The actual matter of logistics was beyond Hua and she would be the first to admit it. The moment the Magistrate realised both her cousin and Liu Xin were both more adept at it and more interested, he functionally ignored her. Which would have been incredibly rude if not for the eager—deathly terrified—servant who made sure to ply her with food and drink. The view into the garden was also enjoyable if one ignored the yellow tinge to the sky. She could ignore the bout of sniping Weiji and Liu Xin went through as the magistrate tried to be productive and simply enjoy herself. If this was what being Lord meant, she could see herself not entirely hating it.


    It was decent tea that she was served. Perfectly acceptable for a visiting dignitary. But nothing as good as what was sold in the best teahouses and the Magistrate most certainly had access to that. Bribing an official to let one smuggle in a—


    The Sealord. I’d forgotten about him. Hua leaned forward slightly, working through her realisation. She had the Magistrate here and a way to force an alliance against the Sealord. A way to point more swords his way and declaw the Sealord before he grew more powerful.


    “We’ll make use of Zhang Pi’s storage capabilities,” Hua said, interrupting whatever they were discussing.


    “My lord, would you like to explain for the rest of us.”


    “He owns a significant number of the warehouses in the city. A third of them if I had to guess. And he has the support of the mercantile guilds. He’s a single person who can handle the matter of having enough space to store the supplies we retrieve. The guilds have scribes and money counters used to being pressured for bribes. It would make things more efficient were we to work with him. With them.”


    Weiji hummed an agreement. “They would also have experience with sorting through such a large number of goods and accounting for their delivery. The sava—I mean, your attendant can relay that message.”


    Petty to send Liu Xin away. Utterly petty. At this rate, Hua was going to have to teach Liu Xin to Cultivate just to witness Weiji’s hysterical fit.


    “There was some fuss with him and the Sealord a few months back, if I remember my gossip. My office was asked to adjudicate a matter of dispute. A brawl. We did not get very far before all the witnesses vanished. All of them. They were found weeks later arranged in the bloody aftermath of what could only be a carefully constructed altercation.”


    “That does sound very likely.”


    “Lord Weilong, do you mean to pit me against the Sealord? Because if so, I will take my chances with the revolting peasants. I’d rather an army of them than an upset Sealord.”


    Hua made a careless gesture. “He will not be an issue. This Lord has already dealt with him. If he does go beyond himself and cause the honourable Magistrate any issues, inform him that this Lord has lost all patience in his antics.”


    “I’ll remember that for when I am kidnapped by a dozen sailors and tortured within an inch of my life. I am certain it will stop the torture and prevent my corpse from being thrown in the sea with blocks of stone tied to my feet.”


    “You forget what you are, honourable Magistrate. No Cultivator in any stage of Qi Condensation should be cowed by a mortal no matter their numbers.”


    Weiji offered a rather theatrical and mocking chuckle. “My lord, not all Cultivators have lived long enough to truly understand their status. One cannot expect a once-mortal who was not born with a Scripture in his heart to know this.”


    “A dozen or a hundred men, there will always be a number of mortals that can kill you. This Magistrate has watched many in Qi Gathering go beyond themselves and die in the capital’s gutters just the same as a thief.”


    “Enough.” Hua stood, then, causing the magistrate to frown. “Expect a few Liao soldiers. They will assist in matters of security. Now, excuse this Lord. His business does not end.”


    And with that, she left.


    ***


    “Pray that your sword is mightier,” Weiji teased as their convoy made their way back to the clan grounds.


    All this pageantry just for an hour-long meeting, Hua thought, equally amused and irritated. It was needless, but Weiji and Liu Xin both thought she needed the accompaniment of a dozen horses, a good twenty foot soldiers, and the two flagbearers at the head of the convoy. Hua liked the kingfisher. She wore it proudly, yes, but there came a point where it was so oversaturated that all significance was lost.


    “Should I use you as a demonstration?”


    “I’d have to loan you a sword since you broke yours.”


    Hua reached for her side instinctively and found her waist empty of a blade. She cursed something truly foul under her breath which had Weiji wheezing in laughter. Her sword had been broken by her grandmother and she had yet to acquire a replacement. That would be her next task. It wasn’t one she could put off much longer.


    Weapons closed the gap between her and more physical cultivators. It would also be horribly humiliating to struggle in a fight because she forgot to get a blade. Then again, no one thought stealing a blade in battle to be dishonourable. That was good instinct.


    “You shouldn’t be so careless with the work our blacksmiths put into making a decent weapon. They toil away for hours. Imagine how they feel knowing their Young Mis—Lord Weilong, if they knew their lord was constantly losing the weapons they forged.”


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    “They’d be out of business without my need for steel,” Hua grumbled. “I can always steal your sword. I should steal it.”


    Weiji grabbed his sword and hid it away from Hua. “I don’t want you ever touching my sword. This sword is off-limits to everyone but Liao Weiji. It’s my sword and I’ve taken great care of it since I was old enough to use it. I polish it regularly and it fits my hand perfectly. Your tiny hand could barely wrap around the hilt properly. And I don’t want you breaking it anyway.”


    “You have surely broken at least one sword.”


    “Not even once. I know my own strength, unlike certain brutes in the clan.”


    “Please stop insulting my brother.”


    “I meant you… but also him.”


    If there was one benefit to the size of their procession and the noise they made, it was the privacy it afforded them. They were being followed though Hua did not know which faction they belonged to. Probably three different factions if she was observing things correctly. Not unsurprising. The Sealord, the Imperials, Zhang Pi, the mercantile guilds, and even her own clan would want to stay appraised of her movements.


    “I’m no brute. I’m a Cultivator of grace and dignity.”


