Xoi Xam un-der-stood, silent-ly and with-in her own heart, that she was, at times, on the verge of mad-ness. Not be-cause of the med-i-cine--she was still now fol-low-ing her adopt-ed sis-ter Ki''el and Sect Broth-er Du to the Gale Pavil-lion, and the med-i-cine was safe-ly with-in her Space Ring. The Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall Flower had been processed into a pow-der, which could be ab-sorbed a num-ber of ways--and un-til Broth-er Du had talked about this Pavil-lion, she had as-sumed that she would burn it and in-haled the smoke.


    Per-haps... a place called the Gale Pavil-lion would be a bad place for that.


    But for now, Xam was re-flect-ing on her life, with the most dis-tant and fa-mil-iar mem-o-ries need-ing lit-tle re-flec-tion. She''d been a clever child, but re-bel-lious. Loved her fam-i-ly, but was proud. Didn''t take to their teach-ings, and re-fused to be held down sim-ply be-cause she failed their tests, re-ject-ed their Way. Joined the mil-i-tary... and fought, some, but too much of the time there had been wast-ed.


    She had tak-en pride in her abil-i-ty to re-main a beau-ti-ful flower even in the dark-ness of the Bil-gish isles, and as such, she had been treat-ed like a flower. They had wished for her to bloom into a more beau-ti-ful flower in the fu-ture, and as such had been will-ing to lay some ground-work, give her med-i-cines and train-ing. But the dif-fer-ence be-tween a flower and a weed was only in the pass-ing fan-cies of the gar-den''s own-er. Un-til she was a hard-ened war-rior, she was not tru-ly of use to the mil-i-tary, only a can-di-date. And she had irked some-one pow-er-ful enough that pluck-ing one or two weeds was a tru-ly mean-ing-less thing.


    If she had not been a flower, would they have even giv-en her what they did? Would she have been re-turned to her fam-i-ly in shame? Or al-lowed her to die in a bat-tle-field above her abil-i-ty? Ground her into dust with train-ing that would pro-duce a war-rior, but re-move all traces of per-son-al-i-ty, his-to-ry? She didn''t know.


    From pride in her-self, to shame at not meet-ing her fam-i-ly''s ex-pec-ta-tions, to pride in join-ing the mil-i-tary, to shame in be-ing eject-ed, dis-card-ed. Then she had been ap-proached by a pa-tron who wished for her to mar-ry--but not be-cause she was a pret-ty flower, al-though... her new hus-band Mian tru-ly did seem to ap-pre-ci-ate the beau-ty she found in her-self, and the ef-fort she went through to cul-ti-vate it, ex-press it, wear it like a sec-ond skin. But was this feel-ing that she held, about her mar-riage and him, pride, or shame? Or some mix-ture?


    Now she was swept off to a Sect--a real one, one of the world''s Twen-ty Great Peaks, if low-er on that list. But... al-though the Sect ac-knowl-edged her, or seemed to, it was her com-pan-ion that held their in-ter-ests most firm-ly. Every-thing that she had ever found in her-self to be proud of paled in com-par-i-son when she was pre-sent-ed next to this girl, who seemed more for-tu-nate than ge-nius, al-though... she did show great abil-i-ty of her own, as well as hav-ing, Xam would grudg-ing-ly ad-mit, a far pur-er heart than she her-self had.


    Was Xam''s whole life some-thing to be proud of, ashamed of? Was she reach-ing high be-cause she was pow-er-ful, beau-ti-ful, wor-thy? Was she be-ing car-ried along by the whims of yet an-oth-er per-son who would dis-card her in time? Was she even tru-ly valu-able to Ki''el and her mas-ter, or sim-ply a con-ve-nient No-ble child with which to en-act their plans?


