《exec_ep=diviega/. [A SVSSS OC Fanfic]》


 Chapter 1

    Proud Immortal Demon Waywas a feminist nightmare. The YY novel of the year, with its OP protagonist and his impossible number of wives, managed to find every way of demeaning and sexualizing women possible and then went out of its way to create more. Airplane Shooting Across the Sky managed to create a blackened protagonist with every possible golden finger that could be found under the sun and in the depths of hell. One that seemed to trip over wife-plot after wife-plot and solved more problems with his Heavenly Pillar than he did with his cursed sword.


    Numerous copycats started and fizzled out in its wake as PIDW grew more and more popular. Fanfictions about Luo Binghe finding his One True Love out of the countless women he had deflowered sprang up from nowhere and faded into obscurity just as quickly. There was a merchandise line with everything from mousepads to body pillows, official cosplay competitions, and entire panels at conventions. An entire wiki with annotated references became an almost holy text necessary to make sense of PIDW¡¯s numerous aborted plot arcs and throwaway characters.


    PIDW was the equivalent of literary fast food.


    It hadn¡¯t been originally. When Airplane first started, the web novel had an excellent starting concept and an almost cohesive plot focusing on revenge in an interesting way. By the time it ended? PIDW was a winding disaster that catered to every fan pairing and none of them at the same time, a mess of violence and sex that needed an editor to chop through the sheer amount of nonsense Airplane clearly used to pay his bills.


    Not that decent and morally upstanding netizens such as Miaomiao996 would know any of this. Miaomiao¡¯er would never be caught dead in even the comment section of such a garbage corner of the internet. Absolutely not, if you saw her responses, then no you didn¡¯t. The only kinds of novels that cute little cat was likely to read were classical Chinese texts and work manuals.


    Li Hanyi worked from nine in the morning to nine at night, six days a week, at a job that respected her about as much as a stray cat. She did not have the time or energy toguesswhat in the world the nonsense euphemisms of the week meant. The poor, overworked, and underpaid little meow meow no longer read PIDW. She did, however, read the much more sensible comments. Peerless Cucumber, in particular, was exceptionally excellent at summarizing and bridging the gaps between plot sections. Miaomiao996 was always unusually quick at upvoting Peerless Cucumber comments, thanking laoshi for his kindness.


    But what Miaomiao¡¯er wastrulyknown for was the nigh-draconic ability to skim through a chapter for the most expensive items and report back on where they even came from in the first place. And it was Miaomiao¡¯er arguing in the comments on which wife had the most expensive bridal gifts. Miaomiao¡¯er with the carefully updated spreadsheet that tracked just how ridiculously wealthy Luo Binghe became with every new wife plot.


    The last chapter was an affront to all good literary sense. It was an ending, that much everyone who read it could agree on, but one that Li Hanyi was forced towaitto read.


    She all but ran to the last train headed home, tapped her feet impatiently on the elevator, kicked off her heels at the door, and flung herself bodily onto her bed. Li Hanyi didn¡¯t even proceed immediately to Cucumber-laoshi¡¯s ever-vitriolic comments, for once preferring to read the chapter for herself. She made it halfway through Airplane¡¯s usual desperate nonsense before she had to scream into her pillow. Hundreds of women were in his house and Luo Binghe wasstillobsessed with his scum villain former master.


    Was this supposed to be the lead-up to a genre change? Because if it was, and Airplane was truly that strapped for cash to sell his works to a legion of rotten women, then those aforementioned rotten women were about to have atimetrying to keep up with this narrative. What men were evenleftfor Luo Binghe to overpower with his heavenly pillar after already paving his way to an empire of bones and blood?


    It wasinfuriating.


    Li Hanyi thought fondly of her spreadsheet and the wealth Luo Binghe had accumulated. Her heart twinged painfully and she rubbed idly at her chest, lungs hitching oddly on a nigh-hysterical laugh she shouldn¡¯t have made at two in the morning. All that wealth was just thrown away. She rolled fitfully around on her bed, phone clutched to her chest as spots grew in her vision.


    Why had the ending gone soterribly?Why had she wasted so much time reading a sell-out of a novel if it was just going to move on to the next biggest moneymaker without so much as a fond farewell to the author¡¯s creative integrity? Did Airplane have no concept of a healthy or normal relationship to base his romances on?


    Thinking about it made her blood boil.


    ¡°Ah, fuck your mother, Airplane. Piece of shit sell-out couldn¡¯t even make the ending satisfying.¡± She pressed her fingers to her temples and rubbed in a vain attempt to stave off a migraine that threatened to appear on top of her rage-induced tinnitus. ¡°Stupid author. Stupid novel.¡±


    Li Hanyi weakly punched her pillow. ¡°Could have avoided all of it if you didn¡¯t have your protagonist tripping dick-first into every vagina within a city block. Maybe talk about his problems with his top wives. Benormalabout his world conquest. But no, can¡¯t have that.¡± She sighed, took a deep breath for calm and courage, and picked her phone back up. Her blood boiled as she resumed.


    By the time she finished, Li Hanyi¡¯s tinnitus had gone from a quiet ringing to a deafening roar.


    She rolled out of bed, reached for a glass of water on her nightstand, and slumped to the floor instead. Oh, how her heartachedandburnedwith her ire. Her vision swam, darkened around the edges, as he body seized with pain. Li Hanyi clutched at her heart and hissed. ¡°Piece of shit novel.¡±


    ***


    The world was dark and cold as the wind whistled through the gaps in the walls. Something clicked, and the familiar mechanical voice of some automated system rang out.


    [Activation code:¡°Be normal, piece of shit novel.¡± System automatically triggered.]


    What in the Skynet resurgence was this? Nobody asked for Siri¡¯s evil twin to turn up in her perfectly comfortable afterlife. Go away and bother someone else. None of that nonsense today, thanks but no thanks.


    [Welcome to the System. This System operates in line with the design concept¡°YOU CAN YOU UP, NO CAN NO BB¡±; we hope to provide you with the best possible experience. It is our sincere wish that during your time, you can fulfill your desires and, in accordance with your wish, transform a tactless work into a magnificent first-class classic to withstand the ages. We hope you enjoy.]


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Fuck your mother, who the hell asked for that? Was she supposed to be slave labor to whittle down 6,666 chapters of pure nonsense for no reward other than personal satisfaction and Airplane¡¯s acclaim? Absolutely not!


    The world blurred at the edges.


    A blue window appeared before her eyes. Text scrolled by rapidly and the familiar ¡°ACCEPT or DECLINE¡± options hovered in front of her, and Li Hanyi saw red. She bit back a strangled curse and took a moment to put her thoughts in order before opening her mouth again.


    ¡°Begging the System¡¯s pardon, but I would like to take the time to review this one-sided employment contract before agreeing to anything illegal or immoral.¡± What in the world was going on? Li Hanyi had no idea, and her hands passed harmlessly through the textbox until she finally hit just the right spot to scroll. And scroll she did, all the way to the beginning, read the terms and conditions straight through in one long shot.


    ¡°Unacceptable,¡± she snapped. ¡°There is no way to stop Luo Binghe¡¯s nonsense from Ning Yingying¡¯s character. Not a single one of his wives has any kind of emotional sway over that man.¡±


    [Ning Yingying is valued as the protagonist¡¯s first crush and first wife¡ª]


    Li Hanyi clicked her tongue against her teeth. ¡°And look at her value: first in hundreds. Truly, an emotional narrative to withstand the ages.It¡¯s trash.¡±


    [One of the other wives? Liu Mingyan?]The System tried again.


    ¡°Ah yes, the beauty so perfect that her husband went on to sow his seed willfully to hundreds of women after her. Are you just as stupid as Airplane? Don¡¯t you know that the only women who matter to a character like that are those who raised them or their spouses?¡± She rolled her eyes as she scolded the System. ¡°This contract is a no-win scenario. The wife roles are the problem, yes, but not the root issue.¡±


    [Understood. Then Qi Qingqi¡ª]


    ¡°Is a flower playing among a bed of flowers. That¡¯s sexual harassment to assume that if I refuse to be a crazy, blackened demon lord¡¯s harem member then Imustbe a lesbian. I should sue. Where is your manager, I want to file a complaint.¡± Li Hanyi slapped gently, yet insistently, at the box.


    Text was changed, deleted, and rewritten several times under Li Hanyi¡¯s cruel oversight.


    [System initializing¡­]


    [Side character wife creation successful.]


    [Entering world successful.]


    ¡°Wait,what?Nobody asked for that!¡± The boxes for ACCEPT and DECLINE loomed before her, and flickered once, before becoming ACCEPT and ACCEPT. Only, now there was a distinctly unfriendly timer beneath both options, counting down without her permission. ¡°Who asked for a new account as one of Luo Binghe¡¯s wives? Unprofessional! Disgraceful!¡±


    The timer ticked down to zero, and the world spun back into focus. Day was as good as night, and night was as good as day. The wind blew through the gaps in the walls as everything swayed gently outside a thin rice paper-covered window. Said walls were not the same pristine ones she had first woken up surrounded by before she fought the System for a consolation prize, but cheap and covered in worn patches.


    Her hands were tiny, nail beds filthy, but not altogether in the worst condition. What mattered more to her was the ominous new textbox hovering before her.


    [The System was successfully activated! Bound role: ???? ???? of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect¡¯s ???? of Qian Cao Peak, ¡°???? ????.¡± Error creating role. Error assigning account. Logging into Guest Account Guest01. In compensation, a starting balance of 200 B-Points has been assigned.]


    ¡°What,¡± she said flatly. ¡°What kind of nonsense¡ª.¡± Her voice squeaked and she clapped her hands over her mouth to dampen the sound. This was ridiculous! Was she going to have to go through puberty a second time? And what was that about Qian Cao Peak? There was only one named character from that peak, and a quick check beneath her coarse robes was enough to disprove her candidacy for whoever Mu Qingfan used to be before he became Mu Qingfan.


    So, her character was set. Poor, female, alone, and supposed to do something with the protagonist¡¯s cultivation sect. Not the specific peak for the flowers of Cang Qiong either, but the medical peak. How was Li Hanyi, a regular person who only knew home remedies from her grandmother and the basics of the cold medicine aisle at the pharmacy, supposed to contribute to the greatest medical peak in the cultivating world?


    It. Made. No. Sense.


    Somehow, Li Hanyi needed to make it from this shack to the most prestigious cultivation sect of all time. It was enough to make her begin bawling her eyes out. And that, at last, brought an adult into the room and the end of her time talking to empty air.


    ***


    Chen Mingming was the third daughter and fifth child of cabbage farmers. What meager wealth and land the Chen family possessed had already been parceled out to the two older sons, marriages of convenience and strategic investment optimization already decided for her elder two sisters. There was nothing left for the Chen family to offer their youngest.


    But there was plenty that an extra daughter could offer her family in a period where daughters were worth a pretty pile of tael.


    No. Thank. You.


    Honestly, it was far too easy to flee the Chen household. It was almost like no one expected a ten year old little girl to break out of the house just three days after learning that her parents were considering how much of a bride price she was worth. Then again, Chen Mingming had probably been a delightful child that did nothing wrong. Stealing her brother¡¯s clothes and rolling around in the dirt? She would never.


    Better to face the blearing of the System alerts for OOC behavior and take the point deduction.


    ¡°OOC, your mother. Did you learn nothing of Hua Mulan? It is a staple of good Chinese literature to have a young lady dress as a boy in order to improve the narrative,¡± she groused, crouched beneath a cart to hide from prying eyes and ears. ¡°Besides,whatOOC behavior? That would require this character to evenbea character.¡±


    Li Hanyi folded her arms in her stolen sleeves and pouted at the textbox before her. ¡°It¡¯s a fixed rate, yes? Then deduct points for being unfilial and not allowing myself to be sold like cattle. Go ahead, and then bring me your manager so we can discuss your crimes against human rights.¡±


    The box emptied at an alarming rate, and her 200 B-Points remained hers. Unsurprising, truly, as this was what generally tended to happen when arbitrary contrariness met Li Hanyi¡¯s particular brand of professional pettiness. Whatwassurprising was just how close to Cang Qiong the Chen family farms were and how very helpful this particular old uncle was when it came time to asking for a free ride.


    Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t born yesterday.


    No, she was not about to hop onto some strange old man¡¯s cart to go see a cultivation sect. She was physically ten, not mentally, and this new life was not about to start off as an unfortunate statistic. There were no milk cartons for her picture to be put on, only evil cultivators who would eat her alive in order to preserve their youthful skin.


    But she had directions and a time limit that she had verified with a random selection of unaffiliated strangers. And that? That was almost better than Google. Her own personal Google in her head certainly wasn¡¯t going to help her with GPS directions. Well, it hadoffered.


    [Would you like to enable Easy Mode for 150 B-Points?]


    ¡°No, thank you.¡± 150 points? When she only had 200? Who would fall for that? Not Li Hanyi, not today. There were road signs that pointed the way to Cang Qiong, and those were free. Her goal was to make it to a magical mountain with twelve peaks, just in time to take whatever the selection test was.


    Challenge accepted.

 Chapter 2

    Finding Cang Qiong turned out to be ridiculously easy. Aside from the abundance of signs on the road, there was a completely unexpected variable: other children. It was easy to forget just how important Cang Qiong sect was to the cultivation world and just how many children would chop off their own legs to get a chance for greatness. For some, joining a sect was the only way to escape abject poverty and starvation.


    The trick, if one could even call it that, was to not go alone. While the truly lucky children were found by wandering cultivators and brought back to become their personal disciples, the rich brats hired guards and travelled in style. Everyone else? They all tried to group up with other children, hitched rides with strangers, or just tried to make it on their own with whoever they accidentally ran into. Li Hanyi was no different.


    She followed the roads and signposts religiously, kept her head down, and did her absolute best to become part of the background scenery. But somehow, despite her best efforts, she picked up a shadow. A sticky little shadow, fluffy like a little rabbit, and twice as terrified. Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t cruel enough to turn a scared child away, not when bringing him with her all but guaranteed her success at making it to Cang Qiong in one piece.


    Shang Fenhua was destined to become Shang Qinghua, the An Ding Peak Lord. The sticky little rabbit that clung to her side, curried favor with his Han-gege, was going to outrank her. This meant that he absolutely was going to make it to Cang Qiong. All she had to do was follow whatever route Shang Fenhua suggested and keep him from vibrating off into the stratosphere every time something moved in the underbrush. Li Hanyi didn¡¯t even have to feed him, just let him hold onto her ratty sleeves and say something soothing every once in a while.


    ¡°Gege, could we go a little slower?¡± Shang Fenhua whined as they stumbled down the packed dirt road. Neither child was truly used to even the idea of cross-country travel and it was obvious in every blister and bit of sunburned skin. But the little rabbit was clearly worse off than Li Hanyi, the fifth child of rural cabbage farmers.


    She spared him a glance over her shoulder and sighed at his ruddy little cheeks and sweaty neck. ¡°If we go any slower we¡¯ll be late. And late means fewer peaks will be there. The more peaks present means the higher our chances of being picked.¡± They might be blessed with destinies, but they could still fail the first time and have to come back the next time Cang Qiong opened its gates. And, unlike Shang Fenhua, it wasn¡¯t like she was going to be allowed by her family to try again.


    The only thing waiting for Chen Mingming was forced marriage and a lifetime of being some poor farmer¡¯s second wife.


    Shang Fenhua pouted at her. His pudgy little cheeks only made her want to pinch them and he all but deflated when she stared flatly back. ¡°But my feet hurt,¡± he whined.


    ¡°And you can rest them at Cang Qiong,¡± she replied mercilessly. His whimper and whines pulled at her heartstrings, and eventually, she broke down and heaved a sigh. ¡°Look.¡± Her arm, the one unencumbered by her little rabbit¡¯s sticky grip, rose to point at the mist-covered shapes off in the distance. ¡°They¡¯re right there. All you have to do is walk.¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s so far.¡± His whining was truly beginning to grate on what was left of her nerves.


    Li Hanyi rolled her eyes. ¡°You only have to do it once. Think of it like that instead. The next time you have to go to Cang Qiong? You can do it by flying there on your own sword.¡± Even the accounting peak had to have swords for transportation, as they were basically a staple of the PIDW setting. Never mind carriages and horses, she would keep her little rabbit going with the carrot of superhuman powers.


    Shang Fenhua didn¡¯t buy it. ¡°But that won¡¯t help me get there now. Can¡¯t we take a break?¡±


    ¡°We just had one.¡± Not even an hour ago, and he had spent the entire time stuffing his little cheeks with melon seeds from god knew where. If Shang Fenhua had his way, they would get there long after the peak lords selected the candidates for inner circle disciples, if they even made it at all this year. ¡°Fine. Take a break if you want one.¡±


    She rolled her eyes at the dramatic way the boy all but threw himself to the ground. ¡°Thanking Han-gege for his kindness,¡± he simpered out.


    Li Hanyi waited for the boy to get comfortable before nodding. ¡°All right then.¡± Without another word, she turned on her heel and began walking away.


    [Warning! Mission failure imminent! Shang Qinghua must make it to Cang Qiong Peak. Escort Mission status critical. Warning! Warning! Warning! Important things must be said three times!]


    ¡°Wait for it,¡± she whispered under her breath. ¡°Just wait.¡±


    [Core Mission failure will result in the automatic termination of guest account privileges.]


    She curled her fingers against her chest and counted. ¡°One.¡± She stepped forward. ¡°Two.¡± Another step. ¡°Three.¡± One last step.


    Shang Fenhua sprang to his feet and seized at the bottom of her robes. ¡°Han-gege! Don¡¯t leave me behind! I¡¯m so sorry!¡±


    The System¡¯s derision was almost palpable. [¡­ Side character ¡°Shang Qinghua¡± loyalty +5 points. Character complexity +10 points.]


    Li Hanyi carefully ripped her clothes out of his fingers. ¡°Who¡¯s your gege, ah? I don¡¯t have a brother who can¡¯t handle a bit of walking to change his entire life around.¡± She turned up her nose and clicked her tongue at him. ¡°I¡¯m going on. You do what you want.¡±


    Shang Fenhua was not a pretty crier. His nose ran, tears streamed down his blotchy red face, and he blubbered out little spit bubbles. ¡°Pwease don¡¯t weave me. Han-gege, I¡¯ll bwe bwetter.¡±


    ¡°Heavens preserve me.¡± She reached up and tore one of her sleeves off, the stitching worn and frayed enough to have landed it in the rag pile in the first place. Li Hanyi was not gentle as she wiped at his face, unwilling to let such a snotty mess touch her for any longer than she absolutely had to. ¡°Pull yourself together or I¡¯ll leave you here.¡±


    ¡°Gege,¡± he cried. ¡°Gege is so kind¡ª.¡±


    She kicked him away before he could blubber all over her any more than he already was. ¡°Enough! Get your shit together.¡±


    Shang Fenhua froze in disbelief. ¡°Get my shit together? Such¡­ foul language from my gege.¡± His eyes narrowed as he muttered up at her. ¡°The mods won¡¯t like that.¡±


    ¡°Fuck your mother, who cares what the mods think¡ª.¡± She paused mid-tirade and blinked. ¡°The mods are asleep, post sinks,¡± Li Hanyi said slowly, tongue tripping over English pronunciation.


    ¡°Are¡­ gege, are you familiar with¡­ Proud Immortal Demon Way by any chance?¡± Shang Fenhua hesitated as he spoke, almost stalling out over the words as he forced himself to ask.


    Li Hanyi almost growled at him before she forced herself to take a breath and calm down. It wasn¡¯t Shang Fenhua¡¯s fault her life was as awful as it was right now. ¡°Piece of shit novel with no common sense that was written by a forever-alone virgin? I¡¯m familiar, why?¡±


    ¡°Bro, you don¡¯t have to be so mean. What makes you think Airplane was a forever-alone virgin and not just, I don¡¯t know, trying to pay his bills?¡± Shang Fenhua clearly had mastered the art of pouting and pleading very early in his life. ¡°You don¡¯t know his life.¡±


    Li Hanyi stared at him like he had just grown a second head or was a particularly repugnant slime mold on her shoe. ¡°Ha, ok. No one who can get a date would write that many wives who all loved a man who was that bad at ¡®papapa¡¯. Airplane is either a forever-alone virgin or a bottom gay with a size kink that lives so far in the closet that Aslan wants him to pay taxes.¡± She blinked at him, watched him splutter in stops and starts, and hissed at him. ¡°What, are you a fan of his? Is that why you¡¯re defending that piece of shit author who gets his sex scenes from Pornhub gifs and wouldn¡¯t know a GDP if it hit him in the face?¡±


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Shang Fenhua¡¯s mouth opened and closed as he appeared to seriously think about what she said before settling on righteous indignation. ¡°GDP? Sex scenes from Pornhub gifs? I¡¯ll have you know I did my best to keep up with my readers¡¯ demands! You have no idea how hard that is!¡±


    ¡°You tried?¡± Li Hanyi was not proud of how swiftly she descended upon a child in an attempt to strangle him. ¡°This piece of shit scenario is all your fault! I could have had a nice afterlife, not this guest account nameless background character destined to become one of hundreds of wives!¡±


    He gurgled as she shook him, hard enough that his head bounced back and forth. ¡°A wife? Bro, Lou Binghe isn¡¯t gay!¡±


    ¡°No shit,¡± she bit out.


    The pair of children paused in their scuffle, Shang Fenhua¡¯s head trapped under Li Hanyi¡¯s arm as she slapped at it. He curled his fingers around her forearm and yelped. ¡°Hold on a minute! Bro, what, are you like Hua Mulan-ing and cross-dressing just to avoid my protagonist son? Harsh, bro, harsh.¡±


    She slapped his head one more time for luck and dropped him like a hot brick. ¡°Harsh? Who was the one who wrote their novel¡¯s women like cattle? Would you like to be in a triple digit sized harem where your spouse trips his heavenly pillar into every ravine he can see?¡±


    ¡°Oh my god, you¡¯re Miaomiao996,¡± he breathed out like it was a state secret. ¡°Miao-Mesmer, what were you doing, reading this gege¡¯s regretful pornographic web novel like it was required reading for the exams?¡± Shang Fenhua shook his head shamefully like he was some last bastion of proper morals. ¡°You know Luo Binghe will just take that as a challenge, right?¡±


    ¡°Gege your mother. It was this guest account character or Ning Yingying. At least I have a snowball¡¯s chance in hell on this character.¡± She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. ¡°I don¡¯t see you coming up with a better plan.¡±


    ***


    Airplane did, in fact, have a better plan. It would require his utmost cooperation in his given role as Shang Qinghua and hers as a nameless Qian Cao member, but their mutual-aid pact was nigh-foolproof. He would help her pretend to be a man to escape Luo Binghe¡¯s attention, and she would help him win Mobei Jun¡¯s protection. When Shang Qinghua disappeared before Cang Qiong¡¯s ruin, so would Li Hanyi.


    He would help her become a tragic cultivator. She would help him become a better spy for his demon lord. Neither of them would die. Everybody won. Well, everybody except for Luo Binghe. But he didn¡¯t need any help from them at conquering the Three Realms.


    They plotted and planned as they walked along the road to Cang Qiong, careful to shut their mouths when carts rumbled by or when they stopped at the rare little roadside stand to beg for food. Most of the time, the two children slept off the side of the road, covered in leaves and hidden from sight.


    Finally, days later, they arrived.


    [Mission stage complete. A bonus of 20 B-Points will be awarded for speed of completion.]


    How very kind, she thought bitterly to herself as she took up a shovel from the haphazard pile at the gate. A whole twenty points for forcing a named side-character to move with something resembling a sense of urgency. Li Hanyi rolled her eyes and ripped off her other sleeve. She tore it into strips with her teeth. ¡°Come here, brat. No sense n tearing your hands up.¡±


    Shang Fenhua blinked at her as she wrapped his hands best as she could, half-remembered snippets of martial arts movies the only guidelines she had. His eyes watered and his lower lip quivered. ¡°Han-gege, you¡¯re so good to this little bro.¡±


    She¡¯d never thought that she would need a blubbering little rabbit of a child to help her lie about her gender, but here she was. The least she could do was keep him from turning his hands into blistered messes. Li Hanyi snorted as she wrapped her own hands. ¡°Yeah, yeah. Come back if you start getting blisters. Try to remember to take reasonable breaks.¡±


    Another boy, some nameless applicant amid a throng of other boys, laughed at her. ¡°Look at this idiot. Trying to sabotage someone else just so you can have his spot.¡± He was bigger than both of them, a full head taller and older than the little group he was with, clothes far finer, and had the air of a bully about him.


