The Sealord Song was the first mortal to comment on Hua’s ragged appearance that not even a clean travelling cloak and a quick scrub of her hands and face could hide. As a great merchant who had built his fortune exploring the merciless oceans that contained leviathans and dragons, he did not fear a bedraggled daughter of lightning any more than he feared waves taller than the mountains.


    “You look like a drowned rat fucked a manure pile,” the Sealord said politely. “I can’t send someone to rescue my daughter looking like that. And if Patriarch Liao Xiaosan knew I let you go looking this bad, he’d string me up by my entrails and feed me my manhood.”


    Father wouldn’t give you the time of day but please, continue believing in your importance.


    “Tainting my vocabulary isn’t a worthy enough crime?”


    “I’ve been friends with your Grandmother half my life. I’ve sailed with your kin. Your whole Clan can curse with the best of us. Met sailors more polite than the average Liao boy.”


    Which… wasn’t a complete falsehood. Those aspiring to power emulated those with power, and the most powerful in her clan cared not a whit for the fiction that was politeness. It had seen them labelled as little more than savages by the Yu Clan, but those cowards spent their days cozying up to the Dragon Throne, hoping that a fallen scale would be their ticket to power.


    The Liao Clan chose instead to cultivate strength.


    Hua appreciated the opportunity to clean up. He used the cauldron burning money to have water boiled for her use and permitted her the use of the captain’s cabin. She scrubbed at her fingers until she was clean of mortal dirt and blood. Fought against ash and grime and river water that had long since dried on her skin.


    The face in the mirror was painfully foreign. High cheekbones and a roundness to her cheeks that spoke of youth and good health. A blush that gave a hint of colour to her pale skin. Exhaustion lined her features, deepened the bruises beneath her eyes. Silver hair cascading down her back, matted instead of silken, missing her kingfisher hairpin—I hope it stayed with you beloved—and giving her an air of savagery. Eyes golden and bright, lit from within; twin suns, marking divine lightning. The thinnest strip of green ringed her pupils.


    The gods hadn’t quite taken everything from her. Only left behind their mark.


    A set of robes that fit her well. Hua wasn’t sure if she wanted to know how the Sealord guessed her size or why he had robes suitable for a woman in his captain’s cabin. While she preferred the blues and whites her clan tended towards, black would do well enough. It had the practical application of hiding blood. And she had her aunt’s blue travelling cloak with the Liao Kingfisher to wear over the layers of black.


    She tied a white sash around her waist. The colour of mourning had never felt more meaningless than now. What did it matter for mortals to know she grieved as well?


    Hua added a white ribbon around her upper arm as well. Maybe that would appease the ghost.


    Leather boots laced up in a snug fashion. The reflection in the mirror was almost coherent. Her grandmother would insult her, and her cousins mock her, but the average peasant wouldn’t be able to tell how confused the outfit was.


    She took a conical hat with a veil. Gold still shone clearly behind the veil. There would be no hiding those, not without more specialised methods.


    Liao Hua emerged onto the deck feeling clean for the first time in days. There wasn’t dried mud caught in some awkward place making her itchy. The stench of corpses and filth gone. No blood between her toes.


    “How do I look?”


    “Like a toddler ran around a fabric shop,” the Sealord said at the same time as Liu Xin said, “Excellent, Young Mistress.”


    Good enough.


    “I’ll hold you to your promise, Uncle Song.”


    “I’d expect nothing less. All my men helping you and as much influence as I can exert on everyone with a boat. Even those who use my warehouses. Just return my daughter and I’ll work some miracles for you. And try not to destroy the place. It isn’t worth the trouble.”


    Hua was certain she was being manipulated. She hadn’t smelled any wet black powder, a scent she had a passing familiarity with. If the Sealord really wanted his daughter back, he’d have marched with his hundred-odd sailors and set half the city alight with black powder.


    Hua would allow herself to be led around. At least for a little bit. There would be mortals to kill.


    ***


    “What do you know of this Blue Hand?” she asked Liu Xin the moment they were past the casual hearing range of the Sealord’s sailors.


    “Only what anyone of no importance knows. Behave in his district, pay the protection fee, bribe any Imperial soldiers who ask questions, and stay silent if Liao soldiers come knocking around.”


    “Would a Liao Cultivator count as a soldier in this case?” she asked. There would be no hiding with the kingfisher on her clothes. Her silver hair exceeded the length of her veil.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    “I believe an exception might be made for the honoured Thunder Palm, if only for survival’s sake. Most mortals simply hope to avoid the attention of your family. Looking away is a useful skill for general survival. So, if one had to make the choice between pretending to have never seen someone with silver hair walking the Red Light District, or having your family line destroyed to the root for insinuating otherwise, most choose the former.”


    “Implying the latter happens often enough to be well-known punishment,” she mused, humoured.


    “Your humble servant would not suggest that the men of the honourable Liao Clan patronise brothels with any regularity. It would be unthinkable. Surely, Liao men have better things to do than to cavort with mortals beneath the same sheets a dozen other men had soiled that same week. He would never imply that silver hair means a golden shower of taels.”


    Hua barked out a laugh and then let it free. It was the first time she’d truly laughed in what felt like an eternity. With her full chest out, she let herself be amused if only for a moment.


    “You live only because that made me laugh,” she said, eyes crinkled.


    He smiled back, relief shining through his calm veneer. “A great honour.”


    “Have you ever worked with my clan before? Few mortals dare speak to me like this and manage to live. You seem to know how best to survive us. Or me, at the very least. So, is it good instincts or good preparation?”