    Xam had no trou-ble pulling her at-ten-tion back to the path be-fore them as they made the fi-nal ap-proach to the Less-er Gale Pavil-lion. In truth, she had seen it sev-er-al times be-fore, on mis-sions for the Sect, but nev-er ap-proached. In part, that was be-cause there was no path to the is-land--those pow-er-ful enough to be able to use it were ex-pect-ed to be able to car-ry them-selves, or pay some-one else to pre-pare a tem-po-rary path--but she also felt some com-bi-na-tion of shame and piety that stopped her from ap-proach-ing a place she was un-wor-thy of reach-ing.


    For now, when they reached the edge of the is-land, Broth-er Du sim-ply waved his hand, and con-jured forth a mas-sive hand of light, palm up-wards, and they all stepped on it long enough to be car-ried from one is-land to the next. She spent no ef-forts fo-cus-ing on Broth-er Du''s meth-ods--she doubt-ed her own path would be in any sense a re-flec-tion of his--but fo-cused on the is-land and build-ing that was the Less-er Gale Pavil-lion, as it came into full view.


    The Pavil-lion it-self could be un-der-stood as a build-ing, al-though it had no struc-ture, ex-cept a floor of stone blocks, and a few care-ful-ly shaped and en-graved pieces of flat stone that were po-si-tioned at key places along what should be the walls and ceil-ing of a large, oc-tag-o-nal build-ing, one that she was sure had one di-rec-tion ori-ent-ed due north. These stone pieces float-ed with mas-sive gaps be-tween them, both held by and sus-tain-ing the bar-ri-er that de-fined the edges of the pavil-lion, while the gaps chan-neled wind and qi from the out-er world in an in-tense and steady stream.


    It felt... good here. Bet-ter than good. From the mo-ment she stepped in-side the bor-ders of the Pavil-lion, she felt fresh qi all around her, live-ly and dis-tant, very dif-fer-ent from that of the rest of the Sect, just as Broth-er Du had said. But... for the most part, that fresh qi re-mained just as dis-tant as qi al-ways did, sep-a-rate from her-self. She un-der-stood just from that how valu-able a prop-er cul-ti-va-tion tech-nique was, though she was loathe to en-gage hers un-til giv-en per-mis-sion.


    A few flick-ers of qi made her glance ahead to where Ki''el and Du stepped for-ward to-wards what must be a Sect El-der or oth-er wor-thy in charge of the pavil-lion, a thin man with glass-es and robes that seemed too large for him, who gave off an au-thor-i-ta-tive air that was dif-fi-cult to mis-take. What-ev-er con-ver-sa-tion was made, was made with in-tent alone, a tal-ent that Xam en-vied, un-til Broth-er Du bowed, and said aloud, "Thank you, El-der Sang."


    Ki''el bowed as well, and Xam fol-lowed suit, but it was only a pass-ing thing, and then Broth-er Du turned to her--to them.


    "The Gale Pavil-lion is in-tend-ed to both fun-nel fresh qi to each per-son here, but also, to iso-late the ef-fects of each per-son''s cul-ti-va-tion from each oth-er. The marks on the ground show the dis-tance apart you must main-tain, and it is best to re-main in the cen-ter of your own, un-less you have a rea-son oth-er-wise. Ki''el, in your case, you will want to re-main with-in Broth-er Mian''s space, so that you may mon-i-tor his spir-it, but do not dis-turb the flow of qi un-less you need to."


    Ki''el nod-ded at that, but Xam''s glance went to her hus-band. Broth-er Du had, while they had wait-ed for Ki''el to fin-ish speak-ing with El-der Gol, told them all that he ex-pect-ed Ki''el to mon-i-tor Mian for signs that he was too much un-der the in-flu-ence of the Hun-dred Hearts Ton-ic, and pull him out if he must. Xam... felt that should have been her job, if she only had the tal-ent nec-es-sary. A part of her felt jeal-ous, and an-gry, that she couldn''t be at her hus-band''s side in the case of an emer-gency, be-ing the one that he thanked, the first face he saw. Al-though... she was un-sure yet whether she tru-ly loved her hus-band, if such feel-ings were to grow, like a flower, they need-ed to be nur-tured, the world built around cre-at-ing those mo-ments that gave them strength.


