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Liu Mingyan can’t recall her earliest memory. Her younger years have congealed into a sludge holding together the childhood stories others have repeated enough times that she has difficulty recalling what is memory and imagination. 

However, a constant thread winds its way through; an arrow she spent her childhood trailing behind. 

Gege’s home! Gege, show me! Gege, help me! Gege, how did you do that? Gege, can I hold your sword? Gege, can you teach me? Gege, when are you next coming home? Gege, I want to join the sect like you. 

Her brother was a more indulgent person than anyone but her knew. He was an impossible standard. He was the rudest person in any given room. He was the kindest man she would likely ever meet. He’s still the only person she can ever imagine trusting completely, entirely, without artifice or shame. 

With Gege she still always tried to be strong, so he would see how grown up she was and how well she was doing, so he would trust her. So their relationship could become more equal and Mingyan could feel accomplished. But the truth is he was also always the person she was weakest around. 

A knock interrupts her thoughts: the novel she is constantly writing, her own autobiography which is somehow easier than actually living. 

“Guniang, are you feeling better?” The door opens to reveal the kind face of her host. 

If Gege could see her now he likely wouldn’t be impressed. 

Mingyan had woken a few shichen previously on a floor mat in a derelict room in a far flung village that she had never intended on visiting. The last thing she remembers is picking a fight with a mask-jawed slug and winning before falling through a natural portal on her way home. Stupid. She just hadn’t been paying enough attention. 

Apparently that portal had flung her further afield to a place she’d never before been. She has an idea that if she heads West she’ll eventually find her way somewhere familiar but currently her qi is too low to summon Shui Se let alone attempt it. Pathetic. 

“I’m well.” She keeps her speech casual, cautious about revealing her status as a cultivator just yet, “Thank you for all your help.”

“Oh please, no need.” The woman smiles more broadly and comes inside, a jar of water in her hands, “My daughter found you collapsed on the ground not far from our village.” She hands Mingyan the jar and she gratefully drinks. Her veil is not on her face which is disconcerting but not surprising. It’s likely one of the villagers removed it to check if she was breathing or it was lost sometime between falling into the portal, losing unconsciousness and being dumped on the other side. 

“I am grateful to you and your daughter.” She hands the jar back to the woman. 

“Is there anyone we can help you contact?” The woman asks, “You were… when we moved you inside you seemed to wake up briefly. You mentioned a brother?”

Mingyan’s countenance has always been comparable to stone. As pure as jade and as chaste as ice. The honest truth is people only view her that way because of the shield of her veil. Without it she can’t help the way her mouth twists downwards at the woman’s innocent comment. 

“Please don’t concern yourself.” She rolls her neck, turning her face away, “I’ll be on my way shortly.” Once her legs stop feeling like dead weight it should be nothing to walk out of the village and keep walking until she has enough spiritual energy to summon her sword. 

“Oh we couldn’t let you-”

“Li’er!” Another woman has run inside. She’s wild around the eyes and panting as if she’s run a long distance. The sour scent of fear seems to flood the room at her appearance, or maybe it’s just the scent of sweat and long periods without enough water for proper baths, “A-Rong has returned, he’s been sent back and-”

“Oh gods. Oh gods.” The woman by Mingyan’s countenance crumbles, “What did he say? What did-”

“The war is lost and they’re coming and-” The other woman scrubs a hand over her face, “I-”

“Oh gods.” The first woman moans lowly. She begins to pray. 

“Li’er come on.” The second woman doesn’t spare Mingyan a glance, “Come with me, we need to get things ready, we need to-”

“Yes. I- Oh gods.” The second woman comes over and puts her arms around the first, pulling her up and half-carrying her away. 

Mingyan sits there on the floor mat and counts in her head, slowly and deliberately. Once she reaches one hundred her body feels stabilised and she is able to stand and leave the room, her steps becoming surer as she goes. 

Outside the hut the village is in pandemonium. People are rushing back and forth, shouting and stumbling. Everyone is a woman. The oldest boy is a toddler. 

Mingyan walks, following the noise and fervour to a group of women huddled in what looks to be the village square. 

“I can send my daughter away to my cousin.” One of the women is saying, “But the journey is still long and the blood debt that would be owed-”

“I would rather kill my own daughter than have her harmed-”

“There must be another way, I don’t understand how this happened-”

Mingyan turns when she feels a tug on her clothing. A girl stares up at her. Older than ten but younger than fifteen, somewhere on the cusp of womanhood. 

“Hello.” The girl says, “You’re the woman I found outside. Are you feeling better?”

Mingyan nods, “Much better. Thank you for your help.”

“That’s good.” The girl seems strangely unconcerned with the chaos around her. 

“What’s happening?” Mingyan asks her. 

“We’ve been at war.” The girl says, “But now we’ve lost so the other side is coming here to take our things.”

“Take your things?”

“Mm, that’s what auntie told me would happen if our fathers and brothers lost. The men from the other village would come and take all our things, our food and our clothes and things like that.”

A rule that had been hammered into Mingyan since birth was the cardinal doctrine of all cultivators: do not interfere in mortal affairs. One cultivator is worth an army. Any man needed only one in his employ to become an Emperor. That was why Mingyan and her fellow immortals lived in their Sects and nighthunted only to defeat demons and monsters; their natural adversaries. 

They did not fight in wars. They did not solve petty squabbles. They did not divert the rains and change the course of history. The delicate balance of life and death was theoretically maintained by their separation. 

Mingyan crouches down so she can be eye to eye with the girl, “Are you afraid?”

The girl shrugs, “No. I’ve missed my Da-ge a lot so I’ve been hoping the war will end soon so I can see him.” There’s a beat as the girl looks away and then back to Mingyan’s face, “You’re really beautiful.” She says, almost embarrassed by the words but compelled to share the sentiment. It’s nothing Mingyan hasn’t heard before. 

“Come here.” The first woman calls her daughter as Mingyan straightens up from her crouch. None of the woman’s good cheer from earlier is present, “Good girl, come here. A-Niang is going to send you to Auntie’s house, it’s a little way away but you don’t need to worry-”

“Why don’t you go with her?” Mingyan asks. She finds herself truly curious, if an army is coming to sack this village then why don’t these women just leave?

The woman looks at her and it’s as though it takes several long moments for her eyes to focus, “I… I can’t. My husband and sons, if they still live… I need to see them again.”

“Li’er.” The second woman from earlier comes over. She looks at Mingyan, almost speculatively up and down, before taking the first woman a little distance away. When she speaks it’s in a mindful whisper but of course she has no idea Mingyan is a cultivator. What an unfair advantage.  

Mingyan flexes her fingers and feels the glimmer of Shui Se in her grasp. Likely she only needs another half shichen before her sword is in her hand. Quicker than before, she’s getting stronger. 

“That woman.” The second woman says, “She’s beautiful. Let’s offer her to the other village’s head.”

“But-”

“She’s more beautiful than any woman in our village, more beautiful than everyone put together. If we offer her, maybe we can reach an agreement for them to leave our own daughters alone, at least spare some of them.”

“I don’t-”

“Li’er think! You want to see your own child in the grasp of some-”

“She’s a stranger! We can’t! And who knows if it would make a difference, it’s cruel-”

“I think it would.” The second woman says, seriously. “Look at her. She’s different, special. I think she might even have noble blood, you can see the quality of her dress.”

“Then surely someone will be looking for her, we can’t just-”

“She’s here all alone, what woman would be found passed out on the ground all alone? All the way out here? We’re nowhere near close to the nearest city, no one will be looking for her. Please Li’er, think.”

Mingyan looks at the second woman, she seems very afraid under he harsh words.

“My daughter is so young.” The first woman says, slowly, uncertainly, “Surely they would prefer me to her and your Lingling is also just a child and-”

“You know that doesn’t matter.”

The first woman bites her lip and shakes her head. She then begins to cry. 

Mingyan turns back to the little girl next to her who has crouched down and begun drawing flowers in the dusty ground. 

“Did your auntie tell you what would happen to you if you lost the war?” She asks the girl.

The girl looks up at her. She nods, “Auntie said that I’ll have to marry one of the boys from the other village.” She makes a face but then shrugs again as if to ask what one could really do about that. Without any further words she turns back to her drawing. Maybe she’s even younger than Mingyan had first considered. 

Mind made up, Mingyan turned to walk over to the two women who were still arguing. The first woman was still crying and the second woman went a little white at her approach but then seemed to set her shoulders as if ready for a fight. 

When next to them Mingyan is more than a clear head taller. 

“I am grateful,” She says, “For your help. I want to understand what would happen when the army comes here.”

The second woman stares at her and then sets her mouth, “They’ll take anything of value, the girls included as is their right, and leave like a swarm of locusts.”

“And your husbands and brothers and sons?”

“The least able ones will be allowed to return.”

Mingyan nods, “Your daughters are… very young.”

The first woman just cries harder. 

The second woman sneers, opening her mouth as if to say something, but Mingyan quietens her by summoning Shui Se. It’s a little early and drains more of her bare pool of qi than she would like but she needs her sword for what she will do. 

“I am grateful for your help.” She repeats. “I could not watch your people be harmed and leave this place with my honour intact. I will see what I can do.”

She leaves before either woman can say anything more and feels a hundred pairs of eyes on her as she walks away. 

It would be much faster if she could fly but unfortunately that’s currently beyond her reach. Besides, travelling on foot gives her time to think. She can’t wade into conflict unnecessarily but if she owes her rescuers a debt then she can see that repaid with their safety. 

She replaces her veil as she walks, tying it securely behind her head and feels herself finally able to inhale fully with it on.

*

She finally meets the approaching army, a ragtag group of around a hundred able bodied men, a shichen from the village. They’re much less impressive than she would have thought and has to re-evaluate her mental picture of conflict in the area; small villages fighting endless long-standing grudges that catch alight every few decades. Only a hundred men on either side, already stretching to accommodate three generations.

Their leader orders them to a stop as he examines her, eyes obviously catching on the glow of her sword. 

“Daozhang.” He calls, “We are not looking for conflict with someone such as yourself.”

He must have already sensed something of her intentions then. 

“This master was saved by the women of the village you intend to sack.” Mingyan responds, “I cannot see harm done to them.”

Before their leader can respond another man comes forward. “It is our right to claim our spoils.”

There’s a moment of stand off.

“What would you have us do daozhang?” Their leader asks, “This is the way we do things here. Their grandfathers did the same to ours.”

“I would ask that you not be unnecessarily cruel.” Mingyan responds. She knows it's the wrong thing to say as she does. Cruelty is unfortunately an incalculable currency, losing and gaining value with each hand it crosses. 

She may see it as unfathomable, a young girl held down by a man old enough to be her father while her mother watches, but there are more sanitary ways that the same things happen in households not too far from her own. Mingyan is still unmarried because of birthright and her dead brother’s longstanding grace. 

She should come to the Sect if she wants to, she’s got a good foundation to be a great cultivator. 

It’s very unfair isn’t it?

The second man that had spoken laughed, “Who are you to judge us?” He sneers.

No one. He’s right, Mingyan has no place to judge. Nothing but a dull anger she’s trying to stifle, kindled at the sight of the crying mother and her absent minded girl drawing in the dirt. 

She could lecture them on cycles of hatred. She could demand that they retreat. She could beat any and every one of them to pulp and they likely know it. 

But where would that lead? They have a village of mothers and wives and daughters and prisoners of war not far behind them, families of their own who would be bereft of their own protectors. 

“When you take something by force it will never go easy.” Mingyan says, “This master was saved by the women of that village and she has heard them speaking. They understand what you will do and are prepared for it, they are only scared for their own daughters who they pray they do not see brutalised. You are reasonable men, can you not understand a woman’s fear and feeling?”

This seems to work so Mingyan continues, as if possessed by the spirit of a woman a thousand times more pragmatic and eloquent than she is who she tries to reach for whenever she can. 

“This master will accompany you on your way.” Mingyan says, “The women wait for news of their own loved ones and are practical. They are not the ones you need to take revenge on.”

There’s a low murmur but again, they couldn’t stop her if they tried so they have no choice but to acquiesce and follow her when she turns and begins to walk back the way she came 

Mingyan has never felt so keenly the disparity of who she is as a person as in moments like this. The lofty immortal with a shining sword and silk clothing. She covers her face but for who? What are those men thinking when they look at her? Do they only listen because of the implicit threat? How long can that hold them back without Mingyan having to put on a show of strength which is something she wishes to avoid? There’s a line when interacting with civilians, no one can criticise putting a hand on your sword to bend someone but raising it to strike is a different matter. 

Thankfully the men follow her and while they do talk amongst themselves it's nothing unexpected. 

When they reach the borders of the village the two women from earlier are waiting for them. Both look to have washed and redressed and the second woman has applied some kind of scented oil and pinched her cheeks so they’re pink. 

Mingyan steps to the side as the leader separates from the group and comes forward. The three of them exchange, to Mingyan’s ears, very candid words. The first woman’s husband is dead but her two sons are alive. The second woman’s son is also alive, there is no mention of her husband. 

The two women look at each other, exchanging a glance and a roaring underground river of understanding that Mingyan is not privy to, before the second one smiles and pitches her voice low and soft. 

“Please follow us.” She bows slightly, tilting her head, “We will do everything we can to be of service.”

They lead the men into the village.

*

When Mingyan was seven and newly veiled, enough that she felt there was a fun novelty to sucking the silk into her mouth and blowing it out again, she had been playing in her families’ gardens when First Young Master Du told her she was being improper by walking around without a chaperone. 

He’d been a great deal older than her at the time, but not yet grown, and when he had turned his nose up at her and called her improper in a leering drawl she had been suffused by an emotion she had no words for at that age.

Liu Mingyan had never been spoken to dismissively before. She’d never been criticised or spoken down to or called anything even vaguely uncomplimentary. She was beautiful and talented and from a good family. And most importantly she had Liu Qingge as an older brother. 

She’d been humiliated and upset in the aftermath. Not upset because of the comment, upset because she couldn’t think of a single thing to say in rebuttal and as a result had just run off to the sound of that boy’s laughter. 

She unwillingly replayed the memory over and over again through the years, as if time would wear it thin enough to puncture; losing all form and hold over her. Unfortunately that hasn’t yet happened. In reality she’ll replay the moment and the thousand and one cutting and spectacular responses she could have given to destroy him and prove that she was someone that shouldn’t be picked on. 

What had happened next is that Gege found her later and she had told him what was said after which her brother had marched off and threatened an apology out of First Young Master Du. The boy had told Mingyan he was sorry but hadn’t looked at her as he said it. Mingyan, holding her brother’s hand, had felt smug and appeased but still a little irritated that all the things she wanted to say back were useless now. 

It was again a few years later that the unfortunate First Young Master Du, a glutton for punishment apparently, had made unsavoury comments about her to another member of his family and been overheard by one of hers. Gege had challenged him properly this time, for her honour to the death, and First Young Master Du had gone white, sputtered and then disappeared at the first opportunity. Mingyan had never seen or heard from him again. 

That’s to say that having someone to fight your battles for you is a common experience. For women, for children, for cultivators, for those who are lucky enough to have Liu Qingge has a brother. Mingyan played a long game of tug of war with the safety of having a protector and the desire to be impressive and spectacular in her own right. 

Currently from her perch, half hidden in the shadows of the hut she had been sheltered in before, she watches her host emerge from another structure with the leader. She’s flushed. Moments earlier wet moans had emanated from behind those walls. Somewhere else the second woman is doing the same. 

The villages’ daughters are clustered in a loose circle, playing in the dirt not far from where Mingyan is standing. Their mothers had ushered them there before they all disappeared in all directions like rabbits burrowing into their warrens, leaving the entrances open behind them. 

Mingyan can’t stop this from happening in any way that works. 

Gege wouldn’t understand that. He’d be disappointed in her. He’d find a way to fix this. Everyone would listen to him. 

Shen-shigu would understand though. She’d stand by Mingyan and understand that she did what she could. That everything is endless and terrible. 

“Daozhang.” One of the girls comes up to her and rocks back on her heels, “Can I touch your sword?”

“Yes.” Mingyan takes it out and flips it over, handle towards the girl so she can rest her fingers on the cool hilt.

“Wow.” The girl runs cautious fingers over the metal and soon most of the others have come up and are doing the same. 

Mingyan, to entertain them, flips her sword showily, sending it away and then using a simple seal to have it soaring through the air. 

“Wow!”

Some of the men who have had their fill of victory stop and watch too. Mingyan flicks a finger and Shui Se sails through the air to bisect an old fence clean in two. Obvious. Bad manners. 

It still feels good to remind these champions how small they are. 

The day drags on. The girls ask to be carried on her sword so she does, two at a time until they’ve all had three goes each. They chatter and screech with laughter. The men never drift closer. The day feels choppy and too bright, bisected by childish joy and adult wariness and the cocktail of conquest and degradation. Mingyan is the fly in the wine. Good. 

Finally, as the sun begins to dip, the first and second women approach her. They lead her away from the village centre and the cluster of their children. 

