A new name had been claimed by Liao Hua. From this day forth, she would be known as Liao Weilong. For all the meaning in the name, for all the greatness and ferocity implied, it was a name that meant compromise. It was a name that spoke the truth of their clan.


    That they were weak with the original heir gone. Lost without a leader trained for the role. Vulnerable with their Patriarch in decline.


    Sons mattered. Everyone knew that. They were the ones whose lineages were remembered by history. They were the ones you married your important daughters to and there was no loss to it.


    Most daughters of a Cultivator Clan were too valuable to marry out of the Clan and its allies, especially if she was in the Qi Gathering stage, but even one in Body Tempering was worth a dozen guards. Worse, the number of lords willing to have sons lose their family name was in short supply.


    Brother Weijiang had the pick of women in the Amber Sea. He’d received marriage offers from princesses of the Goryeo people. Royalty, willing to make an alliance because the Radiant Lightning Body had begotten a son.


    Hua’s prospects were narrower, limited to the Amber Sea, to second sons of Lords too unimportant for their additional heirs to inherit anything noteworthy, and the third and fourth sons of great lords. Most likely, she’d be married into the Clan because of her high Cultivation. Maybe a son of a vassal house would have qualified, but they would have been a second cousin as the furthest relation.


    The twins faced the same issue. There might be marriages to make an alliance, but they would not be married out to anyone of great station. Could not be because their sons might equal the Radiant Lightning Body in the future.


    “I think I will meet with this new retainer of yours,” said her grandmother, a woman whose marriage into the least of the Great Three Clans had launched it into supremacy. By being so great a prodigy she established the foundation to Heaven and imparted the lineage, Qi, and knowledge to see her son utterly surpass her.


    One marriage had so thoroughly altered the balance of power and the repercussions of that marriage were still cascading more than a century later. Weijiang and Hua were destined for greatness. Even Weiji might reach the Foundation and all because he was descended from Xiao Jue, the Lady Liao.


    If the chaos in heaven had never happened, and her father simply died in a year or two, their Clan would have been in a powerful position. Grandmother would still remain as a shield. Weijiang and Hua would be fed pills until their meridians felt like bursting and they reached the Foundation Establishment. Three in that realm would have held off every threat, possibly even if the Dragon Throne allied with Yu and Zhao to kill them.


    “To do what?” Hua asked, slightly suspicious of the dragon who admitted to watching her children die without remorse.


    “I just want to decide if he’s worth anything or better thrown in a cauldron like Weiji suggested. That boy truly has a nervous disposition. I thought he might faint from how red his face turned as he ranted. That, or the lack of food and water. For such a ruthless killer, he doesn’t maintain his calm very well.”


    “I don’t know how he manages to deal with my brother so much if he’s so antsy. They always had such a good time together trading pointers—What? Why are you laughing?”


    “Child, what does trading pointers mean to you?”


    “Training. We do it all the time.”


    “I most certainly have never traded pointers with you. Oh, dearest one, you always manage to amuse me. Now, tell me about this retainer.”


    “He isn’t a Cultivator. A scholar in Body tempering. He’s a… History Doubter, I think the school is called?”


    Grandmother’s eyes widened ever so slightly, her smile turning predatory once more. “Oh, so someone with intelligence. I can work with that. I had planned to teach you spy craft in the coming years, but you’ve gone and found yourself a spy.”


    “He truly is a spy then. It isn’t just his enemies lying on his good name.”


    “Most people with dedicated enemies aren’t good people. You’ll do well to remember that. As a wild child who ran across this city, Liao Hua did not pay much attention to it. But no, he isn’t a true spy. His organisation was something like an information brokerage. They weren’t important players, but they had some skill and good connections. Truly, the heavens have blessed you if gold falls in your lap.”


    Did he fall into her lap? Liu Xin had attached himself to Hua, but she as well had been observing him, recognising in him something of import. And, truthfully, his competence and bravery were enough to raise him to some esteem in her eyes.


    “He’s made dealing with mortals easier. I never realised how tedious they could be.”


    Grandmother snorted. “Of course, that’s why we have attendants. He’ll be a good one if he proves loyal. And if he is a deep-cover spy, I’ll have a practical way to teach you torture methods.”


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    “Unfortunately, I’ll be too busy running the clan for that. And even if I’m not, there will surely be some way a lord can make themselves useful. Why don’t you bother any of my other cousins if you want another student so bad?”


    “They bore me.”


    “That is not a good reason to put everything on me,” he snapped back. Then she took a calming breath. Angering the dragon was not smart. “I tried paying Liu Xin some of the silver I got. He rejected my first offer.”


    “How little did you offer him that he rejected payment?” Hua told her grandmother. “Excuse me?” Hua repeated the number. “Liao Hua, if you ever try to pay someone a thousand silver taels for work worth a tenth that, I will bend you over my knee and spank you. Am I understood?”


    “It’s barely any money.”