    It felt like a cal-lous dis-re-gard of their re-la-tion-ship... but also, Xam knew, it was the Way. She could do noth-ing, and Ki''el could. But also... Ki''el was in no way com-pet-ing for Mian''s af-fec-tion, and she knew it. Her anx-ious-ness was noth-ing more and noth-ing less than see-ing an op-por-tu-ni-ty to grow clos-er that she could not take. But even say-ing that it was noth-ing more... that was enough.


    "For those of you who have nev-er tak-en In-sight-ful Med-i-cine be-fore, a bit of ad-vice," Broth-er Du con-tin-ued, and Xam found her at-ten-tion dragged back to the man, by his will, al-though she agreed with the ac-tion en-tire-ly. She had too much to wor-ry about to fo-cus on such small things now. "What you will ex-pe-ri-ence when you take In-sight-ful Med-i-cine is not real, and it is most-ly not true. But it re-veals truth, if you can dis-cov-er those pat-terns deep with-in the throws of hal-lu-ci-na-tion. Your task is not to use your spir-it or your qi to try to con-trol the world that you per-ceive--it is to use your spir-it and your qi to mas-ter your-self, as you search through the ex-pe-ri-ence to find pat-terns that give you in-sight into the pat-terns you have al-ready seen in the real world, but which are cur-rent-ly a mys-tery to you."


    That... Xam fo-cused on the words, in-tent on un-der-stand-ing, al-though she sus-pect-ed that she would be ful-ly im-mersed in her ex-pe-ri-ence and would find it dif-fi-cult to re-mem-ber the words. Sis-ter Jian had praised the qual-i-ty of her spec-i-men of flower, and boast-ed that she would pro-duce a high qual-i-ty med-i-cine from it, though in truth, Xam had no un-der-stand-ing of med-i-cines in gen-er-al or what the dif-fer-ence in qual-i-ty would mean. But she was cer-tain that Broth-er Du un-der-stood what was hap-pen-ing far bet-ter than most peo-ple she''d met, and any ad-vice from him was pre-cious.


    "For you, Sis-ter Xam," Du turned to her, and Xam fought back the blush on her cheeks, ig-nor-ing what she thought of the man for now, in spite of cer-tain in-stincts. "Your med-i-cine is not at its great-est ef-fi-ca-cy when in-gest-ed. There are censers in-tend-ed to al-low burn-ing of pow-ders with-in your space--"


    "I would very much pre-fer that," she read-i-ly agreed, be-fore he even fin-ished. "I was... a bit wor-ried that would be im-pos-si-ble."


    Broth-er Du smiled, and Xam cursed her-self for be-ing charmed by it. "We would be a poor sect if we couldn''t at least pro-vide such a means. I have no-ti-fied the el-der, and whichev-er place you take, you will find a censer there. Do not put the med-i-cine in it un-til you are ready."


    She bowed to him, though again, she won-dered--was she crazy? To be so dis-tract-ed now by thoughts and feel-ings that were mean-ing-less? Where was her pride? Should she even have pride?


    Du spoke briefly with Sis-ter Chi-an, who... who Xam, if she were hon-est, still did not like or trust, al-though the girl seemed agree-able. Know-ing that she was of a Spir-it Beast blood-line made Xam think of the beasts--Star-beasts, but also, less-er spir-it beasts--that she had fought be-fore, and all of them had been mon-strous things. The mil-i-tary made great strides in prepar-ing its army only by hunt-ing down those things, giv-en pow-er but un-wor-thy of it, and plun-der-ing that which should al-ways have be-longed to hu-man-i-ty.


    Chi-an... no, she couldn not take the time to think about this now.


