“You’re being pretty clingy today.”

“Am I? It has been a whole month since I saw you. I’m running low of Jianinium, so I need to stick close to you to recharge. Are you complaining?”

“No. Of course not. Just making an observation.”

“Should I call you Captain Obvious then?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

The carriage trundled along the dirt road. It was a little bumpy, but Wu Jian didn’t mind as he, Wu Meiying, and Yōuměi sat inside. He absently brushed his fingers against the necklace hidden inside his hanfu. Hou Jingshu had given it to him before he left, and he never went anywhere without it.

The large black panther had one seat to herself. She lounged on the seat opposite him and Wu Meiying like an indulgent queen, though perhaps that was merely his perspective. Yōuměi was a very majestic cat, after all.

Wu Meiying was sitting so close there was no space between them. She had grabbed his arm and slung it around her shoulder, then squeezed herself into his side and hugged him like a koala. Her actions made her seem much needier than usual. They also couldn’t fool him, though he feigned ignorance for her sake.

“I wonder how Zhou Lihua is doing,” he pondered out loud.

“I bet she’s fine. You know how strong that girl is.”

“Think she’ll be excited to see us?”

“I think she’ll be sad. After all, she’s leaving today.”

“Right. She’s going to the Imperial Capital.”

Zhou Lihua was leaving to study alchemy under Wong Jiu, who had finally decided to return to the Alchemist Association.

The Shang Kingdom did not have the best environment to learn alchemy. They were a third-rate nation and lacked the resources of larger, more powerful nations, but if someone wanted to learn alchemy in this kingdom, the Imperial Capital was the best place to do it. The Alchemist Association headquarters there had far more resources than anything here.

The Zhou Clan’s estate was guarded by two people at the Anima Realm, which just went to show Wu Jian how powerful they were. This was just a small branch located in the countryside, but they still had enough people at the Anima Realm to guard their front gates. The Wu Clan only had maybe ten people at the Anima Realm.

“Hello, is Zhou Lihua in? She’s expecting us,” Wu Jian said to the guards after emerging from the carriage.

“Young Master Wu Jian. Mistress Wu Meiying. Welcome, the young lady is expecting you. Please, follow me,” one of the guards said.

The guards opened the gate, then one of them walked through, and Wu Jian and Wu Meiying followed him. They had already been here many times, so they knew their way around. Neither of them needed this guy to show them the way, but… well, protocols were protocols. So they followed the guard as he led them to Zhou Lihua’s private garden.

That was where they found the young woman.

Now nineteen years old, Zhou Lihua was a woman who had blossomed like a spring flower… though Wu Jian sometimes thought a nightshade might have been a better descriptor. She was a woman whose body was as sinful as darkness. Her small waist, wide hips, and large bust were hidden behind red dress that traveled down to her ankles and split on either side of her hips to reveal long, slender legs.

Her hair was currently braided. The single long braid traveled to about mid-thigh. Bangs framed her seductively narrowed blue eyes, which had just a hint of red eyeliner to bring out their color and compliment her pink lips.

She looked up as they entered the garden, a smile lighting up her face.

“Jian! Mei! I’m so happy you could make it!”

Zhou Lihua rushed over and hugged them. Wu Jian was distinctly aware of her womanly curves as they pressed against him, and scent of jasmine filled his nose. He banished those distracting thoughts and hugged the woman back.

“It’s good to see you, Lili,” Wu Jian said.

He, Wu Meiying, and Zhou Lihua had been spending a lot more time together ever since the incident with the Ming Family and Feirce Tiger Sect. Sometimes they went to the Zhou Clan Estate, others they spent a day in the Wu Clan Compound, and occasionally they went into Zahn City. It was during one of their trips to Zahn City that Zhou Lihua had complained about how Wu Jian called Wu Meiying “Mei” but still called her Zhou Lihua.

That was when they had come up with the nickname “Lili.”

Zhou Chao had not been happy when Wu Jian called her that when it was his turn to be their bodyguard.

So, of course, Wu Jian made sure to use her nickname several times more than necessary… just to piss the older man off.

“You’re so excited. It’s like you didn’t just see us last month,” Wu Meiying teased.

“A month is a long time,” Zhou Lihua said as she let them go and took a step back. She studied Wu Meiying with a critical eye. “I heard you went into sequestered cultivation. I do remember telling you to work hard and catch up to my cultivation, but I didn’t expect it to take so little time.”

Zhou Lihua was a peak Hunger Realm cultivator. She would likely only need another month or so to reach the Anima Realm. That was another reason she was traveling to the Imperial Capital. Zahn City didn’t have many cultivation resources, nor did it have the ingredients necessary to refine pills used to increase one’s cultivation. The best way for her to break through her current bottleneck was to head to the Imperial Capital where alchemy ingredients were more plentiful.