    Li Hanyi¡¯s eyebrow crawled up her forehead. Was this what passed for a bully in this world? ¡°Really? Our Hua¡¯er doesn¡¯t need to work like a dog to be noticed. Can¡¯t say the same for you.¡± She hissed, hackles up in defense of her fellow transmigration and partner in mutual self-saving. ¡°Watch and learn how it¡¯s done, idiot.¡±


    The other boy purpled as his friends snickered, raised his fist to strike. ¡°Why you little¡ª.¡±


    A cultivator, ageless and perfect in the fine gossamer robes of his station, clapped his hands from his position by the gate. ¡°No fighting!¡±


    Shang Fenhua was quick to shove her, hissing and spitting all the while, away from the group of boys. ¡°Now now, Han-gege. No need to start a war over me. No one appreciates that except for your laoshi anyway.¡± He pushed her gently across the way by the simple expedient of a hand between her shoulder blades, off to a good spot to start the trial.


    It was a nice day: sunny and clear, not too warm nor too cold. The ground wasn¡¯t packed tight from harsh drought or swampy from recent rain. Clearly the grounds at the base of Cang Qiong were dug up frequently, as there were very few weeds or plants to hold the dirt in place. All the conditions were, objectively speaking, perfect for digging holes until someone told them to stop.


    There were dozens of hopefuls spread out across an area the size of a football field, complete with stands full of spectators. Said observers were neatly divided by colors, and each one of the twelve peaks had clearly sent at least one representative for the trials.


    Shang Fenhua scoped out a good spot in full view of the colors that he whispered meant the An Ding and Qian Cao peaks. ¡°Remember, Han-gege. Never mine straight down.¡±


    ¡°Right, right. Show off all my good qualities by digging a hole to the core, but make sure I can get back out of it.¡± She rolled her eyes and rubbed at her shoulders. Unlike the rest of the hopefuls, Li Hanyi did not immediately begin digging, much to their confusion.


    No, instead she stretched. First her arms, then her legs, until her entire body was nice and limber.


    Shang Fenhua already had a hole plotted out and a dent several shovel-lengths long by the time Li Hanyi even began. She didn¡¯t mind being outpaced by the boys around her. How could she, when they each began to groan from pain and exhaustion as their bodies protested every movement? Meanwhile, Li Hanyi dug her shovel into the dirt over and over and didn¡¯t feel her bones screaming at her. Lift from the legs and not the waist; dig at an angle and not straight down. She kept her dirt piled safely to the slide and stayed focused on the task at hand.


    The point of the exercise was to impress, yes, but nowhere did the guidelines state that they needed to destroy their own bodies to do it. No, what the cultivators were after (at least according to Airplane) were the echoes of their peak¡¯s ideals in moldable bodies with good spiritual roots. Stupidity and failing to take care of your own body were automatic disqualifiers for the cultivating world¡¯s number one medical sect.


    After all, she wasn¡¯t after something violent like Bai Zhen Peak, so her movements didn¡¯t need to be perfect so much as get the job done.


    Li Hanyi was not ashamed to admit that she dug her hole and used the repetition to fall into a near meditative state. It was like the worst kind of yoga, the kind of mental repetition she¡¯d been forced to do at the end of every work week when her body wanted to give up and her mind still ticked away. These children had no idea how to do the forced mental labor of a veteran¡¯s 996 schedule, and she put her skills there to good use.


    The sun crawled across the sky and made sweat pool in places it should never go. But still, still she dug. Dug and dug while an uncaring collection of immortal cultivators looked on and judged them all by an arbitrary set of guidelines that not even Airplane knew.


    ¡°Little shimei. Come out of your hole and come home.¡± The shadow that stood over Li Hanyi¡¯s hole would have been entirely welcome if not for two very important things. First, that the gentle and elegant voice belonged to a beautiful woman in Xian Shu¡¯s light purple. Second, that said woman had pegged Li Hanyi (rightfully so) as female.


    Well, shit. There was nothing for it. Joining Xian Shu was either a death sentence or a tacit agreement to join a harem of hundred as the token ¡®ugly¡¯ lesbian. After all, there would be no competing in the beauty department against the likes of Liu Mingyan, and the only appeal left to a character like Li Hanyo¡¯s would be the same disgusting logic that scum-sucking straight men at a bar used when they claimed that they could turn a woman straight by the power of their heavenly pillar¡¯s might.


    The thought alone had her shuddering in revulsion before she buried it under what courtesy a ten-year-old could manage. ¡°Honored cultivator,¡± she began with a bow, sweat dripping into her eyes as she gripped her shovel tightly to her chest. ¡°This one thanks you for the courtesy and compliment, but this one must regretfully inform Madam Cultivator that this one is, most regretfully, male.¡±


    ¡°What,¡± the beautiful woman said flatly. ¡°What kind of joke is this. Little shimei, is my Xian Shu Peak not good enough for you?¡±


    Li Hanyi licked the salt from her upper lip. ¡°This humble one apologies if this one¡¯s face has misled Madam Cultivator, but this one only received this one face from his parents. And, in all the ways that matter, this one is male.¡±


    The woman clicked her tongue as someone else bit back a laugh. ¡°Unbelievable! You dare lie¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Now now shijie. The child says they are a boy.¡± The laughing voice chided the woman. ¡°Has your Xian Shu decided to change its requirements at the first pretty-faced boy of this new generation?¡± A genial man neatly cut in before the woman could burst a blood vessel or qi deviate out of rage. ¡°Come along, little shidi. Qian Cao would be delighted to have a little brother who cares so for his fellows and elders.¡±


    Oh. Oh thank fuck. There was no way this would come back and bite her in the ass, right?

 Chapter 3

    As luck would have it, the man was not the Peak Lord of Qian Cao. Wang Huo was a kind man, portly beneath his gray and white robes, and incredibly fond of stroking his long beard and mustache whenever he said something particularly insightful. While he was not a Peak Lord, he was a Peak Elder, and that was what mattered. More importantly, Wang Huo had unilaterally decided that Li Hanyi was just the right sort to become his personal disciple.


    The so-called ¡°right sort¡± to Wang Huo was the kind with manners, basic medical knowledge, and quick with their wits.


    Never mind that she had the qualifications to become a cultivator. Wang Huo cared more about the fact that Li Hanyi had very politely told another peak to kindly go stuff themselves, no matter what the reason behind it was. Even if it was a very valid reason.


    Joining Qian Cao after a day of digging holes was frankly a letdown. She started in a cluster of other new Qian Cao disciples, waved goodbye to Shang Fenhua as he went off and joined his own little cluster of An Ding disciples, and was neatly herded off for intake and orientation. They crossed a bridge made of rainbow glass like a herd of ducklings, which was fun to walk up for the first ten minutes¡­ right up until she noticed how terrifyingly close they were to the clouds. Looking down through the bridge was straight up not happening after that.


    Wang Huo neatly separated her from the other children for a special intake process all her own, even as other cultivators came by to pick and choose from amongst the gaggle of children. He was quick to hand her a selection of bars and bottles in a little basket before he beckoned her to follow him, with a bundle of mustard yellow and ash gray fabric stuffed under his arm. Li Hanyi was not ashamed to admit that she had no idea what any of the bottles and bars were for. She wanted to assume that they were soap, but who needed a soap that smelled like medicine?


    She found out quickly enough what they were for.


    Every new disciple went through the same entrance process, but Wang Huo made Li Hanyi go through hers in the privacy of his personal quarters. She was stripped down to her skin, deloused, scrubbed within an inch of her life, and her hair was neatly detangled and oiled. The dirt beneath her nails was scrubbed with the tiniest little brush and her hair combed and combed until it slipped through Wang Huo¡¯s fingers.


    He showed her how to dress from the socks up and didn¡¯t say a word about her gender the entire time. It was ¡°martial son¡± this and ¡°martial son¡± that. He waxed philosophical on the merits of politeness and proper terms of address. Disciples that had entered before Li Hanyi would refer to her as shidi, and she would answer their courtesy by calling them shixiong or shijie. No disciple of Wang Huo¡¯s would be a mannerless miscreant raised in a chicken coop.


    All of that was fine, welcoming even, as he tied her hair up like a man twice her age and secured it with a polished wooden stick. After all, there was no sense in using silver or jade on a child who would be falling from a sword in practice soon enough, and his martial son might as well start learning how to tie his hair up properly.


    Wang Huo was a good and fair man. He treated his disciple well, with square meals a day. He opened his home to his disciple, kept a roof over her head, and asked no horrible questions about her past and what had led her to being how she was. All he wanted to know was if she had committed a crime that Li Hanyi was running from and, if so, whether she needed Qian Cao¡¯s assistance to make it go away. If not? Whoever Li Hanyi had been did not matter compared to the new life of Li Hanyi the Qian Cao disciple.


    It was mind-blowing and progressive, especially in ancient fantasy China.


    All Wang Huo asked was that she attended her lessons with an open mind, paid respect where it was due, and that she behaved in a manner befitting a member of a righteous cultivation sect. He said it all while he sipped his tea and opened his home to her as his home.


    Li Hanyi would commit murder for this man.


    She spent the first few days crying in relief, the System blearing at her that her mission was complete and she had received the such and such reward that she didn¡¯t care about. Some new feature was unlocked for ¡®further character customization and development¡¯ and she closed that window without even reading it. After she had cried herself dry, Li Hanyi picked herself up and got to work. She wasn¡¯t destined or inclined to become the Peak Lord, but Li Hanyi was perfectly willing and content to be the best disciple she could be for this portly grandfather who had taken her under his care.


    Sword forms? Li Hanyi would learn every single one that Qian Cao offered until she found the one that worked for her.


    Medical texts? The disciple would like some paper and ink, because she was making study guides and flash cards.


    Talisman formations? Your incantations ain¡¯t got shit on spreadsheets, but boy could she optimize that array like it had macros.


    Qi cultivation? Bring it on.


    Meridian pathway charts? No more complicated than learning the optimal bus and train routes to get home before the last one stopped running.


    She meditated when Wang Huo told her to, built up her golden core bit by bit, purged the impurities from her body with special tea, and learned how to move both her energy and that of the world around her. Li Hanyi wore her robes with pants, tied her hair up just like all the other male disciples, and was the very image of a perfect Qian Cao disciple.


    Puberty was awful the second time around, but Wang Huo was a saint who quietly left her a basket of things and a manual on how menstruation worked for people with a uterus. He didn¡¯t say a word and neither did Li Hanyi, but the supplies kept coming and that was the end of it.


    The knowledge that she could use the finer aspects of her dual metal and earth spiritual roots to make her acupuncture that much more effective? Oh, that made up for the awkwardness. The way Shang Fenhua twitched every time her hand moved towards any slender bit of metal and she mentioned practicing her acupuncture on a live subject?


    Priceless.


    ***


    ¡°Shizun. This disciple does not understand why we¡¯re doing this.¡± Li Hanyi, fifteen years old and far too jaded for her master¡¯s liking, rolled her eyes at his request. ¡°This disciple would respectfully like to remind shizun that routine check-ups were already performed on the new disciples this year.¡±


    Wang Huo waved his hand dismissively and chortled behind his mustache. ¡°Ah, but my Han¡¯er has yet to attend. Humor this old master. One day, Han¡¯er will have to treat a patient without this old master, and how will Han¡¯er know how if Han¡¯er never practiced?¡±


    She blinked back at him. ¡°Respectfully, shizun, this disciple does not see how this disciple is supposed to learn a proper bedside manner from¡­ shizun, why does it have to be them? Any other peak would be fine.¡±


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°Why not? Make some friends.¡±


    Li Hanyi did not make friends with Ku Xing either.


    ***


    There was a small child crying in her shizun¡¯s sitting room. A quick check provided some very important information: Qian Cao uniform colors, no visible injuries, no sign of her shizun, and nothing was broken in the room. None of that explained why said child was in her shizun¡¯s sitting room, but at least Li Hanyi didn¡¯t need to worry about an immediate crisis. Aside from the existence of a crying child.


    ¡°Shidi. Shimei. Whoever you are.¡± Li Hanyi nodded in the crying child¡¯s general direction as she passed by on the way to her shizun¡¯s kitchen.


    The child sniffled, wiped their snotty little nose on their mustard yellow sleeve, and hiccuped. ¡°Shidi, please, shixiong.¡±


    Li-shixiong always had a great ring to it. It was like her whole peak had just come together one day and had a sensitivity course about respecting people¡¯s pronouns. It was truly some groundbreaking and heartwarming inclusivity in ancient fantasy China. Now, if the idiots on Xian Shu and Ku Xing could attend the same course and follow it? She¡¯d die of joy.


    Li Hanyi hummed under her breath at her shidi. ¡°Shidi. Why are you in my shizun¡¯s home, shidi?¡± She returned from the kitchen with a pitcher of water and two cups, gently setting one in front of the crying boy.


    He hiccuped as he sipped at the water, eyes furrowing in confusion as he realized he hadn¡¯t been handed yet another cup of tea. ¡°The other disciples are making fun of me.¡±


    ¡°Ah. You¡¯re what, ten? Eleven?¡± She sat down across the little sitting room table with her own cup of water, crossed her legs and neatly arranged her robe sleeves with a flick, and sipped idly. ¡°What, did they say your hair looked stupid? We all have the same hairstyles.¡±


    Maybe it was how bluntly his shixiong was speaking to him or maybe it was how very clearly Li-shixiong didn¡¯t care, but the little boy paused in his crying. ¡°I¡¯m ten.¡± He slapped at the table. ¡°They say I¡¯m stupid! Because I don¡¯t understand the class.¡±


    ¡°Uh-huh.¡± She took another sip. ¡°Ten.¡± Gently, ever so elegantly, she put the cup down in front of her. ¡°Here¡¯s the thing, shidi. The best part about being ten? All ten-year-olds are stupid. No one understands the world at ten. Then you go out in the world, learn you¡¯re really good at some things, discover you¡¯re really bad at some other things, then you learn how to get better at both. Eventually, you grow up and you teach the new batch of ten-year-olds how to not be stupid at the thing you¡¯re not stupid in anymore.¡±


    The boy stared at her, mouth gaping wide like a fish. ¡°Li-shixiong, you¡ª are you even allowed to call all your shidis and shimeis stupid?¡±


    She blinked, paused for a moment, and perked up. ¡°Oh! Shizun has snacks!¡± She brushed imaginary dust from her knee and got up from the table, rummaging around in one of the cabinets on the walls that was supposedly only for storing old paperwork. The tin box buried beneath bound manuscripts of weird and fake-sounding medical conditions? Definitely not paperwork. She set the box down between them and popped it open with a triumphant gasp. ¡°Well, you see, shidi¡ªwhatever your name is. That would require me to care what my shidis and shimeis thought. But they¡¯re ten. And stupid.¡±


    Slender fingers pushed the tin box closer to the boy. ¡°Now, eat a cake, drink your water, and figure out how you¡¯re going to be less stupid than the rest of my shidis. Or not, I¡¯m not your shizun.¡±


    ***


    The boy came back.


    Frequently.


    Every time, Li Hanyi would make him drink a glass of water, eat a little cake from the tin that never seemed to empty, and leave before her shizun came back. Sometimes, he complained about how his fellow disciples treated him Other times, he came to her with the results of his studies. More and more often, her little shidi just wanted someone to talk to about whatever weird little botanical experiment he was running in the gardens.


    She didn¡¯t really pay attention, as the brat clearly just wanted someone to talk at, not to. He was determined to prove his worth and smart enough to figure out how to do it but needed someone to let him talk it out. Rarely, her shidi needed a levelheaded person to remind him of his own age and inexperience compared to those who ignored or mistreated him, and that he needed to act accordingly.


    Li Hanyi often meditated or cultivated when he came by, gave noncommittal noises when he asked rhetorical questions, and practiced her acupuncture on her willing new dummy. If there was a rubber duck supply available, she would have thrown one at his head and have done with it all.


    He had a shizun of his own and friends he could talk to.


    Until the one day that her little shidi didn¡¯t.


    Months after that first day, her little shidi burst into her shizun¡¯s house in tears. His qi was disturbed enough she could feel it across the room, hair all askew, robes covered in dirt, and there was a bruise purpling on the side of his face. ¡°Li-shixiong! They¡ªthey ruined it!¡±


    Li Hanyi had never really understood the concept of cold fury before that moment. She went from peacefully writing out a copy of her old study guide on the uses of a particular common weed, one she fully intended to hide in her shidi¡¯s pile of scrolls he liked to read before bed, to on her feet faster than she could blink. ¡°Who did what to what?¡±


    Her shidi gave a mournful sound, let her hold his hand, her fingers on his wrist to probe his qi even as her other hand pulled at his chin to examine the bruise. ¡°Those Bai Zhan brutes! They just¡ª all my hard work! Gone!¡±


    His qi was a complete mess, one that would take a much smarter and more experienced cultivator to put to rights. The most she could do was poke a meridian or two with her needles and bolster his roots with her much more stable qi, staving off a qi deviation until he could return to his shizun.


    [Secret side mission ¡°To Fight Fire With Fire¡± has been unlocked! Successful completion with reward you with 50 B-Points.]


    The inconvenience of being stuck on a guest account had been worth a measly two hundred points, while this secret side mission was worth fifty? Oh there was no way she¡¯d turn down that kind of payoff!


    Yeah right.


    Li Hanyi did not care about earning points. She had been doing tiny little quests for chump change for years, only deviating when there were mandatory missions that would terminate her account if she didn¡¯t. The only missions she cared to complete were the ones that clearly held the secret and forbidden lore, the ones that added depth to the narrative of her character in the pre-Luo Binghe days.


    But someone had messed with her shidi.


    [Completion of side mission with hidden objectives will result in unlocking further Optional Genre Change quest routes.]


    ¡°Shidi, stay here. You know where shizun keeps his cakes. This disciple has some miscreants to educate on why you don¡¯t start things with healers that you don¡¯t want them to finish.¡± Li Hanyi didn¡¯t have a personal sword yet, but that was fine. Bai Zhan solved all of their problems with swords, and they would probably beat her black and blue if she tried things their way. No, Li Hanyi thought, that would not do.


    A few packets stuffed to the brim with acupuncture needles in her qiankun pouch would serve her far better than a sword.


    ¡°Li-shixiong?¡± Her little shidi hiccuped as he panicked, even as he tugged at her sleeve like it would dissuade her. ¡°What are you doing? Shixiong?¡±


    How many sleeping draughts could she take without shizun getting upset? Did she care if he got upset? Not really.


    Li Hanyi steadily emptied her shizun¡¯s supply of mild poisons, paralytics, and miscellaneous sundry into her pouch until she ran out of space. There was no telling what opposition Bai Zhan would put up before they coughed up whichever idiots had decided to pick on her shidi, and it was best to be prepared for¡­ all of them.


    Fight fire with fire? In what world? No, thank you, she¡¯d just sedate them as every doctor with an awful and belligerent patient had done since time immemorial. She didn¡¯t need to win, after all, just demoralize some other peak¡¯s shidis so they minded their manners and behaved the minute they saw Qian Cao yellow and gray. Ancient fantasy China had no idea what chemical warfare was, but they were about to find out the fun way.


    ¡°Hush, Mu-shidi. Li-shixiong is just going to deal with some human trash.¡±


    And probably get her ass handed to her while doing it, then a long lecture and punishment from her shizun. But who cared about that?


    The System promised her optional genre change routes.

 Chapter 4

    Getting to Bai Zhan Peak wasn¡¯t a problem. Five years of cultivation had made Li Hanyi superhuman and her shizun¡¯s mandatory home visits had given her a general idea of where everything across the twelve peaks was. A Qian Cao disciple running from their peak like something was on fire had the pleasant side effect of more experienced cultivators stopping to ask questions. Those questions usually ended in said disciple being offered a ride on a magic flying sword.


    Li Hanyi had no idea what or why this particular cultivator was even doing on Qian Cao, but she wasn¡¯t going to question her good fortune. An Ding didn¡¯t raise their disciples to ask questions of other peaks, only to fix their problems and gossip about them later. Shang Fenhua had kindly explained that to her once and she had just laughed and laughed.


    And now there she was, taking advantage of An Ding¡¯s cultivators like her own personal inter-peak taxi service.


    ¡°Shixiong, this humble disciple is going to be challenging Bai Zhan for the sake of Qian Cao¡¯s honor. Honored shixiong is not obligated to remain.¡± She did at least try to give the poor man a way out. He wasn¡¯t beholden to her just because she hitched a ride.


    The dough-faced man gave her a thin smile. ¡°Someone will need to take shidi back to Qian Cao when this is finished.¡±


    Not when she won. Oh no, no one expected her to win.


    But she was going to have her pound of flesh on her shidi¡¯s behalf and make Bai Zhan think twice about cutting their teeth on her peak. Qian Cao was going to be solidly off-limits. If they wanted to test themselves, Bai Zhan could go fight one of the peaks that actually focused on sword skills as part of this cultivation. Qing Jing was particularly nice this time of year, perhaps they could try the disciples there.


    Landing on Bai Zhan was the stead breath before the plunge. The disciples at the front gates perked up, saw An Ding and Qian Cao uniforms, and immediately grew bored. ¡°State your business.¡±


    Li Hanyi took a deep breath to steady herself. For a brief moment, she considered the merits of just¡­ responding like a rational human being with words and requests to speak to the management. But Bai Zhan was populated entirely by muscle-headed morons who only wanted to fight, and no one with common sense was in charge.


    She answered their question with a flick of both wrists and a twist of metallic qi.


    Despite what science fiction would have one believe, no magic pressure point in the neck existed that could cause instant paralysis. There were no pointy-eared aliens running around performing death grips on poor unsuspecting humans. That would be silly. After all, this was fantasy China.


    That pressure point was in the middle of the forehead.


    Not because it made sense according to any school of Chinese medicine. That would have required Airplane to do actual research into how traditional Chinese medicine worked. No, Airplane had put the official humanoid body¡¯s magical off button in the most dramatic spot possible according to some comic from Japan that he had read once and called it good.


    The Rule of Cool was what mattered in PIDW, not common sense.


    After five years of living with constant status pings about her character¡¯s skills and complexity increases? Li Hanyi had figured out long ago that the Rule of Cool combined with any skill training that could be summarized in a two-minute-long montage was a winning strategy. She had spent an awful lot of time learning how to use tiny little bits of metal in very odd and precise configurations, and not nearly as much time on learning fancy sword tricks.


    These poor, disposable gate guards never stood a chance.


    The An Ding cultivator behind her gulped. ¡°Ah, shidi? Was that necessary? Did you not need them to announce that you were challenging Bai Zhan?¡±


    Well, shit. Was that what it looked like?


    She paused in her righteous indignation and slowly turned back to look at the man. ¡°Challenge Bai Zhan? As in, fight them all?¡±


    He nodded back at her. ¡°Was that not shidi¡¯s plan?¡±


    ¡°Not really, no. If I did that, then they would want to duel. This disciple is not here to duel, just to put an unholy fear of this one¡¯s peak into them by any means necessary.¡± She peered down at the immobile men and gave them a smile that could cut glass. ¡°You¡¯re still awake in there, shixiongs. So. This shidi will be clear. This shidi is looking for the Bai Zhan disciples who wronged this one¡¯s own shidi. All the evils this one commits are because of this simple fact. Please remember that.¡± It was very important that they remembered that, because these three men were going to be her character witnesses at her trial later.


    Li Hanyi pulled one of her shizun¡¯s ridiculously long and gauzy scarves from her sleeve and began folding it over and over. She tied the fabric tube tightly over her face, made sure that the thin black silk covered her nose and chin, and took a deep breath to check that it wouldn¡¯t get in her way. It was a shame that rubber gloves would be impossible for a fifteen-year-old disciple to acquire, what with their invention so completely beyond her scope. She could have used them.