    When at last they broke apart, she took a place where she was close to her Mian, but chose not to look in his di-rec-tion, for fear that her eyes would open just to dis-tract her. As she set-tled down onto a com-fort-able pad on the ground, a small aer-at-ed bowl ap-peared in front of her, and she un-der-stood its meth-ods in-tu-itive-ly. She had only to load the med-i-cine and ig-nite it with her own qi, but...


    ...But, there was prepa-ra-tion be-fore she took the med-i-cine. She had nev-er been un-der the throws of a pow-er-ful one, but she had tak-en mi-nor med-i-cines be-fore. Be-fore she be-gan, she walked the area, and faced the place the qi seemed to come from, sens-ing its depths, try-ing to un-der-stand where the qi she would ab-sorb came from. And she also with-drew and stud-ied the med-i-cine it-self, try-ing to be aware of how the med-i-cine felt, try-ing to un-der-stand what she could ex-pect from it. And fi-nal-ly, she set-tled, and stead-ied her-self, and cleared her mind, and only then did she pre-pare and ig-nite the med-i-cine. And for a few min-utes af-ter, she sim-ply... steeled her-self, hold-ing on to her mind and forc-ing it back into a state of seren-i-ty.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    But seren-i-ty was dif-fi-cult to find, once her jour-ney be-gan.


    The first drops of the Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall felt to her like me-te-ors falling from the sky above her. If they had been phys-i-cal, Xam knew she would have been thrown into the air, and per-haps im-me-di-ate-ly killed, but they were only drops of essence. But... the drops that splashed near-by in-creased the qi avail-able for her to cy-cle, and she did, greed-i-ly drink-ing in the essence along with the qi.


    That greed cost her, or per-haps, only hur-ried her along her path.


    The more of the essence she cul-ti-vat-ed, the more that drops from the Wa-ter-fall fell, but more than that, as she gath-ered that qi, some part of her be-came the falling wa-ter, and was not sim-ply med-i-tat-ing in the place where the drops were falling. Still con-scious of what Broth-er Du had said, she did her best not to pan-ic as she be-gan to ex-pe-ri-ence--over and over again--the feel-ing of be-ing a wa-ter droplet cast away from a great height and falling, falling, falling... to-wards what Xam knew, just as the wa-ter knew, was an in-evitable end-ing.


    When the first of her men-tal/spir-i-tu-al pieces land-ed in a dev-as-tat-ing crash af-ter years, or mo-ments, of falling, she very near-ly lost her trance, ex-pect-ing the crush-ing im-pact to be the end of that part of her--but it was not. The wa-ter that fell was not de-stroyed by land-ing, nor could it be. Al-though it sensed an-oth-er part of her-self falling--and that part of her felt the ground ap-proach-ing, sensed its sis-ter part splat-tered across the ground--she was pow-er-less to pre-vent the im-pact, pow-er-less to con-trol the in-evitable, in-ex-orable col-li-sion.


    That im-pact also did not end her. And al-though the two pieces of her that had met at the bot-tom were dif-fer-ent pieces of her, they merged ef-fort-less-ly, seam-less-ly. But she was more than one or two drops of wa-ter, now--there were per-haps six pieces, per-haps eight or ten, and the num-ber was only grow-ing. Xam was... only dim-ly aware that the flower was not Thou-sand mile few-wa-ter-drops flower. That it was not the Thou-sand mile light-sprin-kle-of-wa-ter flower. Was only dim-ly aware of what the flower was.


    But the process could only be halt-ed if she gave up, and she did not, would not.


    As the drops went from a few to a dozen, Xam be-gan to rec-og-nize that from with-in the falling droplets of wa-ter, she could sense her-self, sit-ting there sep-a-rate from where that part of her was, sep-a-rate from who that part of her was. And she watched the mas-sive drops of wa-ter, most of them also her-self, head-ed to-wards that ar-ro-gant young woman rest-ing on a padded cloth in front of a small burn-er. Al-though the drug showed her no more of the world, she could not have fo-cused on more than her-self... and her-selves.