    “Punching your way through everything is not a sign of either grace or dignity,” Weiji said flatly. “Were the world even vaguely kind, you would have been terrible with either the sword or the fist but no, you were blessed to be good with both.”


    “Luck is a landslide in my favour.”


    “I know. The difference in talent.” He sighed. It was only slightly bitter. “Never mind that. I still struggle to believe you left a meeting because of your boredom.”


    “Who said this Lord was bored?”


    “The problem with sharing facial features is that you recognise them in other people. Not that anyone needs specialised knowledge in deciphering that glazed look you developed when we started to talk about expected portion sizes for mortals.”


    “I only care about mortals in so much as they do the work to provide my food, and clothes, and generally keep my home clean. We can’t all be like you, finding ourselves enamoured with a mortal baker despite the failing of their mortality.”


    His smile froze. “I suppose not. Mortals are worthless things to you, after all. I’ll ride ahead and see to having servants organised for your arrival, if you don’t mind.”


    She knew that expression. As Weiji said, it was impossible to hide expressions you saw so often. This was one she had felt even if she hadn’t seen it in the mirror. The need to stay strong when you were reminded that you lived in a fake world without anything worth loving.


    Hua nodded, throat tightening. There was a difference between throwing a cousin on the training field and punching them in the heart. She knew, had always known it, and never tried to cross it. Much as her family made her furious at times, they were still family.


    “I trust you,” she said simply. Not to do something, not to work in her name. Just to be him. That was enough.


    Her cousin set off, galloping down the road.


    ***


    Hua was greeted by an army of attendants to handle the matter of stabling the horses and dressing their lord. She gestured to one and said, “Show Liu Xin to the Records Room,” as she waited for her father’s mantle to be removed and placed in a large trunk. These were her household servants, and they replaced the mantle with one of her usual cloaks.


    She refused to change into a different pair of boots as hers were still clean enough for her use. If this is what Weiji meant by preparing things then she was going to strangle him. Hua wanted respect, not ceremony. One was a matter of efficiency, the other a peacock’s display. Those colourful feathers were beautiful but since she had no interest in copulating with it, they were just a way to advertise a meal. Peacock was very delicious. Her favourite type of cock because of its gameness.


    Dealing with mortals is driving me to madness. This is what my life will be from now on. Ceremony and ritual, meetings and politics. How did father find the time to Cultivate?


    She frowned. Where was he? Ever since she had become the focal anchor of the Clan formations, she had been able to sense Qi signatures across the mountain. It was less that she had a precise geographic location and more than she knew which general direction someone was. It grew stronger with a person’s Qi. Weiji heading away from the Main Hall was a far stronger presence than Ming despite the latter being someone Hua could spot in the distance talking to someone on a bench hanging from a tree branch.


    She hadn’t noticed the absence of her father. As she cast her senses further, she felt the absence of her grandmother as well. Can I only sense people in the same realm as I am?


    That would be irritating. There would be years yet before she could sense and avoid her grandmother.


    Hua waved away the last attendant. She would take a pleasant walk and get a bit of training in. She needed to cultivate more instead of getting bogged down in politics. With how much Qi her sixth meridian took to unlock, her seventh might prove to be a bottleneck. And that was assuming she didn’t have a Qi deviation to set her back. A deviation could devastate a Cultivator in the Foundation Establishment. If it didn’t kill her, it could send her all the way back to Body Tempering.


    “Hua.”


    She looked up, frowning. By now, everyone should know her new name and use—


    “Hello, Cousin Weishang,” she said with a sigh. If he was a knife, he’d be the bluntest in the clan kitchen. Getting angry at him for making a mistake was like getting angry that a fish swam. “How can I help you.”


    He swallowed. “Would you like to trade pointers with me?”


    “I thought you trained exclusively with your elder, Shentao…” Hua turned her head, deepening her awareness of the formations that lay in the back of her head.


    “I liked training with you the most and—”


    “Cousin Weishang, where are the Elders?”


    “They, um, they went to visit the city.”


    He had that shifty look of an idiot convinced to do a dangerous job but with great reward. It was a look she had unfortunately seen many a time, usually when her brother gave him a task. Weishang might have been descended from the same blood as her but the intelligence had completely skipped him. It definitely skipped whoever thought they could get him to do something.


    “Then why are you trying to distract me with sparring?”


    “I’m not. You’re the best of our generation. I’d like to learn from you.”


    “Weishang, if you do not answer my question, I will leave you a bloody mess after breaking every bone in your right arm.”


    “I’m telling the truth.”


    You’re a terrible liar in a family full of good liars.


    She placed her hand on his shoulder, her thumb digging into the divot of his throat, and leaned in close. Allowed a fraction of the fury howling in her soul to leak out, Qi crackling through her veins.


    “Cousin Weishang, I want you to think very long and very hard on whether whoever you’re working for can protect you from my anger. And when you think, for a moment that they can, I want you to consider how fast I’ll reach the peak of Qi Gathering and be stronger than them. Then I want you to ask yourself ‘would Hua ever forget I tried to fuck her over?’ and think of what Hua might do to you in revenge.”


    His pale features managed to lose every hint of colour. Even his green eyes seemed more like a stormy sea than glittering emeralds. Hua should maybe stop squeezing so hard on his throat. Maybe. But Hua wasn’t going to run a clan where people treated her like an idiot. Her title would not be a ceremonial one. If they wanted a puppet, they could have picked Weishang and saved themselves the trouble.


    “So, let me ask again, dearest Cousin. Where. Are. the elders?”


    “The Council is having a meeting,” he squeaked out, his features now so pale he would blend in with a snowstorm.


    “Where?” she growled, squeezing tighter. Never truly bruising, never reaching for her Qi.


    Her cousin told her.


    Hua let him go and let him fall.


    It seemed some things were still unclear. She would bring clarity to her elders.