    Her preparations, as they were, were complete. Motive stated and witnessed, personal safety done, various drugs and needles at the ready, and Li Hanyi was as good as she ever would be.


    The raid on Bai Zhan had begun.


    ***


    Li Hanyi did not sneak. Sneaking would have implied that she had something to hide. This was the cultivation world, not some ninja show from Japan. She held her head high and walked through Bai Zhan like she belonged there, and not a single person thought to stop her.


    That was their mistake.


    The first disciples laughed when she asked where the brats who messed with her shidi¡¯s garden were. They said he deserved it. Li Hanyi waited for them to walk away before dipping her needles in the first random bottle.


    They¡¯d be numb from the waist down for a good hour thanks to the paralytic, but they¡¯d be puking their guts out for the next three thanks to her needles.


    Li Hanyi was not here to play fair.


    The next bunch were older than her, clearly further along on their cultivation journey. But Bai Zhan never bothered to learn how to resist monster toxins when they would rather learn how to kill the sources instead. A pinch of powdered Two-Headed Giant Moth wings right to the face? What was normally used as an ingredient in a very mild sleeping draught had her shixiongs seeing monsters that didn¡¯t exist.


    Who was she to get in the way of their efforts to battle their inner demons?


    ¡°Little Qian Cao shizhi, whatever are you doing?¡± The man leaned on a tree, his massive biceps bulging as he crossed his arms over his chest. He wore his ink-black hair in an impressively long ponytail that was held in place by a distinct silver crown.


    Oh. Oh shit.


    The Bai Zhan Peak Lord was trying very politely not to laugh. His scarred lips twitched, and he looked like he had just stepped out of an American kung-fu movie with his perfectly bronzed skin and face rugged with five o¡¯clock shadow. ¡°Well? An answer would be nice, or did you forget how to speak when you decided to raid my Bai Zhan peak?¡±


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    She thought about her odds, had two poisoned needles balanced between her fingers as she stared mulishly up at the man.


    He moved faster than she could keep up with, impossibly so for a man his size, the flat of his sword cold against her neck in the space of a breath. His smile didn¡¯t reach his cold black eyes. ¡°I won¡¯t ask again.¡±


    ¡°This disciple has come to avenge a wrong done by Bai Zhan to this one¡¯s shidi.¡±


    She didn¡¯t expect him to burst into laughter and sheathe his sword with a wave of his sleeves. ¡°The strong protecting the weak by preying on the strong, huh. You would make a good Bai Zhan disciple.¡±


    ¡°I would rather eat molten glass.¡± Bai Zhan? Her? Absolutely not. Luo Binghe would carve his way through every Bai Zhan cultivator like they were prepackaged lunch meat, and she refused to be included in that body count. Her eyes widened as her mouth caught up to her brain and she realized the weight of her insult.


    Luckily, her swift retort only made the man laugh darkly as he clutched his belly. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with his immaculate white sleeve, and wheezed as he laughed. ¡°Oh, oh that¡¯s adorable. Go ahead, little shizhi. Go cut your teeth on something your own size.¡± He flapped his hand dismissively at her with another chuckle.


    ¡°Wait. Really?¡±


    It was like she was a child being shooed off to play with her friends at a playground, not like she had raided his peak to commit unspeakable atrocities against his students. There was something very awkward and sad about knowing that the Bai Zhan Peak Lord was so willing to throw his own disciples under the bus like that.


    ¡°Why not?¡± He shrugged. ¡°It isn¡¯t like you¡¯re going to do much damage.¡±


    Not much damage? ¡°This disciple hears and obeys, shibo.¡± Oh, she was going to make him regret that with every fiber of his being.


    ***


    Ancient fantasy China was sorely lacking in many things that Li Hanyi had considered vital to her happiness and lifestyle choices. No longer did she have things like indoor plumbing, public transportation, supermarkets, and food delivery services. No more instant ramen, junk food, internet, or dedicated educational institutions. She¡¯d probably kill Airplane for a Starbucks latte.


    There was no Geneva Convention.


    That would have required there to be a Geneva, Switzerland.


    Sure, there were things Li Hanyi couldn¡¯t do if she wanted to maintain her place as a disciple of a righteous cultivation sect. But the truly creative and awful ways people in her first life had discovered to wage a more efficient war on each other? Not a single one of those little evils was technically banned. As long as nobody died and nobody was irreparably injured? There was truly nothing she couldn¡¯t do.


    Li Hanyi did not consider herself to be a particularly violent individual. She had died of overwork, so dedicated to her job that one instance of rage had killed her. Before that, she had been a good little cog in the corporate machine, even-tempered and tolerant of a truly astronomical amount of abuse in the name of a paycheck.


    She had no desire to ever be that accepting of the status quo again.


    A whole other life had provided her with the creative capacity and inspirational sources to terrify some unsuspecting pre-mass media-consuming children into minding their manners any time they saw her peak¡¯s colors. She picked her targets wisely: no brand new disciples who had never left Bai Zhan since they were accepted scant months ago, no going after anyone who was actually polite, and no biting off more than she could chew. Everything else was fair game.


    Dramatic jumping down on her quarry like she was Batman? Oddly satisfying, making her sleeves flap like a bat was truly more fun than it should have been. Raining down qi-enhanced needles with incredible precision? Probably going to get her in trouble later when they were done trying to remember how their bodies were supposed to work. Mixing up her moves so that no one knew if they were going to get needles or drugs? Completely valid strategy.


    The worst part about the whole thing was that it was, somehow, actually working. Li Hanyi was a singular point of calm in a sea of chaos as disciples either tried to flee or attacked. Those who bared steel ended up paralyzed on the ground while she poured more poison-laced needles out of her sleeve and cackled at their distress.


    A hush fell over the peak as a single disciple bravely stepped forward with his sword bared. His ponytail fluttered in the wind, a few strands brushing against his unfairly beautiful face. He pointed his sword at her and growled. ¡°Fight me.¡±


    She blinked. This was clearly an older member of her own generation, one who lived and breathed Bai Zhan¡¯s fighting principles. Good for him. ¡°This one only came for those who have wronged this one¡¯s peak. Unless shixiong messed with this one¡¯s shidi, this one has no quarrel.¡±


    His confusion was palpable even across the body-littered training ground. ¡°Who? Just, you¡¯re good. Fight me.¡±


    ¡°No thank you?¡± What kind of fight-obsessed maniac just walked up to the insane person raiding their peak just to fight them? Not to stop said raid, oh no. That would be sensible. Who even¡ª


    If anyone asked, Li Hanyi had no idea what happened or even how. One moment he was rushing at her with a sword, the next his feet had sprouted needles and he tripped as they stopped functioning. She had no clue how she had the accuracy and speed to throw an entire bottle of undiluted sleeping potion into his face. The potent medicine soaked into his robes, and she had the undeniable pleasure of watching a beautiful young man literally fall before her feet in a slump.


    Whatever fight this young man was after? That anticlimactic thing wasn¡¯t it.


    [Mission ¡°To Fight Fire With Fire¡± complete! You have been awarded 50 B-Points, +30 character complexity, and the title ¡°Mad Doctor of Qian Cao.¡±]


    That was lovely and all, but what about those optional goals? Did she clear enough of them? Had Li Hany managed to unlock the genre change option and free herself from the inevitable death or harem statuses?


    [+10 character satisfaction points with ¡°Liu Qingge.¡± Optional genre change objectives have been met. Would you like to change the genre to ¡°Otome¡±?]


    ¡°Holy shit, nope.¡± Li Hanyi breathed out. There was just so much wrong with that. She picked up the various needles that had scattered at her feet in her panic over that insane disciple¡¯s frontal assault and stuffed them back into her pouch. Which one of these Bai Zhan idiots was Liu Qingge and how in the hell did any of this work towards a satisfaction rating?


    But none of that mattered when the worst thing was right there: the optional genre unlocked was for otome.


    In theory, Li Hanyi had no issues with the otome genre. Why would she when she was literally the target audience. No, the problem she had was that otome was, at its worst, almost as bad as YY. Only, instead of harems of beautiful in the double digits, some poor woman was going to be forced to pick just one man out of anywhere from three to seven lucky candidates to have a Happily Ever After as her One True Love.


    Was Luo Binghe supposed to be a capture target?


    And who the hell was the new female protagonist supposed to be? Ning Yingying?


    Li Hanyi didn¡¯t want to be dead or a harem member. She didn¡¯t want to be a background character on an otome hidden character¡¯s route¡­ even less than that. No, thank you, she would not be signing up for the role of the broken and mysterious older brother-type NPC either. Try again, System, with some other idiot who might enjoy fixing some idiot otome protagonist¡¯s problems only to be cast aside the minute Luo Binghe crooked one blackened finger. She had seen the merch, she knew perfectly well what was under his robes.


    Someone else could have that. From now on, any mission assigned by the System that involved Bai Zhan? Airplane could handle it. That lonely little virgin could use the opportunity to either try and get laid or finally leave the closet. She wasn¡¯t going to judge.


    [Conditions met. Genre change request denied. Would you like to spend 200 B-Points to continue guest account services?]


    What. The. Fuck.


    She¡¯d only gotten fifty points out of clearing the mission in the first place, and now she had to give it all back plus an additional one hundred and fifty just to keep her account active. What kind of highway robbery was this?


    Li Hanyi angrily poked at the ¡®YES¡¯ box floating in front of her face and watched as her hard-earned points rapidly dwindled. Through the box, she could see limbs twitching as some sturdier disciples gathered their wits about them and tried to move their qi against her needles and poisons.


    She took a warped delight in jabbing more needles into important meridians on each and every one of them. It would take the likes of an Inner Disciple of Qian Cao to undo the damage, and Li Hanyi was prepared to make a passionate case for leaving the Bai Zhan cultivators like this for at least a week. That way, they would learn their lesson.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, little shizhi. You¡¯ve made your point.¡± The Bai Zhan Peak Lord''s smoky voice was loud enough to carry across the scattered moans of the fallen and suffering. ¡°Any slight by Bai Zhan towards Qian Cao will be returned a hundredfold.¡±


    Say whatever you wanted about cultivators, but they did give some truly grand ways to exit a situation. She made a show of fluttering out her sleeves and giving a picture-perfect bow. ¡°This disciple thanks shibo for allowing this opportunity.¡±


    Some evil harboring in her heart had Li Hanyi stepping on that pretty, drooling in his slumber, boy as she left with her head held high.


    The Bai Zhan Peak Lord guffawed. ¡°We¡¯re always here if you change your mind, shizi.¡±

 Chapter 5

    Wang Huo pinched the bridge of his nose. ¡°Han¡¯er. Please, explain to this master what drove you to raid Bai Zhan by yourself. Try, for this master¡¯s sake.¡±


    She sat before a council of the Qian Cao elders, back straight as a blade, and blinked placidly as if none of this fazed her at all. ¡°This disciple has already explained.¡±


    ¡°For your shizun, please, once more. This master seeks only to understand.¡± He was paler than usual, probably from stress, and clearly very much done with his personal disciple¡¯s first real act of teenage rebellion. Li Hanyi couldn¡¯t even be bothered to come up with a solid defense for her actions. ¡°Why did you not come to this master? A peaceful and harmonious solution could have been found.¡±


    This was just as bad as work performance reviews with her old bosses. Now she was fifteen, pretending to be a boy, and didn¡¯t have a fancy degree that said she knew what she was doing within a certain margin of error. Was there a polite way to explain to her shizun and the other elders that she didn¡¯t believe that they would have been effective in stopping the worst of Bai Zhan¡¯s bullying brats? Probably.


    ¡°Has Bai Zhan filed a complaint?¡± Bold as brass, Li Hanyi blinked again as she calmly retorted. Her fingers fisted in her robes, crumpling the pants she wore underneath, even as she kept her eyes on the elaborately decorated wall far past her shizun¡¯s head.


    Wang Huo sighed. ¡°No. No, they have not. But that does not excuse Han¡¯er¡¯s behavior.¡±


    ¡°An infection must be treated at the source. This disciple merely treated the disease with effective and easy-to-understand medicine.¡± There was no point in acting like she regretted what she had done, because she didn¡¯t. Her shizun and the other elders deserved better from her than lies.


    One of the other elders snorted as he sipped gracefully at his tea. Nondescript, average in face and demeanor, he blended into the background like so many other people living in Airplane¡¯s fantasy world. ¡°Bai Zhan only understands the force of a superior opponent. It¡¯s a gift from the heavens that your disciple even returned to us unscathed when he went off to face that entire peak alone.¡±


    The entire peak? What? When had she done that? Shouldn¡¯t she remember if she had done that?


    Li Hanyi¡¯s confusion must have shown on her face because that same elder waved his hand dismissively at her. ¡°Bai Zhan won¡¯t act further. Peak Lord Wu Jinhao even claims that he sanctioned Li Hanyi¡¯s actions as training.¡±


    Another elder, just as forgettable in appearance as the others, tapped his fan against the small table in front of him. ¡°If we ignore the threat of Bai Zhan descending upon us for one disciple besmirching their reputation, then our own disciples will pay for it.¡±


    Wang Huo stroked his beard. ¡°Wu Jinhao claims that Li Hanyi has great potential in martial aspects.¡±


    This was not the compliment that the Bai Zhan Peak Lord had probably intended it to be.


    Qian Cao prided itself on medical knowledge, in healing the sick, and peacefully performing their duties. Martial skills were only learned to defend one¡¯s self and patients, not to actively be the attacking party. For a disciple to be referred to by the Bai Zhan Peak Lord as having great potential at martial skills? That was an insult to a peak that might as well be the cultivation world¡¯s Red Cross.


    Li Hanyi had messed up royally.


    ¡°Enough. This master has heard enough.¡± The man at the head of the room clapped his hands once, his stately robes barely moving with the motion. ¡°Attend, Disciple Li Hanyi.¡±


    There was no arguing with Chang Jinfei, Peak Lord of Qian Cao.


    She remained seated, bowed at the waist, her fingertips brushing against the wooden floor. ¡°This disciple hears and obeys!¡±


    ¡°You are not the first or last disciple to struggle with our principle of non-intervention and peaceful healing,¡± he said into the silence. ¡°Your disregard of our ways is clear, but your loyalty speaks well of you. The forgiveness of Peak Lord Wu Jinhao and the testimony of Elder Wang Huo are the only marks in your favor. Thus, this master has decided. From this day forth, the disciple Li Hanyi will assist his shixiongs and shijies in treating any and all Bai Zhan patients.¡±


    Huh. That wasn¡¯t where she expected this to go at all. Cleaning the peak, sorting medical supplies, and copying medical texts by hand, sure, but not essentially volunteered to do a job. Wait a minute¡ª


    Li Hanyi was going to be forced to be around those idiots, at their every beck and call, for the rest of her immortal life. How was that fair? Shifu, please reconsider!


    ¡°Am I understood, Disciple Li Hanyi?¡±


    She went on autopilot, fist in her palm as she bowed her head. ¡°This disciple, Li Hanyi, has received shifu¡¯s order and obeys.¡±


    [Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! Important things must be said three times! Through your hard work and efforts at improving the narrative, your account has gained enough complexity and reputation to gain a promotion.]


    No, no, no. That was not how this was supposed to work. There was supposed to be some hard work and a conversation about new responsibilities, not a status change as the cultivation equivalent of being on permanent punishment detail.


    [Scenario quest ¡°Learning the Ropes¡± has automatically been accepted. Please do your best to become the best doctor you can be! Failure to complete the scenario quest will result in the automatic termination of guest account privileges.]


    What the fuck, stupid System wasn¡¯t even giving her objectives or rewards now. What made it worse was that her shifu had clearly taken the time to give her real instructions and she had missed them because Siri¡¯s evil cousin had no concept of timing.


    Oh, she was so screwed.


    ***


    Fifteen was far too young to start drinking her sorrows away, but Li Hanyi was fairly certain that one day wouldn¡¯t hurt. Right? The whole cultivator thing would fix the damage in a moment. Though, with her luck, cultivating while drunk would just sober her up and then she¡¯d be back to square one.


    Honestly? Her new job wasn¡¯t the worst. It was amusing the first time she walked into the clinic and not a single Bai Zhan disciple recognized her. It was downright comical at how they all twitched and watched the door for any sign of the Mad Doctor, as they had apparently dubbed the mysterious disciple who had raided their peak. The fear made them polite, almost docile, as her shixiongs and shijies treated their injuries.


    Li Hanyi was not yet far enough in her studies to be trusted with anything that would have required a fully-trained doctor in her former life. She was essentially an intern among the nurses, barely given tasks and stuck to basic bandaging or medication dispensing. Her bedside manner was atrocious and she was very quickly banned from doing the equivalent of intake questionnaires.


    Or at least she was right up until one disciple needed his qi stabilized and she jabbed him with a needle from the depths of her sleeve without thinking about it. Suddenly, Li Hanyi had a proper function. She was entirely unafraid of even the burliest of Bai Zhan disciples and ordered them around like puppies.


    On the second month of her new job, everything went wrong.


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    A single patient limped his way onto Qian Cao peak with his face bloody and his robes dirty. He wasn¡¯t a critical patient, just stubborn about his need to be treated by someone competent. With her newfound trusted status and efficiency at dealing with even the most stubborn Bai Zhan disciple, of course, Li Hanyi would be assigned as his doctor.


    She didn¡¯t say a word as she entered the treatment room, nose plastered to the slip of pulpy paper that listed all the things he claimed were wrong with him. The door shut behind her with a firm click and her mandatory introductions were delivered with a monotone drone. ¡°Greetings. This one is Li Hanyi, and will be treating your injuries today.¡±


    ¡°You!¡± She looked up in time to see a vaguely familiar handsome face snarling at her as he struggled to get to his feet. ¡°I know that voice!¡±


    Well, shit. It was just her luck that the one person she had knocked unconscious with needles to the feet and more drugs than it took to knock out an elephant¡­ had somehow managed to memorize her voice in less than ten minutes. Not any other identifying characteristic, oh no, but the one thing she had never considered altering was what ratted her out. ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    He grunted back at her triumphantly. ¡°You¡¯re the bastard who raided Bai Zhan! I¡¯d know that girly voice anywhere.¡±


    ¡°That¡ª you know that¡¯s creepy, right?¡± She said flatly, frozen from the shock as she stared incredulously back at him.


    ¡°You owe me a fight!¡± He bared his teeth at her in a cruel smirk. ¡°A real one, not that cheating you did before.¡±


    This young man was a stubborn idiot. ¡°Keep your voice down,¡± she hissed. ¡°This is a clinic, not a bar.¡± She didn¡¯t bother to grace him with a reply to his ludicrous demand. ¡°There are actual patients here who need the quiet to recover.¡±


    The next words out of his mouth were not at a respectable volume. Li Hanyi had no real morally sound excuse for why she stabbed him in the throat with a needle after distracting him with another needle at his foot, but watching him gape soundlessly at her was reward enough. While he was suitably distracted by his sudden muteness, she knocked him out with a sedative-laced needle.


    She cleaned up his injuries, popped his toe back into place, slapped a few salves on the worst of it, and had him dropped off at Qian Cao¡¯s gates with a note pinned to his outer robes: Don¡¯t come back unless you need medical attention.


    God, she needed a drink.


    ***


    Liu Feng was a chronic patient.


    He came every day to be treated for injuries most cultivators would have shrugged off and refused to be seen by anyone other than Li Hanyi. Each time, he would end up slumped by the gates where one of his shidis would be waiting to take him back home. But still, day after day, week after week, Liu Feng would show up after training to have his injuries cared for.


    He started figuring out how to dodge needles while she figured out the fastest ways to treat him and get him off her peak. There might be something in his tea, perhaps a pinch of something in the incense, or maybe she slipped a needle in while massaging away some knot in his overly muscular back.


    (The first time he had stripped his robes off, Li Hanyi had choked on her own saliva. But she was a doctor and he was her patient, so she had shoved that into a box to never think about again.)


    Sometimes, he made fun of her for still sounding like a girl despite being sixteen years old. In turn, she made fun of him for sprouting like a weed. But always, always, he would ask her to fight him properly. Until one day, finally, Li Hanyi had enough.


    ¡°You can¡¯t keep coming here like this.¡± She slapped her hand against the door frame and he looked up at her with a frown. ¡°Seriously, Liu-shixiong. We¡¯re spending far too much on your medical care alone and An Ding¡¯s threatened to cut us off if Qian Cao can¡¯t get its finances in order.¡± Li Hanyi entered what had become her personal little clinic with a frown, closing the door behind her.


    Liu Feng gave her a surly frown of his own. ¡°Why not? You¡¯re the one who said I had to be a patient to come here.¡±


    She gave an undignified snort. ¡°That was before I figured out that you¡¯d use that as an excuse to come here every single day.¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t an excuse. See, I was cut by a sword.¡± He pointed to the superficial injury on his forearm and his frown deepened.


    She gave him an unimpressed look, eyes flat as she didn¡¯t laugh at his terrible joke. ¡°Shixiong. We both know you could dodge a sword in your sleep by now.¡± Li Hanyi shook her head at him. ¡°I¡¯ve been writing it off as practice. But now I¡¯ve done so much practice that the Elders have noticed and neither of us can keep doing this.¡±


    ¡°You still owe me a fight, Li Hanyi.¡±


    ¡°All I have is needles and drugs. One of which you counter nine times out of ten and the other you¡¯re developing an unnecessary immunity to.¡± She rolled her eyes at him. ¡°You¡¯ve won.¡±


    Liu Feng scowled even deeper. ¡°That wasn¡¯t fighting. Draw your sword and fight me properly.¡±


    ¡°Draw my¡­ Oh, you have got to be kidding.¡± She spread her arms wide and rotated slowly in front of him so he could see every inch of her. ¡°What sword? How am I supposed to draw something that I don¡¯t have?¡±


    Neither of them spoke for a long moment as Liu Feng processed what she had said. Slowly, like the words pained him, he choked the words out. ¡°You¡­ don¡¯t have a sword? Are you or are you not a disciple of a martial cultivation sect?¡±


    ¡°Shixiong,¡± she gently began, in that particular tone one used to explain things to a particularly stubborn child. ¡°This one is a member of the medical peak. We don¡¯t get swords until we are deemed competent enough to leave the peak in some capacity as wandering doctors. And even then? Most of us only use them to fly.¡±


    He looked like a child that had been told Santa Claus wasn¡¯t real the day before Christmas. ¡°So, you¡¯ll never get a sword if you stay on Qian Cao as my doctor?¡±


    ¡°I mean, not unless you become important enough that you need to keep having a personal doctor. And then I wouldn¡¯t be your doctor anymore anyway, because my peak couldn¡¯t stand having a swordless junior disciple in that position. It would be an insult to your name and ours.¡±


    [Warning! ¡°Liu Qingge¡± must become the Peak Lord of Bai Zhan. Major deviations to the plot will result in penalties.]


    Son of a bitch, Liu Feng was going to grow up to be Liu Qingge. The War God of Bai Zhan, cannon fodder NPC who would die at some point to establish Shen Qingqiu as a true scum villain. What the actual fuck, System.


    She slapped her hand over his mouth to keep him from saying anything else to offend the System. ¡°Don¡¯t even say you won¡¯t be important enough,¡± she quickly said. ¡°You¡¯ll never be anything less than the absolute best or die trying.¡± And oh, oh how awfully he was going to die trying.


    ¡°Mmph,¡± he grunted from behind her palm before he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away. ¡°How am I supposed to be the best if I can¡¯t even beat you?¡±


    Li Hanyi was clearly the better person and she wasn¡¯t going to let that insult bother her. ¡°First of all, fighting is still not my specialty. No matter what you Bai Zhan idiots seem to think.¡± His fingers were warm, long enough to wrap around her wrist¡ª nope. Back in the mental black box any thoughts like that went. ¡°Secondly, you are the very picture of health.¡± Better than. She¡¯d been practicing the most complicated things on him to the point where he might as well be a star athlete. ¡°Your meridians are so clear that you could have a breakthrough if you bothered to cultivate instead of coming here.¡±


    ¡°But I still haven¡¯t beat you at the best you could be.¡± He clung to that like a dog with a bone. ¡°You need a sword. I¡¯ll train you.¡±


    Lessons with the future War God of Bai Zhan? No thanks, she¡¯d rather not. She actually liked being a doctor in ancient fantasy China and didn¡¯t need that kind of character depth tacked on. What, did he want her to become Cang Qiong¡¯s personal assassin?