“Daozhang.” The first woman bows deeply, “Thank you very much for all your help. We will never be able to repay you.”

“Do you want me to go now?”

“Matters have been… sorted out sufficiently.” 

The first woman has a darkening bruise on her neck and walks with a limp. Mingyan forces herself to notice these details, it’s penance. 

“This master is glad.” She responds, “Will you be safe?”

“Yes. Yes I think so.”

“Li’er, you go back and watch the girls.” The second woman says, “I will see the Immortal Mistress off.”

“All right.” The first woman even smiles, “A-Ling, A-Chun and Chu Yi have all received  marriage proposals. There’s much to organise.” She bows and thanks Mingyan once more before she leaves. 

The second woman waits until she’s out of sight. Then she goes to her knees and kowtows in the dirt. 

“Daozhang, my daughter. Please take her back to the immortal mountain with you.”

Mingyan looks down at her; her dishevelled hair, her trembling body, her total supplication. 

She crouches down and puts a hand on the woman’s shoulder, intending to pull her up. She doesn’t go easy and Mingyan stills her hand for fear of inadvertently hurting her. 

“Cultivation is a hard path, you may never see her again or not for many many years. Your daughter will outlive everyone you know.”

“I understand.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s ten years old this past fall.”

“Your daughter may not have an aptitude for cultivation.” Mingyan warns, “She may not be accepted into a sect.”

“Please daozhang, if you were not here my little girl would have been passed between twenty different men today. Please.”

Mingyan can’t look at her pleading expression. 

It’s not my fault. She tells herself but it’s false. 

What would Gege do?

She has no idea. 

What would Shen-shigu do?

Mingyan stares down at the woman’s face and swallows. 

“This master cannot guarantee your daughters’ aptitude for cultivation.” She warns, “But I am able to give her the opportunity to enter and attempt the sect’s trial. If she fails I will bring her back here.”

The woman nods. “Thank you.” 

Mingyan doesn’t think she should be thanked. Her acquiescence feels slimy and invaluable. She feels not as though she’s doing this woman and her daughter a favour but instead as though she’s cursed them though she doesn’t understand why. 

“I will get my daughter.” The woman says, quickly as if she’s afraid Mingyan will run off now that she’s agreed. 

When she returns with the girl it’s clear her daughter doesn’t understand what’s happening. “But A-Niang, aren’t you going to come?”

“Be quiet.” The woman says lowly, “And be good for the daozhang, you must be quiet and respectful.”

“But A-Niang-”

The woman slaps her daughter quiet and then she’s kissing her forehead and hugging her like she never wants to let go, rubbing her cheek back and forth against the top of her child's head. 

Mingyan looks away. 

When the girl is pushed into her care she looks up at Mingyan with large eyes and Mingyan feels the weight of a responsibility she is hard-pressed to rise to. 

“Daozhang is very wise.” The woman says, half to her daughter and half complimenting Mingyan, “She is older than us mortals can comprehend and has seen much.” She bows again, “This one is eternally grateful.”

No. Mingyan doesn’t say. I’m younger than you but I couldn’t tell you that. 

“Hold on.” Mingyan commands the girl who had already had enough of a taste of sword flight earlier that she doesn’t seem nervous. 

Once they’re in the air the girl finally asks, “Where are we going daozhang?”

“Back to my sect.”

“The immortal mountain?”

“Yes.” 

The girl chews her lip, considering it as if Mingyan could turn back now. Her hands are fisted in Mingyan’s robes for balance and the flight will likely need to be broken up into at least two days so she can be fed. 

Thankfully the girl doesn’t look down, keeping her gaze fixed on Mingyan’s veiled face. 

“Is everyone on the immortal mountain as beautiful as daozhang?”

“...Yes.”

“Could I be that beautiful too?”

Mingyan doesn’t hesitate with her answer. 

“Yes.”

“Okay.” The girl nods decisively and then stares at Mingyan for the rest of the flight. “Daozhang is so pretty…” She says it very softly, words fluttering away on the wind. Mingyan catches them even so.

She doesn’t know what to respond and so doesn’t. 

*

She takes the girl to Qing Jing peak and hands her to Ning Yingying who accepts their new recruit with no mention of trials or tests. She imagines Ning-shimei thinks she’s doing her a favour and she is. Mingyan is content to owe her.  

In reality she takes her to Qing Jing because, of all the peaks and their lords, she believes Shen-shigu would understand. 

*

Ironically, the first hundred days of mourning were the easiest. 

The first three years as appropriate for a firstborn son were also tolerable.

After the official period ended Liu Mingyan left the Sect. Fled the Sect was likely a more apt description. With nowhere to direct her feelings she found herself aimless and impotently unhappy. She was a coward of the worst kind; the type of hypocrite who threw themselves into conflict as if that would somehow prove they were brave. 

It was ironic; when writing her stories she’d written about death often, commonly as a tragic backdrop to add colour to a character and heighten the stakes of the toxic back and forth of the  romance of the week she wanted to play with. 

She’d written quite a few explicit narratives where the central dynamic swung around the reveal that love interest A had killed main character B’s sister/mother/brother/best friend/anyone else of significance enough to catalyse an agonising will-they-won’t-they. 

If anyone admitted to killing Gege Liu Mingyan would have done whatever it took to burn their filth off the mortal plane. She would do anything to allow the revenge to wipe her slate clean and finally let her be happy once more. 

Dear Sao Zi, 

Mingyan paused. Ink dripped off her brush and smeared across her characters. It was fine. She wasn’t going to send this. She never sent any of them. 

I saw a horned badger rook today. I didn’t hunt it because I thought I would leave it for later. If you have time we could hunt it together and then get dinner. 

More ink dripped onto the page. Mingyan pressed her lips together under her veil. 

I hope to see you soon. 

I miss him. I had a nightmare last night that he was teaching me to hold my sword. 

Best wishes,

Mingyan 

Mingyan paused. It felt like a bad place to end but she didn’t know what to say. She used to be good at writing and now she struggled to express such simple sentiments. Or maybe it was that the sentiments were actually far from simple. 

She pulled out a second piece of paper and re-dipped her brush. Now it was too wet and bled through the paper, dissolving it into a thick sludge and staining the table below. Mingyan watched dispassionately.

Xiao Ming cried out in ecstasy as the demon serviced his cock with a long skillful tongue. His fingers were huge and thick and Xiao Ming sobbed and the demon laughed and bit him and ripped off his shoulder and Xiao Ming bled out and died right there and the demon ate his rotting corpse and danced on his gave and

Mingyan stopped writing. She stared at the words she had put to paper and pressed a hand to her forehead as if the pressure would be able to do something useful. 

“Madam cultivator?” The inn proprietor knocked on the door softly. His voice was very timid. “Would you like anything? Any food or drink? Madam cultivator has been quiet for some time now…”

Mingyan had holed herself up in this inn room for days with no contact to the outside world. She counted back with worrying effort. A week. She had been here for a week. It was time to go. 

She scooped up the mangled pile of paper, all the half-written scraps and stupid letters and waste of good ink, and stuffed the mess into her pouch.

“I’ll be leaving now.” She announced. Her voice came out scratchy. On the other side of the door the inn keeper made a noise of understanding. “I’ll settle the bill.”

Outside in the corridor she paid the man and left. The sunlight and fresh air burned. She didn’t feel like a real person. 

It would take two days to fly to Cang Qiong from where she was. Three days in the other direction to the Liu clan compound. The demon realm was a week to the borderlands. The horned badger rook had been ambling West when she spotted it. 

She got on her sword, closed her eyes, and directed herself randomly. The wind was very cold against her cheeks. She was going very fast. If she stumbled and fell off her sword now it was likely she would hit the ground very hard. At least break a few bones. 

Mingyan opened her eyes. Moisture streamed from them and it burned. It was easier than crying. 

She wobbled on her sword and took a sharp dive to the left. Cursing loudly she managed to right herself. Her heart was rabbiting and her mouth was open and panting. 

Slowly an expression halfway between terror and euphoria stretched her face under her veil. 

Mingyan turned her sword back to Cang Qiong. 

*

Gege never spent much time in the Sect. It was his signature to be perpetually in motion, out and about seeing and experiencing things beyond the confines of the mountain range. Mingyan now did the same and wondered if people compared her to the late War God. She hoped they did. She wanted anything left of Gege that she could get and that included his likeness. 

She used her flight back this time to mentally compose another one of her countless letters to Shen Qingqiu. It was easier to arrange her thoughts for someone else’s perusal and safer to present them to Shen-shigu’s imagined and critical gaze rather than letting them run wild. 

Dear Sao Zi, 

The white-furred triple spine snake was stronger than anticipated. Or maybe I’m weaker than I thought I was. However, I managed to defeat it and feel good about my victory. I’m heading back to Cang Qiong now and bleeding a little. If the blood falls from this height does it hit the ground or dissolve into the wind? And if it does, am I leaving a blood trail all the way back to the Sect? Will animals lick up my blood left on the rocks far below? How strange. 

I hope you’re well. A harem sounds like an unattractive place to be but I’m sure you have everything under control. I don’t think I would want to share my husband. Or maybe I would. I don’t think I like men that way. I don’t know. I don’t know if it matters. 

I can see the Sect in the distance. 

I can see Qing Jing now. It looks good. 

I can see Bai Zhan. 

I miss Gege. 

I’ve arrived. I’ll write more later. 

Best wishes,

Mingyan

Mingyan’s shoulder had stopped bleeding by the time she returned to Qiong Ding. Her vision was slightly spotty which could likely be attributed to the blood loss. It would clear up once she stopped overextending her qi and began focusing on healing the wound. 

Perversely she wanted to bleed and have everyone see. If she was bleeding then at least the pain made sense. Everyone else was forgetting or had already forgotten. She and Shen-shigu were the last two people in the whole world and she wanted to be held again so badly. 

She alighted her sword and turned to round the corner onto Qiong Ding’s main path when she stopped. There were voices coming up the path and talking about her. 

“Well she’s the peerlessly beautiful Princess Mingyan of course, not even Yue-Zhangmen is immune.”

“Imagine what Liu-shibo would have said.”

“It’s so embarrassing. Why didn’t she just stay on Xian Shu?”

“I think she lost her mind with grief and with it her propriety and good sense.”

“How could Qi-shigu have allowed it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s embarrassing for her most of all though. Everyone knows.”

The voices have travelled far enough away by this point that the last two words are almost unintelligible. 

Mingyan feels sick. She thinks of Yue-shifu’s kind smile and realises she can’t be anywhere near him right now. The thought of his guiding hand on her shoulder makes her stomach roil. 

Everyone knows. 

What would Gege say? What would grandmother say? Does everyone really know? Know what? What is there to know? It’s not true! It’s not true! It’s a lie, I wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, it’s not fair! It’s not fair! It’s not true! 

The Sect had been grief-leeched of colour, but now the shadows twist into mocking shapes. She holds her veil to her mouth and breathes through the fabric.

Does Qi Qingqi think so too? Does she know? Do her former shijie-mei on Xian Shu think so? Mingyan has never been spoken of this way before. Never so unkindly by her martial sisters. She has no idea what to do. 

If Shen-shigu were here, what would she think? What would she do?

Mingyan gets back on Shui Se and goes to Qing Jing. Her wound reopens somewhere along the way and begins to bleed once more. She presses a hand to it and the blood smears and dries a tacky stain on her palm. 

She alights her sword at the entrance of the Peak and coincidentally meets Ming Fan who was just returning.  

“Liu-shijie?” He’s holding some papers in his hands and looks vaguely harassed. 

“Ming-shidi.” 

There’s a long pause. His eyes flick to her wound and the blood on the shoulder. Thankfully he doesn’t say anything, likely knowing better by now. 

“Would you like to walk with me?” He finally asks, drawing his shoulders back and straightening. He almost looks like a grown man like this. 

Mingyan nods, “Yes.”

They walk up the path to the main part of the Peak in silence. 

“Would you like a bandage?” Ming Fan asks halfway to the library. 

“No.”

They walk in silence some more. 

At the library Mingyan follows Ming Fan inside while he shelves some of the papers and hands over some more to a few other disciples. Everyone nods at her and kindly do not say anything about the blood congealing the fabric at her shoulder into a damp and crusty clump. 

“How are your finances doing?” Mingyan asks as they leave the library.

Ming Fan’s shoulders draw up and then down again as he exhales in a rush. “They’ve been… better.” 

“Here.” Mingyan pulls her money pouch out of her robes. She receives a fairly hefty allowance from her family on top of her Sect stipend and never really spends it. Gege would want her to support Shen Qingqiu and by extension her peak. It feels appropriate. Right. 

Maybe if they actually married Mingyan would step in and marry her brother’s widow. That way she could look after Shen Qingqiu properly in Gege’s memory. Levirate marriage; Mingyan had once written a story about it; that tale had been a huge hit with her readership. The agony of a love triangle where one party was dead. 

Ming Fan doesn’t even try to bluster and turn her down the way he had the first few times. His pride is giving way to pragmatism which Mingyan thinks was a long time coming. 

“Many thanks to Liu-shijie.” He now takes the money like it’s his due and immediately moves on to complaining as they cross the peak. “It’s An Ding Peak, they keep sending us subpar materials and that just means we have to buy our own and if Shizun was here she’d march onto An Ding and skin Shang Qinghua like a rat but since it’s me-” He cuts himself off and deflates. 

If Qing Jing wasn’t so fiercely closed off he wouldn’t dare speak about a Peak Lord like that in the open air. Mingyan doesn’t even think he’d speak like that in front of her if she hadn’t given Qing Jing so much money. 

She does sympathise. If Gege were here she could also ask him to skin Shang Qinghua. 

“Ning-shimei?” Ming Fan calls as he opens the door to the bamboo house, Mingyan following behind, “Are you done?”

Ning Yingying appears with a broom in hand, “Here!” She spots Mingyan. “Mingyan-jie, you’re here too.” She then frowns unhappily, “What happened to your shoulder?”

“White furred triple spined snake.” Mingyan shrugs, “It’s healing.” She hopes she appears as stoically unaffected as she feels. 

“You’re going to drop crusty blood on the floor.” Ning Yingying points out, “I’ll get a cloth.”

Ming Fan has sat down during their interaction and is currently flicking through three different books with something approaching despair on his face. Mingyan recognises these as the guides Shen Qingqiu left on Peak management, specifically written so Ming Fan won’t run her legacy into the ground. 

“What’s the problem?” She asks, coming to sit next to him. 

Ming Fan’s eyes flick from one page to another, “Hall Master Jing. I need to expel them but I don’t know how to in a legitimate way. Shizun left instructions but I can’t find them.”

“What did they do?”

“It would be easier if they actually did something. They’re just a pain, undercutting me at every turn because I’m inexperienced and too young and not officially Peak Lord.” Ming Fan glared hard at the book in front of him, “I’m Shizun’s age now when she became Peak Lord! If she wanted him in charge she would have appointed him!”

“Then you’re older than my Ge was when he took his position.”

“Exactly! Just because I’m not a member of the Qing generation.” Ming Fan sighed and deflated, “It’s impossible to go from disciple to master within the same hierarchy. It just doesn’t make sens e.”

“Shen-shigu chose you. Don’t question her judgement.”

“You’re right.” Ming Fan seems invigorated and returns to picking through the books, “Ha!” He finally exclaims, “I could frame them for stealing!”

Mingyan wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, “No.”

“I could frame them for carrying out an inappropriate relationship with a disciple-”

“No framing.” Ning Yingying comes back with a damp cloth that she passes to Mingyan. “Mingyan-jie, that disciple you brought us is doing very well! She’s very fast at running.”

Well, that’s something at least. 

“She asks about you quite often.” Ning Yingying continues, “Apparently she’s seen your bare face though no one really believes her when she says that.”

Mingyan shrugs. 

“You don’t like Hallmaster Jing either.” Ming Fan protests his shimei’s earlier point. 

“Yes but you should get rid of him for a proper reason. Like when he made Lim-shidi cry for telling everyone about how his family might be executed.”

“What?”

“Mingyan-jie you don’t know this story! Lim-shidi’s family was recently arrested because they were framed for trying to assassinate the Emperor.”

“They’re mortals?”

“Mm.”

“How do you know they were framed?”

“Lim-shidi was very sure of it.”

Mingyan considers it, using the wet cloth to clear away the worst of the blood as she does so, “Have you investigated?”

“We don’t have the manpower. And it’s not safe for Lim-shidi to get involved, it would dump Qing Jing in a nest of ants if it got back to the Sect Leader that the Emperor was accusing us of meddling in mortal affairs.”

Mingyan stands, “I’ll go.”

“Liu-shijie?” Ming Fan blinks at her but Ning Yingying is grinning. 

“I’ll go. And when I prove they were framed you can expel Hallmatser Jing for spreading rumours and sowing discord.” Mingyan gestured to the book, “That’s in there isn’t it?”

Ming Fan quickly reads, “Yes it is.”

“Good. I’ll be going then.”

“Wait!” Ming Fan throws his hands up, “You’re still bleeding!”

