I don’t think I’ve had a wine this pleasant, Liao Hua thought as she took another deep, fortifying gulp of her wine. It was beautiful rice wine, tagged in barrels that imparted a heady degree of spice, and drinking it was the only thing that stopped her from killing very many people. She took a breath and shoved her anger down with another deep drink. Focus on other things. Focus on the things she could control.


    Liao Hua prodded at the body lying face-first on the ground with her boots. The body, one belonging to a male, had fallen from the sky and landed in front of her. Technically, it came from a third-floor balcony, but that was a close enough approximation to the sky for her. And more technically, he had been thrown off the interior balcony by his opponent.


    The man on the floor groaned. There was blood leaking from his crushed nose and cracked skull. Hua held out her cup and it was silently refilled. She drank again.


    It was only after the third cup that she was certain she had tamed her fury enough to speak.


    “Hello Liu Xin, have you been enjoying yourself?”


    Her newfound attendant had been the one to throw the man off the third-floor balcony. He was breathing hard and had an ugly set of fresh bruises on his neck to go along with the older bruises on his face. Older amounted to three days ago in this case, when the store Liu Xin worked at was burned down, and his fellow historians murdered by other historians. Had Hua known academic debates could be so engaging, she would have diligently studied for the imperial exams. If her tutors had told her, she wouldn’t have needed to spend so much time outdoors, challenging dojos and fighting bandits. The fighters would have come to her if she issued a scathing enough critique.


    “May this servant refuse to answer that question?”


    “After the entertainment you’ve provided me, you may. Is this the idiot that kidnapped the Sealord’s daughter?”


    “His main bodyguard and—” Liu Xin turned on the spot and shouted, “don’t you dare try to sneak out or you’ll be joining your guard,” before closing the door shut. “My apologies for the interruption. Zhang Pi was not yet convinced he should stay put. As I was saying, that was his bodyguard. The Sealord’s daughter is in the room behind me. Your servant will now leave the matter to your judgement.”


    He was getting a raise. Whatever they paid retainers, Liu Xin was getting more. He’d done an excellent job whilst Hua sat and drank, entertained by a very upsetting group.


    This was a strange party. An unfairly pretty girl still playing the zither and a boy who was accompanying her with his singing. The frazzled Madame who ran the Crimson Leaf Pagoda, a brothel of some good repute, which served the delightful rice wine.


    Oh, and of course the mother of a Liao bastard and the Liao bastard in question.


    There was a Liao bastard in a brothel house. The daughter of the Liao Patriarch was also in the same brothel. There was technically an arrangement of Lia Hua and the courtesans that could produce another child—but she had doubts on the continued presence of the singer’s manhood; such a high tone wasn’t often achieved naturally, and there was always a place in the capital for so great a talent, so he would have been snapped up years ago.


    “Now, Madame, I trust that you didn’t lie to my servant or attempt to misdirect me in the hopes the fool could abscond with the Sealord’s daughter before we reached him. Because that sounds like an attempt to waste my time and I’m past my limit for that.”


    “The Madame only sought to entertain the honoured daoist while her servant did her bidding. This Madame is not foolish enough to risk the destruction of a Liao Elder’s preferred evening establishment.”


    Ah, yes, so preferred was the establishment that it offered the delectable service of producing silver-haired bastards who enjoyed seeing lightning dance. Hua glanced at the bastard and contemplated smashing his head in.


    Only for a moment.


    If the Elder did care for his bastards, and paying for his support supported the idea, then killing the boy would be making an enemy for life. While the Elder probably didn’t have more than twenty or thirty years left, that was still thirty years of complaining, political manoeuvring, and an altogether unpleasant time for Hua to deal with.


    “What is his name?” she asked.


    “Shui for water, Young Mistress. Lee Shui.”


    Hua drank the last of her wine and stood, feeling a moment of unsteadiness. Her Qi was so overtaxed that it was struggling to purge the alcohol from her system.