    Those wa-ter drops were her-self, and in many way, they were so much stronger than Xoi Xam.


    It was not only their re-silience, not only their sheer mass. Al-though there was no in-tent be-hind the wa-ter smash-ing like ham-mers into the ground be-low, scat-ter-ing into small-er drops, and re-form-ing, there was some-thing. Wis-dom, per-haps. In-sight. But it was also in-com-plete, or Xam did not un-der-stand it, not yet.


    But a dozen droplets of wa-ter were be-com-ing two dozen, and Xam be-gan to un-der-stand that her-selves were greater than her-self. So great that if they wished, they could crush her. And she wres-tled with her qi, and her spir-it, and her-self, and won-dered, and ag-o-nized.


    Am I even wor-thy? The ques-tion, when re-en-tered her mind, de-light-ed her-selves. It felt like a weak-ness, like--


    But no, Xam hitched her breath and did her best to re-cen-ter her-self, know-ing where she was, what she was do-ing. She could see her-self, in that vi-sion, an ar-ro-gant woman, and she knew that the ar-ro-gant woman in her vi-sion was the real her, the real self. Only... no, she ar-gued. The her in the vi-sion was it-self only a re-flec-tion; she was her true self. But she was not wa-ter.


    Two dozen wa-ter drops be-came six dozen in only a few breaths, and the wa-ter drops that were her were only a small frac-tion of them, now. At last, the wa-ter that de-scend-ed around her de-served to be called a wa-ter-fall, if only a small one. A small trick-le of wa-ter break-ing up into droplets as it fell. But... why break up? What was her in-tent--the wa-ter-her''s in-tent? Or was there no in-tent, again, only a truth?


    Or was it even truth? Du had said... some-thing...?


    The wa-ter con-tin-ued to pound, a trick-le in-creas-ing into some-thing more, a tiny brook in the for-est, but Xam mea-sured her breath, try-ing to re-mem-ber who she was, even as she--but more, the essence of the flower with-in her--tried to ab-sorb more and more of that essence, bring-ing more qi into her than she felt ready to ab-sorb. Still none of the drops had ac-tu-al-ly struck her, each land-ing around her, as though the flower--or her own soul--were pro-tect-ing her from the ef-fects. But the qi, the flower''s qi, was thick-er, wider, more.


    Xam re-al-ized--a small bro-ken part of her--that this was what med-i-c-i-nal ef-fec-tive-ness meant. That there was more of this. More flower with-in her to draw in the qi with-out her con-sent. But she didn''t try to scat-ter the pow-der from the censer, didn''t try to flee from the il-lu-sion of the falling wa-ter. In-stead, slow-ly, as she grew used to the mas-sive weight of the falling wa-ter--al-though that weight and the wa-ter-fall con-tin-ued to grow--she be-gan to push back, her spir-i-tu-al per-cep-tion push-ing back against it and be-gin-ning to ex-plore the world of the il-lu-sion, be-gin-ning to grap-ple with it.


    Sis-ter Be-nai, a spir-it beast that Xam thought must have been far old-er, far wis-er, far more ma-ture than Sis-ter Chi-an--had said that this flower would lead her on a path to Wa-ter Qi... and also, move-ment. But while she was ab-sorb-ing a great deal about wa-ter that sim-ply fell and smashed head-long into the ground, she could not find any in-sight about move-ment in the il-lu-sion.


    Was she miss-ing some-thing? Was there... what had Broth-er Du said... a pat-tern?


    The droplets fell, and fell, and fell, and Xam be-gan to med-i-tate on the flow, her spir-it slow-ly be-gin-ning to reach up the wa-ter-fall, be-gan to rec-og-nize droplets as be-ing ''her-self'' soon-er, but she could not reach the source of the flow. By the time the wa-ter was near the ground, it had ceased to have agency, ceased to have con-trol over its des-ti-na-tion. Would she find mean-ing at the top? An in-tent, a de-ci-sion to be-come an un-stop-pable force?