“It’s healed.” Mingyan rolls her shoulder, “I have a spare change of clothes in my bags. It’s fine.”

“Take some food.” Ning Yingying suggests.

“I’ll stop by the peak kitchens.”

In truth Mingyan feels a lot better to know she’s leaving the Sect. Qing Jing is an oasis but the rest of the mountain is inhospitable. Gege surely didn’t feel this way. He loved the Sect. Didn’t he? 

But… if he loved Shen Qingqiu how could he have loved the place that said such cruel things about her? She can’t reconcile it. 

“Good luck!” Ning Yingying cheers. 

Mingyan hands the bloody cloth back and goes before she can dwell. Lim-shidi’s mortal family likely can’t suffer for much longer before dying. After all, mortals were infamously fragile. 

*

The Liu clan had forgotten about Gege. 

Actually, that was wrong. They were incapable of forgetting about him and therefore to survive they stopped talking about him. Mingyan didn’t want to talk about her Ge all the time anyway. But even so. Even so, how could she be the last person respecting his memory? She was being left behind. Abandoned. Because everyone else was grieving too which was good and bad and unfair and… and didn’t Mingyan have the greatest right? She only had one brother after all. All her other relatives have other equivalents. The loss wasn’t so singular. 

Mother and father had her at least. She had always thought they were close and they were. For immortals they were close. They saw each other with the same frequency now that they always had so why did Mingyan feel that there was something so different now?

A family story was that her Grandmother, struck with grief after her husband’s death, had gone into seclusion. Back then Gege, who was young and tenacious and unbound by anything (fear and social convention included), heard his Grandmother was the strongest fighter in the clan. As a child he had scaled the closed gate of her courtyard and knocked on her door until she came out and acquiesced to his demands to fight. 

That was how their Grandmother had left seclusion the first time. 

Mingyan does not believe it is a method that can be replicated. 

*

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Yue-shifu. It had been a while since she’d seen him. 

He was sitting at her bedside reading correspondance. She catalogued her body and found everything in order or at least healing quickly. 

The Lim family drama had been nothing to cause injury in the end. It was her mistake to decide to hunt the Horned Badger Rook on the way back. She had felt brashly overconfident after her successful investigation and thought herself invincible. Stupid. Gege likely never had to call for help the way she had. Shen Qingqiu too. She was strong. Why couldn’t Mingyan be strong? When would she finally be strong?

“Yue-shifu.” Her voice comes out rather rough. 

“You’re awake.” He smiles at her and passes her a cup of cooled tea, “Have something to soothe your throat first.”

Mingyan nods and drinks without tasting, feeling much better for it, “Thank you.” 

“How are you feeling?” He asks. 

Mingyan closes her eyes, “As good as can be expected, I hope I did not make too much trouble for you.”

“Not at all, I was very happy to receive your summons. If you ever need assistance please do not hesitate.” He was being sincere. 

Mingyan felt abruptly guilty for avoiding him. What did it matter if people whispered that his kindness towards her had a lustful basis? Everyone who had sense knew that wasn’t true. Yue-zhangmen wasn’t the type. Liu Mingyan wasn’t the type. It was stupid. 

It was stupid and thinking about it still made her skin crawl. Yue Qingyuan’s kind attention now felt uncomfortable in ways she couldn’t explain. 

Dear Sao zi. How did you handle this? What advice do you have for me?

In lieu of anything else Mingyan nods and takes another sip of the tea. It’s not very good. “What kind of tea is this?” She asks. 

Yue-shifu’s face brightens, “You like it?”

“Mm, it’s smooth.” Mingyan tastes again, “Delicate but not lacking depth.” Is her very generous description.

“Do you know a lot about tea?” Yue Qingyuan is smiling indulgently. 

“As much as anyone like me would. Maybe a little less.” It depends on who “someone like Mingyan” is. A noble? A cultivator? A disciple of Cang Qiong? 

Yue-shifu stands and retrieves the teapot from the table in the corner. It’s still filled but obviously cooled. 

“This master brewed it himself, he’s glad to hear that he’s not as out of practice as he had feared.”

Out of practice is a… good way to put it.

Mingyan still holds out her cup for him to fill it. “Thank you.” 

“No trouble.” He assures before taking a delicate pause, “Disciple Liu should take greater care while out of the Sect. This teacher understands that these outings are… important to her, however the danger is significant.”

Mingyan nods. It felt sometimes like there was a gap between her ability and imagination, in her mind she was always so much better. 

“This disciple understands.” She assures Yue-shifu, “I was too reckless.”

He relaxes in his seat, “Good. I have no problem with Mingyan’s travels, she should continue as long as she wishes.”

“Thank you.” She says again, sipping her tea. 

“How is your writing?” Yue-shifu suddenly asks.

Mingyan feels herself flush under her veil though she knows Yue-shifu only knows about her safer writing pursuits. He had happened upon her sorting through her box of old stories in her new rooms on Qiong Ding when she was freshly moved and stupidly nostalgic. 

Mingyan used to pull out her favourite brush and write as if by doing it fast enough she could outrun her real life. In that way her discomfort and pain could be fodder for something useful, something entertaining, something even occasionally beautiful. 

Yue-shifu had come in and seen her before she could quickly hide the papers the way she was always primed to do. Apparently Shizun- no Qi-Shigu- had told him Mingyan was a writer. 

“I haven’t written anything new in a while.” She says honestly. The most she had done was outline some self-indulgent drafts in her mind. Whenever she tried to put brush to paper she felt inexplicably exhausted and would give up the endeavour quickly. 

“Then what was the last piece Disciple Liu has written?”

Mingyan looks at his honest, open expression and wants to sustain a real conversation. Yue-shifu is always so kind to her and she doesn’t want to make him feel as though she’s brushing him off. He’s so much more hands off than Qi-shigu and she appreciates that very much. 

“I never finished my last full story. I reached the end of the first arc before stopping and I’m not sure if I’ll continue it.”

“I would be happy to hear about it if you would like to tell me.”

It’s strange to tell someone who isn’t one of her shijie-mei about her stories. She had never even told Gege what her stories were about. 

“The main character is a prince, but his mother was the most unfavoured concubine in the harem. However, that was because his father didn’t know that his mother was in fact the woman who had saved his life when he was poisoned in battle, there was a mistaken identity misunderstanding that didn't get revealed until far later.”

“It sounds quite complicated.” Yue-shifu comments. 

“That’s a back story.” Mingyan makes clear, “The main story is about the prince who finds out that the war that is being fought is actually being staged by his older brother, the crown prince, so that he can collaborate with others to benefit and win merits while trading illegally in the chaos.”

“What a scheme.” Yue-shifu sounds impressed. 

“So he catches wind of it.” Mingyan continues, buoyed by his obvious interest, “And realises that what he needs to do is to leave the palace and go straight to the heart of the conflict to get proof.”

“That sounds wise, I assume it would be challenging for him to convince his father of such a betrayal with no proof.”

“Exactly, so he leaves the palace secretly with the help of his mother who pretends that he’s very ill and therefore he needs to go to stay in a far away monastery to recover.”

“So they’re working together?”

“Yes, and she’s sending him regular coded letters to update him on what’s happening in the capitol. This all happens at the very beginning.”

“A very engaging introduction then.”

“Once he leaves the palace he runs into bandits but is saved by a mysterious masked figure who turns out to be a rogue cultivator with unknown motivations. They join the prince on their journey and the two of them fall in love along the way.”

“I see. It sounds very good, once Disciple Liu is satisfied with it then this teacher would enjoy reading it.”

Mingyan thinks of the scene where the rogue cultivator mercilessly sexually tortures the prince in retaliation for running off on his own and being shot through the shoulder by an arrow. Blood is smeared around for sexual purposes. There’s lots of crying. 

“If I ever finish it.” She’s never going to finish it. 

“Thank you.” Yue-shifu pauses for a delicate moment, “Disciple Liu, this master heard that there were some troubles with Disciple Lim’s family.”

“I handled it.”

“Mm, that is good to hear. This master had considered sending someone to deal with the situation, it is my understanding it’s been hard for Disciple Lim and Qing Jing as a whole.”

Mingyan nods, “If there are troubles with Qing Jing then I can handle it.” 

“This master is grateful for Disciple Liu’s initiative. However she can always rely on this teacher for assistance.”

Mingyan nodded, “I will.” It’s neither a lie nor the truth and she doesn’t know if he believes it either way. 

*

Yue-shifu had first approached her near Jinlan city after she had taken care of some walking corpses and found herself wandering aimlessly in circles, unable to move forward while it was equally impossible to go back. 

“Your Shen-shigu implored this master to watch over Disciple Liu.” He had said, serious but kind in the way his eyes crinkled. 

Gege had always admired Yue-zhangmen very much. Even if Shen-shigu couldn’t stand him she had also never said a bad word against him in public. Shizun always said he was the best of men. 

“Shen-shigu told you to watch out for me?”

“Yes.”

Mingyan had been so touched in that dark cold place inside of her that pulsed with every terrible day she dragged her way through that she almost began to cry. 

Yue-zhangmen had paused delicately before asking, “Does Disciple Liu wish to join Qiong Ding?”

Mingyan had never considered leaving Xian Shu. It had been her home for many years and Qi Qingqi had always treated her very well. But she also found it challenging to imagine going back, surrounded by those that cared about her and who would likely no longer tolerate her debilitating grief. She would be encouraged to move on and, in that place that Gege had helped her settle into, she didn’t know how she would. 

“Yes. This disciple would like that.”

When she next returned to Cang Qiong it was as one of Yue-zhangment’s personal disciples. She never even had to speak to Shizun. She was a coward and always grateful for it. After all, she knew Yue-zhangmen gave her allowances that Qi-shigu never would. He didn’t know her after all. 

And maybe this was better. Able to leave and return at her leisure, chasing whatever missions and hunts caught her eye but with Yue-shifu’s promise to help. 

Like when she was learning sword flight and Gege would hover below her, just in case, to catch her if she fell. Was it wrong for her not to have grown up yet? 

It likely is. Yue-shifu isn’t Gege after all so it’s wrong for her to ask so much of him. 

The constant frigid queasiness in her gut expands. 

*

The next time she sees Ning Yingying the girl has a bandage wrapped around her hand and a healing scrape on her cheek. 

Mingyan frowns and catches her chin before she can say anything, “What happened?” She asks, turning her face to reveal a bruise on her jaw. 

Ning Yingying allows herself to be subject to the scrutiny as though she’s used to it. “It’s fine.” She insists, “I got into a little fight.”

“On a nighthunt?”

“Not exactly.”

“With a fellow disciple?”

Ning Yingying makes a face, “I wouldn’t call those people my martial siblings.”

Mingyan frowns harder. Ning Yingying is kind and cheerful and liable to get along well with anyone. She’s popular in a simple way, a more personal way than Mingyan’s former popularity that she now realises was mostly predicated on factors outside of her control. 

“Not a spar?”

“Not exactly.” Ning Yingying makes a face. “Mingyan-jie, we’re blocking the path if anyone else comes.”

It’s true since they’re standing on the rainbow bridge. Mingyan had been heading to Qing Jing when she bumped into Ning Yingying coming from Qian Cao. 

“Fine. But tell me.” Mingyan insists, letting go of the girl as they begin walking side by side.

“Some people were saying ugly things. I couldn’t help myself.” Ning Yingying’s face contorts into a scowl which looks unnatural on her features. 

“What kind of things?”

“They were saying that you and Yue-zhangmen were having an affair which is crazy! Don’t worry Mingyan-jie, I made things clear.”

They cross and enter Qing Jing. 

“It’s not important.” Ning Yingying insists, though Mingyan didn’t say anything. “And besides, I’m the best person to get into fights. A-Fan needs to be dignified and diplomatic even when he doesn’t want to be.”

Mingyan puts a hand on Ning Yingying’s shoulder, “Thank you.”

“You don't have to thank me. It’s obviously not true. And besides,” She leans into Mingyan’s side companionably, “You’re always helping us. Lim-shidi has a huge crush on you, you know! He called you the living personification of Guanyin the other week.”

Mingyan shakes her head. Admiration from men is not new to her. But perhaps… admiration from a man for saving his family from execution is new. 

“I don’t like men.” She finds herself telling Ning Yingying even though she doesn’t know if it’s really true. Only that it puts up a useful wall between her and that kind of possibility.

“They can be weird can’t they?” Ning Yingying agrees. So casual that Mingyan wonders if she’s missed her meaning. 

“Liu-shijie?” Ming Fan, as usual, is hurrying around with a harried look on his face. He’s with a few other disciples who all greet Mingyan politely. 

“Here.” Mingyan pulls out her full qiankun pouch, “The ingredients.”

“Many thanks to Liu-shijie.” Ming Fan’s expression droops into relief. He’s lost quite a lot of weight. He needs to eat more, or stress less. Eating seems to be a more realistic goal. 

“Thanking Liu-shijie.” The other disciples chorus. 

“You should eat more.” Mingyan tells Ming Fan, “Something richer than whatever fare Qing Jing has, you look gaunt.”

Ming Fan’s hand goes to his face, “Gaunt??”

“That’s what I was saying.” One of the disciples pats Ming Fan on the shoulder, “Da-shixiong, you need to listen to us.”

“Would you like to stay for tea?” One of the other disciples asks. 

“I have to go.” Mingyan responds, “I just came to drop off the herbs. Some demons are kidnapping people around the Borderlands.”

Ming Fan frowns, “We can spare some disciples if you need help.”

“It’s fine.” Mingyan had gotten used to working alone. 

“We need to get some more disciples out into the field.” Ming Fan continues, “Let’s plan an expedition for next time.”

“Alright.” Mingyan isn’t really looking forward to it but she agrees anyway. She’s looking out for Qing Jing after all, Shen Qingqiu would want her too. 

And from his perch on her left, an old imprint of her brother nods in approval. 

*

By the time the Immortal Alliance conference comes around Mingyan has read all of Shen-shigu’s personal cultivation manuals at least three times over. Her favourite is the oldest, all the way back from Shen-shigu’s disciple days, in which the calligraphy is more stylized and relaxed and there are even small doodles tucked in between the tightly packed characters. 

Shen Qingqiu’s style is flat and to the point unless she is writing for an audience in which case it is flowery and referential, beyond reproach when it calls on the prose of a thousand venerated scholars preceding her. 

In her disciple days she was sarcastic and scathing with a kind of confidence Mingyan wishes she could embody. 

When she reads, Mingyan likes to pretend the personal instructions, the hand-annotated cultivation manuals, the blunt edits, are for her. She likes to imagine Shen-shigu is there instructing her personally, pacing back and forth in front of the desk, backlit by the rustling curtains of the bamboo cottage. Harsh and demanding but only because she believes so deeply in Mingyan’s ability to be better. 

The Immortal Alliance Conference has come around again, later than the usual cycle due to last time’s carnage and disruption, and Mingyan is determined to take first place.

She wants to prove something though to whom it's not clear. Gege placed first once upon a time but she doesn’t mean to chase his legacy in that respect. Gege wasn’t built for this boring sanitary contest anyhow, he was better suited for real adventure of the type Mingyan is finding she struggles with. 

She wishes he was still here so she could speak to him, could ask him, could have him explain to her how…

All these people she meets. All the places she goes. All the conflict she fails to solve.

She can hunt one monster and slay three demons and still find a settlement turn its pain inwards and cannibalise itself. These mortals want her help but don’t know in what form and unfortunately Mingyan is finding herself too young and stupid for the weight of it. 

How does she save people from themselves? How does she solve real conflict, the type she’s learning demons have little to do with. Is being a cultivator really… useless? A life she’s born into and therefore a society she must stick to. Her relatives who left the clan for a mortal partner, how do they survive? Why did they do it?

Shen Qingqiu has written about it. A short scribble in the margins of that earliest manual, characters tripping over each other as they raced down the page. 

Cultivators famously live on mountains or stand on the roof of their palaces to look down. That is the only lofty height they can claim. In reality humanity and all its lamentable weaknesses do not get left behind at the foothills. It’s part and parcel to having blood, being made of flesh. Mortals need to eat and sleep to avoid death but don’t cultivators need to meditate and train to avoid qi deviation? In many ways the feelings all remain: the pride, folly, greed, lust, vengeance. All the humanity that should be left behind sticks like burrs to our robes the same as it does to theirs. 

Mingyan knows she’s right. The anger, the arrogance, the unfulfilling weight of her own existence, the futility of immortality. She feels all of it. 

Shen-shigu, would you call me weak or would you agree? How did you survive this? How did you survive immortality? No one else seems to struggle, what am I doing wrong? 

“Liu-shijie?”

She turns to Ming Fan. 

“Do you feel confident?” He asks.

They stand at the precipice of the arena together. 

Ming Fan won’t be competing. He’s dressed resplendently and looks very much as though he should be standing amongst the other Peak Lords watching their disciples’ progress. However his fingers are tugging the edge of his sleeve, a nervous tic. Mingyan reaches out and stills his hand, pulling his grip off the cloth. 

