As he fell, Hui angled his body so that he’d strike down on the very bottom of Zhang Minyan’s peak. A gentle push from the air counteracted his fall, shoving him away from the peak.

Hmm, that’s the barrier. But what if I kill my qi? Then I can pretend like I fell accidentally on her peak due to blacking out, and Gan Li and Nian Ji can take the blame for leading me here and tricking me into taking the hit.

…not that people generally kill their qi when they black out, but it’s worth a try. I’ve slipped through barriers with this trick before. Besides, this body is wood-element by its nature. It should be easy to absorb the ambient qi and match its signature to fall through the barrier, since obviously the barrier doesn’t exclude the ambient wood qi from leaking out!

Hui killed his qi, compressing it fully down. His body shriveled up without qi to support it, but quickly plumped again as wood qi filled his limbs. The barrier shivered over him, sliding over his body. It paused for a moment on his core, where he couldn’t fully kill his qi.

Hui glanced left and right, then used a tiny bit of death qi and tapped it against the barrier. The barrier absorbed the hit without flinching. Gritting his teeth, Hui drew out more death qi and threw it at the barrier around his core. The barrier melted right around his core, and his core fell in, followed by the rest of his wood-qi-soaked body.

On the far side of the barrier, the thick qi Healer had felt pressed down on him, though this time, instead of feeling oppressive, it warmed him through. He plopped down in a meadow of soft grasses and rolled down the hill. Grasshoppers hopped away, and bits of grass and petals flew into the air. Wrapped up in the herbal scent of the grasses, he came to a slow stop.

Watching Hui fall to the ground on Zhang Minyan’s peak, Gan Li stiffened. Nian Ji looked at him. “What?”

“Er, Young Master, we should leave…” Gan Li muttered.

“What…” Nian Ji followed his line of sight and saw Hui, lying on the peak. His eyes widened. He grabbed Gan Li’s arm and leaped back on his sword, dragging his servant after him as he hurtled away. “If anyone asks, we did nothing, saw nothing…”

“Yes, yes, understood, Young Master!” Gan Li replied, nodding.

Hui laid there, on the side of the peak. Long grasses swayed over his head, a warm amber, heads heavy with grain and flower. Sunlight warmed his skin, playing over his face. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I could lie here forever. I wouldn’t mind that. Rest here and become an herb in her garden…

Abruptly, Hui sat up, slapping his cheeks. Don’t fall into the peak’s trap! Dangerous, how dangerous. For this body, this is a heaven that it wants to sleep in forever… but for me, I have to keep moving. I can leave this body here to sleep once I complete my goal, if it still wants to rest here. But not yet.

He climbed to his feet. Kind of feels like Senior Chen Wuya’s poppy fields, to some extent, except then… then it just felt like an enchantment, and now… it’s an inherent trait of this body, to want to lay in the sun and absorb wood qi.

Of course, it’d be even better if I could laze in a pond in the sun and absorb wood qi, but— Hui sighed. Alright, alright. Let’s stop thinking about it, before I convince myself to actually do it.

He looked around. He stood alone on the peak, without a single person around. The grasses rose to his knee-height, and a gentle breeze blew, a kind counterpoint to the burning sun. High above, white smoke traced to the clouds above. Raising a hand to his brow, Hui peered after it. Looks like I’m alone, aside from that smoke. So… that’s probably where Zhang Minyan is.

Glancing at the sky, Hui paused. I could fly… but I’d rather walk. Maybe it’s part of the peak’s tricks, but… I’ll take it.

As he walked along the peak, Hui came across a stone path. The path meandered through the herbs, snaking left and right up the peak, slowly switching back on itself. Humming to himself, Hui put his hands behind his head and gazed at the sky. The only thing that would make this walk nicer is if Zhubi were here. Ah… and Ying Lin. She’d enjoy this, too.

Hmm… it’s so peaceful. Almost as if Zheng Minyan already decided to close up…

…

Wait, hold on. Wasn’t she planning to do that? And now… now it’s so quiet…

Hui’s eyes widened. He jumped atop his flying treasure and zipped up toward the smoke, flying at top speed. Hold on! Wait for me! Dammit, if you peacefully close up now, I won’t be able to incite an internal sect war, and then I’ll have to take on Gui Delun after he’s consolidated power over the whole sect! I don’t want to do that. Don’t close up yet!