Wu Meiying puffed out her chest. “Are you impressed?”

“I’m more shocked than anything, but… well, I suppose it’s only natural you’d soar like a Phoenix immediately after breaking through. It makes me wonder how powerful Jian will be once he breaks through.”

Zhou Lihua gave Wu Jian a contemplative look that made him feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t broken through yet. His birthday was still two months away.

“He’ll probably have an even more shocking breakthrough than me,” Wu Meiying declared.

Zhou Lihua giggled elegantly into her hand. “You’re quite confident in his potential, but I am too. Anyway, let’s have some fun.”

Fun with Zhou Lihua could mean any number of things. They would sometimes just stay indoors and chat, and at other times they would travel into Zahn City. Of course, what they usually did was spar.

Zhou Lihua was a kindred spirit. She loved to push her physical limits, to see how far she could go.

Because Wu Jian wasn’t a match for her, Wu Meiying was the one she often sparred seriously with. He would normally watch on the sidelines. It sucked, but there was nothing he could do until he turned sixteen.

Fortunately for him, sparring was not what they did at the moment. Zhou Lihua would have already been wearing her training gi if that was her plan.

Instead, they wandered around her garden as Zhou Lihua shared with them the happenings of the Shang Kingdom. The calming scent of spring flowers filled the air, and a gentle breeze caused the cornucopia of colorful blossoms to sway.

“There’s been some unrest in the capital lately. There’s been talks of placing one of Emperor Hou Jun’s two sons on the throne. I heard from one of the Zhou Clan’s members who lives in the capital that the aristocracy is split down the middle between the two.”

Wu Jian already knew all of this. He and Hou Jingshu still exchanged letters, and she told him everything, including her complaints about her two older brothers.

“Hou Chāo recently declared that he would take over for his father despite being the younger one,” Wu Jian added.

“I’m not surprised you already know this. Did Hou Jingshu tell you?” asked Zhou Lihua.

He shrugged and smiled. “Of course.”

“I thought as much.” Zhou Lihua went silent as they stepped arching bridge. The sound of a babbling brook filled the momentary silence. “It would normally be unthinkable for the youngest son to have any legitimacy to the throne. Tradition states that the throne goes to the eldest.”

“But that’s not the case here,” Wu Meiying added. “Hou Chāo has greater potential than his brother. Despite being ten years his junior, he has the same level of cultivation as Hou Gin.”

Strength was much more important than seniority. It did not matter if the eldest son wanted the throne if the youngest had more potential. That was also how Wu Jian’s father had become the head of the Wu Clan. He challenged Wu Wei for the position and defeated him, which allowed him to become the clan head even though he was younger by several decades.

“What do you think is going to happen?” asked Wu Jian.

Zhou Lihua bit her lower lip for a minute. “It’s hard to say right now. Hou Chāo is clearly stronger than Hou Gin, but he lacks Hou Gin’s capacity to rule. I also hear he has a bad temper. That makes him undesirable in the eyes of many nobles. At the same time, his frank personality and straightfowardness have endeared him to the people, and there are many cultivators who admire his strength. Because of this, their power is evenly split with the majority of noble families siding with the eldest, while the youngest has the support of the commonfolk and the National Imperial Academy.”

“In other words, there’s no telling who’s going to claim the throne right now, but there’s probably going to be a lot of unrest until one of them does,” Wu Meiying said.

“Exactly,” Zhou Lihua nodded. She shook her head, then smiled. “Anyway, why don’t we grab some food, then spar for a bit?”

“Sounds good to me,” Wu Meiying grinned.

Wu Jian sighed. “Guess I’ll watch from the sidelines.”

After a scrumptious meal, Wu Meiying and Zhou Lihua changed into a pair of training gis and fought in the Zhou Clan’s outdoor training ground. Wu Jian sat on the side and watched as the pair traded techniques.

Unlike a battle between people at the Body Forging Realm, a battle between two peak Hunger Realm experts was filled with a myriad of powerful abilities.

Techniques were special abilities that cultivators could use via channeling their chi. Different techniques created different effects. To use a technique, a cultivator needed to draw chi from their dantian, channel it through a specific meridian, and expel it out from one of the acupoints on the human body--most often the hands because those were the easiest to expel energy.

Since Wu Meiying and Zhou Lihua were only at the Hunger Realm, the most they could do right now was fire off chi blasts and use low-grade to mid-grade Earth-Rank techniques. However, both women possessed more chi than the average peak Hunger Realm cultivator, so they could keep going longer.

Their battle brought a number of Zhou Clansmen over. Wu Jian grimaced when several began talking.

“Check it out! Lady Lihua and Wu Meiying are sparring again!”

