Wu Jian had not been allowed to leave the compound ever since the day that alchemist asked him to become her plaything. He felt trapped. Was this what a caged bird felt like? He’d once heard that some nobles liked to keep rare birds trapped in cages so they wouldn’t fly away. That’s what he felt like right now.

While he did understand that this was being done to protect him, he also thought it was excessive. Wouldn’t it have made more sense if he was simply given an escort? But when he asked Father, the man had said the only person he would trust with his safety was Wu Taohua, who was busy doing reconnaissance to discover more about the alchemist who caused this whole fiasco.

Since he was unable to leave the compound, Wu Jian simply trained alongside Wu Meiying and Hou Jingshu. That was all par for the course. They did that all the time anyway. The upcoming Wu Clan Strength Test would begun along with the Wu Clan Competition. While he was no longer interested in the competition because he or Wu Meiying always won, he was curious to see where his strength was at.

“This will be my first time taking the strength test,” Hou Jingshu said. “We have similar tests back home, but Father never let me take them. He said it wasn’t necessary since he had no intention of letting me become a cultivator. I can’t wait to see how strong I am.”

Hou Jingshu is even more of a caged bird than I am.

It was easy to forget that Hou Jingshu was the Shang Kingdom’s princess. Being the princess meant she had a lot of restriction placed on her before coming here. She hadn’t been allowed to go outside often, and when she did it was always with an armed escort. Her father also refused to let her cultivate. He made her take alchemy pills that increased her strength so she could break into the Hunger Realm, but he wouldn’t let her train.

Wu Jian wasn’t sure he liked her dad.

He sounded too controlling for his tastes.

“Your strength is probably around six or seven thousand. Maybe eight thousand.” Wu Jian tilted his head. “It’s a bit hard to tell because I don’t know where your strength was at previously, but I know your father gave you a lot of alchemy pills to increase your physical abilities.”

“It’ll probably be around seven thousand,” Wu Meiying said with certainty. “Jingshu’s strength before coming here was derived mostly from pills. While pills are certainly a good way of increasing a person’s strength, the strength they give isn’t very stable unless you train. I imagine a lot of what she gained from the pills disappeared after a while.”

“D-do you really think so? Now that you mention it, I don’t feel like I ever got any stronger after a certain point.” Hou Jingshu cupped her chin, furrowed her brow, and bit her lower lip.

“That’s because after a certain point, the pills became more or less ineffective. If you want to gain more strength with nothing but alchemy pills, you will need to increase the quality of the pill rather than the quantity,” Wu Meiying explained.

“So taking more of the same pill won’t do any good?”

“Exactly.”

The three of them had finished training not long ago and were now just sitting around on the porch to his home and chatting. A small tray with three glasses of tea sat between them and some half-finished sweet buns was next to the tea.

Small waves of heat distorted the garden they were overlooking and caused sweat to break out on their skin. Wu Jian was unable to keep his eyes off them. A small trail of sweat slid down Hou Jingshu’s neck and disappeared after passing over her collarbone.

He closed his eyes. It was rude to stare like that.

They had been mostly discussing the merits of their training and the upcoming strength test when Wu Meiying suddenly became still, with her eyes glazed over and her mouth half open.

“She’s having a vision again,” Hou Jingshu observed.

“Yeah. She’s been getting those a lot lately. I wonder if there’s a reason for that,” Wu Jian said.

“It must be annoying.”

“She once told me that her visions frighten her,” Wu Jian said.

“Hmm. She told me something similar not long ago.”

“Did she tell you about her nightmares?”

“I… I think she said something about them… maybe.”

Wu Jian glanced at Wu Meiying as she sat there with her eyes glazed over like she was seeing something no one else could. He felt a longing to reach out and touch her, but he knew doing that while she was having a vision could be bad. It might break her concentration and force her out of the vision early. She had once gotten a headache because he tried to do just that and he had never done so again.

He looked back out at the garden, kicking his legs back and forth as they dangled over the edge of the porch. “When she was much younger, Mei used to have visions almost every night. I guess because she couldn’t understand them, they would cause her to wake up crying and screaming. Back then, she and I shared a room because Mother was taking care of us, so I would always be right there with her. When this happened, I’d crawl into her bed and hug her. That always seemed to settle her down. After a while, sleeping with her just became a habit.”

“You know… I don’t think she told me that part,” Hou Jingshu said at last. She cupped her chin and stared at Wu Meiying with a soft, understanding expression. “Her desire and dislike of sleeping without you make a lot more sense to me now. And I guess if you two have been sleeping together for that long, it wouldn’t seem strange to you.”

“I’m aware that our relationship is pretty different from normal kids,” Wu Jian admitted with a shrug. “I just don’t care.”

Mother and Wu Taohua had explained why kids their age didn’t sleep together anymore, but while he understood their reasons, he didn’t think it mattered. It wasn’t like they were going to do something naughty. Wu Jian knew his limits. He was pretty sure Wu Meiying did too. He was more than happy to wait until they were older to do all the activities regular couples did.

Except kissing. That was one thing he wouldn’t give up.

Hou Jingshu giggled. “It’s just like you not to care about what other people think.” She paused, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink. “Do you… I mean, are you and I that close now?”

“You mean are we close enough to sleep together? We have done that before, you know,” Wu Jian pointed out.

