There were two headless corpses in the street.


    A foot had splattered the head of the still-kneeling bandit, and a hand had squeezed the neck of a man who lied and lied and could not stop lying. There was likely some poetic justice to their deaths, but Hua had no true brain for poetry. She liked the flow of it but whenever she set her brush to write out a verse, her hand became unresponsive. Her mind gave her no answers. It was a tragedy for all the hours she had spent being taught by great tutors.


    She took the vestment the false priest had stolen and used it to wipe away the tacky blood on her hand. This is why she preferred swords over other weapons. Feeling armour snap and bones crunch beneath her fists was always gratifying, but the mess, that she could not abide by. Swords might lose out on the visceral feel of violence but at least she didn’t have to deal with a mortal’s blood drying beneath her nails.


    Maybe I should get gloves?


    “Young Mistress, your orders?” Liu Xin asked. A man of great bravery, his voice didn’t waver.


    Hua realised there was still a crowd of terrified mortals kneeling before her. Ah, yes, the matter of the mortals who let a false priest act as he pleased. Her annoyance suggested killing them. Her pragmatism recognised many pairs of hands attached to bodies that could be put to work.


    The cold accounting of saving a city decided for her.


    She directed them to work on searching through the rubble and sending word nearby that Young Mistress Liao Hua called all to account; any who refused her call would add their names to the Book of the Dead. There, that should be sufficiently blunt for a mortal.


    “I want a full map of this district in the next six hours,” she added. “I want to know every roadblock and burnt building. If any are standing, you had best let me know quickly. If you find anyone looting, tell them that suicide will be less painful than what I will do. You two,” she said to Liu Xin’s former—but likely still-current—enemies, “You can deal with making sure that map is organised. I don’t want to talk to a single mortal unless it is critically important. Understood?”


    “Yes, Young Mistress,” the leader of the duo answered, shooting Liu Xin a vile glare before dragging off his friend with the cracked shoulder.


    And now, for the person who had perhaps irritated her the most in all of this. She walked to the father who held his dead son. What did one call the opposite of an orphan? If an orphan was a fatherless child, what was the childless father called? She was sure there was a word for it.


    She crouched down in front of the man and waited till he raised his gaze from his boy. It was a long wait. Now that the false priest was dead, his elation had died away and left behind an emptying and raw grief. Hua could be patient.


    And so, she waited as one minute became many. Finally, he raised his head. Startled hard at her presence, rattling the corpse.


    “What is your son’s soul worth to you?” she asked before he could say something stupid.


    “Everything.”


    “No, I think you are lying.”


    Fury sparked in his eyes. Ah, delightful, a sign of resistance instead of defeat. Fury was something she understood right down to the bedrock of her dantian.


    “I don’t care who you are, which Clan you’re from, don’t you dare say that again.”


    “I’m simply speaking the truth. If it truly was worth everything, you’d have stolen the gold from someone nearby. Traded your paper currency for their silver. Done anything at all but—don’t interrupt me; I haven’t finished. You did nothing to save yourself. You waited for deliverance and here I stand. Did you think it would be without cost?”


    His white-knuckled grip tightened further around his son’s shoulders. A burial shroud would hide the damage to his corpse. If one only removed the spike lodged in his throat and wiped away the blood on his face, he might look like any normal child who took a turn towards blue.


    “I’ll pay.”


    “Worry not, the cost is simple. You just have to get up and help everyone else.”


    “My son—”


    “Is no excuse. He is dead. You are not. Others still live. You can work or you can join him in the Hells. I don’t care if you strap him to your body and carry him around. Throw him in a ditch if you must, so long as you get to work.”


    “You’re worse than that priest,” he snarled, defiance burning in his eyes.


    “I will not give you the death you’re angling for. If you wish to die, slit your throat and join your son in whatever Hell he found himself in. But if you have the audacity to still draw breath in my city, then you will be put to work. Now, get up and join the other mortals.”


    “Fuck you.”


    She waited as the minutes breezed by. There were any number of things he could have done. Attack her. Flee. Kill himself. Anything at all. He chose no option but submission. She saw it in his eyes first, that fury quenched by grief. Tension fled his body as he gave up, backed down.


    Coward.


    “Was that wise, Young Mistress?” Liu Xin asked after the father had risen with his son and strapped the corpse to his back with the vestments of the false priest.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    “Liu Xin, you’re a mortal, so I understand why you think like them. I am a Cultivator. I do not care for the complaints of the mortals. If I stopped to worry about every mortal getting revenge, then I wouldn’t be able to take a single pace forward. If they truly wanted revenge, they would Temper their bodies and learn to harness Qi. They could build a great merchant empire and hire a mercenary band to kill me. They could do any number of things, but they do not. So yes, it is wise, because it doesn’t waste my time and my time matters.”


    “How long would you have been able to keep me if you acted like this?” Qing asked, standing beside Liu Xin who was saying something unimportant. “You know I would have hated this. It sickens me and yet you do it again and again. You behave like an animal and—”


    “Fuck. Off.”


    It her a moment to notice Liu Xin on his knees. Ah, she’d said that out loud. Unfortunate. The apparition would cause problems if she continued reacting to it.


    She gestured the scholar up. “Come, we’ll see where we can help.”


    ***


    Hua worked for long hours assisting in the rescue of mortals, a thing she had never expected to do.