He hurtled over an abandoned training ground, grown over with vines and herbs. A collapsed palace passed beneath him, followed by a thick snarl of vines encroaching on a once-tidy garden. As he grew closer to the smoke, the herbal scent grew thicker and more bitter. A charcoal-like burning smell filled the air. The smoke filled his sky, and still he flew on. How thick is that pillar of smoke? From afar, it looked slender, but the closer I get, the huger it becomes!

Whipping around the edge of a forest, Hui came face to face with a bare, sheer cliff, a flat right angle carved into the side of the mountain as if by a sharp tool. A huge furnace filled up the space, and multicolored flames flickered beneath it. So much heat emanated from the underside of the furnace that it wavered on the air around the round cauldron and blasted Hui in the face the second he turned the corner. His hair flew straight backward, and his eyes instantly went dry.

Blinking against his suddenly-dry eyes, Hui raised a hand against the heat. He squinted down into the land around the cauldron, searching against the blasting, wiggling heat for the cultivator handling the cauldron. A flicker of motion caught his eyes, and he narrowed them. “Zhang Minyan?”

“What are you doing? It’s dangerous!”

A hand closed on the back of his robes, and someone yanked Hui backward. Startled, Hui went limp, letting them drag him away. His flying treasure fell away from him. A meter away from him, it burst into flames and disintegrated. Black ash floated on the wind.

“Another second, and that would’ve been you!” the voice said, annoyed. The force on his collar tossed him, and Hui went tumbling through the grasses for the second time that day. Putting her hands on her hips, a woman loomed over him, floating on the air, her feet planted firmly on nothing. Blinding sunlight scintillated around a black silhouette, outlined by the sun. “What did you think I locked everyone out for?”

“Eh, Senior…” Hui started, then squinted against the sunlight. She’s standing right in front of the sun, and it’s hard to see her, but… isn’t Senior a bit small?

Zhang Minyan descended to land beside him. A broad swathe of white streaked through her dark hair and swirled on her fingernails, black and white twisting like smoke. Crossing her arms, she frowned at him. “How did you even get past the barrier? I thought I cast it strong enough that no one could get in!”

Hui blinked. She’s tiny! She only appears, what, ten years old? Is this really the woman who’s running out of life force, who controls the traditional faction of All-Heavens Sect? I was expecting a wrinkled old granny, not… not someone who barely looks as old as Zhubi!

Though I guess Zhubi is over two hundred, at the youngest… well, that’s just… ahem, his slow-growing race.

She kicked him in the shin with her short, stubby legs. “Dammit, don’t look at me like that. I’m not a kid. Just because that beauty pill’s formula went a little wonky doesn’t mean I’m not the same Sect Elder I’ve always been!”

“Senior, did you always have the habit of kicking poor disciples’ shins?” Hui asked thoughtlessly.

Zhang Minyan drew back her little fist.

“Disciple knows what he did wrong!” Hui cried, cowering. Damn this tongue of mine! Argh, this small clone needs to reign in his speech! I got so used to mocking my fellow clones that I can’t keep my mouth shut when I really need to!

Rather than punching him, Zhang Minyan let out a breath and stepped back, crossing her arms as she perched on a nearby stone. “So how did you get inside? When the furnace started to go critical, I put up a barrier and forced everyone out. That was a hundred years ago, and it still hasn’t popped yet. I can’t leave the peak, because the furnace could go critical at any moment, and if I’m not here to contain it, it could wipe out half the Inner Peaks.”

“Half the Inner—” Hui quickly suppressed the excitement in his eyes, replacing it with horror instead.

“Yes. Well, I’ve set up quite a few contingencies and barriers in the last century, but it’s still a dangerous blast whose bounds even I don’t fully know. When a pill furnace goes critical, it’s hard to know how big the blast will be, and this pill was the most powerful pill I ever attempted to concoct. I wouldn’t feel comfortable allowing anyone in until the furnace blew, which leads us back to how you ended up in here,” Zhang Minyan returned, quirking a brow at Hui.