“I’ll take first place.”

Ning Yingying, who has just walked up to hear that, laughs, “Confident! I like it!”

What they don’t know is that Mingyan has a foolproof way to win. Her stomach swooshes but she feels a kind of pre-natural calm settle over her as she gazes across the field and her assembled competitors. The worst thing that could happen already has and perhaps if she does this Gege will rise from his grave to scold her. 

“Well I hope so.” Ming Fan straightens his shoulders, “I’m betting money on you!” He announces to Mingyan, “So please win.” His voice loses fervour towards the end and he sounds a little embarrassed even. 

Mingyan can’t help but smile behind her veil. Her eyes crinkle and she hopes her sincerity is conveyed clearly, “Thank you. Your faith in me won’t be misplaced.”

The War God’s sister. She hears someone say behind her. But he’s dead. 

I was almost Shen Qingqiu’s sister. Mingyan thinks with fierce conviction as she begins to walk to the arena’s entrance. And she’s still alive. So you should keep Gege’s name out of your mouth if you aren’t going to mention her too. 

But of course not everyone knows what Shen-shigu was to her and if they did it would likely only make more trouble for her with her demon husband. 

Mingyan hopes Shen Qingqiu hears of what Mingyan will do today and that it will makes her smile or laugh or even… proud. 

*

In her notes Shen Qingqiu had called it the spiderweb. It was a method she had used to rank first in a small contest between sects when she was a senior disciple. She had never used it again despite its effectiveness. 

The method is simple in theory, it’s just the talismans themselves that are tricky though Mingyan is copying Shen Qingqiu’s designs so for her all it takes is time. She wonders how long it took Shen-shigu to invent. 

Through the contest Mingyan defeats the obstacles the usual way, beating other disciples to the punch and racking up points as she goes. As she goes she also sets her pre-prepared talismans alongside the mental map she has in order to create her spiderweb. 

If this doesn’t work it’s no problem. What she’s going to do won’t win her the competition, not truly in any way that matters. It’ll overshadow her legitimate points with spectacle but that’s what she wants. More than winning she wants to win like this. 

Final talisman in place, Mingyan travels back towards the centre of her arena, her formation, her spiderweb. Apparently spiders can sense any movement on their web through the delicate twang of the strings. The centre of their own created universe. 

Aren’t all humans the same? Is Mingyan the protagonist of her own story or a side character in a novel she’ll never be objective enough to conceive of let alone read? The War God’s meimei. Qing Jing’s source of funds. Shen-shigu’s almost sister. Yue-shifu’s substandard mentee. Mingyan is now a charitable cause who tries to imagine she’s doing good. Swallowed by a wider narrative she can’t begin to control or shape.

If she was the spider she would have woven a better tale. She’s sure of it. 

The spirit eagles circle ahead. They’re like vultures. Everyone is a vulture. That’s why she’s doing this. If Gege was alive she wouldn’t have to. But he’s gone and he’s left her to this and Shen-shigu isn’t here so Mingyan-

She stares down at the last talisman she’s placed on the earth in front of her. 

Mingyan raises Shui Se above the talisman and her sword glows ice white in the fluttering daylight. Her shining companion. Her last connection to a life she doesn’t think she’s made for. Real violence is beyond her, enlightenment and ascension similarly so. She can only manage cheap imitations and hypocritical stumbling. There’s no purpose to cultivation now that she’s not chasing Gege’s shadow, revelling in the moments they would share the same shade. 

There’s no purpose when Shen-shigu is set on her own path. When Mingyan is failing and floundering and unable to do anything useful to better a world that seems rotten at its core. 

Her hands are steady but her vision wavers and her head feels too hot and the back of her neck ice cold. 

Even so her sword strikes true. 

*

“It was certainly an… innovative display of skill.” A minor sect leader darts a glance to Yue-Zhangmen as he speaks. “Your disciple is a credit to your sect.”

Shen Qingqiu’s spiderweb had succeeded beyond Mingyan’s wildest, most indulgent imaginings. The branching lines of qi had caught each talisman and like dominos they had lit up and electrified the ground between them, turning the whole arena into a single trap against any spec of demonic qi in its midst. If that demon had been present at this conference he wouldn’t have been able to hide either. That’s a good thought. 

“Many thanks.” Yu-shifu’s expression is smooth and congenial. He’s defending Mingyan. He’s praising her. 

When Shen-shigu did this she hadn’t been praised by anyone. She had been accused of playing dirty, circumventing the rules, humiliating the other contestants and ruining the competition for no good reason by stealing all the prey. 

Mingyan’s hands curl into fists. 

She could loudly declare it was Shen Qingqiu’s method, that Mingyan was following her shigu’s legacy, she could open her mouth and tell them all what hypocrites they are and remind them that Shen Qingqiu is still far away in the demon realm all alone when she should be here. With her disciples and Mingyan and her books and-

The conversation has moved on. Yue-shifu gives Mingyan a congenial nod in dismissal so she leaves. 

Winning the immortal alliance conference feels like the most useless thing she’s done no matter how much money she managed to make Ming Fan. 

She feels so hollow. There’s no triumph in her. She just feels… disappointed. She had imagined that maybe someone might stand up and say something real. That Mingyan’s audacity might have provoked some honesty. That Shen-shigu had snuck out of that demon’s palace and hid in the audience to watch her and when Mingyan stood up, beads falling on the arena like rain, too many for her to ever scoop up for her bracelet, she would clap and cheer and run down and sweep Mingyan into her arms. 

Well done Mingyan. You did it for me and I’m grateful. Thank you for never forgetting about me. 

I could never forget about you. Mingyan would say as she clutched her back. I ranked first amongst all the junior cultivators, I’ll fight that demon for you, please come and be a family with me. 

It’s such an embarrassing fantasy. Shen-shigu would never act that way. 

So why is she still running her teeth over the idea as if to ferret out any lingering sweetness she can possibly still suck from it?

*

“Good strike!” The call comes as Mingyan has felled the many headed hawk; its corpse topples to the ground sending leaf litter upwards in a soft cloud. 

She frowns and turns, keeping her sword up. Something about that voice-

“Demon.”

“Sha Hualing.” The demon says with a wide grin, showing off sharp teeth. She even salutes like cultivators do though it’s clear the gesture is meant to be irreverent. “We’ve encountered each other previously, even fought, but unfortunately we never had the chance to really meet.”

Mingyan turns to leave.

“Don’t be so rude!” The demon calls, “I was praising you!”

Mingyan doesn’t have time for the praise of demons. Especially not this one. 

She doesn’t even remember their fight properly though she knows intellectually this was the one who tried to invade Cang Qiong. The one she lost against. She remembers red silks and that smile with all teeth. But the fight and everything else and-

Gege had died that day. 

Or rather he had died the day previously and Mingyan hadn’t even known because he’d been in the caves proposing to Shen-shigu and she’d had to carry his body out and-

For many shichen her brother had been dead and Mingyan hadn’t even known. The cosmic shift that should have signalled his death had passed her by and she had stayed with her fellow disciples, laughing and writing and training and unaware, while his body grew cool and he gave Shen-shigu his last words to be passed on to Mingyan much later. 

“What do you want?” 

“This Hualing was just passing by when she happened upon you…” The demon twists her hands behind her back and pouts visibly, “Wouldn’t it be rude not to greet you?”

“We don’t know each other.”

“A single fight is more than enough for an acquaintance.” The demon says with a wide toothy smile. “Jiejie-”

“Don’t call me that.” Mingyan steps onto Shui Se.

“Wait!” When she looks behind her Sha Hualing is holding out a hand, “Why are you going so quickly? Hualing didn’t offend you did she?”

“I have no interest in speaking to demons.”

Sha Hualing pouts, “Cultivators. You’re all so stuck up. That Shen Qingqiu is the same, keeps to herself an-”

Mingyan has reached her before she can finish speaking.

“Shen Qingqiu?” She fists her hand in the front of Sha Hualing’s silks and bunches the fabric up. One of the woman’s breasts falls out. Mingyan pretends not to see and Sha Hualing seems not to notice. 

“You knew her?”

“She was my martial aunt.” Mingyan grits her teeth, “She would have been my sister-in-law.”

“Really? She was going to marry into your family?” Sha Hualing seems to be putting together some pieces in her mind and whatever picture she makes satisfies her because she nods. “That explains why all she does is stare into the distance and tell Junshang to get lost. Who was she going to marry?”

“My brother.”

“Your brother’s dead.”

Mingyan’s hand clenched tighter. With every breath Sha Hualing takes her breasts heave. For a demon the flesh looks soft. Human even. Her nipple is hard. Her skin is smooth. Mingyan has never seen another woman’s breasts but her own before. 

She kicks those useless observations away and presses Sha Hualing, “How is she?”

“Good. Junshang pampers her so she has a lot of jealous eyes on her but I’ve personally never seen a woman who seems to care less.”

“Pampers her?”

“He’s always bringing her things and did you know,” Sha Hualing’s voice drops and becomes conspiratorial as if they have those same jealous eyes on them right now, “He compared a few of his other wives to her, can you believe it?” She sucks in a deep breath and drops her voice in what is supposed to be an imitation of the demon’s, “Shen Qingqiu would never act that way. Shen Qingqiu is so graceful. You should mind Shen Qingqiu’s example.” Sha Hualing bursts into peals of laughter. “He doesn’t even call her Consort Shen! Always Shen Qingqiu as if she’s not just his wife!” 

“Is she alright?” Mingyan pulls the demon closer. She can feel Sha Hualing’s breath against her veil, ruffling the thin silk. 

The demon makes a face, “I hardly see her so-”

Mingyan can’t take it. She lifts Sha Hualing up by the front of those flimsy silks and slams her to the ground. The silk rips so she shifts her grip to the demon’s neck, “Answer my question.”

Looking up at her Sha Hualing’s eyes are wide. Mingyan doesn’t let herself feel guilt for what she’s done. This is a demon. The worst kind. The one who was there when her brother died. Though Sha Hualing wasn’t involved she can’t help but feel those two facts coalesce into each other, the timeline of events bleeding out and dissolving into sludge. She swallows it down. 

Unexpectedly Sha Hualing begins to laugh, “Ah Immortal Mistress!” Her tone is pitched high and whiny, “Please don’t hurt this one!” It then dips into something low and smooth, “At least be gentle…”

Mingyan doesn’t pick up the innuendo immediately and when she does she has the queer sensation of living out a scenario she’s written countless times. 

Please be gentle.

Why did she ever write anything if she didn’t know what it meant? 

Sha Hualing must sense that Mingyan’s not going to say anything in response because she pouts, “Forcing me to talk about other women when Jiejie is holding me…” She rolls her eyes up dramatically, brows drawing down. If she wasn’t so clearly a demon she may even look pretty. “Shen Qingqiu is fine. She’s been poisoned but has recovered completely.”

“Poisoned?” Mingyan’s fist clenches on Shui Se.

“She’s fine. Just for jealousy.” Sha Hualing makes a face, “Junshang had the perpetrators confined. I said he should skin them, make some real entertainment of it, but he’s shockingly tame within the confines of marriage. Such a shame…”

“How do you know all this?”

“Why, he’s my husband of course!”

Mingyan steps back. She’s disgusted. Disappointed even. Does Luo Binghe own every woman in the world? Who’s next?

She doesn’t think she’s ever hated anyone as much as she hates him which is funny because when they were disciples she didn’t hate him at all. He was Qing Jing’s handsome shixiong who could be trusted to keep his eyes and hands to himself when he visited Xian Shu. A good man. Who has now betrayed her good opinion. 

There’s a gap between that beaming boy and the demon he is now. The one who took Shen Qingqiu from her. Who took the last of her brother from her. 

“Jiejie! Where are you going?”

“Don’t call me that.” Mingyan doesn’t look at the demon, “Enjoy your marriage. What little it's worth.”

If Sha Hualing responds, Mingyan purposefully does not hear. She leaves the demon in the dirt with her ripped clothes and exposed breasts and pouty smile. 

If she wasn’t a demon she could almost be beautiful but Mingyan’s disappointment has queerly stretched to encompass her. If Sha Hualing didn’t want Mingyan to leave she should have chosen a better husband. She should have made different choices. She could have. She was strong enough to attack Cang Qiong wasn’t she? Didn’t she have her own army? Why would someone like that ever need to lower herself to marriage? 

It wasn’t like Shen-shigu who hadn’t had a choice. Who had been condemned and martyred herself for a cause she believed in. 

For someone to have the choice and still decide… that’s one thing Mingyan can’t forgive. 

*

“Mingyan-jie?”

Mingyan grunts in response, kicking the training post hard enough that the ground trembles. Thankfully the goods on Bai Zhan are a little sturdier than the rest of the mountain so the wood doesn’t immediately crack. 

“Do you want to come to Qing Jing later? We could have dinner?”

Mingyan shakes her head, “Training.” She responds and her next hit finally causes the post to start splintering. 

“Mingyan-jie.” Ning Yingying comes forward and her hand on her arm arrests her, “You know you could talk to me?”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“No?” Ning Yingying frowns at her, the expression incongruous on her soft face, “You haven’t been speaking to anyone have you? Your shimeijie from Xian Shu said you avoid them, ever since you went to Qiong Ding but more so recently.”

“I’ve been busy.”

It’s true but as a response to Ning Yingying’s implicit question is a lie. She’s become the kind of bitter person that can’t stand the joy of other people while she feels so laid low. She doesn’t know if recovery is possible at this stage and anger is supremely better than apathy. 

She would only be rotten company. It would be better to allow others to preserve what little good feeling they still had for her without spoiling it. 

“Mingyan-jie… you know we like to see you on Qing Jing and even if you’re a disciple of Qiong Ding now Xian Shu still misses you…”

It’s hard for Mingyan to judge how close she is to people she doesn’t see often. On Xian Shu when she lived side by side with her martial siblings it was easy to keep connection going on a steady upwards trajectory. But when she spends so much time here and away she finds it difficult to comprehend if Ning Yingying sees her as a real friend. How should she act around her? Mingyan isn’t sure and that makes her feel awkward. 

Does Ming Fan think of her as a friend or just as someone who barges her way into his company and forces money on him? Mingyan can’t be sure. She can trust her feelings. 

“Bai Zhan doesn’t have a Peak Lord.” Mingyan says shortly, “It’s good for me to be here.”

“You want to take over Bai Zhan?” Ning Yingying’s expression clears, “Well you’re definitely strong enough to!”

Mingyan isn’t taking over Bai Zhan. She doesn’t even spar with the disciples of this peak when she’s here; what disciples are even still left under the care of hallmasters who avoid her eyes. When Gege was around he’d instructed everyone on his peak so well to mind her that the deference still sticks even now. 

He’d never even said it out loud. He didn’t have to because he was Liu Qingge and everyone needed to follow his lead and respect him just by virtue of who he was. 

“Then it’s good for you to spend time here.” Ning Yingying has continued, “But we miss you, A-Fan does even if he doesn’t say it! You should come more often, okay?”

Mingyan nods just so Ning Yingying will leave because she abruptly wants to be alone with a desperation that’s wounding. 

As dusk falls Mingyan doesn’t go back to her chambers on Qiong Ding, instead she goes to Gege’s residence on Bai Zhan. There are no disciples to sweep the floor and air the rooms like there are on Qing Jing. This place is a mausoleum, not a monument. 

She takes care to step in the same footprints she’d left before rather than sweep up new clouds of effervescent dust. Still, to prevent coughing she holds her breath. 

In Gege’s sleeping chamber there’s a chest in the corner where he keeps things from their Liu clan. Inside are rows of unused tonics for strength and resilience. There are old letters from Grandmother and Great Uncle. There are even ones from Mingjing and Mingli. Maps made by their relatives and old cultivation manuals that Mingyan imagines had been pressed on him when he’d first left their natal estate for the Sect. 

And from Mingyan there are paintings she had completed on Xian Shu. There are trophies from her first few hunts and pieces of embroidery she did for him. Handkerchiefs and scent pouches. The oldest of her letters written for him back when he was still a disciple. Clumsy characters. Silly little drawings. 

I miss you! Come home soon! Bring me something cool! 

He has a desk he rarely uses. Mingyan had borrowed it a fair few times when he was away to write away from the prying eyes of her friends. No one bothered her when she was hiding out in Gege’s house and after a while she began to find fresh ink stones in his drawers, left for her infrequent visits. 

Mingyan lies down on the floor next to the bed. Her body slides perfectly into the imprint she had left previously.  

Staring up at the dark ceiling her mind is blank and buzzing. 

Life is happening somewhere outside the door of this room. Shen-shigu is a thousand li away under a different sky. Ning Yingying and Ming Fan are having dinner and organising their peak. Yue-shifu is likely still working. Her shijie-mei on Xian Shu are getting ready for bed. Her remaining few relatives are spread out across the world chasing adventure. 

Is Sha Hualing in the same palace as Shen-shigu with that demon? Is she in his bed right now with her soft skin and tight nipples and conniving smile? 