    Liu Xin continued to prove his worth by filtering out the nonsense problems the mortals had for her. The truth was that Hua was terrible at leading relief efforts. She lacked both the knowledge and the interest in the lives of those around her. She wanted the city fixed so that the servants in her clan didn’t have to worry about how they would source the five grains or her favourite meats or the fresh fruit to make desserts, and if they weren’t bothering her with delays, shortages, and low-quality foods, then she could Cultivate her way to heaven.


    Seeing the city repaired was also a matter of pride because it bore the name of her clan. If this city fell, it would be three millennia of history wiped out. Much of that history was in the cycle of razing and rebuilding, destruction in flame and war, and rebirth in long, bloody years of work. More of that history was in every monument they built, every district that grew and was added to the puzzle Hua knew as home.


    Hua heard a woman crying and followed it. The front fa?ade of a home had recently collapsed if the rising cloud of dust told the full story. She made her way in. There was a woman desperately trying to pull her son from beneath a fallen beam. She was covered in dust and cuts, her hands bloody from clawing at the beam. Desperation clung to her, but she didn’t give up.


    Hua walked to her and lifted a great beam with ease, allowing the child to be pulled out. The boy might live. He was breathing and though his breath was stuttering, his heart was still strong. He also had a mother and that might make a difference in the days to come.


    She ignored the thanks from the mother. If someone asked, she wouldn’t have been able to recall them.


    They moved on to the next people in distress and then the next and the next, as the day progressed, and the bodies piled up.


    “Young Mistress, what should we do with the bodies?” Liu Xin asked on behalf of all the mortals who were too afraid to ask.


    “Pile them in a large square and find timber. We’ll need to burn them soon. Find a priest to cleanse their spirits. I’ll settle for a local one if the ones from the temple are all dead.”


    “The nearest priest is dead.”


    “What happened to him?”


    “The Young Mistress decorated a road with his largely decapitated corpse.”


    Hua took a deep breath. “That was a real priest?”


    “It seems so.”


    “Tell me, do priests usually extort people at sword point for funerary rites?”


    “It is… not a completely uncommon occurrence, especially for priests in less regulated areas. It is certainly unexpected for a city with a Cultivator Clan and an Imperial garrison.”


    “Fuck,” she sighed, glaring at the sun turned red by the ever-present haze of smoke. “The Liao Clan has Daoist priests that can perform the rituals. Our daoshi might not be ordained by the major temples but they’ve done the rites well enough for millennia. A problem for later. Come, I think I hear another mortal in need of salvation.”


    That was the work. The tedium of trying to save people and organise more. Breaking up fights, stopping looting, and pulling corpses aside. It kept going as the sun arced across the sky and the larger fires died down.


    She came to learn that Liu Xin held the strength of two men quite easily in a lithe body, muscles rippling as he pushed a retaining wall into position. Deceptive strength that made those around him show far greater respect than they had to for a supposed Liao Clan retainer. Either he was a martial expert—which he was—or he was a Cultivator capable of manipulating qi. Both often had terrible tempers.


    “This is a good spot for the injured,” Liu Xin said later, holding open a door for her.


    They searched through the building. It was an inn of sorts. There were beds on the second floor, linen they could use for injuries, and beer for people to drink. Hua wouldn’t trust the river water on a good day. Now teeming with corpses, rubble, and the runoff that a city produced, she’d be staying away from it. The stench of it had dried into her clothes, she knew, turned brown and yellow what was once pristine white.


    She pointed at the mortals who had easily fallen into a role as leaders and had been organising rescue efforts. Hua knew them only because Liu Xin had pointed out their utility.


    “You three are in charge here. Find anyone who knows something about medicine and get them working here. Send some runners to let people know we’re setting up a place for the injured for now. If I find chaos, I will decorate the entrance with your heads. Am I understood?”


    Threats were often inherently a form of weakness. A true Cultivator of consequence did not have to resort to them for the world simply fell into order at their presence. But, well, most living Cultivators hadn’t lived through such great destruction.


    With that done, Hua found a quiet space outside to simply sit and stop for a moment. She thought of nothing, letting her gaze loosely follow the mortals carrying injured bodies to the inn. Just existing would ensure that they remained on their best behaviour.


    A cracked bowl appeared in her vision. Liu Xin handed her a cracked cup that held cold congee and a sprinkling of chopped nuts. Precious sugar had been sprinkled atop it as though that alone would make it taste worthy.


    “Even Cultivators must eat at some point.”


    It was sadly true. Someone in Qi condensation could fast for a few days without issue, but then so could regular humans. Supposedly, those in the Foundation could continue longer, weeks at a time with low activity. Some foods, however, possessed Qi. Tiny fragments that could be cultivated from if one had the wealth to acquire the spirit rice the Zhao Clan grew.


    Food also had the benefit of tasting nice.


    The congee she mechanically ate might have been pleasant. But truly, she tasted the spoon more than the congee. Before anyone else, she was done, handing the bowl back to Liu Xin.


    He brought her back another one.


    Had Hua the energy, she might have complained about the mothering. But, pragmatism won out as she needed the fuel. You ate what you could because the next meal might not come soon.


    She noticed the other scholars watching Liu Xin carefully. Her as well, though they didn’t realise that simply paying attention to a Cultivator could draw their attention. She let them watch, curious whether she would have to kill them. Suspecting, slowly, that they were part of the price to be paid for Liu Xin’s loyalty. There would be time yet to tell if that loyalty was worth acquiring.


    “Liao Hua!”


    The voice was such a shock that she dropped her bowl and rose to her feet. Hua saw a face so familiar it made her heart unclench with relief.