Hui coughed. “Er, Senior, this small cultivator was flying along when two fellow disciples… that is, Nian Ji and Gan Li, intercepted me. We had a small… disagreement, and my fellow disciples threw me down here, through your barrier.”

Zhang Minyan frowned. “A fifth-stage battle, somehow penetrating my barrier? That’s…”

Ah, well… yes, small disciple did also do a few things on the way in, but ultimately… that is kind of what happened… Hui smiled, offering her a vague shrug as if he didn’t know either.

She leaped up and flew toward the barrier. Somewhat curious, Hui followed after her, tucking his hands in his sleeves. I might as well watch a barrier master at work. I’m always looking for ways to improve my barriers, after all.

Reaching the edge of her barrier, Zhang Minyan flicked her wrist. Her barrier appeared. A series of smooth, interconnecting triangles formed an isomorphic sphere around her peak, blocking off all entry. She leaned in close, inspecting the nearest triangular panel.

In the distance, Hui caught a whisp of black death qi caught in the intersection of two panels. As subtly as he could, he bent his finger, calling it back to him. The whisp of death qi tugged, caught in the panels, but couldn’t escape.

Why isn’t it dissipating? It should have infected the panels, or been negated by them. Why is it still there? He bit his lip, panicking a little bit, and glanced at Zhang Minyan. She wandered along, moving from one panel to the next, slowly approaching his bit of death qi.

I guess it’s too high level a technique? I don’t understand the principles, but I understand that I’m about to get caught! Hui flicked his finger again. This time, a tiny bolt of life qi flew from his sleeve and impacted the death qi.

The life qi and death qi negated each other where they stood, but in the precise intersection of the two panels, a scrap of death qi remained. Hui’s stomach twisted nervously. Shit. She might overlook that, but… she is an expert far above my realm! I can’t rely on that! He darted over, overtaking Zhang Minyan.

“What are you doing?” Zhang Minyan asked.

“I saw something!” Hui cried out. He slammed his hand down on the bit of death qi, directly touching her barrier.

The death qi leaped to his hand. His hand blackened where it touched, the blackness quickly spreading up his arm. Before it could get too far, Hui surged his life qi to the death qi and negated it, ending its spread.

“Idiot! Don’t touch it. You’ll contaminate the barrier,” Zhang Minyan complained. She knocked him away.

Hui fell back. He stared at the panels’ intersection, holding his breath. A small scrap of his qi remained in the barrier, but no death qi remained.

Quietly, Hui sighed out. Phew. I removed the death qi and created an excuse for my qi to be stuck in the barrier. It’ll be a little suspicious, but… it’s better than having death qi with my cultivation signature openly visible in the barrier!

Zhang Minyan peered closely at the spot he’d touched, then sighed. “That’s why I told you not to touch it. Look, now if there was anything there, you’ve ruined it.”

“My apologies, Senior,” Hui said, putting on a contrite expression.

Zhang Minyan narrowed her eyes at him. She harrumphed. “Strange that you’d suddenly go out of your way to touch my barrier.”

“I thought I saw something. I didn’t know I’d contaminate it by touching it. Small disciple has learned from his mistake, and won’t do it again,” Hui said, cupping his hands to Zhang Minyan.

“Mistake, hmm,” Zhang Minyan murmured, narrowing her eyes.

Hui’s heart raced, but he refused to show it on his face. He backed away, putting his hands up. Let’s—not admit that I made a mistake, but pretend like I don’t know why she’s angry! “I… I’ll repay you somehow! Senior, please. This small cultivator doesn’t have much to his name, but…”

She waved her hand, showing him a smile. “I’ll forgive you this once. Make sure you don’t do it again.”

Thank goodness, Hui thought, relieved. He bowed to her. “Many thanks, Senior.”

“But if such a strange mistake happens again…” she murmured, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes.

Hui swallowed. Earnestly, he pledged, “It won’t, Senior!”

Senior! Don’t be so suspicious of this small cultivator! I know I broke through your barrier and then contaminated it, but—but okay, that is pretty suspicious! Still, let’s just let bygones be bygones, okay? Pretend like you didn’t see anything! Hui cried silently.