    Was a wa-ter-fall re-al-ly in con-trol of its own move-ment? Could it be? She knew the an-swer be-fore she reached the top, but spent no time try-ing to un-der-stand what she al-ready knew, in-stead med-i-tat-ing on what she would find.


    When at last, her bat-tered spir-it found some-thing above that was more than mere-ly wa-ter, she all but em-braced that sen-sa-tion, but as she firmed her will and pulled her-self up onto the ledge that had been so far above her, so far that it might as well have been the moon, she found what she should per-haps have ex-pect-ed, but which she didn''t un-der-stand.


    She found her-self. An ar-ro-gant woman, sit-ting be-neath an-oth-er wa-ter-fall, the runoff from that wa-ter-fall now a rag-ing riv-er that threat-ened to sweep her off the edge. If she let her-self fall, now, she knew what would hap-pen. She would...


    She would end up right back here, at her-self.


    She would dash against the rock, pick her-self back up, and let her-self be swept over the next edge, to fall and meet her-self again. Whether she fell or whether she rose... she would only find her-self.


    When she re-al-ized that, for the first time, the wa-ter-fall ceased to avoid hit-ting her. The tor-ren-tial flow crashed over her head and shoul-ders, tore at her cloth-ing, ripped away the heat, tried to re-duce her to noth-ing. But she al-ready was the wa-ter-fall, and she could bear her own weight. She stud-ied that scene, look-ing at her-self from the edge of the cliff, and then looked up wa-ter-fall, see-ing an-oth-er her far above, who looked up at an-oth-er wa-ter-fall, and an-oth-er.


    And she turned and looked down, see-ing her-self be-neath the falls, and her-self at the cliff, look-ing down at her-self be-low, and again at her-self be-low.


    And as she be-gan to ac-tu-al-ly, prop-er-ly med-i-tate on those thoughts, she sensed some-thing else, some-thing that--again--she should have ex-pect-ed, but didn''t. A spir-it, in the shape of a flower. Not wise or all-know-ing, but... a plant, in tune with one sim-ple thought about the uni-verse. But when she some-how, word-less-ly asked the flower how to trav-el some-where, how to move like the wa-ter-fall, the flower had the only an-swer that she could have ex-pect-ed.


    You can''t go some-where that you haven''t al-ready been, and go-ing some-where you''ve al-ready been is as easy as let-ting go. You don''t move to a place that you al-ready are, you sim-ply are.


    In an-oth-er mind, in an-oth-er world, the thoughts would have meant You can-not trav-el. It is the only an-swer any plant could have to such a ridicu-lous thought. But Xam was split into a thou-sand, per-haps a mil-lion pieces, and re-dis-cov-er-ing her-self as the many pieces of her-self co-a-lesced into a whole. She ceased to be a woman un-der a wa-ter-fall, ceased to be some part of the wa-ter swept along by the flow... and be-came the en-tire il-lu-sion of wa-ter flow-ing over the edge of a cliff, un-der which a woman med-i-tat-ed.


    You can''t go some-where that you haven''t al-ready been meant some-thing very dif-fer-ent when her mind was split into so many pieces. She could be any-where that she al-ready was. And that re-al-iza-tion was, in her mind, some-thing fun-da-men-tal. Al-though she couldn''t quite grasp how to turn that into a tech-nique... she was pos-i-tive that be-tween that idea, and the prop-er-ties of wa-ter, there was a core, some-thing foun-da-tion-al, some-thing true.


    And she med-i-tat-ed, and her spir-it gath-ered qi, so much that it filled her whole body, and some parts of her squealed in protest, but she en-dured, let-ting the qi flow out when it was too much, and flow in when it was too lit-tle.