    ¡°Talk to your shizun. Or I¡¯ll talk to my shizun. We¡¯ll get you a sword,¡± he mercilessly continued. ¡°Or I¡¯ll keep showing up every day with new things for you to treat.¡±


    ¡°You¡ª you¡¯ve already come too many times! That¡¯s what I¡¯ve been trying to tell you,¡± she exclaimed. This hardheaded idiot was going to be the death of her. ¡°Go fight someone who actually knows how to fight, not your poor shidi.¡±


    ¡°But you do know how to fight. You just do it underhandedly. Fight me properly: face to face, blade to blade, like an honorable man.¡±


    Sometimes she forgot just how deep in her lies she had become. At some point, the lie that Li Hanyi was male had just become ingrained in Cang Qiong¡¯s collective knowledge. But oh, oh she was tempted to throw open her robes, expose her bound chest, tell this idiot that she was an honor-less woman, and watch him flee from the confusion.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to keep showing up for a whole other year if I don¡¯t say yes, aren¡¯t you?¡± She sighed, deflated. Shang Fenhua could keep fudging her paperwork for only so long, and her own elders were already suspicious enough that they might call for an audit.


    He gave a single nod.


    ¡°Fine. One fight. And after you beat me? You leave me alone and go get a new doctor.¡±


    [Mission ¡°Acquire Spiritual Sword¡± has now begun. Successful completion will reward one personal spiritual sword.]


    Well wasn¡¯t that just great.

 Chapter 6

    Spiritual swords at Cang Qiong only came from one place: Wan Jian peak. The entire process of getting a sword was generally unknown to the beginning disciple. All most knew was that the sword was the physical manifestation of a cultivator¡¯s qi. It was fascinating to think about, but that didn¡¯t mean she thought she was ready to have her own sword.


    Liu Feng had made it an issue.


    ¡°Honored shizun, this unworthy disciple has a request.¡±


    Wang Huo looked up from his tea with a quirk on his lips. He smiled benevolently as he gestured before him. ¡°Ah, Han-er,¡± he said brightly. ¡°Pray, be seated, and tell this master what brings you before him today. Would it happen to have something to do with young Liu Feng?¡±


    Oh, there was something all right. That something made it feel dreadful to ask her shizun for this. He should be telling her when she was ready, not this way. Li Hanyi tucked her robes delicately under her as she sat across the table from him, buying time before she asked the worst question by pouring her shizun a new cup of tea. ¡°This disciple would like to ask shizun¡¯s permission to go to Wan Jian peak.¡±


    ¡°Wan Jian peak?¡± He hummed as he sipped at his tea. ¡°Ah, so it is time then.¡±


    Wait, what? No moral lesson on how she was putting the cart before the horse? Nothing about how she was letting some patient influence her decisions in the worst possible way?


    ¡°You should have gone months ago. Most disciples of Qian Cao that begin work in the clinic already have their swords before their first day.¡± He sipped his tea serenely, a placid smile on his face.


    Li Hanyi wanted to smash her face against the table. ¡°Shizun, do you mean to tell this disciple that I should have gotten a sword just because I¡¯m on punishment detail?¡±


    ¡°This master was under the impression that Han-er simply wanted to take his time in progressing his cultivation.¡±


    Li Hanyi was not ashamed to say that sometimes she picked some things up slower than other disciples. Ancient fantasy China required an adjustment period, and she was truly doing her very best. But she would have noticed a bunch of fifteen-year-olds roaming about with flying swords.


    Wang Huo continued to sip calmly at his tea, humming in delight at the flavor. ¡°Han-er was just having so much fun learning all about how to use his acupuncture for more than its prescribed use.¡±


    When was playing with a magic sword considered normal for a fifteen-year-old? Apparently? Only if said fifteen-year-old was a member of a righteous cultivator sect. But Li Hanyi had decided that doubling down on her acupuncture was a better use of her time, and her shizun had just allowed it.


    ¡°Don¡¯t look so betrayed Han-er.¡± He put his teacup down with a gentle clink of porcelain. ¡°All children develop at different rates. And, quite fairly, Han-er has become remarkably skilled at his chosen alternate weapon. Many cultivators struggle to adapt to anything other than their personal swords, whereas Han-er will never be left defenseless.¡±


    Wang Huo reached across the table and patted her hand. ¡°This master would much rather his personal disciple was as prepared as possible before this master allowed them to take any missions, decide if they want to become a wandering doctor, or stay on the peak for whatever reason.¡±


    Reasonable, yes, but Li Hanyi was still annoyed that she hadn¡¯t even figured out that any of this was up for debate. She thought she was just supposed to be told when her shizun made an appointment for her or something. ¡°And¡­ shizun didn¡¯t think to tell this disciple any of this?¡±


    He hummed and patted her hand again before withdrawing his hand. ¡°Well. Han-er never asked,¡± he said with that same placid smile. ¡°If Han-er wishes to take on the world without this master¡¯s help, who is this master to stop him? If Han-er never asks for help, how is this master supposed to know what Han-er wants?¡±


    She paused, blinked twice, and resisted the urge to curse. All this had been a lesson. A test that she hadn¡¯t even known that she was taking. Well, shit. She meekly bowed, fist in her palm. ¡°Then, would honored shizun be willing to help this disciple go to Wan Jian and earn this disciple¡¯s personal sword?¡±


    Wang Huo inclined his head gracefully. ¡°Of course. Let us have lunch and we can go after we are properly fortified for the trial that is to come.¡±


    ***


    Wan Jian peak was beautiful. It was picturesque in every way as it rose from the pastel-tinted clouds. Most of the peaks were like that, but Wan Jian took the aesthetic to a whole new level. It was a place where magic happened, true magic and not that made-for-TV CGI nonsense, and she found herself wanting to hold her breath so that she didn¡¯t break the illusion.


    The silence was comfortable as the ambient qi all but enveloped them in welcome. Hundred of Cang Qiong disciples had come here before her, each one leaving a bit of themselves behind as they walked away with their very essence made manifest. The peak pulsed with it; the weight of martial siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins she¡¯d never met reached out like her ancestors. They beckoned her to join them, to make her mark on the great sword wall, and join a family without end.


    ¡°Oh,¡± she breathed out as her shizun helped her off his sword. On a logical level, Li Hanyi had known that she belonged to a martial cultivation sect. But this? This was her gateway into becoming an official member of the martial family. She¡¯d been giving lip service to the deference and mannerisms before now, and she¡¯d never be able to go back to that blissful ignorance.


    Shang Fenhua, Airplane in another life, already had his sword.


    He¡¯d come to Wan Jian with the knowledge that he would betray his sect to save his own hide and still walked away from this place with the intention to keep going. She despised him, just a little, now that she knew the lengths that he would go to. Understood it now, how so many people (once fictional characters in a web novel) would curse him to death for turning his back so easily on Cang Qiong.


    Here were her ancestors now, the benevolent ghosts of generations past, who would weigh her very soul and guide her to the shape of it. They would know her to her core, every secret and lie laid bare. Her worthiness, potential, temperament¡­ everything would be on display.


    Her shizun¡¯s hand, warm and alive, was the only thing keeping her from bolting off the mountain peak in a gibbering mess. ¡°Take a moment if you need, Han-er.¡±


    Li Hanyi breathed in deeply, her heart thudding in her ears. The revelation struck her that she could be more, better, kinder, and wiser if she just stayed here and meditated on it. Just throw herself in peaceful meditation and contemplation until the Heavens opened up and showed her true enlightenment.


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    She turned her head to look over her should at her shizun, ash gray eyes wide as he gave her a gently paternal smile. ¡°What,¡± she managed to stammer out through the hazy fog of sudden clarity.


    ¡°Ah, at last. This master had wondered what it would take for Han-er to have such a breakthrough.¡± His hand on the small of her back grounded her enough at the moment for his words to register. ¡°Come, Han-er, and let¡¯s see what shape you will take.¡±


    There were other voices, buzzing around them like sparks of electricity, rising and falling in some ritualized cadence. The Wan Jian cultivators guided the pair through the peak and handed her tea to drink that tasted somehow like sunshine on freshly tilled earth. Her meridians soaked it up like a sponge, and that extra energy bolstered her every step forward.


    Li Hanyi was a thing of this world and the next, drifted along towards a bright beacon that called her home. Here, the ghosts of her ancestors-to-be whispered, here is where she would be forged anew. Her feet stopped, the guiding hand on her back was still and patient. ¡°Here,¡± came the strange echo of her voice across time and space. ¡°I need to be right here.¡±


    This spot, right up against the sword wall, where she could lean up against stone and touch the tips of her fingers to the metal hammered into the stone in a complex array. Where the Heavens themselves would see, watch her defy them. Where the System¡¯s bleating messages were drowned out by the thrum of the world itself beating around her. She dropped where she stopped, legs folded up under her, her hands careful and sure as she shaped them just like she had done hundreds of times before and would thousands of times more.


    There were no instructions on how to get a personal sword because no Cang Qiong disciple needed any. It was a conversation, a demonstration, a stripping of the old to make way for the new. She¡¯d have a new name, that of the blade that deemed her worthy, and a place she¡¯d made all for herself. Outer or inner didn¡¯t matter when she¡¯d finally stepped away from her old life and into this new one. Li Hanyi, a disciple of Qian Cao.


    Her qi settled in her meridians, flowed out from the mountain to her own body and back again, and Li Hanyi cultivated.


    ***


    Li Hanyi came back to herself slowly and all at once, her bones hollowed out to make room for the weight of the world. It had been noon, bright and cheerful with the faintest touch of magical cotton candy clouds when she had begun. The stars twinkling overhead, bright and bold as only a map of infinite universes could be, was enough to tell her that she¡¯d been cultivating for at least four shichen.


    Her body should have ached from staying still in one spot for that long, her stomach should have been so empty it tried to fuse with her spine. But instead? All she felt was a tranquil peace and the knowledge that she could survive on the energy of the world. Making her foundation had been by tooth and nail, with the tiniest amount of B-Point-driven assistance from the System, and all the pride she could manage. But forging her sword and reaching the beginning stage of golden core formation? That was nothing but an alignment of the cosmos for one brief and glorious moment.


    The blade in her lap was nothing short of a miracle. It was slim, the ash-gray sheathe and whitish blade not even as thick as her waist. The sheathe itself bore a solid black series of geometric patterns, an obsidian inlay that glimmered under the starlight, unassuming and ominous all at once. Its hilt was wrapped in the same gray, capped with that same obsidian inlay pattern. Her sword, all hers and unusable by anyone else, sang out thinly as she drew it. A line of silvery metal, like white smoke in front of the stars above, her jian was perfect in every way.


    It was made for her, by her, wrested free from the sword wall by nothing more or less than everything she was, could, and would be. All hers, with no System to mess it up for her. She had never loved anything more than she did the first time she looked down at it. And, oh, oh how she understood how so many cultivators would go to war for their swords.


    Sword forms had never been her specialty. Her needles had always been enough. This sword would complement them nicely, light enough to be wielded in one hand and swift enough to be just the right shade of dangerous for her tastes. Graceful and feminine in all the ways Li Hanyi could never allow herself to be, her sword would be her unfaltering partner until the day she died or it shattered beyond repair.


    She let herself, just this once, indulge in quiet childish wonder. The sword danced in the starlight and moved obligingly with her as she fumbled through forms she hadn¡¯t practiced nearly as diligently as she should have. Her sword probably didn¡¯t deserve to be held in the hands of an incompetent idiot. It demanded a silent perfection that Li Hanyi couldn¡¯t offer it. Yet.


    The future War God of Bai Zhan had offered to train her just so her could fight her at her best. And she hadn¡¯t figured out why until she held her naked potential in her hands.


    This was the sword of someone sneaky, ghostly, someone who slipped in and out of conflict with surgical precision. Someone who needed a double-edged sword to cut away the world¡¯s worst like it was nothing more than necrotic tissue. A quick and clean cut to excise all signs of infection. Not the sort of thing Liu Feng would find much of easily on Bai Zhan.


    A throat cleared, familiar in its genial politeness, and she turned to face her shizun in a whirl of robes. ¡°Ah, Han-er. It¡¯s lovely.¡±


    She smiled, bright and wide like she hadn¡¯t since she first felt the touch of her own qi, at her shizun. Li Hanyi was prepared to move heaven and earth for this man, her mentor of six years who might as well be her uncle, who had been the entire reason she could hold a sword of her own. ¡°Isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Wang Huo returned her smile with all the grace of a proud father at his child¡¯s first recital. ¡°Come, let us find what name such a sword bears.¡±


    Whatever it was, that would be her title now. There were only three times that Cang Qiong disciples would acquire a whole new name: their guan li or ji li and subsequent courtesy name befitting their station, receiving their personal sword, or deeds so great that they reached the ears of the Heavens. Li Hanyi had no desire to be deemed an adult woman, nor did she wish to be known so to the Heavens, and so the only new name she would ever bear would be that of the sword that had just chosen her. Once she learned that name, she would be sent off to meditate on what that name meant to her before she was officially enrolled in the Cang Qiong registry under that name.


    Wang Huo waited patiently for her to leave the lightning-scorched stones, the burn marks the only lingering signs of the Heavenly Tribulation she had gone through while she meditated. She did not strictly need his hand on her arm to guide her as she had when they had ascended the peak, but appreciated it nonetheless. ¡°Come, come,¡± he beckoned for one of the Wan Jian disciples to come closer. ¡°Your martial brother would like to know his name.¡±


    Li Hanyi watched the dark green-robed teen run off as if his life depended on it to fetch his own shizun, still reeling as she took the chance to read the latest (and thus most immediately pressing) messages from the System.


    [Mission ¡°Acquire Spiritual Sword¡± has been successfully completed. You have received the ¡°Hu¨¤nxi¨¤ng G¨³ Sword.¡±]


    What kind of dumb name was that? The characters for it were fantasy, elephant, and bone. What kind of weird name was that? Was this supposed to be a reference to some obscure idiom? A joke she wasn¡¯t in on? Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t a scholar of ancient Chinese. How was she supposed to know what it meant? Hu¨¤nxi¨¤ng G¨³? Was she even reading it right? Was the System even reading it right?


    [The ¡°Hu¨¤nxi¨¤ng G¨³ Sword¡± is also mistakenly called the Gui Baigu Sword.]


    She stared uncomprehendingly at the text boxes hovering in front of her. That explained absolutely nothing. How did you get Gui Baigu out of Hu¨¤nxi¨¤ng G¨³?


    Wait a minute. Airplane was just as dumb as she was, only he liked to use a thesaurus to make himself sound smarter. The alternate name was something about the bones of the dead. If she twisted her brain like Airplane and thought about what the original name was supposed to mean?


    The System had essentially given her a sword named Bones of a Dead Ghost. But some thesaurus version of it. So it was probably something stupid like Phantasm Bone, Wraith Bone, Apparition Bone, Shadow Bone, or something else painfully irritating. Couldn¡¯t it just have been called the Gui Gu Sword? Wait, no, that kind of alliteration was far too similar to the sounds a baby might make. Fair enough, Airplane, fair enough.


    She didn¡¯t want to ever admit her sword¡¯s name out loud where Airplane would hear about it. Because, of course, she had been saddled with some edgy named sword with all kinds of creepy meanings to the characters of its name.


    Well, at least it matched her uniform.

 Chapter 7

    There was absolutely no way that Li Hanyi was leaving her bed. Not today, tomorrow, or ever again. No, she was going to stay in this bed until the world stopped hurting. Nobody had told her that being hit by lightning multiple times would hurt nearly as much as it did. There was nothing she could do about it but wait for the sparks of pain to stop shooting down her nerves. Her qi was a riot of lingering electricity, meridians flush with it, and she ached as she adjusted.


    If she never left her bed? She would never have to face the consequences of her own rampant success. Sixteen, fresh from a cultivation breakthrough, and newly recognized as a sword-bearing cultivator? Oh, she refused to be the center of that level of attention. Even more importantly, Li Hanyi refused to be the center of a very specific population¡¯s attention.


    The minute she left her bed? Liu Feng would be on her faster than a rash on a plague victim. He¡¯d make her rise with the sun, run her ragged doing sword strokes over and over and take that weird joy of his in the thought of their singular arranged fight. It wasn¡¯t Li Hanyi¡¯s fault that Liu Feng was so very obsessed.


    She slept with her sword, hands tightly around the scabbard, knuckles white, in a fitful slumber that broke at the slightest sound. A perfectly good sword stand was in the corner of her bedroom, in pride of place atop the meager little dresser that held her every worldly possession. But she couldn¡¯t bear to set the physical manifestation of her everything so far away from her for even a single moment. Never mind that her room was once an apothecary storage, only four paces wide and six paces long with only a single door and grated privacy windows as entry points. Anywhere she couldn¡¯t lazily reach her arm out and brush her fingertips against her sword was too far away for her comfort.


    Li Hanyi refused guests, citing her exhaustion and need to meditate as the cause. She could practice inedia now and had no real need for the porridges and tea her shizun brought her anyway, but he was the only exception to her self-inflicted isolation. For a whole glorious week, Li Hanyi was left to her own devices.


    On the eighth day, she received an unexpected visitor.


    ¡°Miao-meimei, you have to leave this room,¡± Shang Fenhua begged, tears streaming down his cheeks as his lower lip quivered. ¡°He¡¯s turned into a monster.¡±


    Li Hanyi pulled her blankets back just far enough for her head to pop out from her impromptu burrow. She stared blankly at her fellow transmigrator. ¡°Luo Binghe? Isn¡¯t it too early?¡±


    He dropped to his knees alongside her bed, knees thumping painfully on the hardwood flooring. ¡°No! Not my protagonist son, Liu Feng. He¡¯s¡ª.¡±


    She cut him off with a hiss, her hand darting out to cover his mouth. ¡°Don¡¯t say his name! What if the System hears?¡±


    Shang Fenhua licked her palm and she cursed under her breath as her hand dropped, wiped his spit on his robes, and slighted back to the safety of her blankets. ¡°Forget the System! He¡¯s acting on his own! Liu Feng is looking for you. I don¡¯t know what you did, but whatever it was? You¡¯re the only thing he cares about on this peak right now.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit. He cares about fighting me, not actually me.¡± Her head went back under the blankets and was replaced with her hand, flapping at him to shoo him away. ¡°I¡¯m in hiding. Seclusion. Tell him I¡¯m sick, cultivating, something. Tell him anything but where I am. Now, go away.¡±


    ¡°Fighting you?¡± Shang Fenhua murmured under his breath. ¡°Aren¡¯y you his personal doctor? Why would he want to fight¡ª oh no. Tell me you didn¡¯t. Miao-meimei, tell me you didn¡¯t do that paralysis trick on the future War God of Bai Zhan. Tell me you didn¡¯t.¡±


    Her head popped back out, hair frazzled and messy, and she snorted at him with a roll of her eyes. ¡°He deserved it.¡±


    ¡°Oh my god,¡± he said in stilted English. ¡°Miao-meimei, no.¡± Shang Fenhua looked at her like she had committed a crime against humanity, equal parts horrified and fascinated. ¡°Did. Did you let him have a chance to beat you in a fair fight after?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± She clicked her tongue at him with a huff. ¡°That¡¯s what the sedatives are for. I¡¯m not stupid enough to fight even teenage Liu Qingge.¡±


    He put his head in his hands, hunched over into a ball as he moaned. ¡°You¡¯re doomed. He¡¯s not going to stop until he beats you. Miao-meimei. Han-dage. You pulled aggro.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± she drawled. ¡°That¡¯s why I went and got a sword. We have a deal that he gets one fight. I¡¯m going to lose, Liu Feng is going to leave me alone from then on, and then we can get back to avoiding the protagonist ruining our lives.¡±


    Airplane looked up at her, a faint sense of dawning horror leeching the color from his tear-stained face. ¡°He¡¯s never going to leave you alone now. You¡¯re his rival now.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit.¡±


    ¡°Miao-meimei. I know my own characters.¡±


    Li Hanyi leveled him with a flat look. ¡°Do you? Millions of words and hundreds of chapters later, you think you still remember the motivations of a single cannon fodder character that dies in order to set up your overdone scum villain?¡± She shook her head at him. ¡°I seriously doubt you do. Not when you¡¯ve dropped so many plots and characters.¡±


    He sniffled at her. ¡°Miao-meimei, why are you so mean? After everything I do for you in this world.¡± Oh, but Airplane knew how to act like a wet little rabbit in order to ingratiate himself.


    ¡°This is all your fault anyway. If you weren¡¯t such a hack sellout and maintained even a shred of your authorial integrity, we could have transmigrated into a world with more common sense and less wife plot materials.¡±


    ¡°Ah. You made it to the aphrodisiac plants then.¡± He at least had the grace to wince. ¡°They were bound to turn up in your studies eventually. At least you haven¡¯t been exposed to any.¡±


    ¡°You shut your mouth. I refuse to be a victim of ancient fantasy China tropes. Consent is important. The medicinal value of most of those plants would be great if they weren¡¯t so¡­ gross.¡± Li Hanyi supposed she couldn¡¯t be all that surprised that a fair many of the ¡®sex pollen¡¯ and ¡®powdered aphrodisiacs¡¯ could be used in pills and tonics to affect anything from blood circulation to overall alertness. Their practical uses were probably the only things that kept some of the absolute worst from being driven to extinction by cultivators and normal people alike.


    No sane person would want to grow something like the Illustrious Fair Maiden¡¯s Peach Tree if the only thing it was capable of was turning anyone who ate its fruits or consumed its juice into a mindless sexual deviant that could only be cured by papapa with their One True Love. Lucky for the tree, its sape (once properly distilled into a thick orange syrup) functioned exactly like a non-drowsy medicine popular in pharmacies worldwide in her first life. That was only one of the hundreds of plants with similar wife-plot material potential, and Li Hanyi was determined to memorize them all so she would know how best to avoid them.


    Airplane shrugged. ¡°They paid the bills. At least you won¡¯t have to worry about them as long as you keep up the act. Just attach yourself to Liu Qingge¡¯s plot as his rival and childhood friend and double down on that whole creepy ghost assassin thing you¡¯ve got going on.¡±


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    He grinned up at her from behind his hand. ¡°Nothing gets less wife plots in a YY novel more than the cannon fodder¡¯s add-on. The NPC¡¯s NPC as it were.¡±


    ¡°The System wants to turn on otome mode.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± he winced. ¡°You might be doomed then. Maybe less being anti-social and lazy? What do women go for anyway?¡±


    ¡°Airplane, if there was ever any doubt in my mind that you died a virgin bottom gay? That killed it.¡± She burrowed back into her blanket pile. ¡°I¡¯ll figure it out. Now go away so I can actually cultivate in peace.¡±


    ***


    Lie Feng was not particularly known for his patience or understanding. Bullheaded to the end, it shouldn¡¯t have surprised Li Hanyi that he didn¡¯t have the patience to wait for the end of Shang Fenhua¡¯s explanation. All he had probably bothered to hear was that Shang Fenghua had talked to Li Hanyi, and Li Hanyi was still abed over a week after returning from Wan Jian. That had been enough to spur him into whatever this nonsense was.


    Wang Huo had let him into their shared home and directed Liu Feng to Li Hanyi¡¯s room. It was the only thing that explained why her shixiong stood glowering at the side of her bed, arms crossed over his chest.