And while life is happening, while the Heavens and Earth continue to rise and fall, while the sun shines and the moon dims; through it all Mingyan is lying on the floor in her dead brothers’ house searching for her memory in his belongings. Searching for signs he loved her too lest she begin to hate him too much for leaving.

Because she can’t begin to allow herself to admit it, that he had disappointed her, that he had left her and that she’s deathly afraid that his memory will slowly begin to curdle in her mind. 

Her grief is like rot and since she can’t seem to successfully cut it out of her the mould is spreading, taking over everything in her life, memory included. 

Even self-awareness can’t save her now, so it’s better to remain unknowing. 

*

“Jiejie!”

Mingyan doesn’t respond. 

“Jiejie!”

Mingyan speeds up her stride but doesn’t board Shui Se to fly away. 

Sha Hualing finally chases her down and puts a hand on her shoulder, “Liu Mingyan!”

“What?” Mingyan turns towards the woman, something hot in her stomach that doesn’t yet have definition. 

“I want to speak to you.” Contrary to what Mingyan had expected, Sha Hualing looks serious. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

Mingyan finds herself unnerved by the demon’s stoic expression. “No.”

Sha Hualing gestures for her to follow, leading Mingyan even deeper into the wilderness away from even animal whispers. When she finally stops, Mingyan alongside her, the demon does something that could be described as hesitating. Hesitation from this brazen figure only makes Mingyan feel more uneasy. 

“Tell me what you want to say.” Mingyan pushes, impatient and slowly terrified because she doesn’t know why Sha Hualing would approach her with that look on her face and then not speak. 

She abruptly wants the demon to laugh and tease and call her Jiejie and pretend this is all a game because they have nothing in common, nothing Mingyan could ever need from her apart from-

The demon pulls a thread of gems out of her waist pouch. She takes Mingyan’s hand and pours it into her hold. 

The bracelet glitters. Familiar. Sweet and nostalgic. The call of her grandmothers’ qi from Gege’s wrist. The promise clasped around Shen Qingqiu’s. The last time Shen-shigu had held her hand and wished her goodbye. 

“Shen Qingqiu is dead.” 

Sha Hualing doesn’t let go of Mingyan’s hand. Her nails are long and black and her palm is smaller than Mingyan’s. It’s soft. 

“Her body was found in the gardens by an ally of mine, they knew what the bracelet meant and took it before she could be found by anyone else.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

Mingyan’s hand, the one not held, clenches closed. Her fist is numb. Her stomach is cold.

“Don’t lie.” She brings up Shui Se and holds it out between them. Sha Hualing lets go of her hand and stands back. “Why would you even tell me this? What’s the purpose? Don’t lie to me.”

Sha Hualing shakes her head. “They’re not going to announce her death so I shouldn’t have told you. If I’m found out Junshang won’t be pleased with me.” Her voice lilts and the tinkle reverberates through Mingyan’s skull painfully. It’s fake. She’s fake. This is all fake. 

“Shen-shigu isn’t dead.” She repeats, “She’s strong. She wouldn’t-” She pressed a hand to her mouth to stop herself from retching up more than words. 

“I don’t know how she died. But-” 

“That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter how she died. She can’t-” Mingyan turns around and puts her back to the demon. A fatal error Gege would scold her for. “What do you want me to do?”

“Huh?”

“If Shen Qingqiu is dead then whatever peace treaty her marriage underlined is useless. I’m going to kill your Junshang.”

When she turns Sha Hualing’s eyes are wide before they narrow. “Jiejie, you-”

Mingyan has been so angry for so long with nothing to do with it. She’s been incubating her righteous fury and stoking it with every injustice she encounters, every loss, every new moment life slaps her in the face and shows her just how powerless she is. 

The failures always feel worse than the victories. Why can’t they come out even? 

Why does feeling worse feel easier than feeling better?

“How long has she been dead?”

“Three weeks.” Sha Hualing steps back, “Junshang has secluded himself with her body, rumour is he’s attempting to revive her.”

“No. He isn’t allowed to bring her back if she’s gone.” 

The righteous unfairness of Shen Qingqiu still being pulled at that demon’s whims even in death is exquisite. Mingyan won’t allow it. 

If need be she’ll let this be her last righteous act on this mortal plane. The only useful thing she’s ever accomplished in her whole gods forsaken life. 

*

She wastes qi battling the guards at the front gate when she should have just barrelled past them. There’s no strategy to her fight. She should have planned this out more carefully. 

The miasma of the demon realm is hard for her to take. Her breathing only eases once she’s inside the palace and the air is clearer. Humans can’t live here, how did Shen-shigu survive? 

But she didn’t- it’s the wrong question- it’s-

Mingyan fights because it’s the only thing she knows how to do. It’s an inheritance no one had judged her possessing: the Liu clan fight that Gege had enough of to carry their whole Ming generation. 

Mingyan was strong but she was a member of Xian Shu peak. She was beautiful. She was a writer. She was an artist. She was beautiful. She was beautiful. 

The palace burrows underground like a termite mound. The demons crawl out of the walls like spectres. When she enters the harem, the inner palace, the first women she sees are humans. Non-cultivators who scream and scatter at the sight of her. 

The demon women look at her out of the sides of their eyes and step away, as though she’s not even there. 

One or two of the cultivators call out to her as she passes but they don’t want to get involved. No one wants to get involved because no one cares and the world is made up of people who don’t care and one day they’ll all wake up and realise just how wrong they’ve all been because if you don’t care they’ll be nothing left and Mingyan is here because she cares so much and actually what good has that really done here when there’ blood dripping into her eyes and soaking her veil which is getting caught in her mouth with every heaving breath?

Mingyan is here because she cares. Because if she’s going to die she’ll do it while holding Shen-shigu’s corpse. Because ultimately she doesn’t want to die all alone. 

If she dies she wants her last view to be the same as her brother’s. 

*

By the time she reaches the bed chamber Mingyan is barely standing. Or maybe that would be the case if she wasn’t so angry. Her fury is a carrying force, her rage a lifeblood. Luo Binghe could kill her right now. He could do it with ease. She’s too beaten to fight back after finally clawing her way into his inner sanctum. 

“She never wanted you!” Mingyan snarls. She gets up close and pushes that demon back with her hands on his chest. He physically stumbles, “She could never have loved you!”

Luo Binghe is looking at her, blank faced, and it’s not what she wants. She wants to hurt him so badly he’ll never recover. She wants to hurt him in ways that are worse than death. Mingyan thinks, suddenly with heat, that if she had the choice to kill him now or just hurt him so badly he cries she would choose to hurt him. 

Up close like this he looks so familiar she feels off balance, caught between the face she knows and the reality of what he’s done, what he is. When she heard he had died at the conference she’d spared a thought for him, sent up a prayer for him. What a waste. 

“She never wanted you.” Mingyan repeats. She pushes him again and he moves back once more. “She loved my brother.” 

The demon’s mask finally wavers as if he’s truly affected. As if someone like him can experience real emotions. Seeing an opening she digs in further. 

“Gege and her were in love, real love .” She repeats, “They would nighthunt together as disciples, he proposed to her and she accepted. If he lived they would have married, she would never have looked at you in any way if you didn’t force her to. You’re disgusting.”

When she pushes him again he moves back once more. He doesn’t raise his hands to strike her so finally she shoves past him and reaches for the bed curtains. She can see the shape of a body just beyond the diaphanous fabric and it has to be-

One tug rips the gauzy silk and leaves it hanging in shreds. 

Shen Qingqiu’s corpse lies on the bed. Mingyan’s whole chest aches like someone has caved it with one vicious hammer blow.

She should be laid to rest in the Sect’s Mausoleum with full honours alongside Gege. It’s awful, a disgusting perversion of the natural order to do this. The thought of Luo Binghe keeping her dead body to be disrespected and tossed around makes Mingyan want to scream. Can’t it be enough? Can’t it ever be enough? He stole her and raped her and took her life and he still wants more. 

“When you stole your time with her she was thinking of my brother.” Mingyan tells that demon who stands somewhere behind her, huge and looming and pathetic. She’s merciless in her delivery, “Everytime you looked at her she was looking past you at him. Right now her soul has reunited with him on Naihe bridge and they’ll reincarnate together and spend every life together after that.” Her anger grows but as it does so does her vicious satisfaction, “Keep her body, it means nothing. You had nothing of her when she was alive and all you’ll have is this empty shell now that she’s dead.”

With nothing left to say Mingayn turns and leaves because she can’t stand to be in the same room as the body any longer. The horrible foreign body that has nothing left of the woman who would have been her sister.

The demon does nothing to stop her. 

Mingyan limps out through the hallways she had destroyed in her rampage inside, past the cowering demonic servants that shy away as she passes. All the other consorts have vanished. Back into their chambers. Away from her. Away from the mess. 

She’s leaving herself entirely open this way and Gege would surely correct her if he saw but she’s so tired and her body hurts so much. She might just fall to her knees here because there’s no point in still trying to crawl out if everyone she loves dies and everything she thinks is wrong and there’s nowhere left for her to go. 

A weapon, an axe by the looks of it, sails past Mingyan as she finally exits the palace proper into the weak sunlight of the demon realm. The attack embeds itself in the high boundary wall instead of her back and when she turns she sees Sha Hualing slamming a heavyset demon’s head into the ground. 

“Who gave you so much bravery?” Sha Hualing questions the demon she’s abusing in a high unhappy voice, “Am I not your mistress? You would do anything without permission?”

“But she’s a cultivator! An intruder! I’m only doing my job-” The unfortunate demon shouts before Sha Hualing knocks him unconscious. 

“So noisy!” She criticises before looking at Mingyan. 

Their eyes meet. Sha Hualing has dust on her clothes and blood on her hands, Mingyan presumes it's not her blood. She stares at Mingyan like Mingyan knows something that she wants to know, like Mingyan has something she wants. Like there could possibly be anything left of Mingyan’s to want. 

Arrested by that look, Liu Mingyan doesn’t look away even as she boards her sword and leaves without another word. 

*

“Liu-shimei wait, shizun is-”

Mingyan inelegantly shoves past the Head Disciple of Cang Qiong into Yue-shifu’s office. 

“Yue-shifu!” 

“Mingyan.” Yue Qingyuan stands quickly, in alarm, as she enters. His eyes go to the blood on her face, the stains on her robes, the awkward way she has to manoeuvre around her aching knee. 

“You’re hurt.” He immediately reaches into his drawers for some medicine, “Please fetch someone from Qian Cao.” He tells his Head Disciple who is still standing by the door of the room, eyes going between her shizun and Mingyan and the gross footprints she’s trailing behind her. 

They likely don’t appreciate the way Mingyan had shoulder-checked them and if things weren’t as they were Mingyan would have something to say about that. As it is, there's no use in politeness and protocol any longer. No when Shen-shigu is… 

“Mingyan, drink this.”

“She’s dead.” Mingyan has to say. 

Her face crumples and she finally cries. She wishes someone would hold her. Even this man who everyone is convinced she has an inappropriate relationship with. She wishes Yue-shifu would cross the room and hold her so she could hide in the body of someone larger and stronger and better suited to life. 

“Yue-shifu, she’s dead. I saw her body.”

The door closes behind them. 

It’s been so long since Mingyan was held. She wants to be a child again. She wants to have Shen-shigu back again. She wants Gege to pull out his sword and make everything better. 

“Who’s dead?” Yue Qingyuan asks, gently. He comes forward but doesn’t touch her. 

“Shen Qingqiu.” Mingyan presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, it’s painful and causes bright flashes of light to burst behind her lids. It’s not painful enough. “I saw her body. I saw her.” 

There’s a long pause.

“Please sit.” Yue Qingyuan finally touches her and takes her elbow to gently remove her hands from her eyes. He guides her to sit on the day bed in his office and then coaxes the medicine into her hands and encourages her to sip. It’s not the right kind of care because even with the soft handling she doesn’t feel any better. 

“Yue-shifu-”

He sits down on the other side of the daybed, “Breathe Mingyan.” He tells her, quiet and strong, “Tell me everything.”

“I heard Shen-shigu was dead so I went to the demon realm. That demon is keeping her body hidden in his inner chambers. He won’t announce she’s dead because he wants to bring her soul back but she’s gone. Her body is… she’s dead. After I saw her, I left. I should have killed him.” Mingyan says, choking on it, “I wanted to. I still want to and I should have done it.”

“You made the right decision.” Yue Qingyuan’s voice, when he finally speaks, is as even as always. She wishes he would scream or cry. Why is he so calm? “What you did, though I understand why, was incredibly dangerous. You could have died, Mingyan you must not go back to the underground palace again and-”

“We could kill him. Together.” She interrupts, knowing it’s the right thing to do. “If you tried! You have to! He broke whatever stupid treaty we had! Yue-shifu the two of us together could avenge her!”

“Mingyan…”

Mingyan looks at him. And she knows he won’t do it. 

“We need substantial proof to make accusations.” Yue-shifu says seriously, “We don’t have the ability to start what could be a potentially devastating war based on-”

Based on Mingyan’s half-insane ramblings. 

“How dare you!” She stands, heaving to get away, and stumbles on her bad leg. Yue-shifu stands too to steady her but she shoves him away, “How dare- how can you all- she was all alone and she already gave up so much and-” 

The material of her veil gets caught in her mouth and she coughs and chokes on the fabric. Unable to rip it free. Unable to speak. Garroted and gagged by her own traditions, by who she was reared into. 

Why does she still wear this stupid thing? Why is she still on this stupid mountain? Still here surrounded by people who are so immoral and impotent and who will do nothing but ensure that she remains so alongside them. 

“It’s not right!” Mingyan insists, “It’s not right! None of this is right!”

“Mingyan, if we engage in conflict thousands might die. As Sect Leader I can’t condone it. If, like you said, they are keeping Shen Qingqiu’s death secret, then neither side is pushed into acting. If they announced it then yes, we would need to act but right now-”

“But what about me attacking the palace? That’s provocation isn’t it? We could-”

“If the position is truly to keep Shen Qingqiu’s passing quiet then they won’t point blame for your actions. Don’t worry Mingyan, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

That’s not what she meant. She hates that he thought that was what she meant. 

“I don’t care about my life! Shen-shigu is the one who’s dead! You can’t-”

“Mingyan, I… understand the bond you had with Shen Qingqiu ran deep. You must be in pain and I am sorry-”

“Why are you apologising? You didn't-” Mingyan breaks off and heaves for breath and then tries again, “Yue-shifu. We have to avenge her. It’s the right thing to do.”

Yue Qingyuan looks exhausted, “That may be true, but it doesn’t mean that I can make that decision.”

“Then what’s the point in living? If we can’t do the right thing then all of this is useless!”

“Mingyan, the right thing isn’t always clear. We need to weigh up the different-”

“Do you really think doing nothing is right?” Mingyan asks, a last chance. 

“Mingyan.” He stops and then begins to speak again, “I have known Shen Qingqiu for a very long time and owe her more debts than I’d ever be able to begin paying back. As Sect Leader my own desires have to come second, have to be balanced against-”

“Then being Sect Leader is a useless position! All these rules and all of this bullshit is-” Mingyan shakes her head, “I hate this place. I hate everything! I can’t abide by it. I can’t accept it. There must be a better way.”

When she looks at him he smiles and his eyes are very sad, “I’m sorry.”

Mingyan is sorry too. She’s so sorry. To no one. To everyone. To the child she wants to be once more. To the adult she might never become. To the image of a righteous cultivator she had been determined to grow into. To the shadow of her brother that she doesn’t want to hate but which is impossible to walk alongside as long as she can never understand his perspective on these issues. 

What would Gege do? I don’t know. I really don’t know. 

What would Shen Qingqiu do?

Take your time but life does not wait for anyone, when you feel ready go back and take up any mantle you feel you want. Shen-shigu’s sharp eyes tracking her face as she squeezed her arm in goodbye. 

What if I want to avenge you? Could you support me if no one else would? Would you be pleased if I died for you? Would that mean something? 

“I have to go.”

“Please wait for the medic at least.”

“No. I- I’m going to go.”

To avoid seeing all the disciples she had bled past on her way in, she leaves through the window, stumbling into the soft dirt of the flower bed below. 

*

The greater good is a simple principle. Mingyan has always considered it logical though she’s never yet been in a situation where she’s been forced to confront it. 

On missions the blanket instruction if something went wrong was to preserve the most lives even if it was at the expense of a few. That always made sense. Mingyan had never considered if lives should be differently weighted. More is better. More life. More good. Everyone could understand more.

Mingyan drains the last of the baijiu she had found in Gege’s house. It had been unopened and she had cracked the seal like she was daring her brother’s ghost to stop her. He always deplored drinking. Especially the way she was drinking, deep in one’s cups and insensate with emotion. Alone. No good reason for it. 

He drank though, occasionally when he wanted to do something ill advised. He was a hypocrite. Her brother was a hypocrite. Would he be able to do the right thing if he was a hypocrite? 

