Hui started to turn away, then froze. I’ve got a bowl from Skybound Peak’s cafeteria up the peak. Isn’t that a smoking gun? I need to get rid of the evidence, stat! “Actually… could you come up the mountain? There’s something I could use your help with.”

“I can’t pass the barrier,” Lao said.

“Barrier?” Hui asked.

Lao stepped past Hui and reached his hand out. The air simmered around his hand, refusing to let him push any further. “The barrier. All the peaks have one. Inner sect disciples are given passes to their own peaks, but… ah, I guess you wouldn’t know. Inheriting disciples are excepted from the barriers, the same as peak lords and anyone above them.”

“Oh,” Hui said blankly. I really had no idea. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“Delivery for disciple Hui,” a flat voice announced.

Hui and Lao whipped around. A girl with grass-green hair and multicolored eyes, one blue, one pink, carried a massive wooden box on her back. With their attention on her, she hefted the box off her shoulder and thumped it onto the ground. She drew a sheet of paper out of her robes and held it out to him. “If you could sign?”

Delivery? It’s almost like being home again and ordering things online, but better, because magic! Elated, Hui bounced over and signed.

Satisfied, the girl nodded and walked off. Hui and Lao turned to the box.

“Order something from Cauldron Peak?” Lao asked.

“How’d you know it was from Cauldron Peak?” Hui asked, looking at the box. There were no markings on it, nor was the wood anything outstanding.

Lao pointed at his face. “Her eyes and hair. Cauldron Peak is our alchemy division. Like the name suggests, the peak itself is a massive pill furnace. The disciples on Cauldron Peak are exposed to pill fumes all day, and it turns their eyes and hair… interesting colors. Sometimes their nails, too. Skin, clothes… anything. I remember a year where they all had blue skin, thanks to some odd pill the Cauldron Master made.”

“Cauldron Master?” Hui asked.

“Cauldron Peak’s equivalent of Peak Lord. Wen Xiaobao is… shall we say, overly literal? She doesn’t like being called Peak Lord when her real role is to manage the massive pill furnace of Cauldron Peak.” He shrugged. “Takes all types to cultivate, huh?”

Hui laughed. If only you met my master. “You can say that again.”

Lao raised a hand and turned to go.

Hui turned to the box. He tried to pick it up, but even his newfound strength couldn’t budge it. Frustrated, he tried circulating his qi into his arms. Hugging it to him, bending his legs, he lifted it off the earth. Arms trembling, knees shaking, he took one step, then another.

Weight shifted. His hands slipped on the wood. The box slid through his hands and thumped down, cutting a pit in the earth.

Hui sighed, looking down at it. Guess I’m dragging it. Damn, how was that girl carrying it? I didn’t feel any pressure from her. She couldn’t have been much higher realm than me, but she made it look easy. Grabbing the backpack-like straps on the long side of the box, Hui dug his heels in and pulled, putting his full weight behind it. The box inched up the slope.

“Hui—”

Veins standing out on his face from the effort of pulling the box, sweat already dripping, he turned, looking back at Lao. “Huh?”

Lao’s expression squirmed. His lips twitched, words right on the tip of his tongue, and then he shook his head. “No… nothing.”

“See you later, then!” Smiling, Hui hefted on the box again, inching another step up the mountain.

Another few steps up the mountain, Hui froze. Wait, the bowl! “Lao, actually—”

Lao was gone. A white figure vanished into the sky, zooming away on his sword.

Damn, I want to fly on a sword. Hui shook his head, plopped another foot down, and hauled at the box again. The wood stuttered over a patch of pebbles, resisting his efforts. Scowling, he hauled harder at it. Then I wouldn’t need to drag this stupid box up the hill. I’d just plop it on my sword and blast into the sky…

I should ask Mast… Lao or elder sister Mei how long it’ll take me to ride on a sword.

The sun hung low in the sky by the time he reached the clearing with his hut. Hui released the box and staggered a few steps, rolling out his shoulders. Without the box to resist him, his body felt twice as light as it had on the way down the mountain.

Letting out a fierce shout, Hui whirled, jumped into the air, and kicked the box over. It struck a rock and cracked open. A pill furnace tumbled out, along with a dozen different cloth pouches.

He grinned. "Ha, take that, dumb box! No one makes this Xiao Hui suffer all day and gets away with it!"

Satisfied, he wandered over to the mess he'd made and picked through it, collecting the pouches, tidying the wooden fragments of the box. At last, he made his way over to the pill furnace. Plain, the rusty red of old wrought iron, its only outstanding feature was its size. The furnace easily stood large enough to reach his knee, and wide enough he could easily sit inside with the lid off.

Hui grabbed the pill furnace and immediately dropped it again. “Heavy!” Circulating his qi, he tried again. This time, he managed to shove the furnace upright. He looked at it, looked at the hut a hundred yards away, then shrugged. I guess I’ll have an outdoor furnace. No way I’m getting it all the way over to the hut without damaging it... Or, more likely, me.

Curious, Hui opened one of the pouches. Green leaves, shiny on one side, dull on the other, awaited him. He pulled one out and flipped it over, then shrugged and put it back away. Another pouch held glowing blue flower buds. Yet another held a loose reddish powder that burst in his face as he opened the pouch.

Coughing, Hui waved a hand in front of his face and backed away, yanking the pouch shut as he did. Let me guess. These are pill materials?

So… where’s the manual? Hui fished around in the box. His brow furrowed. He piled up the pouches beside the furnace, then tore the wood apart.

“There’s no manual?”

A scene flashed through his mind. A flick of a white sleeve. An imperious voice. A disciple of mine should require no hints.

Despairing, Hui fell to his knees. “Master! I’m not a genius like you!”

On his knees, he froze. Wait. Wait, hold up. Lao can’t enter the peak. Sis Mei can’t, either. The only people who can enter the peak’s barrier with impunity are inheriting disciples, peak lords, or better. Who nursed me back to health?

I don’t even know who the other inheriting disciples are. The only peak lord aside from Weiheng Wu who cares about me, hates me. I haven’t laid eyes on anyone loftier than a peak lord, in all my years at the sect. Then… doesn’t that mean…

He stiffened. A dry laugh escaped his throat. I hope Master didn’t mind being called sis.

Abruptly, he bowed toward the direction he’d last seen Weiheng Wu, all those years ago. “Sorry, Master! Thank you, Master!”