    “It is both. The honourable Young Mistress has a reputation for ignoring disrespect if she is amused or in a good mood.”


    “I have a reputation?”


    “Yes. Your actions, the actions of most Cultivators really, count as tavern gossip. If you destroyed a market stall or threatened a man in the morning, everyone in the lunch crowd would know. If you ran through the city then by evening, everyone would be… having fun with your actions.”


    “I’d be the butt of the joke.”


    “It only happens as often as you descend from your lofty home in the mountains and grace us mere mortals with your presence. Surely the Young Mistress doesn’t spend much time in the city speaking to mortals.”


    Hua sighed. Fine, the mortals talked about her when she wasn’t around. It made sense. She was important. Conversely, she never gave mortals a single thought during the day because they were of no consequence.


    The Red Light District had endured in a way many other parts of the city had not. Oh, the occasional building had been struck by lightning and entirely vaporised, leaving a slagged crater behind. Buildings burned down to charcoal frames. Bodies being picked up and injured in the street. But the scent of smoke wasn’t as strong. No streets had been burned to a crisp. And the water that completely drowned a temple simply left things damp here.


    “Well,” she said, pitching her voice louder, “if someone could tell me where my destination was, I’d be able to leave faster.”


    A huddle of men stood by a burning cauldron, hands grasping at the flames for warmth. They were adding twigs, fabric, coal, and paper notes to the fire. A person might burn money because they were too wealthy to care. They might burn it because the numbers inked on it were worth less than the fuel the paper provided.


    Those men aggressively looked anywhere but at her. Hua smiled. The men shivered. Hua’s smile widened.


    “You want Blue Hand,” one of the men blurted out, voice cracking. Young, that one was. One of his fellows cuffed him over the head and cursed him out.


    “And where can I find a man with a blue hand?”


    “Right there,” he said, pointing toward a crowd emerging from an alley.


    “Well, well, well, a fool who can’t keep his mouth shut and a pretty Liao girl visiting the Red Light District,” a man said, swaggering out of the crowd, covered in more knives than was at all reasonable. “Will wonders never cease.”


    He did have blue hands. Fingertips, really, but they were a shade of blue. It wasn’t paint and, with her greater senses, she could tell the blue originated from beneath his skin. Illness?


    “This Young Mistress greets you,” she said, offering him some face. “You’ll be taking me to the Crimson Leaf Pagoda.”


    “Since when do the Liao girls fuck other girls? Got a taste for cunt while no one was watching?”


    I thought the Sealord was exaggerating, he really does have more knives than sense. Even his people were carefully leaning away from him. No, this is just a mortal ritual I’m misunderstanding. Surely he’s not that stupid.


    “Is that a no?”


    “It’s a fuck off and leave.”


    Liao Hua leapt faster than anyone could react. Not a hard feat with mortals around. They never understood the sheer difference in ability until it was demonstrated.


    She slammed the man down to the ground. Crushed her knee into his chest, her body weight pressing down on him fully. Because he was covered in knives, she was sure his flesh was being prodded by metal. He’d cut himself the first time they slipped their sheathes.


    “Is that still a no?”


    Blue Hand grinned up at her with a confidence that came from being an idiot. “You must know there’s no peaceful way out of this.”


    “I’ve never cared for peace very much.”


    The first fool with a knife and no sense very quickly added his name to the Book of the Dead. It took a few seconds longer than Hua was expecting. His was a wild swing that would have missed a vital anyway.


    She pushed his hand aside, letting the knife veer off course. Then she thrust her palm at his stomach. Qi surged, splitting into yin and yang, as she formed the Trigram Zhen. The crack of thunder accompanied the surge of force.


    Everyone behind him was drenched in a sudden shower of viscera. Warm red meat. Stomach acid and acrid urine. Possibly shit as well.


    She shoved the corpse away and let it collapse onto the stone road.


    “The problem with mortals is that you think I’m here to negotiate or that I’m even willing to give you the slightest face. You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or you’ll die. Say something stupid and you’ll die. Irritate me, and everyone here dies until I find someone who doesn’t annoy me. There’s no more than a hundred of you. I’m sure at least one in a hundred mortals has a functioning brain. Actually, Liu Xin, do you think at least one mortal understands that I have no patience for these antics?”


    “It is possible though doubtful.”


    For once, Hua missed the good old days her grandmother spoke of often. The days when mortals kowtowed before daring to approach a Cultivator. Now, mortals felt like they could intimidate and threaten their betters.


    She grabbed Blue Hand by the face, her fingers digging deep, bruising and maybe fracturing bone as well. She didn’t care to moderate her strength.


    If she failed, this would have less meaning beyond another corpse.


    Mortals lacked the protective aura of Qi around their skin, that which shielded them from harm, equally from blades and fire as it did curses and lightning Qi. It made it easy to shape her Qi into the Zhen Trigram and make the force emit from the back of his head.


    Thunder shook the ground.


    Hua pushed Blue Hand’s head back and to the side. Slowly, painfully, never relenting even as he scraped at her arms and tried bucking her off. She forced his head aside until she could almost hear his spine strain. Far enough that he could see what she had done.


    Beneath his head was a crater. One wider than a person was tall. Her power shattered stone, turning to dust that which took teams of men to move in place. Past the gap of her pale fingers, she met his panicked gaze. They were a bright brown, the same shade of brown a lizard shat out when they were afraid.


    “Do you still have more knives than sense?”