“That’s not what I meant! I mean, are we—”

Whatever Hou Jingshu had been about to say, she stopped when Wu Meiying sucked in a deep breath. They turned to the girl to see her wiping some sweat from her forehead. Wu Jian grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat away for her, while Hou Jingshu grabbed her tea and offered the girl a drink.

“Thank you,” Wu Meiying said in a raspy voice.

“No worries. I’m guessing you saw something disturbing?” asked Wu Jian.

Wu Meiying’s smile was strained. “Disturbing would be putting it mildly. I think we should inform Uncle about this. It’s pretty bad.”

So it was another bad vision. Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu both agreed to speak with his father, but they were unable to make good on that promise because someone else arrived before they could leave. It was Wu Taohua, dressed in a sleeveless blue training uniform with fishnet mail underneath. A short sword was strapped to the small of her back. The pouch on her left thigh contained all kinds of sharp implements, throwing knives and such.

She looked like an assassin.

“Lord Jian, I hope you have some free time. I would like to speak with you for a bit, if you don’t mind,” she said after dropping to her knees in front of him. Since it had already been decided that he would be the next clan head, she had been showing him a great deal of respect.

“What is it? Is it something you can talk about here?” asked Wu Jian.

“Yes, here is fine, and Lady Jingshu and Wu Meiying can hear it as well,” Wu Taohua said.

“You know, it greatly bothers me that Jingshu is called ‘Lady,’ but I am just ‘Wu Meiying.’ Isn’t there something wrong when the first wife is not referred to by her proper title?” asked Wu Meiying.

“Since when did we decide you were going to become Wu Jian’s first wife?!” snapped Hou Jingshu.

“Since forever ago.”

“I never heard about this!”

Wu Taohua looked at the two girls as they bickered for a moment, then coughed into her hand, forcing them to focus on her again. She only began once she was sure their attention wouldn’t waver.

“I have been gathering information on the alchemist who showed up selling pills and even contacted the Zhou Clan. Tian Hao is a failed alchemist from the Alchemist Association. According to the reports the Zhou Clan gathered, she had talent, but her rather… eclectic taste in men garnered her much disfavor. She was also very arrogant. In the end, that arrogance became her downfall when she attempted to have the third son of a famous alchemist family in Dahua City kidnapped.”

Somehow, perhaps because of his first encounter with Tian Hao, he was not surprised by this knowledge. She did seem the type to try and kidnap someone she couldn’t get her hands on through normal means.

“I didn’t think it was possible to dislike her anymore than I already do,” Hou Jingshu murmured, her nose wrinkled. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Did you discover anything more about her?” asked Wu Meiying.

“Only a bit,” Wu Taohua admitted. “She’s at the fourth stage of the Hunger Realm, which is about average for someone in Dahua City. Since her focus is primarily on alchemy, she is not very strong. Even you could probably beat her in a fight since she has neither the experience nor the techniques to fight back. However, her brother, Tian Lin, is at the ninth subrealm of the Hunger Realm. Rumor has it he’s close to breaking through to the Anima Realm. His specialty is stealth and assassination. He was also the one who tried to kidnap the alchemist family’s son at his sister’s behest.”

“So he’s about as strong as you then,” Wu Jian said.

Wu Taohua was also a half-step into the Anima Realm, meaning she was just a bit stronger than Tian Lin. The only people who were stronger than her was Grandpa Son and Elder Wu Jinsu, who were Anima Realm Cultivators. The former elder, Wu Wei, had also been at the Anima Realm.

Of course, Father had reached the Asura Realm, making him the strongest within the clan.

“He might be a little stronger,” Wu Taohua admitted with a sigh. “While I was trained as an assassin, my skills have gotten rusty, but it seems like he has been keeping his sharp. My cultivation base is higher, but I believe he’s more skilled. If it came down to a fight between us, victory would hinge on a number of factors outside my control.”

There was always some variation between the power of cultivators at the same level. Some might have more chi, others might have more control, and still some might have better technique. As someone trained as an assassin, Wu Taohua’s control was top notch. If she was fighting against someone else who trained in assassination techniques, like this Tian Lin, victory would hinge on who had better the techniques and was more skilled at using them.

“And you got this information from the Zhou Clan?” asked Wu Jian.

“Most of it,” Wu Taohua admitted. “I also learned that the Ming and Juishi Families have formed an alliance and used most of their money to hire her. We already suspected as much. However, it seems they have also hired a company of mercenaries to remain at the woman’s beck and call. That was one of her conditions for working with them.”

Wu Jian wondered if the mercenary company was the group Wu Meiying saw destroying the compound in her previous vision. If so, it sounded like the Ming and Juishi Families were the ones to blame.

“How strong are they?” he asked.

“There are only about ten of them, and their strongest is someone at the fourth subrealm of the Anima Realm,” Wu Taohua answered.

Which means they’re as strong as Elder Jinsu, but not as strong as Father.

If that was the strongest they could bring to bear, he didn’t think they would be powerful enough to destroy the Wu Clan, but you could never be too careful either. It was possible they had a secret weapon.

Of course, it was also possible the Ming and Juishi Clans would attack them as well.

“Since we’re on the subject, I believe I should tell you that I think Jian should sleep in my building tonight,” Wu Meiying said.

“When did that subject come up?!” asked a startled Hou Jingshu.

Wu Taohua was also surprised, but she was much better than Hou Jingshu at hiding it. “And why should he sleep with you?”

“Because Tian Lin is going to try and kidnap Jian tonight,” Wu Meiying said with a serious expression.