“Oh, man! Oh, man! Look at those two go!”

“Have you ever seen a more graceful battle?”

“They’re so hot. I wouldn’t mind sparring with them… in bed.”

“If you people keep talking, I’m going to ram my fist down your throat,” Wu Jian growled at them.

“Tch! Don’t think you can tell us what to do just because you’re close to them.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Who do you think you are? My honored grandfather? Mind your own business.”

Wu Jian grimaced, but he couldn’t say much. Most of these people were at the Hunger Realm. They were stronger than him, which meant they had no reason to listen to anything he said.

Well, they’re right about one thing. Those two are graceful.

The way the pair moved was like watching a dance instead of a battle. Wu Meiying spun around and fired off a blast of chi from her right fist. Zhou Lihua avoided it by gracefully dancing away. She fired off her own chi, but it was weaker than Wu Meiying’s. Wu Jian thought maybe she was running out of power, but then she fired a second one immediately after, hiding it behind the first.

I see. The first attack is a feint.

That might have worked on someone who wasn’t Wu Meiying, but she had already seen through the deception. She avoided the first attack, then sliced the second in half by swinging her chi-covered hand like it was a knife.

“Whew. It looks like we’re drawing a crowd, so let’s end this here,” Wu Meiying said.

Zhou Lihua looked disappointed but nodded. “All right.”

The crowd dispersed after the sparring session ended. Wu Meiying and Zhou Lihua went to the bathhouse and emerged some half hour later in their normal attire.

What happened after that was a whirlwind of motion. Zhou Lihua’s father informed them that it was time for her to leave, and so the group headed toward the gate, where two carriages waited. One of them belonged to the Wu Clan, but the other one was the Zhou Clan’s personal carriage, marked by it's extravagant design and the Zhou Clan symbol emblazoned on the sides.

“Looks like we won’t be seeing each other for a while,” Zhou Lihua said.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. We’ll write to you when we have the time,” said Wu Meiying, elbowing Wu Jian in the side.

He stepped forward and coughed into his hand. “We, uh, have something for you. Consider it a small gift to take with you on the road.”

He presented Zhou Lhua with a small box, which she took and opened at his urging. The inside was lined with a soft pillow. A dagger sat on the pillow, beautifully crafted from dark wood and gleaming blue steel. Zhou Lihua’s eyes widened.

“Is this… made from blue steel?”

Blue steel was a type of rare metal. It was often used to forge weapons for cultivators because it was easy to channel chi through.

Blue steel could only be used to create low to mid-rank Earth-Grade weapons, which was perfect for Hunger Realm cultivators since they could not bring out the power of higher tier weapons.

“That’s right. We had our blacksmith forge it for you,” Wu Meiying said.

“I hope you like it,” added Wu Jian.

“I love it.” Zhou Lihua closed the box and smiled at them. “Thank you.”

Wu Meiying elbowed him again. He coughed.

“I have one more gift for you,” he said after a moment.

Zhou Lihua tilted her head. “What is it?”

Wu Jian gestured for her to come closer, and when she did, he leaned up and kissed her. It wasn’t on the lips, which he thought was overstepping his boundaries, but it was just off to the side of her mouth.

Anyone with a pair of eyes could see his intentions.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” roared Zhou Chao.

Zhou Lihua ignored the man’s anger and stared at Wu Jian with red cheeks, but then she smiled several seconds later and placed her fingers against the spot his lips touched.

“You’re bolder than I gave you credit for,” she murmured.

He shrugged. “Fortune favors the bold.”

“That it does,” Zhou Lihua agreed. “However, you are still not bold enough. You should have done this.”

Before Wu Jian could say anything, Zhou Lihua leaned down and kissed him on the lips. His eyes widened. The kiss was too quick for him to return the gesture, but he still felt the lingering warmth as the woman leaned back.

She grinned at him, and Wu Jian knew he was blushing.

“That’s what you should have done. By the way, that kiss is on loan, and it will accrue a ten percent interest each year. I expect you to return it with interest when we see each other again,” she said with a wink.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll do that,” Wu Jian mumbled.

“Good.”

With a grin, Zhou Lihua entered her carriage where her Wong Jiu was already waiting. Wu Jian and Wu Meiying watched as the girl leaned her body outside and waved at them, until she disappeared.

A hand suddenly landed on Wu Jian’s shoulder.

It belonged to Zhou Zu.

Wu Jian felt an incredible pressure as Zhou Lihua’s father smiled at him.

“You are quite bold, young man. I’m very impressed you could kiss my daughter in front of me. One of these days, you and I are going to have a very long talk.”

Wu Jian gulped. He hoped any conversation between him and this man happened after he became stronger so he wouldn’t be bullied by the overprotective father.