    “May your partner have a good head for accounting because otherwise the Clan will be in poverty soon enough.” Grandmother shook her head, muttering about empty-headed children. “A thousand silver taels. The day you’re paying that much, a bag of rice will cost more than this entire mountain.”


    “Yes Grandmother, I won’t handle paying mortals in the future.”


    “Good. Now, tomorrow, we will add you as the anchor to the Clan formations.”


    ***


    Exhaustion was finally dragging Hua down. She could go no longer. The days had felt like weeks. The short distance to her rooms was an eternity.


    She should have had time to sleep, to rest, to process anything at all that had occurred. But the world was not so kind. There were constant demands upon her attention and effort. Had she personally made most of these demands to fulfil that nebulous but mountainous thing called duty? Yes. But she also didn’t like thinking about that.


    As she stood in her room, cleaned and maintained by servants Hua rarely noticed, she realised that everything could change but your room could stay the same. She would lay her head on the same pillows she knew and sleep under sheets which carried her particular scent. For a time, it would be like nothing had changed.


    Hua clasped the pendant between her hands. A gift from Qing. It was a kingfisher carved from jade.


    “Give me strength, Qing. I cannot do this alone. Guide me through this.”


    The dead did not speak. Not truly.


    “Why can’t you ever be here when I need you?”


    There was no answer. There would never be an answer again no matter how much she hoped otherwise. Qing was gone, anything else was delusion.


    “If I am a delusion, then is that truly so bad?” Qing asked, there and gone again.


    “I’d rather have the real you.”


    But there would be no answer.


    ***


    Hours later, Hua would awaken to a world warm and comfortable. She woke in her bed, the first rays of sunlight streaming through the windows, and the usual servants were bringing her tea and readying a bath.


    She held a moment of peace that died as she saw a cruel apparition standing by the windows, watching the gardens outside. Hua suppressed her snarl and ignored it. Swallowed a cup of piping hot tea and took a bath. The apparition did not follow her and stayed watching the gardens.


    Even when Hua was in the garden, the apparition watched her.


    Stone worn smooth by centuries greeted her knees and the pads of her toes as she knelt in meditation. Having her fingers intertwined, palms faced to greet the sun, was her preferred way to meditate.


    It was easy like nothing before to absorb Qi from the atmosphere. There was a density to it, as though she was a fish that spent her life at the peak of a mountain breathing droplets of water from the atmosphere and now found herself in a shallow pond, finally existing in a place that made sense. Thick, syrupy Qi, dense in a way that was uncomfortable.


    In the chaos and smoke of the past days, she hadn’t had time to turn inward and focus on herself. She realised now why she had been able to sustain herself so long in the city. If she was passively cycling through Qi this potent, it would have restored some of her reserves and allowed her to endure longer.


    Hua inhaled and with it, the Qi in her dantian spun.


    The motion created a suction force, one that crawled through her spiritual channels and tried to drag back the Qi in her unlocked Meridians. It was a battle to balance the two natures. Her dantian was naturally the ocean and her meridians the lakes, with her spiritual channels the river that Qi travelled through. When she cycled, it was like adding a great pump to every river, one that could drain a meridian dry.


    Hua deepened her breath and free-flowing Qi was drawn in.


    Jing was the name given to the external essence one absorbed and converted to Qi. It couldn’t be held by any means except through the slight pressure the Dantian exerted. Each breath she took aided that process, directed Qi to enter the vessel she made of herself. Where before it had been mist on the tongue, now there were entire droplets of water for her. When it was at her dantian, she could further strip away the outer layers of external Qi and expose something like a wisp.


    Hua exhaled and allowed those strips of Qi to return to the world.


    The dantian was truthfully just a cauldron where internal alchemy could occur. With the knowledge and skill, you could turn unaspected Qi into something that resembled lightning, eager to spark and snap about. She layered these sparks over the base layer of unmoving earth and let them settle down. Push too hard and that layer would destabilise. Saturating the dantian was one half of Qi Gathering.


    The other half was unlocking all twelve meridians. Unable to add more qi to her dantian, she sent the remaining sparks through her spiritual channels, carefully tracking the journey. Through the first standard meridian and down through the second and third all the way to her newly unlocked seventh, each of them lit up like a star. It was the seventh that was strange to her. It was lit brighter than the others, carrying a volume of Qi better suited to four meridians alone. Each meridian required more Qi but the jumps thus far had been steady. She’d been told that was the case by everyone more advanced than her. Now, instead, she was facing a sinkhole of Qi to fill.


    I’ll never reach the Foundation if each meridian takes this much Qi, she thought with horror.


    Lightning sparked in her body as she lost control. The revelation was so potent and unpleasant that it destabilised her control. The Qi she’d layered in her dantian sluiced away. Through instinct and luck, she managed to shunt that qi outward, letting sparks sing like a thousand birds. Inside, it was like her spiritual channels were being raked over by coals.


    Her eyes snapped open. She bent over to the side and coughed out a dark sludge. Blood and impurity and rotted Qi. The beginnings of a deviation.


    “Hua!”


    When she looked up, she was met with twin looks of worry.