The right thing to do always seems to be slipping through Mingyan’s fingers. The moral goalposts are always shifting. She doesn’t understand how she’s supposed to continue to live with what she now knows. That people can lie and kill and suffer no consequences because even when people know it's wrong it’s better for the greater good not to confront it. 

Gege always abhorred compromise. Would he be able to listen to his Sect Leader on this occasion? 

When she was young her Great Uncle had taught her to half-twist a thin piece of paper and glue the ends together to create a race course for ants that would be impossible to stay steady on. 

You try to go straight and you end up upside down. When you circle inwards you end up on the outside. An apt metaphor for life, isn’t it Yan’er?

She’d been too young to really grasp the meaning but in a child’s wonderment had shown Gege the next time she’d seen him. He’d examined the structure for a second and then torn the paper and pinched together the ends so it had lost the twist, now a smooth track.

There, no issue with going sideways and what else you were saying. 

He’d been indulgent in playing with her and trying to understand her. She was too young and admired him too much to tell him that he’d actually messed it up though she couldn’t explain why. 

If only Gege was here now to rip the spiral of Minyan’s own life and lay the track to the future straight for her. 

She leaves the empty jar on the floor and leaves Bai Zhan. Flying paradoxically feels easier than ever with her clouded vision and when she looks up at the stars they’ve never seemed so close nor so beautiful. She wanted to have the temerity to do the right thing but isn’t confident enough to decide what that should be. What if she chooses wrong? What if she ruins everything? What if she already has? 

Feeling her way in the dark her fingers meet the stone entrance to the Sect’s mausoleum. Mingyan shifts the door open and slips inside. 

The space is dark and cool. She walks slowly in the pitch blackness, sleepwalking, stumbling, her way to Gege’s marker. Newer than the others. 

“Gege.” She places a hand on the rough stone. It’s been a little while since she’s come by to sweep and leave offerings. She’s been so busy doing nothing. So busy not getting better. 

She kneels down though it's less to do with respect and as much to do with how drunk and tired she now feels. 

“You shouldn’t have died.” She finally says even though it doesn’t make sense. “I keep thinking that if you lived everything would be better. But you left and everything is so horrible.” She pauses, “She’s dead Gege. Shen Qingqiu. She’s dead. If you were alive then-”

She stops. Her brother was known as always able to take initiative. Renowned for his strength of will. For his moral character. 

If he could hear her right now then he would do something. 

If nothing’s happening then it means he’s not here and Mingyan is on her knees talking to a lump of stone and treating it with the care she should have given Shen-shigu when the woman was still in reach. 

Set alight with a rage that turns her vision red, she raises her fist and punches Liu Qingge’s memorial. 

*

The stone doesn’t crack but Mingyan’s first instinct is to wrap her arms tight around it as though she were hugging her brother, not a dull cold lump of earth. 

“I’m sorry.” She tells it, “I’m sorry.”

*

Mingyan falls off Shui Se at the boundary of Xian Shu. She raises to her knees but is unable to stand. Her bed is so close. She can crawl there. It’s fine. 

She drags herself forward. She’s so drunk. She’s so drunk. When did she get so drunk? Was she this drunk earlier? There’s a dark spot between the mausoleum and landing on Xian Shu. Maybe if she crawled the whole way instead of trying to fly she would feel less drunk. 

“Mingyan? Is that you?” 

Shizun appears. She’s in her sleep robes with a lantern in hand and her hair unbound. It’s the middle of the night. It’s dark. Mingyan wants to curl up on her side in the dark. 

She wants to go home. Will Shizun take her there? 

“What are you doing here? Are you drunk?!” Shizun’s voice is very harsh and the hand she uses to grab Mingyan’s arm to lift her up grips her so tight it should hurt but drunkenness has numbed everything. Maybe she can stay this way forever. 

“Is this what Yue-Zhangmen lets you do under his tutelage? Drink yourself into this state and wander the mountain?” Shizun tsks disapprovingly. Shizun has never disapproved of her before. Mingyan has always been good. 

“Everyone thinks we’re sleeping together.” Mingyan says. She laughs at the absurdity. “I heard them say it. They used to say the same thing about Shen-shigu.”

Shizun’s grip wavers. “Let me take you inside Mingyan, you’re not well.”

“They’re both dead.” Mingyan whirls and grabs Shizun by the front of her robes. “What do I do? I can’t kill that demon and Yue-Zhangmen won’t do it. I can’t live if this has happened. How can I live?”

“Mingyan calm down. You’re too emotional, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Calm down and we’ll go inside and you’ll drink some water and sober yourself.”

“You always hated her anyway! You don’t even care that she's dead! It’ll be all of us next! If Gege can die and Shen Qingqiu can die we’re all next! The whole mountain! We’re all going to die!”

“You’re speaking nonsense Mingyan. Come on.”

“I’ll burn this whole fucking mountain down myself!” Mingyan finds herself shouting, “I don’t know how Gege was so blind! This stupid fucking den of hypocrisy! Why did he come here! Why did he make me come here! All these stupid fucking people who know nothing and talk so much and live up here in the fucking clouds! I hate all of them! No one understands! Do you know how common people live? In the dirt and if they get sick they’ll die and there’s always someone more powerful and it’s like that for us but they can’t defend themselves and I’m sick. I’m sick and tired of having to see it. Why is it like this?”

Shizun purses her lips, “You’re drunk and upset. Come inside Mingyan and you can have some tea and we can speak properly.”

“No! I don’t want to speak properly! No one ever fucking listens to me! Nothing will change, everything will be the same and everyone will die and it’s not fair! It’s not right! I hate all of you! You let her go like it was nothing! Like she meant nothing and she died for it and I hope Heaven strikes all of us down because it was my fault too. I should have saved her!”

Qi Qingqi looks pale in the moonlight but there are blooming shades of indignant colour on her cheekbones. “Mingyan you’re being too audacious. Come inside and calm down.”

“Stop telling me what to do! None of that matters! I’m not- this isn’t- I saw her body! I was close enough to touch it and he’s probably fucking it right now! He’s hurting her and she’s all alone! How can you be so calm?!” 

She shakes Shizun slightly and Shizun reaches up and grabs her hands, “Mingyan, you’re disturbed. Please, come inside.” She keeps looking behind her as though afraid of who might be watching and listening because that’s the most important thing. 

Mingyan tears herself out of Shizun’s hold. It hurts. Her skin is sore. 

“You spread those rumours about Shen Qingqiu so you definitely heard all the rumours about me too! You never said anything to me!”

Qi Qingqi shakes her head and doesn’t deny nor confirm anything, “Rumours are only cheap nothings, you need to learn to let it roll off you. You think I haven’t heard such things about me in my own time?”

Mingyan shakes, her stomach trembles. “It makes me feel sick. I can’t look at Yue-shifu the same way. My skin crawls when we’re in the same room.”

“I know Mingyan.”

“Why did you say the same things about Shen Qingqiu?”

“Mingyan, this isn’t the right time-”

“It’s because you hated her and wanted to hurt her so you didn’t care. You were happy it was awful.”

“Mingyan you’re going too far.”

“I’m right! You know I’m right! All this stupid fucking bullshit in this fucking Sect! Everyone is so fucking petty! I hate it here! I understand now why Gege always left! I can’t stand it!”

“Then where do you want to go?” Shizun asks, her eyes sharp and her mouth tense, she crosses her arms and glares at Mingyan in a way she never has before. “This is life. This is already a better life than most have. Where will you go? You want to be a rogue cultivator? You want to become a mortal? You want to go back to the Liu clan? You need to live somewhere Mingyan, where do you think will be better?”

“I want Gege to be alive. I want him to have been able to marry Shen-shigu and I want things to be the way they’re supposed to be.”

“Marriage?” Shizun sounds bewildered. “Mingyan, what are you talking about?”

“I’m the reason she’s dead. If I wasn’t such a petty fucking coward I would have gone home and told grandmother and she would have stopped it. She would never have let the woman Gege loved be abused and murdered.”

Shizun rallies herself quickly, “Mingyan, you’re upset. Please, come inside and let me help you.”

Mingyan stares at Shizun. Everyone tries to help her. Yue-shifu. Ming Fan. Ning Yingying. Shizun. Even Sha Hualing. Everyone tries to help her so why is she still free falling? Why can’t she get a firm grip on life anymore? 

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re grieving. You’ve suffered a terrible loss.” Shizun takes Mingyan firmly by the shoulders and steers her deeper onto Xian Shu. “You need proper rest.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Mingyan asks out loud, to no one in particular, “Why do I still feel like this? Why can’t I get over it like everyone seems able to? What am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with me?”

The grief seemed like an impossible pit. Everytime Mingyan thought she had reached rock bottom the floor crumbled beneath her and she was once again thrown off balance. She knew fellow disciples who had lost siblings and they had tried to speak to her around the time of the funeral. Mingyan thinks she had actually been better back then, she had tried to speak back for all that she had instinctively dismissed their kind concern. Still, she was polite. 

When will the grief end? Every time she thinks she’s finally killed it, starves it of substance, a monsoon will start and the grief sprouts anew, fresh and ready to put down roots that wrap around her limbs and keep her stuck to the same barren patch of earth. 

How does everyone live? How does everyone carry on? How do things ever become better? Is Mingyan the last grieving person left? Is she broken in some incomprehensible way that stops her from being able to heal? 

Liu Mingyan. The last mourner at the funeral. The last woman left after everyone else has gone home. After everyone else has moved on. After everyone else has run out of patience, waiting for her to move on. 

“You’re not well.” Shizun finally says after it seems thankfully clear that Mingyan isn’t going to speak any more. “Let’s forget this conversation and get you to bed.” She steers Mingyan down the familiar paths to her residence, “You can take the guest room tonight. And Mingyan,” She pauses as she drags her over the threshold, a dead weight, “When was the last time you visited your family?”

“My family is dead.”

“Your grandmother is living isn’t she? Why don’t you go and see her tomorrow, spend some time with your natal clan.”

It’s not advice Shizun is supposed to give when one’s allegiance to their Sect should overwrite all other ties. It’s not advice Mingyan’s ever received before. 

She doesn’t respond and imagines that Shizun thinks she’s too drunk or emotional or stupid to say anything else. Once upon a time she would have been devastated to imagine Shizun thinking negative things about her but now it’s more than acceptable. She wants to be hated. 

She wants proof of consequences. That her actions can truly create change when in reality she’s nothing but a stupid child beating her head against solid stone and waiting for it to crack. 

*

Grandmother had famously entered seclusion after Gege’s funeral so Mingyan attended her family estate with no real expectation of seeing anyone. She thought she’d wile away a few days here. Wallow until she got so restless she had to move again. It wasn’t good for her to be in the sect right now. Not after what she’d said to Yue-shifu and then Qi-shigu. Not after she had woken up on Xian Shu and crept out the window while Qi Qingqi was occupied. Stealing across the peak and ducking out of the eyelines of her shijie-mei, her friends, heart pounding with fear. 

Fear of what? Being seen as pathetic? It was too late for that. 

But, miraculously, when she knocked on her gate Grandmother had opened the door. Mingyan really hadn’t believed she would. She didn’t think it would happen for her. 

It’s been a long time since Gege’s funeral. Why is that last memory more prominent than the many hours Mingyan spent playing at her feet when she was a child? Why couldn’t she have believed that Grandmother would welcome her in for tea and ask her how she was? 

Grandmother had aged, the veins on the backs of her hands were more prominent and her skin seemed thinner, even translucent. The mother of their clan finally looked too old for it. 

Mingyan spoke carefully, looking down at her tea cup rather than face her Grandmother’s gaze, “I thought, think, that you hate me because he’s dead.”

“Yan’er, how could you think that?” Her voice has aged too. It’s softer than before, wavering a little. 

Mingyan turns her face away and wishes for her veil even though she’s never worn it when alone with family members before. It would feel like a defeat to put it on now. “You told me to look after him when I went to the Sect and he died from something as meaningless and preventable as qi deviation. I don’t- I hate myself. You must hate me too. How could I have been so useless?”

Grandmother’s mouth pulls down at the corners.

Mingyan knows her grandmother likely doesn’t even remember that comment. It was such a throwaway thing. Everyone always talks too much, even Lius who are noted for not speaking enough. 

“You told me to make sure he was living well in the Sect. You told me that was a good reason for me to go.”

Her grandmother shakes her head. “I’m sorry if you’ve remembered those words too clearly all these years, they weren’t intended that way.”

“But it’s true. You shouldn’t have sent me to the Sect to follow Gege. I know it didn’t make sense. Gege wasn’t going to have children so it would be my children inheriting. I should have stayed and gotten married.”

“Yan’er-”

“But I don’t want to. I never wanted to. I know I should and it would be… easy and you never would have chosen someone bad for me but I never wanted to. I don’t think I ever want to get married and have children.”

It feels like a huge confession and Mingyan is in disbelief that she’s actually said it. But looking at Grandmothers’ face, Mingyan doesn’t believe she understands the gravity of what Mingyan has admitted.

“You don’t have to, we have other branches and clan members who can-”

“There’s no one left!” Mingyan is startled by her sudden hot flush of fury, “It’s just me! Mingli, Mingjin, Mingxuan, Gege, they’re all gone! It’s just me!”

Grandmother looks so upset then that Mingyan regrets it immediately. She always seems to forget she’s not the only one grieving. She drags it around with her but she’s not the only one. 

“Mingyan, may I speak frankly with you?”

Once upon a time those words would have made her feel very proud and grown up, now it just scares her a little. 

“Yes.” She says despite the fear, she needs to be better than it. 

“I am afraid. I was born a long time ago and while the clan was comfortable, we did not become what we are now until your Grandfather married in. Much of the status and reach we have now is due to his work.”

“Grandfather?” Mingyan never met him, this distant venerated figure who had already stopped haunting the estate by the time she was born. She has only ever felt the distant aftershocks of his death, not the seismic event. 

“He built the Liu clan into what we are now. Immortals inevitably forget urgency and with that there is no such thing as a clan, only a loose collection of individuals bound by blood who drift in the same space. He was mortal and he brought that to our family; mortality, immediacy, action. Otherwise… Qingge may not have even been born nor you.”

“I never knew. I didn’t know Grandfather was a mortal.”

“He was born mortal, we married when he was twenty-eight. Far too old for cultivation.”

“Then… how did he live so long?”

“There are ways to cultivate through the assistance of a cultivator of a certain skill level but it requires constant maintenance. Dual cultivation allowed me to pour my energy into him and it sustained him until he could hold some of it in his dantian for a few days then a week then a month and so on.”

“I had no idea.” It sounds intimate beyond belief and a little terrifying. Mingyan resists the urge to fiddle with her sleeve. “Was he younger than you?”

“Yes, but I was a thousand times more naive.” Grandmother actually smiles, a small curl to her lips, “It’s clear that immortals grow up far slower. While he was born into real responsibility, I was as free as someone of our background could be. I was allowed to venture out into the world, make my name and conduct my hunts and bring prestige to the clan but do nothing to further its longevity. Only one of my elders had concerns over our dwindling lineage, I was my parent’s only child after all, but no one else took it very seriously.” Grandmother looks to the window, splashing light over her immortal face. Her expression is soft and she’s obviously remembering, thinking back 

It’s incredible to watch the kind of emotion Mingyan has only written about on the face of someone she knows so well. Mingyan has spent years writing dramatic tales of love and grief, describing “glassy eyes” and “trembling mouths” with a kind of academic detachment. Thinking of it, she doesn’t believe she’s ever seen those emotions in the wild before. She hasn’t looked in the mirror much recently after all. 

“The clan now is more like it was in my youth.” Grandmother continues, “I’ve lost so many grandchildren, grand-nieces and nephews and great grand-niblings. So many cousins. No one thinks of marriage and children and everyone wants to savour immortality. And I want to let them because…” Her grandmother stops and frowns, mouth pursing minutely.

“I want to hear it. Tell me.” Mingyan’s voice is a little hoarse and she reaches out so her dead fish hand can curl itself around Grandmother’s fingers. 

“When he died… I was in an awful state. I should have been happy to have our time together but I couldn’t think logically. I regretted ever bringing these mortal sentiments into the clan even though there’s no human way to truly avoid grief. However the principles of cultivation are that we should be detached and I… hated him for doing this to me. Marriages and births dwindled. Many married out when I should have encouraged them to stay in. Others left to travel and as the years have gone by I see the clan in the state it was when I was young and I think that it is… acceptable this way.”

Mingyan never thought someone else, let alone her grandmother, could feel the way she does. How strange that she had ultimately isolated herself of her own design and impulse, not because no one could really understand her. The sticky hold of her own emotions had blanketed her, hardening over time until cracking the shell to free herself alone seemed all but impossible. 

“When Qingge was alive I felt like I could hold on. That child,” Her Grandmother smiles, tight in the corners of her mouth, “Climbing through my window and demanding to arm wrestle, punching everything and everyone in sight, so much life and drive and spirit when I was hollowed out. I could see a future in him and what he could and would do.”

Mingyan shakes her head. Her ears are full of water. Wet salty tears. 