    ¡°Are you ill?¡±


    Safely buried beneath her blankets, she raised her fist and faked a hacking cough. Silence reigned. She coughed again. ¡°Liu-shixiong,¡± she gasped out weakly. ¡°Is that you?¡±


    He ripped the blankets from her in one swift motion. Liu Feng was not one to stand on manners and propriety when in the presence of the person who spent most of her time stabbing him with needles, but the sight of her in her thin silk under-robes was enough to make him pause. Normally he was the only one nearly nude, and he didn¡¯t like the change of scenario. ¡°What happened to you?¡± He growled, voice cracking halfway through as puberty did its worst. ¡°Who beat you?¡±


    Beat her? Could you even call the Heavenly Tribulations a beating? He stared at her chest, the white linen bandages she used to bind her still-developing breasts just barely visible through the thin silk. Oh, oh shit. The jig was up, her ruse uncovered in one fell swoop. Her heart was in her throat, beating fragile butterfly wing strokes madly. ¡°Nothing happened,¡± she managed to gasp out of her terror-strangled throat. Belatedly, her arms rose to cover her chest as she slowly sat up beneath her blankets. ¡°Just a bit of uh¡­ cultivation backlash.¡±


    She winced even as the words left her mouth and she turned her head so that she wouldn¡¯t need to see the seething anger growing on his face. Oh shit, he was going to kill her for pretending to be a boy. Li Hanyi shrank away from him and tried to curl into a ball to make a smaller target. ¡°Please don¡¯t¡ª.¡± Kill her? Punch her lights out? Report her to her peak?


    Liu Feng barked out a disbelieving laugh. ¡°Cultivation backlash? You? If you¡¯re going to lie, Li Hanyi, you should at least try to make it believable.¡± He was stock still, qi almost tangible in his fury. ¡°With all the signs of a beating on you? Tell me, who did this to you.¡±


    He sounded less like someone plotting a homicide and more like a child having their favorite toy taken away. Li Hanyi dared to look up at him through her lashes, her knees trying to merge with her nose even as she tried not to visibly panic. This was it, the destruction of a six-year-long ruse at the hands of a stubborn teen. And it wasn¡¯t as if said teen had the emotional intelligence to just keep it to himself or let it go. ¡°Don¡¯t¡ªdon¡¯t look.¡±


    Liu Feng wasn¡¯t letting it go. Like a dog with a bone, he was determined to figure this out. ¡°What does that matter? You¡¯ve seen me in less.¡±


    She gave him a bitter laugh. ¡°Oh, it is not the same.¡±


    ¡°True. I¡¯d never have gotten beaten so badly that I needed weeks to recover.¡± He sounded like he was granting her a favor, so proud of himself that she gave herself whiplash from the speed that she turned her head at in order to stare incredulously at him. ¡°Aren¡¯t you a doctor? Shouldn¡¯t you have fixed that already?¡±


    ¡°Oh my god, you¡¯re actually an idiot,¡± she whispered. Li Hanyi was so awestruck by his grossly incorrect conclusion that she didn¡¯t know if she wanted to cry or laugh herself sick. ¡°I see now why people say Bai Zhan is full of meatheads.¡±


    ¡°Watch it,¡± he barked out, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he very politely resisted the urge to wring her neck.


    Li Hanyi flapped her hand in front of her to dismiss the very thought of her own impending demise. ¡°Nobody beat me up. I had a breakthrough at the same time I got my sword. So unless you want to go fight the Heavens for giving cultivators tribulations? Quit worrying. It makes you look constipated.¡±


    ¡°Your sword?¡± Liu Feng perked right up. ¡°Show me.¡±


    If there was anyone outside of Wan Jian and her shizun who would show her sword the awe and care that it deserved, it was Liu Feng. His own sword was always well-sharpened and oiled until it gleamed, clearly the recipient of what little was left of his brainpower. She still hesitated as she drew back the blankets to reveal her sword. ¡°Here.¡±


    His fingers twitched and he gave the most beautiful smile. A normal person would have had this kind of reaction if she had a puppy or a basket of kittens in her bed. ¡°Can I hold it?¡± The biggest pain in her backside looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin, fingers clenching and unclenching on empty air as he so clearly longed to hold her sword.


    She laughed and quickly covered it with a fake cough when he glared at her. It was patently unfair for such a pretty young man to be both so very dangerous and still manage to look like an overeager puppy. She could all but see a tail wagging furiously behind him. But that was not enough for her to just let him hold the physical manifestation of her soul. Li Hanyi pulled the blanket back over her sword and pulled it back towards her with her feet. ¡°No,¡± she said flatly. ¡°No, you may not.¡±


    He clicked his tongue at her. ¡°Fine. What¡¯s its name? What does it do?¡±


    ¡°Do? It¡¯s a sword. It doesn¡¯t ¡®do¡¯ anything.¡± She frowned up at him. Some distant part of her brain kicked into gear at the very thought of giving him her sword¡¯s name. Somehow, she doubted that running around with a known sword name of Bones of a Dead Ghost was going to win her any awards or favors. But with Liu Feng? It might just be enough to convince him that she wasn¡¯t the kind of upright and proper righteous cultivator he so desperately wanted to fight. ¡°This? This is the Huanxiang Gu sword. I have been trying to meditate on what that means.¡±


    She was, in fact, doing no such thing. Li Hanyi was attempting to become a shut-in, snacking in bed, covered in blankets, and pretending that the world didn¡¯t exist. Her bones didn¡¯t even hurt anymore, and no more toxic sludge came out with every cough or sneeze as her body rid itself of various impurities. Li Hanyi was the very picture of health, fresh from the creation of her golden core, and the only thing stopping her was herself.


    Liu Feng¡¯s eyes narrowed as he glared at her. ¡°All spiritual swords do something. There¡¯s one on Wan Jian that glows in the presence of demons.¡±


    Airplane, it was one thing to borrow ideas from good and sensible Chinese classics. It was something else entirely to borrow from a major western franchise. What a hack, a cheap sellout, of an author. Where was the integrity, Airplane?


    ¡°So then what does Liu-shixiong¡¯s sword do? Hit people more efficiently?¡±


    The look he gave her could have peeled paint and pickled a field of cabbage. ¡°Cheng Luan is a crucial part of my cultivation and represents the justness of the fenghuang.¡±


    ¡°Uh-huh,¡± she replied faintly. ¡°Next, you¡¯re going to tell me it lights on fire when you¡¯re in perfect balance with the universe.¡±


    Liu Feng grunted and shifted slightly on the spot.


    Li Hanyi blinked back up at him. ¡°No. Really? That¡¯s what it¡¯s supposed to do?¡± His sword, the fanciest expression of Airplane¡¯s shoddy world-building, was supposed to light on fire. The War God of Bai Zhan at his absolute best had a flaming sword. Airplane, with all due respect, what the actual fuck. ¡°How am I supposed to have a fair chance against a flaming sword?¡±


    He gave her a flat look, emotionless down to the beauty mark under his eye. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m going to train you. And when you are at your absolute best? Then we will fight seriously and I will beat you.¡±


    Li Hanyi was going to die. Again. Only this time would be a brutal beat down just so an idiot teenage cultivator could feel secure in his superiority. Well, at least he was so stupid that all of her attempts at cross-dressing only registered in his birdbrain as injuries. She cleared her throat and licked dry lips with a tongue turned to sandpaper. ¡°Ah. Any chance we could skip all of that and just assume your victory?¡±


    ¡°No. That wouldn¡¯t mean anything.¡±


    Well, he couldn¡¯t blame a girl for trying.

 Chapter 8

    Cheng Luan was a cheating hack.


    It was either that, or Liu Feng was an OP side character that had to die or the protagonist would never have stood a chance. If Liu Feng ever figured out how to put himself in perfect balance, the sword could catch aflame. And, to make matters worse, it seemed Airplane had gotten confused about his mythological creatures lore and combined the perfectly good symbolism of a fenghuang with the western phoenix.


    And why ever would Li Hanyi think that?


    Because by channeling his qi into his sword, or some other ridiculous qi channeling tricks, Liu Feng could heal himself.


    She had spent an entire year as this man¡¯s dedicated doctor, aligning his meridians and caring for his every little daily scrape, and he could have fixed it all himself. She wanted to cry and throw things at him if there was even a chance that she could even hit him.


    Liu Feng was not yet Liu Qingge. He was still a wet-behind-the-ear brat that needed to train and cultivate for a few more decades before he could be called a war god. That was probably the only reason Li Hanyi was even surviving his so-called training regime.


    The problem was that Liu Feng did not actually know how to train himself, let alone teach someone else. His entire plan boiled down to ¡®come at me, bro¡¯ and on-the-spot corrections of things that irritated him. If the move was good, Li Hanyi would be expected to repeat it, over and over, until Liu Feng declared her proficient enough. Then he would go back to beating her into the ground for the rest of the evening.


    He did not consider any of their nightly training sessions to be fighting. No, what they did was training. Every once in a while, when Liu Feng felt particularly confident in what Li Hanyi had learned, they would ¡®spar¡¯. His version of sparring was the exact same thing as training, but with the minor alteration that he didn¡¯t stop to correct any of her mistakes and made her pay for each one.


    Li Hanyi got better at fighting with an alarming amount of trips to the clinic to tend to her own injuries. She started wearing high-collared shirts beneath her usual robes, relying on the sleeves and stiff brocade to hide her bandages and provide just a bit more protection from the flat of Cheng Luan. Speed and flexibility became her only true defense, as the best way to fight Liu Feng was simply not to let him hit her.


    And that would have served her just as well and been perfectly fine¡­


    If Liu Feng wasn¡¯t also improving with every spar.


    It was a vicious cycle with no end. Airplane, much as it hurt her to think it, was entirely right when he had said that Liu Feng considered Li Hanyi to be his one and only rival. Liu Feng brought his best to every training session and expected her to do the same. Some warped sense of pride made Li Hanyi subconsciously try her best not to be beaten into the ground by a boy who might as well be half her mental age. Over and over, every single time he had a spare moment from running missions off the peaks.


    Sometimes, she wondered if this was even worth the pain, broken fingernails, bruises, and general agony. Then she remembered that a side character¡¯s side character was by far a safer role than being attached to the plot as a potential wife candidate. Then she sighed, strapped her sword to her waist, and met Liu Feng in her shizun¡¯s courtyard for another evening of suffering in the name of martial prowess.


    Her days were filled with clinical duties, nights with studying medical texts, and every random free moment was filled with Liu Feng¡¯s special brand of sparring. This was the kind of grind towards perfection that had killed her the first time, where not a single moment was left for herself. No hobbies to soothe her mind, only the grind, for as long as Liu Feng had a say.


    It was no wonder that Li Hanyi almost cried with relief when Liu Feng got that look in his eye that meant he would be gone for the next month on some monster hunt.


    ***


    At seventeen, people began to notice that Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t growing like his fellows. Li Hanyi was short for a cultivator, minuscule for a man, or middling height for a woman, and appeared to have never truly entered puberty. His voice never deepened, the baby fat only slightly slimmed from his face, and Li Hanyi remained curiously stuck in a state of youthful androgyny.


    It could be said that Li Hanyi was on track to be considered Qian Cao¡¯s hidden beauty, a reclusive acupuncture master that never left his peak.


    Li Hanyi sat with her head in her hands and fingers laced over her mouth to hold back her horrified scream. There was no denying the text box hovering in front of her face.


    [Current role: ¡°Li Hanyi¡± of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, Inner Disciple of Qian Cao Peak. ¡°Mad Doctor,¡± ¡°Ageless Beauty,¡± ¡°War God¡¯s Rival,¡± and ¡°Bearer of Huanxiang Gu¡± titles unlocked. Pending reward: Otome Genre Change.]


    Everything after that meant absolutely nothing when right there, right in front of her face, was a giant neon blue and white sign that ominously flashed in defiance of seven hard years of work: here was a potential wife candidate.


    How was she supposed to overcome this body¡¯s own genetics? It wasn¡¯t like she had any control over the shape of her face. Not when it was so very close to the one she had been born with the first time, just with changed eye colors, skin no longer pale from sitting in front of a computer for hours, and different hair texture.


    Even the most basic of skincare routines would only make her face slimmer and skin dewier with every mask and swipe of a gua sha stone. Airplane hadn¡¯t seen fit to equip the human cultivators with any righteous ways to alter their faces beyond standard cosmetics, and the dumb idiot of an author had no idea how modern Chinese women even used the most basic of cosmetics.


    So, of course, there was no way for her to go make some Hollywood-quality prosthetics and give herself some dreadful new features. She¡¯d kill for a birthmark at this point, some port wine stain on her face that defied ancient fantasy China¡¯s ridiculous beauty standards and let her just live her own life. Hell, even some cute little freckles across her nose and cheeks would have been nice.


    Glutting herself on greasy food to give herself horrible acne and a fat gut might even have worked. Except she lived on the most health-conscious peak in all of Cang Qiong, where you couldn¡¯t eat more than a stick of tanghulu without some elder preparing to give the lecture of a lifetime about moderation and how a doctor should be an example for their patients.


    No, what she needed was something permanent enough to change how the public perceived her and yet not so awful that she couldn¡¯t live with it. Burns, scars, things she could play up as worse than they actually were. But whatever it was needed to be distinctly masculine in origin. Nothing that could be in a song about a tragic beauty, only a manly ballad about brothers-in-arms.


    There was nothing manlier than a song about two martial cultivators where one took a blow for or from another.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    With enough time, cultivation, and good medicine? Li Hanyi could probably recover from anything short of being stabbed in the heart. But if there was anything that cultivators pitied, it was gnarly scars.


    ***


    Liu Feng was never late to a spar. He might miss one or two while completing his duties as a Bai Zhan disciple, but he was never late. His punctuality gave her the perfect window to finish all of her preparations.


    If the manliest thing was to take a blow intended for your dearest friend, then the next manliest would be to take one from your sparring partner. It would forever cement their rivalry, remove her swiftly from the list of known beauties, and all but staple Li Hanyi to Liu Feng¡¯s narrative. The plan was brilliant in its simplicity and she hadn¡¯t even needed Airplane¡¯s advice to figure it out, just her own extensive medical and film knowledge.


    She¡¯d numbed the right side of her face from the corner of her mouth to her ear with the same qi trick she used to paralyze and anesthetize her victims and patients alike. As far as she was concerned, she might as well have had a slab of yellowfin tuna slapped to her face for all she could feel of the fatty tissue.


    Liu Feng grunted at her in lieu of a proper greeting. ¡°Li Hanyi,¡± was the most he would ever really say before a spar.


    She inclined her head gracefully at him in respect and acknowledgment. ¡°Liu-shixiong,¡± she replied.


    He drew his sword and she did hers, and they met in the middle of the courtyard in a clash of steel and qi. It was the kind of scenario fit for a ballad, a dramatic and poignant scene from the latest hit web drama. Two cultivators, graceful and beautiful as mist covering the moon, clashed in a symphony of steel against steel.


    If they had been any other cultivators, that might even have been true. But neither Li Hanyi nor Liu Feng cared about the gracefulness and picturesqueness of their spars, only for how practical and deadly they could be. Bai Zhan valued martial might while Qian Cao favored the surgeon¡¯s scalpel, and neither one cared to engage in the kind of artistry preferred by the likes of Qing Jing. Every spar between the two was akin to watching a tiger try to fight a scorpion: the tiger might be strong, but the scorpion only needed to get one good sting.


    This was a very polite way of saying that Liu Feng spent most of his time tearing after Li Hanyi while she spent most of her time attempting to be everywhere but where his sword was. Her entire plan was duck, dodge, weave, and somewhere in there, she tried her best to hit him with her sword. Liu Feng had banned her from using any of her ¡®cheating assassin¡¯ tricks, so Li Hanyi was forced to fight with one hand behind her back in the hope that that would keep her from whipping needles out of nowhere.


    The frantic dodging was all the set-up she needed.


    It was easy, too easy, to let them fall into a rhythm of strikes and near misses. A predictable comfort in routine was necessary to make this seem like such a dramatic mistake that it changed the course of whatever plot hooks the System wanted to use on her. But there she was, stalling, waiting for the perfect moment that would never come, out of fear of the pain that she wouldn¡¯t feel. Self-preservation, at long last, and achieved at the worst of times.


    Liu Feng grunted. ¡°Pay attention.¡±


    Oh, but she was. ¡°Always,¡± she said, sword raised perfectly in preparation for some fancy moon-named move that was supposed to evoke the feeling of autumn leaves in the moonlight. All Li Hanyi cared about was that it was the opening to a sequence designed to catch a weapon with the flat of her sword.


    He didn¡¯t disappoint.


    And it was easy, far too easy, to accidentally let the blade slip, to not brace enough for his hammer of a blow. She didn¡¯t even feel it bite into her face, the blade catching on the corner of her mouth and cutting deep. But, oh, oh she saw the horror on his face as the blood ran down her neck. She saw as he flinched back from the blow he hadn¡¯t intended to land.


    Not like that. Never like that in a spar.


    She didn¡¯t feel the cut, but she felt his qi flickering warm and bright over her skin. Fire shaped metal, overcame it, and melted it down to be cast anew. But his hand slipped, faltered, her cheek moved, and the jagged thing bloomed to stretch from the corner of her mouth up to her hair line.


    It would not be a pretty scar. No, but it would be a manly one to be proud of for as long as she could keep it.


    At least, that was what she had thought until she locked eyes with Liu Feng and watched the panic set in. It occurred to her, rather belatedly now that the deed had been done and blood poured down her face, that cultivators didn¡¯t like scars. Scars were for bandits, immoral cultivators who struggled to keep their qi clean. A good and righteous cultivator aspired to ascend to the Heavens as a perfect and flawless immortals¡­ and Liu Feng had just given her the biggest flaw possible.


    [Criteria for the title ¡°Ageless Beauty¡± no longer met, title has been removed. Character complexity increased, ¡°Liu Qingge¡± ??? Total increase. Warning, character settings have reached critical deviation levels.]


    Critical deviation levels? Deviating from what? The character arc and setting she hadn¡¯t agreed to because it didn¡¯t even exist? Absolutely not, no thanks. She wanted to complain, but that would have meant she would need to open her mouth and risk even more damage.


    They called it a Glasgow smile in the western parts of the world, a dueling scar in others. No matter what it was called, cultivators would see it as a sign of moral failure on Li Hanyi¡¯s part. Liu Feng at the least certainly couldn¡¯t stand to look at his own handiwork.


    He moved like the very definition of confidence equating grace, his hair whipping through the air with a crack as he pulled her to him by her wrist. Cheng Luan vibrated from where it had been impaled in the ground as Liu Feng spun the pair around it. ¡°Wang-shibo,¡± he cried out.


    None of that mattered as she watched the text scroll down those thrice-damned boxes. Huanxiang Gu cluttered uselessly to the stone below as Liu Feng crushed her hands to his chest in his desperate attempt to staunch the bloodflow. There was a strange ringing in her ears as she read and re-read the words again and again.


    [Character settings revised.]


    [Thank you for your continued hard work in transforming the narrative. Your revisions have been fully accepted. Character ¡°Li Hanyi¡± has reached the required complexity with the named side character ¡°Liu Qingge.¡±]


    [Now confirming character settings.]


    Wait, what? What did that even mean? What character settings? The panic made bile rise in the back of her throat, acrid and clinging, words bit back bitterly from her usual vitriol. If she said a single word, her face would split faster than an urban legend, and Li Hanyi didn¡¯t have that kind of confidence in her ability to fix that level of damage later. Nor did she think that the pain-killing she had to by acupuncture would even last through it.


    [Now loading Character Archetype: Mystic Assassin.]


    [Applying tropes: Wicked Cultured, Combat Pragmatist, Instant Death Stab, Stealth Expert, Mystical White Hair, Rugged Scar, Childhood Friends, Deadly Doctor, and Martial Medic.]


    [Loading ¡­]


    [Loading ¡­]


    [Application successful! Character ¡°Li Hanyi¡± has been created. You have received the achievement ¡°By Popular Demand¡±: Unlocked a secret character. You have been awarded 300 points.]


    [Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! Important things must be said three times! Your hard work in transforming the narrative has led to an increase in narrative complexity. A new side character has been named in ¡°Liu Qingge,¡± ¡°Shang Qinghua,¡± and ¡°Mu Qingfang¡± back-stories. As such, your account has reached enough notoriety to warrant an account type change.]


    [Please enjoy the following expanded features as part of your new User account: Direct messaging, expanded B-Point Store, bookmarks, character insight, glossary¡ª]


    No, no. She didn¡¯t care about all that. It was great and all that she was going to get to bother Airplane with messages at the weirdest times, and that she wasn¡¯t going to have to keep paying a subscription fee to keep her guest account active. But go back to that list of tropes applied to her character. What were all those? Hello? System?


    Liu Feng was quick to react and even quicker to raise his voice when needed. ¡°Wang-shibo,¡± he bellowed until the sound of socked feet pattering across the wood floor of her shizun¡¯s home was much closer.


    The only thing Li Hanyi could really focus on (past the wet trickle of blood going down the side of her neck, the smell of sword polish from Liu Feng¡¯s robes, and the comfortable knowledge that she weighed as much as a sack of rice to Liu Feng) was the truly awful sense of impending doom as the status windows all blinked closed at once.

 Chapter 9

    Li Hanyi was a tragedy. A cautionary tale of why each peak specialized as they did and meddled not in the affairs of dissimilar peaks. Qing Jing and Qian Cao would remain the scholarly bastions while Bai Zhan could keep on specializing in physical cultivation and combat. They did not need to mix their studies, lest one more disciple ended up like Li Hanyi.


    Wang Huo sewed up her face with catgut and a wickedly curved needle that glinted in the lantern light. He didn¡¯t numb her face, not after the first careful touch of his qi to hers gave him an answer he didn¡¯t expect. What he found there made him frown, but his duty of care kept him silent.


    ¡°Pay attention, young man. If you¡¯re going to around sparring with live steel, you should learn how to sew up your mistakes.¡± He busied himself with needles and gauze, a neat spool of pale brown catgut that he unwound as he went. ¡°Ah, my poor Han¡¯er. They¡¯ll never call you pretty again,¡± Wang Huo murmured sadly.


    She glanced up as her shizun finished the first layer of stitches, saw the frown on his face through her lashes, and bit back the urge to wince. Her shizun knew, had probably figured out the reasonable reason why she had done it, and pitied her for it. The only consolation was that Liu Feng hadn¡¯t, and probably would never, figure out that she had used him to become ugly.


    Liu Feng made a sad little broken sigh somewhere beyond her shoulder. ¡°Will it scar?¡±


    ¡°Young man, this master is a cultivating doctor, not an immortal god of medicine,¡± Wang Huo said grumpily as he knotted another suture. ¡°Of course, this will scar. The blood loss alone might have killed our Han¡¯er if it hadn¡¯t happened in this master¡¯s own courtyard.¡±


    Oh, she hadn¡¯t thought of that. Then again, she hadn¡¯t thought that Liu Feng would manage anything more than a glancing blow on her cheek or chin. If she had? Maybe she would have tried to restrict her blood flow more than she had. An artistic flow was all she needed to sell it, not a geyser as if this was a slaughterhouse film.


    A half-chi-long wound took Wang Huo not even a quarter of a shichen to suture, his hands steady as he pressed her flesh into place and sewed it up taut with dozens of little knots. He sighed heavily, tied off the last suture, and sat back on his heels. ¡°That that back to this master¡¯s study and then return to your peak. This master¡­ does not expect to see you again for quite some time, young man.¡±


    Liu Feng opened his mouth to argue, once then twice like a fish, then something clearly made him think better of it as he snapped his mouth shut in a grim line. She watched him bow respectfully to her shizun out of the corner of her eye before he scooped up the tray of blood-soaked gauze and leftover catgut from the stone courtyard. His shoes slipped only once in the blood before he quietly made his escape from Wang Huo¡¯s building rage.


    She wanted to apologize, truly she did, but her numb lips struggled to shape the words. Li Hanyi had succeeded in removing herself from any kind of candidacy, harem or otherwise. And all she needed to do was abuse the trust and friendship Liu Feng had given her.


    Maybe, just maybe, she had gone too far in order to defy the System.


    ***


    Her new scar did not bring the peace she craved. No, instead she walked the halls of her sect and heard whispers on her heels everywhere she went. Wang Huo, her beloved shizun, had pitied her when he saw what she had so arrogantly done to herself. But now? Now she understood why.


