’s the number one in the Thousand Edges School’s list for decades now, but this was only in classified internal records— they know that their current strength can’t possibly match his, even if they attack in groups, so they’ve actually shuffled him up to number zero. They tried, about forty years ago, and were defeated so badly it was a humiliation they wanted to clear off the record.”

Well… at least he now knew why Immortal Master Ning Shan was so revered within the wulin. To be frank, he never did catch up with information on the legendary man— by the time he had the breathing room to actually care about anything other than his internal sect affairs and the demonic faction, Immortal Master Ning Shan was confirmed dead. Ye Xiyang raised an eyebrow. “For his personal jian?”

“Ah, no. He has a collection of extremely powerful weapons he is trying to destroy. He said they’re too dangerous to allow to exist. It’s taken him thirty years to finally destroy one. Remember the strange rainy spell when we were young, Supreme Leader? The one that lasted two weeks, even though it was the dead of winter?”

He nodded. He was around six then, but he remembered it for how strange it was— winters in the Slumbering Dragon Mountains were always dry, and then suddenly rain came from nowhere and wrecked the weather for the rest of the year. Ru Ge continued, “That was when he finally dissipated Fallen Morning Star, the personal sabre of Demonic Harmony Sect’s third sect master.”

"What other weapons does he have?" Ye Xiyang asked.

Ru Ge pursed their lips. "There's actually a list that is more or less the truth, but everyone thinks that it wasn’t the full list. I will send it to you when I gather it all and crosscheck for accuracy. Is there anything specific you'd like me to check?"

"No. You have a lot of work on your plate already, I just want the compilation on Immortal Master Ning Shan. You've done a good job while I am gone." Ye Xiyang tapped his cup; Ru Ge refilled it. "I will be here for a week or two. Where's Shi Ma?"