“The greatest dangers for immortals are stagnation and apathy. Mingyan… you’re so full of life. I’ve heard so many stories of you doing good, saving lives, running forward into the future. I want that for you, don’t let the grief frighten you to ascension, stay as feeling as you can for as long as you can.”

It’s a sentiment Mingyan has never heard before. 

“Grandmother. I still need you.” 

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Mingyan is angry again. “You can’t discount your importance to me without my permission! If I say I need you then I do!”

“There’s the Liu clan fight.” Grandmother smiles properly now and squeezes Mingyan’s hand, “I’ve lived too long being given what I deserve that I’ve gotten too used to accepting everything as due.”

Mingyan clings harder to that hand, that lifeline, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I keep going but I… feel out of control.” 

Screaming at her former Shizun, criticising Yue-shifu, hiding in Shen-shigu’s house, destroying the Immortal Alliance Conference, drinking on Bai Zhan, manhandling Sha Hualing, fighting Luo Binghe, punching Gege’s memorial. She feels like she’s still falling from her sword but in reverse, the ground getting further and further away. 

“Grandmother, tell me what I should do.”

Her grandmother keeps ahold of her hand and then comes closer to take her in her arms like she’s a small child. It’s wonderful. The last person who held her like this was Shen-shigu. Mingyan’s eyes burn. 

“For immortals death becomes something like a choice rather than an inevitability. That’s why I feel so unable to forgive everyone that leaves. For you… I want you to live well and keep finding joy everywhere you can. Do what you think is right, do what makes you proud because that’s all life is.”

When she finally leaves her Grandmother’s chambers she heads back to her courtyard. Gege’s courtyard that she wheedled her way into when she was a child and never left. It’s a mausoleum she’s been too afraid to crack open before. She supposed there was a stupid part of her that thought if she could leave being a Liu behind she would leave being Liu Qingge’s sister behind too and therefore the grief would remain somewhere else. 

At the gate to the courtyard she pauses. There’s someone in there. 

It’s Mingjing. She had, horribly, almost forgotten about him. The youngest of their Ming generation who is now climbing the tree in Gege’s (her) courtyard. She hardly recognises him. 

“Mingjing.” She calls. 

He pauses on the tree and then hops down. “Mingyan-jie! I was waiting for you!”

“You were?” 

“I heard you were back and I was hoping to see you.” He smiles at her, his face is veiled so only his eyes can be seen. She knows he’s happy because those eyes crinkle at the corners. 

“Were you?”

“I heard you won the Immortal Alliance Conference.” 

“I did.” Mingyan pauses and then holds out a hand, “Want to spar?” 

“Yes!”

After their very short spar (Mingyan did try not to win too quickly) she and Mingjing sit down under the tree. At this time of year it has no leaves. 

“How long are you going to be back for?” Mingjing asks. 

Mingyan is struck with the sense memory of her and Gege in exactly the same position with her asking the exact same question with the exact same eager hopefulness. But of course she’s now the oldest official member of their Ming generation. She was the youngest for a very long time.

“We should go on a nighthunt.” She tells him, not answering the question but hopefully providing something better. 

He beams, “Yes!” His limbs are long and still somewhat coltish. He stretches out briefly before curling right back up like a small insect. 

“Mingjing… you came from a mortal family, didn’t you?”

Mingjing’s nose wrinkles under his mask. 

Mingyan is remembering the story now. This small boy, the son of her Aunt and Uncle who fell out of love, was raised by the mortal side who never informed the clan that he existed. Years later Mingjing appeared and claimed to be a Liu.

“Not really.” Mingjing is restless. His feet drum at the ground as if nervous, “I mean I was always half-Liu.”

“Of course.” Mingyan reaches out and rests a hand on his trembling knee. “Was it hard? The journey here? You did it alone didn’t you? I never asked.”

Mingjing spreads his hands out, “It was okay.” He says, “A cultivator actually helped me. When some people were chasing me they stopped them and picked me up and flew me to the village where the headman contacted Grandmother.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. Cultivators are good.” Mingjing twists his fingers together.

He’s now closed off slightly and Mingyan sets to rectifying it. She reaches out and puts an arm around him and tries to remember her clingy younger cousin. Inevitably all that comes to her mind is the last time all of them had been together. It hurts to remember. 

“I miss him.” Mingyan says, “I’m sorry I haven’t been back but I miss everything too much.”

“I understand.” Mingjing leans into her, resting his head on her shoulder. It makes her feel strong. “I miss Qingge too. And Mingjin. Mingli too but I didn’t know her very well.”

“I’ll come and see you more often. And we can go on nighthunts too, Mingli should come even if she’s left the clan.”

“And her wife?”

Mingyan glares at nothing, “Her snake wife can come if she insists.”

“If Mingli is going to be with her for a long time… then we should learn to like her.” His eyes crinkle in upset, “But I don’t really.”

“That’s a fair point.” Mingyan is angry at Mingli too, just a little for choosing this outsider who wronged her over their family, but that’s useless.

“Da-jie.” Mingyan finds herself more surprised by the address than she should be. “Can we spar again? I want to learn how to do the sword glare you can do.”

Gege! Gege! Spar with me! How did you do that? Show me! Teach me! Gege! 

“Yes. Let’s go.”

*

Returning back to Qiong Ding isn’t as embarrassing as Mingyan is sure it will be one day when the weight of what she had done and said really sinks in. For now she’s still righteously angry enough that she doesn’t regret anything. Hindsight may be chasing her down but she’s outpacing it for now, only age will let it catch her. 

“Yue-shifu.” She greets, even salutes. 

“Liu-shizi.” He’s kind as always, gentle in the way he invites her inside. Mingyan believes he’s a good man even if he disappointed her. And besides, she thinks everyone will disappoint her. Maybe even eventually Gege. 

“I had heard from Qi-shimei that you spent some time at your family estate, I’m glad.”

“Yes. So am I.” Mingyan sits down opposite him although she wants to stay standing, “Yue-zhangmen… you gave me a great honour by inviting me to your peak.” It wasn’t one she had requested but that didn’t mitigate the weight. “But I don’t think Qiong Ding is the right place for me. I don’t think Cang Qiong is the right place for me right now. I don’t want to dislike or blame a place that has been so kind to me and I don’t… like the things that I’ve said and done here.”

“You’ve suffered a great loss. More than one, I could never blame you for your actions.”

Is that because Yue-shifu wishes he could act out the way she has? Or is that a very silly thought? Can Mingyan believe that this man also wanted to cry and shout and blame the way she did when he heard of Shen-shigu’s death? She stares at his face, scrutinising for reddened eyes or swollen skin and can’t find it. Of course he’s too dignified and weeks have passed but still…

“That’s kind of you to say.” She tries to moderate her tone and speak politely the way she used to, the way she’s supposed to. 

Yue-shifu’s smile shifts, “Mingyan doesn’t need to be so polite, she is welcome to speak her mind.”

Mingyan shrugs inelegantly, a gesture she’s never really made before. If Yue-shifu doesn’t want her to mind her manners then she won’t. And besides, there’s nothing else she wants to say.

“I appreciate everything you and everyone else has done for me. And I know it’s selfish to keep leaving but-”

“Don’t castigate yourself, if we are all already bound to our own duties then at least we can have the strength to allow you to go and chase what you feel is right. There are many things I wish I could have done differently and I know Qingqiu felt the same, but she asked me to give you those choices. I would never blame you for taking them.”

It might just be the kindest thing he’s ever said to her, a graceful absolution. 

“I’m so tired of feeling unhappy.” Mingyan admits in return. 

Yue-shifu leans forward in his seat, closer to her. The polished wood table top glows golden in the setting sun. 

“I once felt the same but I wasn’t clever enough to recognise just how unhappy it was. It was during that period that I all but slept walked through the war with Tianlang-jun and into the position of Head Disciple of Qiong Ding. The most formative decisions of my life and I made them with no real thought whatsoever.”

“Didn’t you want to be the Sect Leader?”

“Not particularly, but I enjoyed being useful and my strength having purpose. My desire to become Sect Leader only began to manifest later on, once Shen Qingqiu joined Cang Qiong, because I had the arrogant thought that I could use that position to help her.”

It’s very sad. Mingyan may admire qualities of Yue-shifu but she never wants to become like him. 

“I don’t know what the point of living is.” Mingyan admits, “It seems so complicated and difficult, enough so that everything seems pointless. But I want to believe this feeling will pass and I’ll be able to be truly happy again.” She shook her head, “It sounds silly but I can’t remember the last time I felt like I did when I was younger. I used to feel so excited for the future.”

Yue-shifu reaches out a hand like he might want to touch her and Mingyan meets him in the middle. She wonders who touches Yue-shifu with friendly shoulder taps or long hugs or even like this; his hand resting on top of hers like he’s trying to provide some strength and comfort. Like normal people do. 

“Life, as I have found it, is about seeking out happiness where it can be found. In small and large things, usually small.” Yue-shifu pats her hand one last time before pulling back his touch, “I suppose I’m old enough now to know what can lift my mood when it drops low. I want to ensure my disciples are cared for and my martial siblings are content and that my position in the cultivation world can have some use.”

“For the greater good?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe in a greater good. I think some things are more valuable than any larger good. I would trade thousands of lives to have Gege and Shen-shigu back.”

“Really?”

Mingyan looks away, “Is that an evil thing to admit?”

“No, it’s very human.”

“Which is not what cultivators should be.”

“I would say the worst cultivators are those who leave humanity behind in attempting to chase an impossible ideal.”

“Shen-shigu actually thought the same.”

Yue-shifu blinks and then smiles. Mingyan wonders if that’s made him happy. 

“Yue-shifu… I’m worried that I’m always doing the wrong thing, that I’m not a good person and my decisions are all incorrect.”

“I think that if Mingyan spends so much time considering the morality of her actions, it just shows how upright her character is.” Yue-shifu nods as if his words can’t be anything other than true, “We should always keep questioning ourselves and holding our actions to account. Integrity is ultimately a lifelong pursuit.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Yes. I have to admit I’ve stumbled too many times to be proud of myself but I don’t intend to stop trying. Listening to Mingyan is very inspiring.”

Mingyan feels herself blush. A happy feeling crawls through her body, knocking back old doubts. Is a small piece of praise really worth this much? But it feels like a long time since anyone told her she was doing a good job. 

“Thank you. I only hope I can keep living up to your expectations.”

“I’m sure you will.” He tells her warmly, “And you have my help whenever you need it. Mingyan, I never want you to feel alone. If you ever have the urge to never speak to me again… well I’d rather you have a try at shouting at me first before giving up entirely.”

Yue Qingyaun is a good man. He’s kind and reliable and even-tempered. He’s not arrogant nor lustful nor rude. Mingyan feels safe around him and that’s precisely because he’s principled and unselfish. She thinks he’s good because he can do what she can’t: put others before what he wants. Though she doesn’t think she admires him for it.

Despite that she still wants him to know. 

“Yue-shifu… you’re a good man.”

Through her words, she thinks that perhaps she’s managed to make him happy. 

*

“Jiejie!”

Mingyan looks up slowly, away from her cup of tea towards the smiling face of the interloper, “What do you want this time?” 

Sha Hualing drops down into the seat opposite her. The restaurant’s other patrons are shifting, shooting glances between themselves and a few even get up and leave. The proprietor meets Mingyan’s eye, looking worried, and Mingyan tries to give him as even a look as she can to convey that she won’t allow Sha Hualing to destroy his establishment. 

He doesn’t look entirely convinced but does nod and turn away to the few other remaining customers. 

“I wanted to praise you.” Sha Hualing says cheerfully. She leans across the table and punches Mingyan’s shoulder. The punch hurts but Mingyan keeps her expression schooled so as not to alarm the other patrons and make them think conflict is incoming. “You nearly had Junshang running!”

Mingyan nowhere near made that demon run. She barely moved him. Is Sha Hualing exaggerating or misinformed? Does it matter? 

“Why did you hit me?” Mingyan asks. She watches Sha Hualing pick Mingyan’s own tea cup up and take a long swallow. How rude. 

“I’m a newly divorced woman.” Is Sha Hualing’s seemingly bizarre response, “Why wouldn’t I?”

What correlation divorcing has with striking Mingyan doesn’t seem clear at first glance. Ultimately the more pressing fact is clear:

“You divorced?”

Sha Hualing crosses her arms and slumps to lean her cheek on her wrist, looking up at Mingyan with a very grievous expression. “Junshang was fun at first but now he’s…” She trails off and pouts hugely, lower lip gleaming, “Jiejie, don’t you think I’m beautiful?”

“Is that relevant?”

“Aren’t I too beautiful to be a neglected wife?”

“You were being neglected?”

“He’s still trying to revive Shen Qingqiu’s body, not even spending the night with any of his living wives.” Sha Hualing drums her fingers on the table, “I’m not the only one who was feeling a little lonely….”

Mingyan looks away, focusing on the wooden walls and their oceanic whorls, “He can try all he wants, Shen Qingqiu is always going to be out of his reach. If he does bring her back and try anything I really will kill him this time.”

Sha Hualing claps her hands together as though delighted and beams, “Jiejie is so bloodthirsty!” She then twirls a lock of hair around her finger, sitting back up and leaning forward so all Mingyan can see is the valley of her breasts and the way the flesh pillows against itself as she sways in,“You remember Jiejie, that last time we fought I won, don’t you want to even the score?” 

Mingyan feels as though they’ve stepped into a script that she’s written. Incredibly the idea takes time to marinate before it gains clarity.

“Not here.” Mingyan takes some money out of her pouch, double to pay for Sha Hualing’s incursion, and nods at the proprietor before she walks out, the other woman following. 

“Oooh Jiejie! You’re really going to fight me? Ling’er is so touched!”

“You want to lose so badly?” Mingyan asks as they walk towards the edge of the town, away from gawking people and potential collateral. 

She doesn’t look at Sha Hualing but twirls Shui Se showily, not a movement she’s ever done outside of practice. She’s never felt the need to show off in such a brazen way before, so uncouth. But of course she left Xian Shu peak so she no longer needs to be demure. 

Sha Hualing likely doesn’t understand the change. 

She steps up to her, darting around so she can face Mingyan and force her to stop walking.

Hualing reaches forward to pinch the bottom of Mingyan’s veil between her pointer finger and thumb then tugs lightly. It’s as though her fingers are a fishhook embedded into something more essential than a piece of silk Mingyan now wears out of habit than anything else. 

“Jiejie is so confident.” Sha Hualing’s licks her lower lip. Her tongue is pink and slick. “Ling’er can’t wait to be put in her place.”

Sparring isn’t inherently anything other than violent, but when Mingyan raises her sword she has that first gleaming sprout of understanding that physicality itself means more than a mundane back and forth of the body. Sweating, exertion, touching; adrenaline and exhilaration and risk are what set the emotions needed for this kind of thing alight. 

What this kind of thing is remains to be properly defined. Mingyan finds that for once she’s not impatient to get there, maybe it’s based on fear but that’s likely healthy. After all, Sha Hualing’s fingernails are sharp enough to glint in the sunlight. 

It’s strange to think that this girl who looks the same age as her was married and now divorced. That she’s been touched and touched someone and done so much more than Mingyan who still lingers, childlike and cautious, in what might as well be a different world. 

“Jiejie better fight me like she’s serious.” Sha Hualing lets go of her veil and prowls backwards. Her thighs are so smooth, the flesh jiggles when she walks, the muscles of her calves bunch and relax. 

Mingyan reaches behind her head and undoes her veil, tucking the silk into her belt. 

“Very serious.” She assures. 

Maybe later once she’s won Sha Hualing would like to sit down with her for a proper meal. They could talk. 

Mingyan wonders if they might even become friends. 

*

“Yue-shifu.”

“Mingyan.” 

They clasp hands in a friendly manner, a sincere hello after a while apart. 

Mingyan isn’t sure she would characterise him as her teacher, he’s allowed them to have too equal a relationship for that. Maybe tentatively something between a mentor and friend, or perhaps that’s too audacious. Though she does suspect Yue-shifu wouldn’t mind if she called them friends. 

“Have you made any bets on who you think might win the conference?” Mingyan asks, walking beside him towards the raised platform. 

“It would be beyond the pale for the Sect Leader to act in such a heavy handed way.” Yue-shifu is smiling as he says it. “But by the way she’s speaking; does Mingyan have any favourites?”

“I put a hundred spirit stones on Yang Yixuan to make the top ten.” Mingyan confirms, “It’s through me that he’s been tossed into cultivation after all, how could I not show my support?”

“Ah yes, I’ve heard good things about Yang-shizi, he’s apparently very tenacious.”

“It's good considering he’s having something of a late start.”

“Not that late, Qingqiu joined the Sect at seventeen.”

Mingyan hadn’t known that, how admirable. 

“Ah, isn’t that Yang-shizi waving?” Yue-shifu asks. 

Mingyan looks in the direction he’s gesturing and sees Yang Yixuan, jumping up and down and waving with both arms. She raises a hand to wave back and he punches the air in an apparent gesture of victory. 