    Bandages hid the worst parts of her scar from the world for a time, but she could only bear the itching cotton for so long. The bandages limited her vision and gave her a new weakness that she could ill afford. She had a protagonist to worry about still, after all, who would come to her peak and slaughter them all (save Mu Qingfang). No, she would have to come up with something other than the bandages to hide her damage.


    Liu Feng tried to help. The poor boy clearly felt responsible for her mistake and tried his best to make up for his part in it. He brought her monster parts and rare herbs to help her scar heal faster, increase her vitality, and speed along her cultivation. Li Hanyi couldn¡¯t bear the wounded puppy look he had about him and capitulated every time. She tossed the gifts into storage without looking, but she took them all the same.


    After all, she set her qi to Wang Huo¡¯s salves, against the healing energies of wood and water, let metal and earth destroy it, and tried not to be proud of waking up each morning to the gnarled scar across her face. And each time she did it, Li Hanyi knew it was cruel of her to string him along. She should have told him to stop, that she didn¡¯t want her scar gone so much as she just wanted people to stop talking about it like it was the moral failure of her martial generation.


    Li Hanyi did not have many friends. She had her shizun, her annoying little shidi, Airplane, and¡­ Liu Feng. Losing what little reason Liu Feng had to even acknowledge her existence? Unacceptable. The thought alone made her sick to her stomach and want to tear her hair out. Liu Feng had gotten her into this mess with his stupid muscles and his stupid pretty face, and he could damn well see her out of it.


    At least she knew why the System had slapped her with the Mystical White Hair trope: the stress alone had turned her hair snow white in the worst possible way.


    The right front part of her hair had gone white. Not gently or gracefully, no, but in a stringy sort of way that made her look like a ghoul or some bad Hollywood vampire. Li Hanyi was two snaps of her fingers away from being the Chinese cultivating cousin of a family whose motto was to devour those who would subdue them, and she hated it. Mystical White Hair, your mother looked good.


    Li Hanyi had never considered herself as particularly vain before dying of overwork and a rage-induced heart attack. Now she was a teenager all over again, surrounded by people with perfect skin and impossibly immaculate hair, and Li Hanyi found herself purposefully making herself ugly to save her own skin.


    Liu Feng brought her his mother¡¯s old veil and she almost broke down into tears. It didn¡¯t work for her, the fabric clinging to her nose and the jagged upper half of her scar left exposed, but it meant the world to someone who had become the new social pariah. It meant someone still cared¡ª


    ¡°Are you quite finished feeling sorry for yourself?¡± The voice at her bedroom door made her jump and stuff the silk veil guiltily into her sleeve. ¡°My dear, come and have tea with this old master.¡±


    Li Hanyi knew perfectly well that her shizun only phrased it like a question to politely soften the blow. The only option she had was to get to her feet, follow in his wake, pour the tea, and brace herself for whatever lecture he deemed fit to give. Wordlessly, silent as the grave, she padded her way across and down the hall to her shizun¡¯s study. She gave the slightest bow as she entered before taking up her usual place across his desk.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    This part she knew, the dance of cups well-practiced and familiar as breathing. Pour the tea, breathe in the aromatic steam, sip slowly from hot porcelain, and keep her mouth hidden with the palm of her hand. Manners, simple and elegant, that had been drilled into her from the very first day under Wang Huo¡¯s care. Polite small talk about the weather, the taste of the cake they shared, these were the little things that delighted.


    Wang Huo set his cup down with a click of porcelain to wood. He took her hand in his long fingers, pressed the tips to her pulse, and the flow of her qi was laid bare. The poking and prodding was even normal behavior, the press of acupuncture needles and low humming guaranteed to soothe her frazzled nerves. ¡°Ah, Han¡¯er, our poor Han¡¯er.¡±


    He tutted at her from behind his mustache. ¡®Why must you do these terrible things to yourself, Han¡¯er?¡± Slowly, he shook his head, disappointed in his personal disciple. ¡°Your poor face, why? Help this old master to understand why you guided that boy¡¯s hand to do such an awful thing?¡±


    Oh, oh no. Her shizun did know. He knew what she had done, what she had tricked Liu Feng into. ¡°I¡ª,¡± she stammered.


    Wang Huo frowned. ¡°You must have had a reason. Why else would you have taken such steps?¡± His robes rustled as he shifted in place. ¡°Halce your face numbed to his blows. The flow of blood lessened. And all the while in this old master¡¯s courtyard. Dearest Han¡¯er, you could have been subtler.¡±


    Her face flushed bright crimson. ¡°I tried¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Tried what, Han¡¯er?¡± He cut her off with a raised hand. ¡°You¡¯ve disfigured yourself quite messily. And for what? You¡¯ve destroyed whatever cultivation partnering prospects you could have had, to say little of marital prospects.¡± He spoke calmly, but every word was a knife in her heart.


    What did she care about marital prospects? The whole point of what she had done was to keep herself from ever being considered as a potential wife candidate. Her shizun¡¯s qi against hers was calming, kept her mind still enough for her desperate loneliness to abate.


    Li Hanyi was in a hell of her own making with no signs of it stopping.


    ¡°What if I don¡¯t want to get married?¡± She muttered, gaining confidence with every word. ¡°What do I care if someone likes me for my face instead of who I am as a person? I don¡¯t want beauty to be the main criteria for being added to some idiot man¡¯s harem!¡±


    Wang Huo blinked at her in surprise. Never in the almost decade had his disciple ever admitted that he was, in fact, she and only chose to dress like a man. ¡°Ah. This master begins to understand. Our Han¡¯er is a romantic at her heart.¡± He stroked his beard with his free hand and huffed grumpily. ¡°This master takes no offense to the more reasonable methods Han¡¯er takes to ensure her own happiness. But what of young Liu Feng? Did Han¡¯er spare a single thought for his happiness?¡±


    She froze. Liu Feng¡¯s happiness? Hadn¡¯t she given him a man¡¯s ultimate romance? He had a rival now who could be name-dropped at a moment¡¯s notice to color his backstory and make him seem that much more manly. Wasn¡¯t that enough for a battle junkie like Liu Feng? Li Hanyi blinked back at her shizun uncomprehendingly.


    He heaved a mighty sigh and shook his head sadly. ¡°This master has failed as a shizun. How has this master¡¯s dear Han¡¯er managed to become such a selfish little thing?¡± The old man released her wrist and took a gentle sip from his cup. ¡°How badly this old master has failed you, for you to be so callous and cruel to those you might call friend.¡±


    Her? Callous and cruel? Not hardly when compared to the likes of blackened protagonist Luo Binghe. Everything Li Hanyi did was out of sheer necessity, not some raging case of Main Character Syndrome. The scar on her face was necessary to ensure her safe removal from said blackened protagonist¡¯s radar.


    Not that her shizun would ever know her spectacular reasons for doing what she did. Not when the mere thought of telling him had the System blaring alarms at her about massive point deductions if she opened her mouth to say anything about her actual situation. No, she¡¯d have to keep her perfectly sane rationale to herself until the day she died. The only one who could, would, and did know the truth was her fellow transmigrator.


    Wang Huo took her silence for the defeat it was. ¡°Dear Han¡¯er, you know what you must do to make it right. ¡°He gave her a stern look over his teacup, eyebrows furrowing as his beard twitched. ¡°Apologize to Liu Feng and make amends or I shall never allow you to associate with anyone from another peak until you do so.¡±


    ***


    Apologizing to Liu Feng was easier said than done.


    To apologize and make amends as her shizun wanted would require Liu Feng to be on the mountain range. Or, barring that, the idiot needed to at least tell someone where he was going or where he intended to be before he left. It was bad enough that Li Hayi was ordered to thicken her skin and apologize, but the idiot wasn¡¯t even there for her to do it.


    It wasn¡¯t like her shizun was going to sign a pass and let her go hunt him down either. No, Li Hanyi was effectively on what was probably the ancient fantasy China equivalent of being grounded. She couldn¡¯t leave her peak, wasn¡¯t allowed outside visitors save for exactly one, and her life had narrowed neatly down to home and work. Li Hanyi was on punishment detail: bandage rolling, herb grinding, inventory taking, restocking, and everything else that was normally left to outer disciples. After so long of being trusted enough to be Bai Zhan¡¯s on-call doctor and Liu Feng¡¯s current personal one, her new restrictions chafed.


    Worse still was the unrelenting churn of the gossip machine, cranking out new and irritating reasons why Li Hanyi had fallen from glory.


    What whispers she didn¡¯t hear were swiftly brought to her attention by her shidi. Such a bright boy, inexorably fond of his grumpy shixiong and prone to bringing her all kinds of experimental new salves and creams (none of which she ever dared to use after the first turned her hand green for a week). The bandages on her face were there to stop the horrified stares, not because her scar still bled. There was nothing anyone could do about it, least of all some wet-behind-the-ears whelp with his curios collection of plants he shouldn¡¯t have.


    The perks of being the Peak Lord¡¯s newest personal disciple were many and mysterious.


    Her shidi was an especially sticky bit of rice that was taking shameless delight in his shixioing¡¯s confinement. No longer did he need to compete with the likes of Liu Feng and other Bai Zhan disciples, instead his only competition for LI Hanyi¡¯s attention was the never-ending minutiae of drudge work. At least he would fold up his sleeves and join in whenever he could manage to find time away from his own shizun¡¯s tasks.


    ¡°Li-shixiong, have you ever thought about what you¡¯ll do as a full cultivator? You know, after your shizun says he has nothing more to teach you and goes into seclusion?¡± The boy was audacious with his questions, nigh unto blasphemous, but still, she paused to consider both.


    She swatted idly at his legs as he swung them from the top of the sturdy wooden apothecary table. ¡°Mind the porcelain, brat.¡± Her other arm shot out to catch a falling jar filled with some kind of balm, and rolled it off her palm to safety beside him. ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    Wang Huo, run out of things to teach her? Next to impossible. Wang Huo, telling her it was time to make her way in the world and to make sure she visited and wrote? Extremely likely.


    ¡°I think you should take some disciples. And then when you¡¯re done with them, become an Elder.¡±


    There was no question that Li Hanyi would never be in the running to be the next Qian Cao Peak Lord. Not when the current one, Chang Jinfei, so clearly doted on his personal disciples and left the rest of Qian Cao¡¯s disciples to the other masters. Nor when Li Hanyi knew for a fact that Chang Jinfei considered her a troublemaker. But an Elder? Only if the next Peak Lord became very accepting about a pile of things very quickly.


    Li Hanyi snorted a laugh. ¡°I doubt that. If anything, I¡¯ll end up taking on a bunch of problem disciples, scaring them back to righteous ness, and then sending them on to more capable masters.¡± Actually, now she spared a moment to think about it, that didn¡¯t seem like such a terrible plan. She might as well put all that training from Bai Zhan¡¯s elite to use.


    Or, well, she could whenever Liu Feng showed back up and she could finally apologize to him properly like her shizun wanted.

 Chapter 10

    Three months and twelve days. It took three months and twelve days for the rumor mill to stop putting Li Hanyi through the wringer. It wasn¡¯t for lack of desire, oh no. No, it was only because the rumor mill seized upon something new to chew on, something even more dramatic and important enough to change the course of the entire sect¡¯s future.


    The head of the entire sect had a new personal disciple. Hand-selected, doted upon, and almost a shoo-in to become the next head. If the rumor mill was to be trusted, he was a calm and studious young man. Blessed with solid spiritual roots and impressively solid bones, that young man would be a gift to the future generation.


    His arrival brought a flurry of activity across the sect as each Peak Lord began looking closer at their personal disciples to see which one was better suited to the legacy of their peak. The selection process had begun, for good or ill, with the arrival of one Yue Yuan.


    It only mattered to Li Hanyi that this new disciple took the attention off her own mistakes by making horrible new mistakes of his own. Yue Yuan, nameless before his new master bestowed upon him a name, had decided that his newfound status as a cultivator would be best used to train as much as possible with little care to the personal ramifications. She could respect drive like that, especially if it meant that she could finally put a pin on the timeline and triumphantly send off a series of messages to Airplane about it.


    <<User002: Ha! Eat that, Airplane. There ¡¯s your plot and actual characters that matter.


    >> User001: You do know I never really made a concrete timeline, right?


    <<User002: Oh, tried your mother. How can you even stand to say you¡¯re a writer when you don¡¯t even know your own timeline? Where¡¯s your pride?


    >>User001: When you''re dealing with immortal cultivators, all timelines are relative. How¡¯s house arrest going? Any closer to being let out to actually see the plot?


    <<User002: [Message contents undeliverable due to profanity filters.]


    <<User002: [Message contents undeliverable due to profanity filters.]


    <<User002: [Message contents undeliverable due to profanity filters.]


    <<User002: ¡­No. I have to wait for Liu Feng still.


    >>User001: Huh. That¡¯s weird. He¡¯s been back to Bai Zhan a few times.


    <<User002: [Message contents undeliverable due to profanity filters.]


    <<User002: [Message contents undeliverable due to profanity filters.]


    Liu Feng, that idiot, had run away. It had just been a little cut on her face and hadn¡¯t even hurt. But no, the absolute moron was either terrified of what her shizun would do to him or still embarrassed that it had even happened. She couldn¡¯t decide which one was worse when both explanations were equally bad. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to wring his neck like the chicken he was.


    That settled it: Li Hanyi needed to get off her peak.


    Somehow, she needed to get past her ever-vigilant shizun, sneak past the gate guards, and fly herself from Qian Cao to Bai Zhan without anyone crying the alarm. But even if she made it, there was no guarantee that Liu Feng would still be at his peak. There was no set schedule for when he would bring the latest offering, and she hadn¡¯t heard a peep from him since her house arrest had begun.


    She bit at her thumbnail as she paced, deep in thought. There had to be something that she was missing. Liu Feng wasn¡¯t the sort to just give up when it was difficult. She knew that. His truly dogged determination was why Airplane had killed him off in the first place, lest the Bai Zhan Peak Lord killed the protagonist as a baby in the cradle. There was a catch here that she just wasn¡¯t seeing.


    Oh.


    She hadn¡¯t seen him since her shizun confined her to the peak and removed all of her official reasons for seeing Liu Feng. Which meant that the only reason left was that she wanted to go see her friend.


    Li Hanyi had never actually asked if she could go see her friends, few as they were, or if they could come and see her. She had just assumed that if she was confined to the peak, that meant that she wasn¡¯t allowed to send messages or invite her friends to visit. Her shidi had no problems at all coming and going, so maybe the same would be true of anyone else who came to visit.


    Wouldn¡¯t it?


    ***


    Something was clearly wrong with Liu Feng.


    She sent him messages. Politely worded, at Wang Huo¡¯s command, requests for Liu Feng to stop by at his earliest convenience. Li Hanyi wrote one every day and apologized for her misdeed in each one. Letter after letter, day after day, she wrote to Liu Feng and received nothing in return.


    Simple requests became more and more complex. She could no more help it than the tree outside her window could stop growing. ¡°Hey, I¡¯ve got something to tell you¡ª Li Hanyi,¡± wouldn¡¯t get him to stop by? Perhaps talking about her day would do the trick. ¡°Today I sorted through mugwort. Are you ever coming back?¡ª Li Hanyi,¡± didn¡¯t get his attention either.


    She tried poetry.


    ¡°If you have friends who know your heart,


    Distance cannot keep you apart, ¡ª Li Hanyi.¡±


    Poetry was to no avail.


    Months passed and eventually, Li Hanyi determined that he wasn¡¯t reading them at all. With that knowledge in mind, she was free to write him whatever she felt like. Recipes for new kinds of pills and muscle balms, fragments about how her day would have been better if she could spar with him just one more time.


    She cut up the monster parts he had given her and had them made into all kinds of things. Li Hanyi carved her own hairpin out of some horrifying snake¡¯s jaw bone, the hollow venom ducts perfect for storing a spare needle. She loaded it with poison, the end safely corked off so that she would always have a weapon on hand. That seemed like something Liu Feng would appreciate. She had even used part of the snake¡¯s original venom in the mix.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    He didn¡¯t answer that letter either.


    Li Hanyi came o the inevitable conclusion that he didn¡¯t care, and so she began using him as a personal diary. Dear Diary became replaced with Dear Liu Feng. As far as she knew, he tossed every letter into a campfire as kindling. Unkindly, she wondered if he would even know half the characters she used to describe her day-to-day life.


    Her shidi certainly never mentioned that Liu Feng was particularly thrilled to get her letters. He had kindly offered to deliver them all for her when he went off the peak to gather more plants, but never had much to say about his shixiong¡¯s letters other than that he had delivered them.


    Months of contrite daily letters convinced her shizun that she was truly sorry about what she had done. After all, all the heartfelt apologies in the world mattered little if the recipient didn¡¯t want to hear them. She was free to move about the peak as she pleased, even to leave it if she wished. Li Hanyi was even eligible to join the next Immortal Alliance Conference. Seven days of showing off as one of her peak¡¯s best and, if not most eccentric, certainly one of the hardest working disciples.


    Something about that niggled at the back of her mind, some facet of something plot-related that must have been important. A thing with a name in Airplane¡¯s work? It must have a plot attached to it like a bad cold.


    The only problem was that with so many plots begun and discarded like old tofu? Li Hanyi didn¡¯t remember what was so significant about this particular Immortal Alliance Conference. It wasn¡¯t the one the that protagonist would collect a bunch of wives in. But something about the timing was just odd. There had to be something about this, she just couldn¡¯t place what was so special about it.


    ***


    Yue Yuan was a terrible patient.


    He was polite enough to cover a world of sins, but he was rapidly shaping up to be more irritating than Liu Feng ever was. Where Liu Feng refused to ever leave, Yue Yuan refused to go over to Qian Cao unless he was physically forced to go by his shijies and shixiongs. Unlike Liu Feng, Yue Yuan had real injuries that needed tending by a medical professional. He wouldn¡¯t say where his injuries came from, but it was obviously not from the normal course of training.


    Yue Yuan very clearly was overworking himself. Something rode him like a dog to near exhaustion and beyond frequently enough that he had bags under his eyes and desperation in every word. It was enough to make him try to leave the clinic with half his bandages done, claiming that his treatment was enough for the likes of him.


    Li Hanyi only knew this through the rumor mill and the good old-fashioned information-gathering skills of the bored rank and file. Yue Yuan was a problem patient, and she was almost an expert in handling problem patients. She really should have seen it coming.


    ¡°Li Hanyi, you have a new patient.¡±


    She loved every time one of her fellow disciples decided that they no longer wanted the stress of her newest headache and would pass that patient off like expired makeup. They wrapped it up beautifully, describing them as the greatest vote of confidence in her skills. Normally this conversation would happen right before she opened the door to see yet another Bai Zhan disciple trying to escape out of the window. A series of high speed acupuncture needles to the backside tended to dissuade even the hardest headed idiot, and Yue Yuan was no exception.


    He clapped his hands to his bottom with a yelp even as Li Hanyi turned to her fellow with a raised eyebrow and slowly falling arm. Yue Yuan, the rising star of their sect, was just as easy to disable as any other problem patient. While he winced and plucked needles from his lower robes, Li Hanyi sighed.


    ¡°Many thanks for shixiong¡¯s esteem. This shidi will do this shidi¡¯s utmost to ensure this patient is well cared for.¡± It was a very kind and poetic way of saying the Li Hanyi was prepared to use methods better suited to Bai Zhan than the hallowed halls of healing. She bowed politely and her shixiong sniffed, clearly taken aback that his attempt to make Li Hanyi miserable hadn¡¯t worked.


    She waited until her shixiong left in a huff before locking the door behind him. ¡°Sit down before you hurt yourself,¡± she drawled. ¡°Don¡¯t give me more work than you already have.¡±


    Yue Yuan blinked at how swiftly this childlike doctor went from being a polite and simpering soul to a cranky and no-nonsense one. ¡°Ah, begging shimei¡¯s pardon¡ª.¡±


    She had a fist full of needles before she even thought about it. ¡°Call this shixiong a shimei one more time and see what happens,¡± she barked out. He wasn¡¯t technically incorrect, but her great plan to avoid the harem route relied solely on her ability to convince her sect that she was, in fact, a man. Besides which, this Yue Yuan was being staggeringly disrespectful to someone who had been cultivating far long than he had and was already a full-fledged member of their peak. ¡°Have some respect for your seniors.¡±


    Yue Yuan, in defiance to all common sense, gave a broad grin at that. ¡°Ah, my apologies, shixiong. I hadn¡¯t expected someone of your youthful beauty to be my doctor.¡±


    She wanted to bathe in steel wool and shuddered instead. Clearly, this Yue Yuan was used to placating the eternally prissy and scathing. His skill probably wouldn¡¯t have caught her attention if she wasn¡¯t already on a hair trigger to avoid whatever weird plots the System wanted to throw her into next.


    [Mission ¡°Currying Favor¡± has now begun. Successful completion will award 300 B-Points and 100 ??? points.]


    Like that. Yue Yuan was somehow tied to a subplot like a particularly onerous canker sore. And, to make matters worse, he seemed to come with that irritating ??? score attached. The System like to give those out like candy with certain quests, usually right before it asked if she wanted to activate the Otome Genre Change reward from years ago.


    She squinted as she peered suspiciously at Yue Yuan. No, poor Ning Yingying didn¡¯t need this big brother type as a potential capture target. Li Hanyi wouldn¡¯t be activating that reward for this guy either. She¡¯d be a terrible shijie if she did.


    ¡°Uh-huh,¡± she said flatly. ¡°A good attempt at flattery. So, are you going to tell me why you¡¯re here today or will I have to do a full exam to find out the details?¡±


    He seemed taken aback, but covered it up swiftly. ¡°Ah, I¡ª,¡± he stammered out. ¡°Nothing?¡±


    ¡°Congratulations. Full exam it is.¡± Oh good, her favorite thing: completely invasive medical examinations. Ancient fantasy Chinese medicine was completely without modern amenities like MRIs, x-ray machines, lubricants for rectal exams, all of the best things. Instead, cultivators made do with checking meridian points for qi deviation.


    Li Hanyi had been informed on multiple occasions that her qi wasn¡¯t the most pleasant experience on the Earthly Plane. The metal aspect of her yin energy tended to feel cold and sterile to the warmer male counterpart, probably because she wanted nothing to do with anything male. It was like wearing a permanently cold stethoscope, never caring to warm it, and slapping it onto someone¡¯s bare wrist for hours at a time. This was a fact that tended to make Liu Feng resist even the most cursory examinations.


    Yue Yuan was not immune to the effect, and the teenager yelped again as Li Hanyi pressed her qi to his. ¡°That¡¯s cold!¡±


    She nodded, eyes drifting shut as she followed the flow of qi to each obstruction. ¡°So I¡¯ve been told. Make do, no one else is going to check for me.¡± Needle after needle went into the worst of the mess as Li Hanyi did her best to undo the heaps of damage he had done to himself with overwork and too much training.


    ¡°Is this really necessary?¡±


    ¡°Do you train every day and night until you pass out from exhaustion? Yes? Then yes, this is necessary.¡± It was entirely rhetorical, as even a cursory touch of her qi to his revealed that as a fact of his life. She¡¯d spent long enough dealing with Liu Feng¡¯s level of nonsense that Li Hanyi could recognize qi exhaustion a peak away.


    He tried to chuckle and meekly rub at the back of his head but was stopped by the veritable porcupine¡¯s worth of needles sprouting from his arms. ¡°Ow! Is it supposed to burn?¡±


    Li Hanyi looked up from channeling her qi through her needles. ¡°You want to be in and out of here, yes? Then the quick and dirty way it is.¡± Bolstering his qi with her own was something similar to slapping scaffolding on a crumbling building, but it did the job. ¡°I¡¯m using my own qi to hold up yours. Light training of the scholarly variety for three days until it wears off.¡±


    ¡°You can do that?¡± He looked gobsmacked at her explanation.