    She held out her hand and the child took it with his pudgy fingers. Hua let more lightning arc across her fingers. He giggled, totally misunderstanding the danger he was in. But any child born with silver hair was a child who loved lightning. The boy reached for the sparks and was not stung.


    Hua considered if she was willing to make an enemy of the Shen Generation. If the silver arrow hung on a leather strap around the boy’s neck was any indication, he wasn’t unfavoured. The mother must be truly excellent at her job to make Elder Shenyu support a bastard child.


    But this child could be a weakness. If Hua saw a Yu Clan boy as vulnerable as this, she’d steal him for the clan to feed Cultivations pills until the secrets of his meridians and spiritual channels could be uncovered. Every tiny piece of information could be the difference between victory and death in the next Clan War.


    “Can you kill your kin?” Qing asked her, standing beside the mother. Her spectral fingers cradled the boy’s head. “Can you live with that sin? Can you live knowing I would hate you for having that child’s blood on your hands?”


    She withdrew her hand, and the boy cried. He desired lightning, she knew, the same way as Hua had loved watching lightning separate heaven and earth.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    “I expect that I will not hear of a different family name once I leave. This will not become a scandal. Am I understood?”


    The mother swallowed.


    Ultimately, Hua couldn’t afford to make enemies of an Elder. She didn’t have enough allies for that. There were years yet before she was truly unassailable. The peak of Qi Gathering was the bare minimum to fully challenge the Elders, and with only six Meridians unlocked, she was only halfway through that journey. Prodigy or not, the Elders could smack her around like she was a toddler.


    Her decision had nothing to do with this false Qing who smiled benevolently at her. Qing was gone. If Hua cycled the Qi in her dantian, she could still feel the solid earthen Qi that refused to move at her command. That was all she had left of Qing.


    That, and a jade pendant around her neck.


    Hua made her way past the bastard-and-mother pair, managed to avoid looking at the unfairly lovely girl still playing the zither, and climbed up three flights of stairs. Liu Xin’s martial skills showed in the broken railings, the moaning and groaning fools he’d beaten, and a door hanging off its hinges.


    Her attendant was guarding the door that held her target. He was breathing hard, but he was mostly uninjured. She nodded at Liu Xin.


    “You did well. I believe you will have a place at my side from today onwards.”


    He slumped, relief stealing the remains of his tension. He looked younger with the knowledge that Hua would reward his competence. Loyalty was yet to be seen but the price for it seemed low—just the number of mortals who made up the rival school that had killed his comrades; so likely no more than one hundred who needed to die.


    The room behind him had been devastated by Liu Xin fighting his way through at least three competent guards. There was blood on the walls, teeth scattered about. Screens were punched through. Drinks, food, and trinkets lay scattered about the floor. It was a familiar scene even if the locale was different.


    The civilian was also expected. The younger woman wasn’t a natural beauty. Dark hair and plain features. Her ornamental hairpin, the paint covering her face, and the quality of her silken green robes were doing most of the work in her appearance. Hua guessed her to be only slightly older than herself.


    So this was Lady Song Song, daughter of the Sealord Song. She bore little resemblance to her father. Either she took entirely after her mother, or she had been adopted. Men often took the wife’s name if she was of greater status so the Song family name would continue regardless.


    “Who are you?”


    Civilians, she corrected, because the fool who had created this whole situation was also in the room. Hua had hoped he wouldn’t say anything.


    “The Sealord Song has entreated this Young Mistress to retrieve his kidnapped daughter.”


    Her phrasing was careful. It made the Sealord a supplicant even if the negotiations were more even than she wanted to admit. She knew in her heart of hearts that had it been her grandmother, then the Sealord would have kowtowed a dozen times before making such a request.


    Lady Song scoffed. “I told him I’m not coming back until he agrees to this marriage.”


    “Excuse me?”


    “My marriage to Zhang Pi. Father knew. I told him, brought the marriage contract to him, and when he said no, I knew I had to take things into my own hands.”


    Hua assumed Zhang Pi was the man who had been successfully cowed by Liu Xin. He was equally as average-looking as Song Song. Only his crooked nose gave him a hint of visual interest. They were such a boring pair to look at. Even before comparing them to the courtesans downstairs.