“Any other bets?” Yue-shifu asks as they continue on, 

“I also put about the same amount on Ning Yingying.”

“Disciple Ning?”

“Not to win, I bet she would get into a fight with some Huan Hua palace disciples.” Mingyan examines the crowd but can’t see her. 

Yue-shifu laughs, seemingly almost involuntarily, “Who did you make that bet with? Surely there can't be official odds to take.”

“With him.” Mingyan snags Ming Fan’s shoulder where he’s been lingering awkwardly by the base of the platform watching them approach. “He bet against me.”

Yue-shifu smiles at Ming Fan, “I see you have more faith in your shimei?”

“Ah well-” Ming Fan makes an expression a man makes when he knows he’s going to lose a hundred spirit stones but has no choice since he had to save his shimei face, even when she doesn’t seem to care. 

“Liu-shizi.”

Mingyan turns. “Qi-shigu.” She salutes. 

“Hm, Liu-shizi looks well.” Qi Qingqi takes her in from head to toe and then nods decisively, “This master heard tall tales of you liberating Jinlan city from sower demons.”

“This one can’t claim all the credit.”

“Very modest.” Qi Qingqi gestures Mingyan closer and when the two of them are close enough to speak quietly she does, “That demon will be attending today, this master wants to remind Liu-shizi that we still have a technical peace treaty.”

“I know. Yue-shifu wrote to tell me.” 

Sha Hualing had also told her. And other more candid things besides. 

That the demon that managed to bring Shen Qingqiu back but she was all wrong. An amnesiac who had lost “everything that made her fun and interesting”. Those were Hualing’s words. 

Liu Mingyan was prepared for this. She was prepared to see Shen-shigu’s body puppeteered by a force that wasn’t the woman she knew and she was prepared to approach her and look anyway, for any sign of the woman she still thought of with almost as much frequency as she did Gege.

It had been five years since she learned Shen Qingqiu was dead and she didn’t think she would ever be able to recover. It was harder to swallow than Gege’s death. The stunning unfairness and the final failure of every hope Mingyan had that the world could be inherently joyful without her having to fight tooth and nail to ensure it being so.

There was sweetness to life, like Yue-shifu had told her, but it had to be sought out and tended to. Unlike when she was a child there was no one to find it for her. 

*

“She looks just like Shizun.” Ming Fan murmurs, low enough that it’s meant only for Mingyan, “But she doesn’t move like her. She’s not even looking over here for us.” His mouth twists behind his fan and he very conspicuously does not mention the demon at the woman’s side. “Mingyan… do you think…? I didn’t tell Ning-shimei what you told me but she’ll know if she sees her and I- what can I say?”

“They’re only here for the first half day. Just to show their faces. They’ll be gone before Yingying leaves the arena.”

“Mingyan… do you think it’s…”

“I don’t know. But do you think Shen-shigu would let herself be put on display like this?” Mingyan’s eyes narrowed.

Ming Fan doesn’t respond. 

At that moment, seeing Yue-shifu move, she crosses the platform to descend beside him to meet the new arrivals. He has to, doesn’t he? He always has to do the polite and right thing even when he doesn’t want to. Mingyan can at least not let him do it alone. 

“Our peace agreement holds strong.” Yue-shifu says in greeting with a pleasant and bland smile, not even any telltale tightness around his eyes, “We can all be proud of that.”

Mingyan doesn’t wait for anything else to be said. 

“Shen-shigu.” She addresses the woman, stepping close enough that she could reach out and brush her sleeve, “Are you well?”

Shen Qingqiu’s body blinks at her. She darts a look at the demon and her expression behind her fan is hard to parse. “This one is very well, thank you for your concern.”

Mingyan scrutinises her. “You don’t recognise me do you?”

The demon opens his mouth but the woman speaks first, voice even enough that Mingyan knows she can’t be Shen-shigu. “Of course this master recognises Liu Mingyan. How have matters been on Xian Shu?”

“I left Xian Shu peak years ago.” Mingyan searches hard, eyes boring into the woman’s. “Shen-shigu, I picked up your bracelet a while ago.” She lifts her wrist and undoes her arm guard so it’s exposed, “Would you like me to return it?”

Shen-shigu’s eyes dart to the bracelet and then back to Mingyan’s face, “This master would say it suits Liu-shizi very well, she would have it remain with her martial niece.”

Mingyan steps back, rebuckling her arm brace as she does, “Alright.” She takes one last look at Shen-shigu who is Shen-shigu no longer. She had hoped it was the case and the confirmation is sweeter than she had expected. “I wish Shen Qingqiu good fortune for the future and she should know that this one is still thinking of her and if she ever needs help she can prevail upon me to provide it.”

When she steps back and allows Yue-shifu to make his greetings she feels the woman’s eyes lingering on her, but not in consideration, in confusion. Because this woman who wears Shen Qingqiu’s body doesn’t know what her and Gege were and as a consequence doesn’t know what Mingyan and her were. 

That means Shen-shigu and Gege are still somewhere together. Somewhere else beyond the reach of demonic arts and soul binding and death. Mingyan doesn’t believe in romance the same way she did when she happily spouted her tales of love and loss as a child but for Gege and Shen Qingqiu she is willing to throw caution aside and try. 

She shouldn’t look at the demon but she does and finds him looking back at her. Their gazes catch and she can’t help the way her expression narrows. 

You know don’t you. She thinks, chest hot. You know that’s not her. 

Luo Binghe breaks eye contact first. 

Yue-shifu looks at Mingyan, his expression is soft. Characteristically kind, he takes over the remainder of the conversation, filling the air with pleasant nothings until both sides can say they’ve done their best. 

Peace above all else. One day, Mingyan will be old and wise enough to appreciate it.  

*

“Did you know,” Yue-shifu says later as he and Mingyan take tea. The sun is setting over the first day of the conference and the viewing platform was still crowded when they left, “That the last time I spoke to Shen Qingqiu she told me we may never see each other again.”

“Hualing told me she died by poison. Apparently only days prior Shen Qingqiu had massacred two other women who challenged her to a duel. Hualing didn’t think she would have gone so easy if she hadn’t… chosen to.”

“A duel?”

“She threw sand in their faces and never once used her sword.”

Yue-shifu laughs, bright and clear. It’s a good laugh. Provoking it causes Mingyan to feel good in turn. 

“Who do you think she is now?” Mingyan asks. The tea is more than slightly over brewed, unfortunately Yue-shifu still doesn’t have much talent for this. 

“I couldn’t say.”

“But you don’t believe it’s Shen Qingqiu?”

Yue-shifu looks thoughtful, “Death can do a thousand and one things to a soul, things beyond any of our comprehensions.”

“Mm.”

“But no, even without memories, even after spending time in Heaven before being pulled back… I do not believe that is Shen Jiu.”

“Jiu?”

“Her given name. Jiu for nine.”

“Was she the ninth child?”

“In a sense.” Yue-shifu reaches over and refills Mingyan’s cup. There’s still no good way to tell him the tea is poor so Mingyan doesn’t. Drinking bad tea for someone you like is no real hardship. “Shen Jiu, Qingqiu, never broke her word once she gave it. I believe if she told me we would never see each other again that we wouldn’t.” Yue-shifu takes a drink of his own tea and doesn’t seem to have an issue with the flavour.

Mingyan’s mouth twists under her veil, “Then the demon can have the imposter. I hope he cuts himself on her.” She’s acting more irreverent than she feels, but she had already mourned Shen-shigu years ago, she refuses to hold onto hope and spiral once more. 

Under her wrist guard the bracelet sits. The last umbilical cord connecting Mingyan to her almost sister had been broken years before and maybe there was a gesture of trust in that. Shen-shigu had set Yue-shifu as a safety net as if she knew she would be beyond Mingyan’s reach sooner rather than later. 

Mingyan has written thousands of words on love. She filled books and with their distribution had spread her propaganda on matters of the heart ever further afield. Her initial conception of romance had been wrapped up in the principles of care and control, thinking like a child who had no real conception of equality in adulthood yet. 

Now she thinks she’s beginning to understand why people choose compromise, though that doesn’t excuse the fact that love is used as a panacea to all manner of sins. 

“Yue-shifu.”

“Mm?”

“I bet you a thousand spirit stones that Disciple Chu will place in the top ten but not the top five because she’ll suffer an injury on the last day, just stopping her from securing enough points. Odds of seven to one.”

“How specific….” Yue-shifu mimes considering it before he holds out his hand for Mingyan to shake, “I’ll take your bet.”

“Are you prepared to pay out seven thousand stones?” Mingyan asks, grinning behind her veil.

“Is Mingyan?”

Mingyan might need to call in a few favours if it comes to that but Ming Fan would surely help her out. Yang Yixuan if he actually had any money. Ning Yingying if she makes it out of the arena without starting an inter-sect incident. 

Hualing could probably be relied upon if matters did truly become desperate though Mingyan would prefer to do without the extraordinary reaction that asking her for money would lead to. And of course there’s always Grandmother. 

“I am.”

They linked hands, palm to palm, and shook on it. 

*

“Jiejie? What are you doing?”

Mingyan didn’t respond immediately, she was too busy holding out her hand, furnished with a little dried meat. 

“Is that a cat?”

“Don’t talk too loudly. You’ll scare them.”

“Them?”

“There are two of them. There’s one tucked behind that one.”

“I didn’t know you liked cats.”

“I like cats.” Mingyan responded although she’s not strictly sure it's true. She’d never really thought about cats before she’d stopped off at this abandoned temple to take a break and polish her sword. 

She had never kept cats either and there hadn’t been any on Cang Qiong so she was admittedly not all that confident she was doing the right thing in holding meat out. Would the cats respond to this? 

The cat in front, grey with a black splodge over one ear and another smaller dot under the opposite eye, is eying the meat consideringly. Finally it darts forward and clamps its teeth down on the piece. 

Contrary to Mingyan’s expectations it then seems happy to eat out of her hand, not moving back once it starts chewing. 

The other cat, the one still tucked away between the packed earth and the shaky foundations of this temple, meows loudly and (in Mingyan’s opinion) unhappily at its companion eating from her so easily.

Mingyan retrieves more meat and holds it out with her other hand which fails to attract the other cat. Instead the cat that had been happily eating from her takes the second piece and darts back to the tiny gap, body liquid as it squeezes through. 

Mingyan crouches down even further, craning her neck so her cheek is practically resting on the ground to see. 

“Jiejie?”

“It gave it to the other one.” Mingyan says, something warm in her chest. “I think they’re friends.”

“Or lovers.” Is Hualing’s predictable response, accompanied by a cackle. 

Mingyan doesn’t deign to give that response. Instead she watches the first cat groom the second as it eats. 

“Do you think they’ll be alright here?” Mingyan straightens back into her crouch, “There’s no one out here for many li, this temple is abandoned.”

“I don’t know.” Hualing comes forward and stands beside Mingyan, nudging her shoulder with her hip, “I don’t know anything about cats like this.”

“Cats like this?”

“They’re mortal cats right? Not demonic.”

“No.”

Hualing shrugged, gold on her wrists, neck, ankles, waist and ears glimmering as she moved. When Mingyan looked up at her, backlit by the sun as she was, she seemed to glow. 

Just then the first cat, the one with the black patch, came darting out and all but dove into Mingyan’s lap. 

“Oh!” Mingyan fell backwards a little in some surprise and then quickly resolved her position into sitting cross-legged. The cat sprawled out in her lap and batted for the dangling ends of her hair. 

Mingyan couldn’t help but smile, she reached behind her head and undid her veil and then used it as a toy for the cat to reach up and strain to tap. It seemed to enjoy the tangling ties most of all, catching one of them in its mouth and shaking its head vigorously. 

Meow! Came the loud exclamation from the other cat, still in the gap. Meow!

The cat in Minyan’s lap leaped up and ran back to the temple once more. 

“I think it likes you.” Hualing commented. She was laughing, “Jiejie looks so funny!”

Mingyan rolled her eyes and kept her veil in her hands just in case the cat came back and wanted to play some more. Thankfully it did, accompanying the second more leery cat. The second cat was much slower as it padded over while the first cat ran rings around it, rubbing against it and purring. 

“Hello.” Mingyan took some more dried meat out of her pouch and held it out, “Are you hungry?”

“I don’t think they speak the language Jiejie.”

Mingyan ignored Hualing and focused on the second cat which was very slightly smaller and a bright white. When it came up to her and lifted its head to take the meat delicately from her fingers she felt her heart pound with excitement. 

The white cat sat down primly in front of her, chewing slowly, and then when it was done lifted a paw as if to ask for more. 

“Here.” Mingyan reached into her pouch and took out more meat, everything she had, before arranging it on her palms and holding both of them out. 

The white cat ducked its head, closed its eyes, and began to eat. 

The grey cat ran a few laps around Mingyan, bumping up against her back and rubbing against her knee, before it settled by her other hand and began to eat. 

“Does Mingyan want to keep them?” Hualing asked. 

“I don’t know if I could, they seem feral. Would it be alright to just pick them up and take them?”

“I think that one wants you to take it.” Hualing commented, pointing at the grey cat that had now decided to climb Mingyan’s arm. She kept it steady so the cat wouldn’t fall and felt its small front paws pad up to her shoulder and then rest atop her head so it could get a good stretch in. 

The sight made Hualing laugh loudly and the sound startled the second cat who froze for a second. When it looked up and spotted the grey cat who was curling itself around Mingyan’s skull it huffed, as if in amusement. 

“How old do you think they are?” Mingyan asked. 

“No idea.” Hualing leaned in and reached out to poke the grey cat who lifted a paw off Mingyan’s shoulder to bat at her hand. “Ha! Aggressive! I like this one.”

“You demons are odd.”

“So you keep saying.” Hualing reached out and, quick as a whip, flicked Mingyan’s cheek with her sharp fingernails. The cat curled over her shoulders like a living scarf yowled and tried to batter Hualing again. 

“Shh.” Mingyan reached out and was surprised when the cat let her rest a hand on its side. Its heartbeat thrummed in its small body. “She didn’t hurt me.”

“Already so protective.” Hualing laughs, and leans in further as if daring the cat to swipe for her face. “Jiejie, I think this one wants to stay with you….”

“The other might not and they’re together.” Mingyan looked back down at the white cat who had finished eating and was now grooming itself. “I can’t take one and not the other.”

The grey cat was now hissing at Hualing and at a particularly loud exclamation the white cat climbed aboard Mingyan, darting up her knee and then leaping onto her other shoulder to join in yowling at Hualing. 

Mingyan couldn’t help but burst into laughter though she tried to temper it so as not to jostle her two passengers. 

“So rude!” Hualing pouted, “Jiejie! Don’t tell me you’re abandoning me for them!”

“Of course not.” Mingyan reached up and stroked both cats softly, revelling in the fact that they let her, “I wouldn’t be able to take them everywhere I go anyway.”

“Leave them at your Sect. Or your estate.”

Mingyan hummed, “Do they even want to come with me?”

As if in response the grey cat licked Mingyan’s cheek, nudging against her hard and insistently. 

“Alright.” Mingyan stood very slowly and by some small miracle both cats stayed put, “I’ll have to walk, I can’t fly with them on me.”

“Great! Ling’er also likes to walk.” Hualing fell into step beside her. 

“I knew you didn’t like sword flight.”

Hualing made a face, “That’s not what I said!”

When Mingyan didn’t respond Hualing fell into a spate of dramatics, grabbing her arm and shaking it. “Jiejieeeeeeee!”

The grey cat hissed in response while the white one curled itself up on Mingyan’s other shoulder. She brought a hand up to steady it and stop its hind legs from slipping off her. It seemed to like the support, leaning harder into her hand, so she kept doing the touch there. 

“Don’t jostle me too much.” Mingyan scolded. 

“Abandoned.” Hualing muttered, “For two mangy mortal animals.”

Mingyan looked over at the grey cat with its splodges and the white one who was delicately licking its paw. 

“What should I call you?” She wondered, asking the cats, “Do you have names you want to tell me?”

“Jiejie, you know they cant-”

“I know, but maybe they want to give me a hint.”

The grey cat locked eyes with Mingyan and then insistently nudged her cheek with its nose, rubbing its face against her own. 

“You’re very sweet.” Mingyan said, feeling emotional suddenly, something liquid and golden in the pit of her stomach, “You’ll love Cang Qiong, I promise. Qing Jing is beautiful and Ning Yingying will spoil you to no end, Yue-shifu too. I think he’ll like cats. The estate has a thousand places to hide and play, Grandmother might welcome the distraction and noise. Mingjing might be a bit wary at first but don’t take it personally, he’ll warm up quickly. So, do you want to come with me?”

“A little late to ask now.” Hualing laughed. 

But, as if in response, the white cat placed a paw on Mingyan’s face and then licked her cheek. 

“Alright. I promise I’ll take good care of you both.”

Mingyan paused and then, even though it was a little embarrassing with Hualing right there, she dropped her voice down low. 

“Please promise to take good care of me too, okay?”

The grey cat nuzzled even more firmly into her and Mingyan decided that meant yes.