    ¡°Willing donor, anything is possible,¡± she murmured as she wrapped up her work. ¡°I don¡¯t recommend trying this with anyone outside of Qian Cao unless you want to go into Dual Cultivation or find a cauldron. Not that you¡¯re going to need it again. Now are you, Yue-shidi?¡±


    Yue Yuan nodded furiously. ¡°No, no I wouldn¡¯t waste your time like that, shixiong.¡±


    She gave him an acerbic look. ¡°Because you won¡¯t need it at all. If you get this bad again? I won¡¯t make this gentle.¡±


    He gulped even as she gave him a wicked grin. ¡°Understood, shixiong.¡±

 Chapter 11

    Sometimes she wondered if there was a giant sign on her forehead that said ¡°sucker here,¡± or ¡°bother as you please.¡± It was an unkind thought that lingered far longer and more often than it should have. Every time her shidi made a sad face or looked at her like an abandoned puppy, she caved. Oh, Li Hanyi was ungracious about it, but her shidi had learned that she would never really say no to his requests.


    Li Hanyi doubted that she would ever be worked to death like the first time, at least as long as her shidi had his way. Nor would she ever really want for interesting work with her shizun handing her new patient records regularly, and her shijies and shixiongs kept passing off problem patients left and right. Her life was, as best as she could call it, actually fulfilling.


    Enough so that sometimes, she didn¡¯t even regret dying.


    Except for in the moments like this one, when she opened the door to the sight of some beseeching face that only brightened when they saw her. Shutting the door and pretending she never saw them didn¡¯t make them go away and her shizun would be ever so disappointed if she left them out there with no hospitality.


    ¡°Why in the world¡ª Airplane, what the hell are you doing here and why are you carrying a body?¡± Her fellow transmigrator certainly knew how to test her patience, and Shang Fenhua had a special talent for it.


    ¡°Han-dage! Thank goodness you¡¯re home. I, uh, didn¡¯t know who else to go to. And I couldn¡¯t just leave him¡ª.¡±


    She cut off the panicked flood of chattering with a wave of her hand. ¡°Yeah, ok, so not a body then. Bring him in, before he becomes one,¡± she hissed at him. Right there, on her forehead, that ¡°sucker¡± sign was clearly just stuck in the permanently on position. But her professional pride as both a righteous and medical cultivator wouldn¡¯t allow her to just leave a patient to die on her doorstep.


    It was a good thing that Li Hanyi had been given claim to this clinic years ago, converting the drab room into something close to an acupuncturist¡¯s wet dream. The room tended to unnerve most people, understandably so, as no one wanted to look at signs they were going to become a pin cushion while they were being treated. She still had all the basic bits and bobs necessary to treat all manner of ills, but her specialty was clear.


    The bloody body dumped on her examination table might, however, be pushing the very limits of her craft. There were some things that Li Hanyi knew perfectly well were outside the scope of Airplane¡¯s fantasy world, and bringing the dead back to life was number two on that list. Not impossible, but so close to it that it might as well have been.


    But the body on her table was still breathing, albeit very rough and wetly, and so it was Li Hanyi¡¯s sacred duty to ensure that kept happening. That did not, however, mean she had to be happy about it. ¡°What¡¯d you bring him to me for? Shizun was right on the way,¡± she griped as she peeled back an eyelid to check her patient¡¯s bloodshot eyes.


    One touch of her hand to her patient¡¯s skin was all the clue she needed. Ice cold to the touch, preternaturally so, beyond anything his blood loss warranted. Blood that, upon closer examination, was almost blue-black.


    ¡°Shang Fenhua. Did you bring a demon into a cultivation sect?¡± Li Hanyi spoke slowly as the horror dawned on her.


    ¡°It¡¯s Mobei-jun,¡± he replied shrilly like that was an entire answer to the question.


    [Core joint mission ¡°Save Mobei-jun¡± has begun. Successful completion will result in the awarding of 1,000 B-Points. Mission failure will result in the loss of 5,000 B-Points.]


    She only had a measly 3,200 B-Points to her name after her account had been upgraded to User status. ¡°Oh my god, it¡¯s not like I was just going to let him die.¡± She¡¯d take the free points for doing her job, though.


    The young demon was, to put it bluntly, at death¡¯s door. Li Hanyi didn¡¯t have the time or luxury to cast aspersions as to the quality of his character. Airplane brought him to her for a very good reason and she would do her best to be worthy of his trust. Everything she had ever learned was going to be put to the test.


    He¡¯d have scars beneath his robes. But his organs would stay on the inside where they belonged, the bloody mess turning her fingers to ice as she stuffed needles loaded with various medicines in places they would do the most good. She sewed and sewed, bandaged over bloody gauze, stuffed organs back where they were supposed to be, and did her best to keep the body on her table alive.


    Shang Fenhua was put to work as her impromptu assistant, bringing her every little thing she pointed her bloody fingers to or barked out requests for. He kept a running commentary out of nerves and she tuned out his frantic muttering in favor of keeping the future Mobei-jun alive.


    Demons healed faster than humans. They were more resilient and aged as slowly as cultivators, the very malevolent reflection of their true nature. That was the only thing keeping Mobei-jun alive. A terrible part of her could imagine how badly Shang Fenhua would have bungled treating the demon. He probably would have trusted in that fast healing and stuck to just throwing rags on to soak up the blood.


    Impromptu surgery wasn¡¯t Li Hanyi¡¯s specialty, but Mobei-jun had a better chance at survival in her hands than he did Shang Fenhua¡¯s. At least she had the medicine on hand to staunch the blood streaming from every wound. Someone had very clearly tried to murder Mobei-jun and only the grace of cultivators was keeping him alive.


    The sun rose without them noticing, the twilight burned away with no fanfare. But still, still, she stitched and pressed, needles lightning quick as she jolted his body to stillness. A demon paralyzed by spiritual energy was a demon that wasn¡¯t trying to rip her throat out for trying to help. Li Hanyi kept up a running commentary of her own, a lowly murmured litany of every little thing she was doing. Hopefully, the long list of treatments and his various injuries would be enough to keep her uninjured in turn when she released the paralysis.


    It was the most stressful patient of her entire life.


    Eventually, she straightened with a wince and wiped her blood hands on her now ruined robe. ¡°That¡¯s as much as I can do. The rest is up to him. Bed rest somewhere cold for at least three days until he can stand up without pain. I¡¯m guessing here. Demon anatomy isn¡¯t exactly a course they offer here.¡±


    ¡°Oh, thank you,¡± Shang Fenhua all but simpered. ¡°You¡¯re the best meimei anyone could ever ask for. Thank you for helping my king in his time of need.¡± He wrung his hands in front of himself, the very picture of a groveling attendant. ¡°I owe you a thousand times over¡ª.¡±


    She cut him off with an unladylike snort. ¡°Raise my budget to replace all this and deliver a letter to Liu Feng the next time you see him.¡± Months with no answer and here she was, still writing a letter a day like some pining lover.


    Shang Fenhua gave her a pitying look. ¡°Miao-meimei, are you still trying to get Liu Feng to answer? Maybe you should consider¡­ moving on?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the principle of the thing. Budget increase and letter delivery. Now take your demon lord and go so I can scrub my poor floors.¡± Liu Feng owed her at least an answer after all the letters she had sent.


    She helped Shang Fenhua load his demon lord onto his back, needles at the ready to keep him paralyzed. ¡°Take these all out when you get him somewhere safe. He needs to stay relaxed and calm while you move him or he¡¯ll pop a stitch and his guts will fall out.¡± Li Hanyi fixed the demon with a glare, his paralysis making her brave. ¡°If you struggle, Mobei-jun, you¡¯ll die an ignoble death while trying to hold your intestines back in. I won¡¯t put them back if you undo all of my hard work by being an idiot.¡±


    Oh, she¡¯d be cleaning up after this for hours.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ***


    Her shidi had a black eye. He wouldn¡¯t tell her where he got it from, pouted when she asked and whined until she set down her sorting and put ointment on his eye. Her sticky little shidi hung around while she restocked her clinic room, legs kicking on her examination table as he watched her work.


    ¡°Li-shixiong, why do you have to do all this right now? Come see my new garden plot. I finally got the Midnight Tiger Lily to bloom.¡±


    Li Hanyi paused as she shoved another box of bandages into her little cabinet. The Midnight Tiger Lily was notoriously hard to grow, but its petals were an extremely useful soporific. So long as you avoid direct contact with the aphrodisiac pollen. But her own midnight adventure just days before had all but destroyed her carefully sorted medical cabinet supplies, and they very much needed to be replaced before Shang Fenhua stumbled in with new demon-induced injuries.


    She shook her head. ¡°Tempting, but your shixiong wants to be prepared for the next time your Shang-shixiong trips going up a flight of stairs.¡± That was her official and widely accepted excuse. It was so accepted, in fact, that she even sent an itemized bill for Shang Fenhua¡¯s care to An Ding and had it accepted for reimbursement.


    Her shidi didn¡¯t care. ¡°But Li-shixiong, I grew them just for you.¡±


    ¡°All these years and you still need an excuse to experiment?¡± She muttered under her breath as she worked. Her shidi was so sticky sometimes that it was a marvel. Li Hanyi shook her head again. ¡°Help me finish and we can go after.¡±


    The little cheer he gave was adorable for a thirteen-year-old that was now taller than his shixiong by a hair. He bent down to pick up a box, placing it neatly on a shelf above her head. The work went twice as quickly with a second pair of hands and soon they were done with the restocking.


    She clapped her hands together and grinned up at her shidi. ¡°There! Now we can go.¡±


    She closed up her little clinic, once her shizun¡¯s but now all hers, and locked the door behind her. Li Hanyi crossed the courtyard with her shidi sticking to her side like a rice bun. He thoughtfully shortened his stride so as not to inconvenience his shixiong like a good shidi should.


    ¡°I made sure to keep the Midnight Tiger Lily separate from my more volatile experiments,¡± her shidi gushed. It was cute how badly he wanted to show off his botany skills to his shixiong. ¡°I¡¯ve taken the liberty of de-pollinating the blooms for safety.¡±


    Li Hanyi skipped over a loose stone on the path. ¡°Doesn¡¯t that diminish the petals¡¯ efficacy?¡± That was rather the whole point: to grow the most potent medicinal herbs possible to be distilled into their purest form and diluted for use later. Unfortunately, the Midnight Tiger Lilies were just like every other Wife Plot plant in this world where removing the part that meant someone papapa or die turned the plant impotent.


    Her shidi smiled softly at her. Really, he was such a thoughtful shidi, taking such precautions so neither of them would need to acquire an antidote or worse. ¡°If the plant is then pollinated immediately with its benign cousin the Twilight Tiger Lily¡¯s outermost pollen, then there is no efficacy lost.¡±


    ¡°Very good answer! You¡¯ve done your research, shidi.¡± His chest puffed up with pride at her praise and she grinned. Of course, he did his homework before daring to show his shixiong. Her shidi was nothing if not a perfectionist like that.


    He gave the smallest bow. ¡°Nothing less would do.¡± Her shidi opened his mouth to say something else witty and stopped in his tracks. ¡°Let¡¯s go a different route, Li-shixiong.¡±


    ¡°Eh?¡± She blinked at him in confusion. ¡°But this is the fastest way to your research garden, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    A branch broke on the path ahead and she whirled to face it, some paranoid part of her reaching into her sleeve to touch the blunt ends of her needles. What she saw had her frozen in place, terrified to move lest the illusion shatter.


    Liu Feng had grown and matured in the months since she saw him last. He had grown into his face, a bewitching type of delicate beauty hidden beneath his eternal scowl and the furrows of his brows. No longer was her sparring partner a lanky bean pole, but finally filled out his white and blue Bai Zhan robes quite nicely.


    ¡°Liu Feng?¡± Her voice was tiny, a tremulous little hope that could be crushed at the slightest movement. ¡°Is that really Liu Feng?¡±


    Her shidi, ever faithful Mu Xiang, grabbed at her arm. ¡°Li-shixiong doesn¡¯t have to see him if shixiong doesn¡¯t want to.¡±


    It had been a year and a half since he had sliced up the side of her face and eight months since the last time she had seen him. Five months of letters every day. One hundred and fifty-three letters since she had last heard him speak.


    ¡°Li Hanyi.¡± Liu Feng¡¯s voice was deeper, more settled. ¡°We need to talk.¡± He sounded like he would rather be punched in the throat than talk with Li Hanyi.


    She turned her head to look at her shidi. ¡°Go on ahead. This shixiong will be by shortly.¡± Her shidi clearly didn¡¯t want to go anywhere without her, but she shooed him away. ¡°Go on. This shixiong will be fine.¡±


    Liu Feng would never hurt her on purpose. It was a bit of an oxymoron, what with her face sliced up to ribbons by his sword the last time they had sparred. But now he wanted to talk after months of silence, and Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t about to have her shidi witness what was probably about to be the most embarrassing conversation of her life.


    She tucked her hands inside her sleeve just to do something while her shidi looked nervously between the two.


    ¡°Are¡­ are you sure?¡± Her shidi did not want to leave.


    Liu Feng, arms crossed behind his back, did not have the patience for her shidi. ¡°Gp,¡± he snarled. ¡°You¡¯ve made enough of a mess as is.¡±


    Her Mu-shidi? Make a mess? Highly unlikely. She frowned at Liu Feng¡¯s gruffness as her shidi yelped and scurried off with his tail between his legs. ¡°Was that really necessary? The boy was just trying to help.¡±


    Liu Feng turned his glare on her. ¡°What he does can¡¯t be called helping.¡± He unfolded his arms from behind his back, ramrod straight as he looked her dead in the eyes. ¡°I came to apologize for my actions.¡± Again, he sounded like he would rather not. ¡°It has been brought to my attention that I have not been the greatest of friends.¡±


    ¡°The fault is mine.¡± Manners dictated a witty back and forth where they each tried to take the blame for each other¡¯s misconduct. Li Hanyi had no desire to save face, only the desperate wish to have her friend back. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have pushed you to it.¡±


    ¡°Li Hanyi. You did not hold my hand and force me to do¡­ that.¡± She had missed his brutal frankness. It was refreshing in a society where manners and scholarly speech dominated. ¡°I have been told that friends apologize instead of¡ª are you laughing?¡±


    She stifled a nervous giggle behind her sleeve. ¡°No, no. It¡¯s just¡ª We¡¯re so very bad at this.¡±


    He snorted at her, already fed up with her antics. ¡°If you do not want my apology, then what do you want?¡±


    What did she want? For everything to go back to the way it was. To not be dead and on her second chance. For every action to not be dictated by the whims of the great and capricious System. Li Hanyi wanted a normal life. What she got instead was¡­ this. ¡°Can we not just be friends?¡±


    ¡°Friends,¡± he said slowly, tasting the idea and finding it strange. ¡°We have not spoken in months and you want to be friends?¡± Liu Feng shook his head and stepped forward. ¡°Li Hanyi, how many letters did you write?¡±


    ¡°Does it matter?¡± She quickly replied. ¡°You never read them. Let¡¯s pretend they never happened. You¡¯re here now, and that¡¯s what matters.¡±


    Liu Feng gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, looking skyward for patience. ¡°I never got them in the first place?¡± He growled at her, pacing like a tiger in a cage. ¡°How good a friend you must think me to never question it! What kind of friend does that to the other?¡±


    He never got them. Liu Feng never answered her because he never got her letters. All one hundred and fifty-three of them had never reached their intended recipient. ¡°Then¡­ how do you know I wrote you any?¡± And better still, why was he here now?


    He frowned as he reached into the qiankun pouch at his waist, pulling out a familiar bit of folded paper. ¡°Shang Fenhua delivered this this morning.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Your shidi gave me the rest of them in a box after I beat him up.¡±


    So that was why her shidi had a black eye and didn¡¯t want her to talk to Liu Feng. The consequences of his own actions had come back to bite him. She probably should have been upset that Liu Feng had beaten up her shidi, but the thought that her shidi had betrayed her trust stung more than her obligations as his shixiong. ¡°He never delivered them? That little brat.¡±


    Liu Feng grunted. He seemed more offended that her shidi had done it to him than that her shidi had done it at all.


    She sighed. ¡°Well, no point now. You can just throw them in a fire or something. You¡¯re talking to me again and that¡¯s what matters.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± he said, brows furrowing even further. ¡°They were for me and I¡¯m going to read them.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely not. There¡¯s no point to them now,¡± she snapped back. The things she had written when she thought he was throwing her letters into the fire, in hindsight, were things she would never normally say. She wondered if she beat him down, just once, if he would consider giving back the box or letting her watch him set them all aflame.


    Better that than the alternatives. Better to let them burn than to have him know her quietest thoughts. Who knew what nonsense she had written when she thought no one was reading them? ¡°Just toss them.¡±


    ¡°You were fine with me having them before,¡± Liu Feng pointed out. ¡°Otherwise, you wouldn¡¯t have sent them. How many did you send?¡±


    ¡°Just give me the box, Liu Feng,¡± she snarled.


    ¡°No.¡± He gave her a bloodthirsty grin. ¡°Not unless you can beat me in a fair fight.¡±


    Oh. Oh, no. She shouldn¡¯t be surprised that he immediately put her letters up as a prize. ¡°Fine,¡± she bit out. She was more surprised that she agreed to it.

 Chapter 12

    She shouldn¡¯t have agreed to fight him.


    Li Hanyi needed to remember that the next time Liu Feng got that particular look in his eye. An excited War God was a War God that broke bones and didn¡¯t pull his punches. She hurt down to her marrow, a giant mess that only improved after several pills and an extremely hot bath. Neither of those things would help her hand heal faster, but the rest of her felt better.


    But, most importantly, she had her friend back.


    What were a few broken bones and bruises to an immortal cultivator in the face of that? Surely he felt the same if his satisfied grin was any judge. Even better, he returned the next day for another spar.


    ¡°You¡¯ve gotten rusty,¡± he said blithely. ¡°Do you not train when I¡¯m not here to make you?¡±


    She looked at him from over the edge of a particularly old treatise on qi deviations in the young and snorted. ¡°Doctor, remember? I have no need for Bai Zhan cultivator training. Basic self-defense is all we really need on Qian Cao.¡±


    It was sad and yet true: doctors only needed to defend themselves and their patients. Qian Cao style martial arts were mostly exercises to keep their bodies limber. She might as well be off doing tai chi in the park with the elderly.


    He scowled. ¡°What was your plan for the Immortal Alliance Conference? To self-defense it to death?¡±


    ¡°You do know Qian Cao doesn¡¯t go to the actual events, right?¡± She drawled, shoving her book into the pouch sewn into her sleeve. ¡°We get the unenviable task of coordinating relief with the other medical sects and rogue cultivators.¡±


    Liu Feng grimaced. ¡°That¡¯s a waste of your training. Enter with me.¡±


    Li Hanyi pressed the fingers of her unbroken hand to her nose. ¡°Liu Feng. You just want an excuse to show off. If I go, there¡¯s no merit for my peak. We like just being neutral medical professionals.¡±


    ¡°If you go, I¡¯ll give you a letter for every monster you kill or match you fight.¡± He was quick to figure out that he had a useful bartering method and no longer needed to force Li Hanyi to participate when he could just dangle a letter over her head. Liu Feng didn¡¯t lie. If he said it was up for an offer, then he meant it.


    That didn¡¯t mean she had to like it. ¡°What, are we children now? Bribes for good behavior?¡± But the allure of keeping Liu Feng from reading her diary letters couldn¡¯t be denied. ¡°Fine. One letter for every fight. No takebacks.¡±


    Liu Feng¡¯s smile was blinding. No more than a quirk of his lips, it transformed his face from its surly demeanor to a veritable springtime of youth. ¡°Done. Now, get up. I want to see if you can throw those needles with one hand and still hit a moving target.¡±


    She took back everything nice she had thought about Liu Feng. He was a charlatan, a slave driver, the worst of the worst. At twenty paces, Li Hanyi could hit a leaf falling off a tree and he knew that. He just wanted to make her fight him with only one functional hand. ¡°You battle maniac. I know you know what a recovery time is. We just sparred yesterday. You can wait a week.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re rusty. I want to see you fight in the Conference at your absolute best. Give me a challenge.¡±


    There it was, the true reason he wanted her to get in all this practice: Liu Feng wanted a rival. If he couldn¡¯t find one while roaming across ancient fantasy China, then he would make one. Sure, all that time without their usual sparring hadn¡¯t done her any favors. But that didn¡¯t mean he needed to coax her into things like a child refusing to eat their vegetables.


    ¡°Liu Feng. Has anyone ever told you that you have a problem?¡± Friends didn¡¯t let friends harbor delusions, and this was quite the delusion to have. ¡°Wanting to fight this much isn¡¯t, you know, normal.¡±


    ¡°It is on Bai Zhan,¡± he said, both missing the point and refusing to think about it.


    She hummed, flipping a needle between her fingers just to see him flinch and watch it warily. ¡°And how is Bai Zhan these days? Figured out a head disciple yet?¡±


    ¡°Oh. Me.¡±


    Liu Feng was a master of understatement, dropping bombshells on people without even having the decency to blink. If she ever doubted that Liu Feng was going to become Liu Qingge? This alone would have killed that particular delusion. She remembered how Bai Zhan picked its head disciple, a literal tournament, and she wondered if that was what he had been doing for all that time he wasn¡¯t talking to her.


    She¡¯d never ask.


    ¡°Well, congratulations. Did you have fun?¡± She let the needle spin to a stop in her outstretched palm. He twitched and she gave him a wicked grin. ¡°More fun than fighting me?¡±


    He leaned away, just a hair, and frowned. ¡°It was easy. I see not how you managed to raid Bai Zhan.¡±


    ¡°Hey! That was years ago. Surely they¡¯ve trained since then.¡± His poor peak hadn¡¯t been prepared for the advent of its War God. She wondered when he would finally pick up the nickname, what impressive deed he would do to earn such a title that reached beyond just their sect. ¡°Someone had to have impressed you.¡±


    The look he gave her was strong enough to make vinegar. ¡°One of them tripped over his own sword.¡± He sounded like a child who went to a theme park and discovered all of the rides were closed. ¡°Took him out with one hit.¡±


    Li Hanyi bit her lip to keep from laughing at his put out tone. Of course, some random rank and file person wasn¡¯t going to be able to keep up with Liu Feng. A god of war was a god of war, no matter what age. It was that poor soul¡¯s bad luck to be matched up with Liu Feng without the heaps of training he put in. Li Hanyi was only just able to keep up because she focused solely on avoiding him, not on fighting toe-to-to. One lucky hit was all she needed and she could barely manage that now.


    ¡°You broke his pride and told him how to block that move, didn¡¯t you,¡± she finally managed to get out with as much calm as she could force. Liu Feng did not understand how other people could be so bad at fighting.


    ¡°No. He should have known better,¡± he flatly replied. ¡°A Bai Zhan disciple should have better form.¡± Liu Feng eyed her needle, wary still, and glared at it until she put it back into her pouch. ¡°You have better form than most of my opponents.¡±


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Now that she could be proud of. Li Hanyi puffed out her chest and grinned. ¡°Of course! I was hand-picked and trained by the great Liu Feng himself!¡±


    Liu Feng snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, fingers tapping idly. ¡°The raw materials were good. I just worked with what I had.¡±


    How very modest of him. Someone had clearly given Liu Feng grief over his training of Li Hanyi, because it sounded like he was just repeating an argument he had heard a hundred times before. False modesty did not suit Lui Feng. It made him seem stilted and wrong compared to his usual honest bluntness.


    ¡°You went home and talked to your mother, didn¡¯t you,¡± she drawled.


    He grimaced in turn. ¡°Was it that obvious?¡± A proud and honorable fight addict like Liu Feng made a poor parody of a demure scholar. The only time that Liu Feng ever managed to bring himself to speak like that was after prolonged contact with his mother and her lectures.


    Liu Feng was unique among his Bai Zhan peers in that, as the son of noble cultivators, he spent more time off his peak with his family. The Liu family did not normally join sects, and they liked to make sure that Liu Feng wasn¡¯t regretting his choices in life. Realistically, his mother mostly wanted to make sure that her only son wasn¡¯t disgracing the family name.