    “Lady Song Song, are you telling me that you attempted to run away with your father’s business rival in the middle of this chaos because you wanted to elope with said business rival?”


    She reared back. “I’m not mad, we were already here when things went wrong. When father came, I told him I wouldn’t leave unless he agreed to a marriage contract.”


    “You understand how difficult that is to believe.”


    Because that means the Sealord was lying through his fucking teeth the whole time and could have dealt with this himself.


    “The Sealord is a monster,” the uninteresting-to-look-at Zhang Pi said in an equally boring voice. “I tried to leave him be after he sent people to kill me for the third time, but after the fourth, I realised I needed greater support. So I joined hands with the mercantile guilds and offered him a stake in a massive venture, all so we could make a greater union. The only thing I asked was for his daughter’s hand in marriage in exchange for everything he ever wanted.”


    Okay, the Sealord was only lying about some of his monopolistic actions. But if he’s so willing to get his hands dirty, then why didn’t he just do this himself? It would have been faster, quicker, and reached the same conclusion.


    There was one conclusion she was reaching and she did not like it.


    “But my father is a selfish man with selfish thoughts,” Lady Song Song continued. “He’s going to sell me to someone I hate for no reason at all when Zhang Pi is right here. He’s a good and moral man who loves me. I deserve happiness and I’ve already found it here.”


    Liao Hua, the eldest daughter of one of the Great Three Clans of the Amber Sea, closed her eyes so she did not have to look at a fool and took a very deep breath so she did not murder the fool whose father ran a major shipping business that provided her clan’s territories with the necessary supplies to continue their ongoing cold war with the other two Great Clans, and in so doing upheld the ideals of filial piety and loyalty more than Lady Song Song had ever fucking shown in her useless life.


    “For the last three days, I have been surrounded by mortals who have managed to behave in such ways as to astound me,” Hua began slowly, truly taking in the arc of her life that had led her to this point, where she was forced to deal with mortals this fucking stupid. “And yet somehow, you have managed to awaken a higher level of anger in me. I do not believe your mortal mind is capable of comprehending just how furious I am. I do not think either of you understands what happens when you piss off a Cultivator. And here you are, daring to waste my time with this farce of an elopement and your nonsensical games against your father.”


    “My life isn’t nonsense.”


    “Yes, it is. You’re a joke. Both of you are jokes.”


    Zhang Pi drew himself up and puffed out his chest as though that was intimidating when Liu fucking Xin of all people scared him to compliance.


    “Don’t speak to her like that.”


    Hua marched up to the fool, drew her hand back, and swung it. She slapped him so hard he lost all strength, collapsing to the ground. Lady Song screamed bloody murder. Hua grabbed the girl’s shoulder before she could reach her stupid lover. Squeezed it just hard enough to bruise.


    “Let me go!”


    Hua let her shout and thrash a bit longer before shaking her. “I didn’t know your fool of a lover existed until this farce, but the Liao Patriarch knows the Sealord. If he doesn’t want you to marry him, then it won’t happen. It especially won’t happen if I kill him because of how much you’ve annoyed me.”


    She glanced between the furious Hua and her bleeding lover.


    “Our love is righteous—”


    I have lost the one person I loved, and she was worth more than your father’s fleet. Righteousness is nothing but your cowardice, your irresponsibility, and if I hadn’t made a promise, I would rip your lover’s heart out and feed it to you.


    “You are your father’s only daughter. He accumulated so much wealth in one life that it’s comical. He’s going to use that to make certain you are married to the highest station possible. I don’t care about your feelings. What do you think this idiot gets him besides something your father would have had anyway in the next few years.”


    Then, Hua had a brilliant thought. She looked at Zhang Pi and smiled maliciously.


    “In fact, I think you’re going to pay me.”


    “For what?”


    “For the privilege of polluting the air I breathe with your nonsense and the further privilege of living after the fact.”


    If Hua ever had to deal with mortals again, it would be too soon.


    Of course, fate would force her to do so again.