    Xoi Xam had thought that she was at the peak of Gold Qi be-fore. But when she had en-dured the pound-ing of the wa-ter-fall for a thou-sand years, en-dured the crush-ing weight of en-tire worlds on her spir-it, when she fi-nal-ly be-gan to feel the ef-fects fade, the qi no longer dive so read-i-ly into her spir-it, when the vi-sion fi-nal-ly be-gan fad-ing, Xam knew that she was past the peak of Gold Qi, that she was ready to sim-ply ask to be al-lowed to move on, and she would.


    There was no thought of shame in her mind, the idea ban-ished at least for now. Be-cause she was far ahead of where she was sup-posed to be, had en-dured more than she was sup-posed to be able to. She had been test-ed and found ac-cept-able, but not for the next step. She should have been swept ahead long ago. Per-haps she could not leap and touch the moon, but she felt that she could walk up a moun-tain.


    Even a thou-sand-mile one.


    When at last Xam felt en-tire-ly at peace, she opened her eyes, to find that the Pavil-lion be-fore her was no dif-fer-ent. But when she looked around, not all was the same, ei-ther. Da Chi-an was sit-ting in a sec-tion con-cealed be-hind black walls, al-though Xam felt that her own will was a key that might have al-lowed her to see in-side. In-stead of look-ing there, though, she turned to look at Mian.


    He... did not look well.


    His face was a mask of pain, and even from a dis-tance, Xam could see ir-reg-u-lar qi flows through his body. Ki''el was next to him, her hands on his back, her eyes closed. And Xam... could be-lieve that what-ev-er was hap-pen-ing, Ki''el was like-ly able to help. Even as she watched, ex-pect-ing Mian''s ir-reg-u-lar spir-it to ex-plode, ex-pect-ing him to lift his head up to the skies in a pained scream... at worst, noth-ing hap-pened. And at best... she could be-lieve that he was sta-bi-liz-ing, if very slow-ly.


    Xam didn''t ex-act-ly feel her break-throughs swept away, but her good mood and sta-bil-i-ty dimished rapid-ly. And al-though she felt she should prob-a-bly con-tin-ue to med-i-tate, she got up and left her space, but stopped short of the bound-ary of Mian''s. And she knelt there, watch-ing as close-ly as she could, watch-ing, study-ing. She... be-came cer-tain, af-ter a few mo-ments--Ki''el was pu-ri-fy-ing some of Mian''s spir-it, and it was hold-ing back ef-fects that were too strong. And... Mian was also be-com-ing stronger.


    She stud-ied his qi as well as she could from this dis-tance, but she was cer-tain of it. The man had only just en-tered Gold Qi, and was so far be-hind that he should have been a thou-sand miles away from reach-ing Peak Gold, much less chal-leng-ing the Tribu-la-tion. She was... hes-i-tant, even now, about ac-cept-ing that he need-ed to at-tempt it. He had told her that he was fine with her be-ing stronger than him, that he idol-ized and re-spect-ed her strength as much as her beau-ty. And... she was will-ing to go through some dif-fi-cul-ty to car-ry him along with her, as long as he con-tin-ued to of-fer not only gen-uine praise, but con-cern and care as well.


    Whether that was love was not quite the same ques-tion, but it seemed a far less in-ter-est-ing ques-tion to her. Mar-ry-ing a man who would sup-port her and al-low her to flour-ish seemed far bet-ter than mar-ry-ing a man that she loved, if the one that she loved would not sup-port her or al-low her to flour-ish. And she had met many men, even ones that gave her heart thrills, who seemed con-tent to leave her be-hind, to be-come noth-ing while they ad-vanced. If de-ci-sions of the heart had to come down to whether she want-ed some-thing or need-ed it, she must choose that which she needs.


    Star-ing now at Mian as he strug-gled to catch up, strug-gled to sur-vive, she be-gan to feel a sense of de-ter-mi-na-tion. She closed her eyes, med-i-tat-ing for sev-er-al min-utes, try-ing to put her spir-it in or-der, but then, fi-nal-ly...


    She stood up, and moved into Mian''s med-i-ta-tion space.