    Even stranger, Liu Feng¡¯s mother seemed to actively endorse his friendship with Li Hanyi.


    Not because of any political or financial motivation, oh no. Her support of their friendship was because Li Hanyi was the first friend that Liu Feng had ever tried to make for himself and had last longer than a year. Li Hanyi had not, against all common sense, done her level best to flee from Liu Feng¡¯s particularly violent brand of friendship.


    Mama Liu reminded Liu Feng of this constantly.


    For her part, Li Hanyi was content with being that nice young man who never came to visit. Mama Liu was a terrifying prospect that she was singularly unequipped to handle. No, it was best to let Liu Feng handle his own mother.


    She stared at him, speechless for a long moment, as she contemplated the politest way to inform him that he was full of it. ¡°Liu Feng. Were you also, perhaps, hit on the head during the selection battles?¡±


    He snorted. ¡°They¡¯d have to figure out the basics first.¡± Liu Feng was always so confident in his abilities that it would have been a flaw if it wasn¡¯t so accurate. His frank assessment of their skills was that of a genius of both hard work and talent, looking down upon the likes of mere mortals. ¡°Unlikely.¡±


    There was their ever confident Liu Feng, soon to become Liu Qingge, War God of Bai Zhan.


    All she could do was laugh at his audacity. How blunt, how honest, how absolutely inhuman. His standards were so lofty as to be impossible. She shook her head. ¡°I weep for the future of Bai Zhan if that¡¯s how you feel about your fellow disciples.¡±


    Liu Feng grunted and pointed at the remains of her lunch. ¡°Are you going to finish that?¡±


    She pushed the little plate of steamed pork dumplings at him with a sigh. ¡°Go ahead. I can¡¯t eat when you¡¯re about to punch me around the courtyard anyway.¡±


    He gobbled a dumpling down in a single bite, licking the tips of his fingers afterward. ¡°If you dodged faster, then I wouldn¡¯t hit you.¡±


    Dodging Liu Feng was the equivalent of dodging a rampaging bear, its claws outstretched as it tried to strike her head from her shoulders. The fact that she could dodge him even the little bit she did was a minor miracle. Years of training her speed and reflexes paid off little by little until she had come this far and was deemed competent enough to stand in his shadow.


    She stabbed him in the thigh with her needle, smiling serenely all the while. ¡°Dodge that better.¡±


    Liu Feng, as it turned out, had yet to develop an immunity to this particular paralytic blend. He dropped like a rock in a still pond, a puppet with its strings cut. She took her plate back, stepped neatly over his still body, and went back inside her clinic. ¡°Come back when my hand heals in a week,¡± she called back over her shoulder.


    ***


    Preparing for the Immortal Alliance Conference wasn¡¯t as easy as simply clapping her hands and saying she would go. Each peak limited how many inner and outer disciples were allowed to go. In order to send only their best and brightest, each peak then devised its own qualification exams. Qian Cao, despite the peak¡¯s overall distaste for the practical portions of whatever that Immortal Alliance Conference¡¯s host had planned, did send a small dozen disciples and six elders to help. Experienced medical professionals of Qian Cao¡¯s caliber tended to be in short supply, after all.


    It made sense. Most people would rather learn how to stab someone through the spleen with a spiritual sword than, for instance, learn how to properly prepare a tincture to bolster¡¯s the body¡¯s yang energies. Being a medical professional was one of the least exciting career choices a cultivator had. The only one more boring was whatever accounting magic the likes of An Ding got up to.


    [Congratulations! The joint mission ¡°Save Mobei-jun¡± has been completed successfully. You have been awarded 1,000 B-Points for the completion of a core background mission.]


    Good for her, but ultimately unimportant. The points would not help her pass this exam and convince her shizun to let her go to the Immortal Alliance Conference. Then again, she did have two years to figure out how to convince him.


    [Would you like to accept the optional character setting mission ¡°The Immortal Alliance Conference¡±? A secret route is available upon completion of necessary side objectives. Further, successful completion will result in the awarding of points based on character satisfaction levels.]


    She had never poked a ¡®yes¡¯ button so fast in her life. The little window shook for a moment before flashing, blinking out of existence before she could change her mind. Not that Li Hanyi was going to. Her letters depended on her participation in whatever farce of an event the conference turned out to be. The more she did, the more letters she got back.


    Congratulations, System. There was finally optional side-content that Li Hanyi wanted to complete of her own volition. How very unlike her character settings. Now, if only she could figure out why this particular Immortal Alliance Conference came complete with a side mission. It even had a bonus character unlock and varying completion rewards.


    It was suspicious, to say the least. But then Li Hanyi remembered that somewhere in that pile of letters was at least one where she had referred to Liu Feng as her dearest friend. There was no way she would have thick enough skin to withstand the fallout of that particular missive. She could just imagine the teasing from Bai Zhan once that got out.


    No, she did not want that, not at all.


    As a child of modern China, a graduate of a decent college, and a proud member of the 996 lifestyle, there was no way that Li Hanyi would back down from a simple exam. Two years to study for one exam? An absolute luxury she would take full and shameless advantage of.


    Two years would pass in the blink of any for an immortal cultivator. But Li Hanyi had the advantage of modern study methods, a shidi who wanted to get back in her good graces, and one soon-to-be War God to train her in mind, body, and spirit. There was no way she would mess this up.


    But, just in case¡­


    <<User002: Hey, Airplane. What do you know about the Immortal Alliance Conference coming up?


    >>User001: You mean the one where Shen Qingque kills his master or the next one where Luo Binghe starts getting his wives and then shoved into the Abyss?


    Oh. So this was the conference where the scum villain made his appearance and went from rogue cultivator to the newest member of Cang Qiong. Well, wasn¡¯t that just lovely? No surprises about who the secret character would be. The scum villain, a man destined to become a human stick for his crimes against the protagonist, wasn¡¯t exactly the sort of person Li Hanyi wanted to have as one of Ning Yingying¡¯s potential capture targets.


    Somehow, she¡¯d need to convince him to keep his hands and intentions to himself. Hitting children wasn¡¯t exactly manners befitting a teacher, let alone a peak lord of Shen Qingque¡¯s caliber.

 Chapter 13

    Wang Huo looked at his only disciple with a knowing smile and a twinkle in his eye. He sipped at his tea with a delicate grace befitting his station and the wisdom of his years. ¡°At last, the student has come to ask for the wisdom of this old master.¡± Her shizun didn¡¯t need to sound so delighted over this.


    She bowed in front of him, fist in her palm, in a dramatic show of martial aptitude. ¡°This disciple has come to ask this one¡¯s shizun if he would be willing to assist this one in entering the upcoming Immortal Alliance Conference.¡± Best to get it all out in one go, that way there would be no extra deliberating on her actual goals.


    Her shizun stroked his beard idly and hummed. ¡°Enter, eh? Not content with just going, are we? Now you want to represent Qian Cao during the proceedings?¡± He hummed again. ¡°Highly unorthodox. Most irregular. This old master would be delighted to assist. Provided, of course, that Han-er has a reason for desiring this.¡±


    There was no logical reason. She had a reason, yes, but not one made with her usual logical thought processes. It wasn¡¯t like she could just up and tell her shizun that she had made a deal with Liu Feng. Wait, why couldn¡¯t she? ¡°This lowly disciple has made a deal with this one¡¯s friend. In order to repair this one¡¯s friendship, this one was asked to participate in the upcoming Conference.¡±


    Wang Huo set down his tea cup with a gentle clink. ¡°So, young Liu Feng decided to emerge from his solitude and bid you contest to prove your worth? Dear Han-er, you would be a fool not to accept this chance.¡±


    Unspoken went his true meaning: Wang Huo would permit his student many things, but willful foolishness was not one of them.


    ¡°Then will this one¡¯s master assist this one in participating?¡± Was it really this easy? All she had to do was ask for help? There was no way her shizun would champion her cause just like that.


    ¡°Ah, my dear Han-er,¡± he began. ¡°This old master looks forward to seeing the results of your studies.¡± Her shizun all but twinkled as he looked across his desk at her. ¡°Perform your duties as a Qian Cao disciple, first and foremost, and then we shall see if there is merit to your request.¡±


    She knew that tone. Her mother used it in her first life when she told Li Hanyi to clean her room before she could go out and play. There was just the faintest tinge of looming disappointment hanging over her head, where if she couldn¡¯t manage to pass the exam then her shizun would be forever disappointed in his only student.


    There would be no getting out of this exam now.


    She bowed again, careful not to let her frustration show on her face. ¡°Thanking shizun for his kindness.¡±


    ¡°Study hard, Han-er.¡± He flapped his hand at her, gently shooing her off to bury her head in her books and study guides. ¡°Do not make this master regret giving you this opportunity.¡±


    Li Hanyi scuttled off, newly determined to prove her scholarly worth. She would never hear the end of it otherwise.


    ***


    Damn Airplane and damn his lazy world-building. May he rot in this hell of his own making, doomed to survive in this world full of overly potent aphrodisiacs and weirdly carnivorous plants. Thanks to him, she had two years to memorize as many of the godforsaken results of Airplane¡¯s midnight ramblings as she possibly could, complete with every single one¡¯s medicinal uses and treatments.


    Why did so many flowers cause people with abundant yin energy to need to dual cultivate? Who knew but Airplane. Why did fruit make yang energy too abundant? Only Airplane knew that. This was a stallion novel world made by an idiot who didn¡¯t know how to use a basic internet search engine. And now here she was, cursed to live here in a world where wife plots were so common as to be considered a mild inconvenience.


    Qian Cao had an actual form for advanced disciples to fill out before they were allowed to begin further studies into medicinal plants. Most considered it a mere paperwork formality, but others used it as the politest way to request dual cultivation with longtime idols. Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t paid it any mind when she initially needed to fill it out, and now she was regretting that. Who took a worldwide problem, one that affected every humanoid species, and boiled it down to a single form?


    Qian Cao did and had.


    Why be embarrassed about emergency dual cultivation when there was a form for your top three emergency candidates that your overseeing doctor would call to papapa you back to sanity? They even buried it in the stack of paperwork to be put on file about all the important things like your name, qi type, base meridians, and so on. Qian Cao was all about removing embarrassment by making everything as commonplace and normal as possible. There would be no losing cultivators to something as simple as a mutual orgasm.


    Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t thought much about it and simply put Airplane at the top, Liu Feng as her second choice, and her shidi as a good emergency third. In the event of a real medical crisis, her shizun would already be called, so she didn¡¯t need to put him on any of her emergency contact forms. She hadn¡¯t paid attention, and now that was coming back to haunt her.


    The more studying she did, the more she regretted ever putting any name on her list. Better to suffer an ignoble end than to ever actually need to rely on dual cultivation. She¡¯d take the hit to her golden core before ever¡ª


    There were more wife plot plants with medicinal properties than she ever would have believed possible. Qian Cao put truth to that old adage that every poison had its purpose, and the sex-addling plants were no exception. She had wondered how a world made from Airplane¡¯s sell-out tendencies would function and now she had first-hand experience of the lengths people would go to in order to have a functional society. This was the world she was stuck in for the foreseeable future, and it would serve her well to learn its rules.


    Even if she thought said rules were the dumbest things in all known existence. Terrible things, sexist things, lazy cop-out things that had no reason to exist but pandering to the faceless and desperately horny internet masses. Li Hanyi didn¡¯t even think Airplane had stopped to consider the ramifications of a world with such tropes mixed in, just downed another energy drink and hacked out another papapa scene.


    The harem option gleamed still on the horizon, and every page deeper in the course of her studies made her all the more paranoid. No, why risk it? Better yet, she could change those supposed character settings some more so no one would consider her even remotely plausible as a spousal candidate. She needed to become a master of her craft, unapproachable, and just that right touch of damaged elder to be unpalatable to Luo Binghe.


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


    A shame her quest to become unapproachable didn¡¯t work on any of her sect¡¯s newest recruits. She wasn¡¯t cruel enough to truly turn away a child in need and they seemed to know it at a glance.


    Mu Xiang, her treacherous little shidi, made himself scarce. It was for the best, what with her temper already at its limit thanks to his unexpected betrayal. She was likelier to paralyze him from the neck down at ten paces than to welcome him into her clinic. He was smart enough to know that his welcome had temporarily worn out, but she had a feeling he¡¯d be back to try to make amends. Boldly, probably with a bribe.


    That did not explain why there were three fat little dumpling children standing on her clinic steps. None of them were visibly injured and none of them were in any sign of noticeable distress. No, instead the trio of young boys looked hopefully up at her, stars in their eyes, looking for all the world like they had a favor to ask.


    Li Hanyi could feel a headache coming on just by looking at them. ¡°Can this shixiong be of any assistance?¡± Please, say no. If there was a merciful ancestor, please guide these three away from her doorstep and let her study in peace.


    ¡°Li-shixiong! Mu-shixiong says you¡¯re the best in the peak at studying,¡± piped up the smallest and fattest of the three.


    So much for that. ¡°So, what, you three want my old study guides? Your Mu-shixiong has all my old workbooks.¡± Let them pester him and leave her alone. She had the exam to study for on her own and very little time to waste on distractions.


    They turned their little faces up to her and she could feel her resolve crumbling with every blink of tear-filled eyes. ¡°Please,¡± the one on the left begged. ¡°We just want to pass the exam and become real disciples.¡±


    ¡°The¡­ exam to become disciples? Not the one for the Conference?¡± She asked, just to be clear, because she had the horrible looming epiphany that these three weren¡¯t even full disciples. And the only exam she could think of was the one to become an outer disciple at ten in order to become the peak¡¯s equivalent of modern trainee nurse practitioners. Why they thought an inner disciple with a specialization could help was beyond her.


    The tiny trio nodded frantically. They couldn¡¯t be more than ten, all three boys the very picture of studious little background characters. She considered the merits of closing her clinic door in their faces, locking it, then climbing out the window to escape the inevitable.


    The gap-toothed one on the right blinked owlishly up at her. ¡°We¡¯ll do anything that Li-langzhong asks,¡± he wheedled.


    ¡°Anything?¡± She could have assistants for life with that kind of leverage. A dangerous amount of leverage to just give to someone like Li Hanyi, someone who could put them through the wringer and have it be entirely legal. She could do it, take them on, and never have to perform any of the irritating drudge work again. ¡°And you said Mu Xiang sent you?¡±


    They nodded again like a perfect cluster of bobble-head dolls.


    Well, well, well, it looked like her shidi was trying to make amends for his mistakes in the tried and true way of Qian Cao: resource and knowledge sharing. Here were three baby disciples, outer ones at that, that she could train up from scratch and claim as her personal assistants. She was advanced enough for it, far enough in her training that she should have a little bevy of shidis and shimeis to help.


    Sneaky of her shidi.


    ¡°Li-langzhong, we¡¯ll do anything,¡± chirped the one on the right, his little doe eyes glittering. She could see the hope radiating from every little pore, in every little quiver of a lip as she watched them stand there in front of her.


    Li Hanyi ran a hand through her white-streaked bangs, sighed, and closed her book. So much for studying today. ¡°Fine. Come back, this time tomorrow, and we¡¯ll see what we can make of you.¡±


    They cheered, and Li Hanyi¡¯s headache began.


    ***


    It wasn¡¯t that Li Hanyi was smarter or more talented than her peers. She was, and she would be the first to admit it where the System couldn¡¯t hear, merely a product of her generation. The way modern students took notes was different than how they did it in ancient fantasy China, simple as that. Li Hanyi was less concerned with the poetic flow that permeated every level of scholarly endeavors and more focused on what was behind every metaphor.


    Poetry did no patient any kind of good, but knowing where on the arm to apply a tourniquet was a practical advantage. She had two years to study and three new pupils. Li Hanyi had zero time available in her packed schedule for the kind of classical memory games her peers liked to play. A good set of notes was useful, color-coded, done in shorthand as needed, organized in tables, and more boring than it was artistic.


    For a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, Li Hanyi was an aberration of modern ingenuity. Eccentric by this world¡¯s nonsense standards, sure, but the masters of Qian Cao Peak couldn¡¯t deny that Li Hanyi knew and understood her chosen specialization. She could rattle off meridian locations and their functions in her sleep, just don¡¯t ever ask her to make it sound pretty. As a scholar, Li Hanyi was an abject failure. But as a doctor? Oh, Li Hanyi was a wonder.


    Her new students, desperate to pass their exams, would learn nothing from her but efficiency. They might fail the outer disciple exam, but they¡¯d be ripe to pass Wang Huo¡¯s selection process and become her new shidis. Once that happened? Oh, the silly little dumplings would never be free to work for anyone else again. This was probably not what Mu Xiang had in mind when he sent them to her in the first place. He had probably only intended her to get, at most, some clinic assistants out of the deal, not a trio of fat little shidis to replace him.


    If he didn¡¯t want her to use them, he shouldn¡¯t have sent them to her in the first place. It would be no one¡¯s fault but his own if her answer to his treachery would be to move on. She didn¡¯t appreciate when men, even thirteen-year-old ones, tried to run her relationships for her.


    Bold of him to think she would let him. Then again, he was a thirteen-year-old with what she was beginning to suspect was a long-running case of puppy love and a first crush. Puppy love at its worst had made him do something unspeakable. At least, she thought it was a crush. It made no sense why he would try to keep her away from Liu Feng, of all people, but who was she to try to figure out the mind of a teenage boy?


    Let him grovel. She had study guides to make and new little shidis to train.


    ***


    Chang Min, Zhang Lin, and Yang Jin were not actually triplets. They were also not even remotely related. Despite their physical similarities, they weren¡¯t even distant cousins. The only thing they three truly had in common was that they had entered the peak at the same time. This did not stop them from being called the Brothers Pang by the crueler members of Qian Cao until it had caught on and that was what everyone knew them as: Tall Pang, Short Pang, and Eldest Pang.


    Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t even sure if they were even aware that they were being made fun of, so she carefully avoided using the nickname.


    She couldn¡¯t tell them apart at a glance. Her little trio of soon-to-be assistant shidis quickly endeared themselves with their unbridled enthusiasm and cheer even in the face of her crankiest outbursts, enough so that she couldn¡¯t just make them wear something demeaning like different color hairpins or some other accessory. Li Hanyi would have to pay enough attention to learn their differences.


    Chang Min was the one with the gap between his teeth, the shortest of the three. He spoke with the lightest lisp and the most conviction. Zhang Lin was the tallest of the trio, the nominal head of the batch, and slow to speak but every answer was well-thought-out. But Yang Jin?


    Yang Jin thought everything was a joke. If there was a such thing as a class yearbook in ancient fantasy China, he¡¯s have won the Class Clown category by a landslide. Yang Jin was the one that came from nothing and rose up to become something, then realized at the age of six that his dream of being an amazingly cool sword-using cultivator was nothing but a dream. Becoming an assistant shidi to the most martial member of the peak had reignited his hope for the future.


    The only one not terrified of becoming a human pin cushion for disturbing Li Hanyi was Yang Jin.


    Zhang Lin and Chang Min cared more about the workbooks and flashcards that Li Hanyi had them make. But Yang Jin? Oh, he thrived on copying her acupuncture charts on his slate. Li Hanyi was forced to admit that she had become¡­ fond of Yang Jin after only a few weeks in his presence.


    Now, if only she could get them up to snuff enough for Wang Huo to seriously consider allowing them to become his newest disciples. They were pleasant enough, mild-mannered little ten-year-olds, and took to instruction well. She shouldn¡¯t have any problems with endearing them to her shizun.

 Chapter 14

    Liu Feng looked blankly at the Brothers Pang and gave a slow blink. ¡°Who¡­ are these children? Are you on some new punishment from your shizun?¡± With the number of times that Li Hanyi had been put on punishment details and grounded, it was an extremely likely option.


    ¡°No,¡± she snapped out. ¡°These are going to be my new shidi.¡± For once, Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t made some colossal error in judgment that made her shizun frown at her in disappointment before giving her some moral lesson. ¡°I just have to train them up first.¡±


    To his credit, Liu Feng did not immediately leave the courtyard. ¡°Did¡ª Li Hanyi, did you steal someone¡¯s children?¡± He didn¡¯t even have the grace to sound scandalized, just resigned himself to the inevitable fallout. ¡°You are aware that¡¯s a crime, yes?¡±


    She rolled her eyes back at him. ¡°They¡¯re proper outer disciple hopefuls of Qian Cao. Mu Xiang told them I could help them study for their exam.¡± Li Hanyi sniffed indignantly at him. She had more sense than to just walk off with someone¡¯s children.


    ¡°So you decided they would make for good shidis?¡± He was decidedly unamused but for the sake of their fragile friendship? Liu Feng was clearly making an effort to understand. ¡°You do know that isn¡¯t how it works, right? Send them back to their masters before someone notices.¡±


    ¡°I do. Every day. They just come back every morning.¡± If she thought about it, the Brothers Pang weren¡¯t unlike stray cats she kept feeding. ¡°Besides, Yang Jin wants to watch us ¡®train¡¯.¡±


    Liu Feng grunted before giving the fat little dumplings a quick once over. ¡°He¡¯s too fat to fight like you. They all are. They¡¯re better suited for the Iron Body style than Li Zhen style.¡± His frank assessment was that of a master looking objectively, so she could give him some grace for calling her new shidis fat.


    ¡°Liu Feng. Did you name how I fight?¡± She wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he had. Ancient fantasy China was inexplicably fond of slapping fancy yet brain-dead names on everything. It was just odd that he thought her particular habit of flinging needles at people was something worthy of being named. After her, no less.


    He blinked almost serenely back at her, the cat that got the cream and the mouse beside. ¡°You are the one who both created and still uses it. It should be named after you,¡± Liu Feng grunted. ¡°If I left it up to you, you¡¯d name it something weird.¡±


    The thought had crossed her mind. Then again, what was the point of naming something as a style when it was only used by one person? How pretentious did he think she was? No, she didn¡¯t want to think about it. The point was that her random flailing about while chucking fistfuls of needles at him hardly counted as a style. ¡°No, I wouldn¡¯t.¡±


    Liu Feng shrugged. ¡°Doesn¡¯t change the fact that your ¡®borrowed¡¯ new shidis don¡¯t suit your usual methods.¡± His ever-perfect nose wrinkled just a touch as he appeared to think about it. ¡°I¡¯m not training them, before you even ask.¡±


    Damn, he knew her too well. So much for that plan to put the baby War God to work. Li Hanyi rolled her eyes. ¡°Obviously not. They¡¯re my shidis, not yours. Get your own,¡± she said waspishly. ¡°Did you want to spar today or not?¡±


    ¡°Go get Huanxing Gu. I want to see if we can determine what it does.¡± Most serious physical cultivators figured out what their spiritual swords did through vigorous combat. So far, that method had yet to work, and, still, nobody knew what Li Hanyi¡¯s sword was supposed to do. She¡¯d meditated on it, stared at the characters that made up its name, and Li Hanyi had all but given up.


    Her sword still did normal sword things like let her fly and move it clunkyly along with half-remembered sword seals. What did it matter that it didn¡¯t do any fancy tricks? She wasn¡¯t an aspiring war god, just his doctor. And even then, she wasn¡¯t going to be staying as his doctor once he had his nickname and took his place as a peak lord.


    It mattered to Liu Feng.


    It mattered a great deal to Liu Feng.


    He wanted her to fight at her best, and her best meant with every legitimate skill at her disposal. Perhaps, if she had more tricks up her sleeves that were decent and honorable, then maybe Li Hanyi would resort to her needles less and less. His hope for an epic sword-against-sword battle was plain as day, and Li Hanyi didn¡¯t have the capacity to deny him. Not when he had all of those letters and a pile of the worst blackmail possible at his disposal.


    So, she¡¯d suck up her pride and pull her sword out of the pouch in her sleeve, let him pummel her into the ground, and lick her wounds in peace somewhere he couldn¡¯t see. It was a system, terrible yes, but a system nonetheless. It had worked for them for years and there was no reason to change it.


    The moment she pulled out her sword, Yang Jin¡¯s eyes lit up. His little fists balled up close to his chest as if he could hold his emotions in by willpower alone. ¡°Li-langzhong, is that your sword?¡± his sheer childish enthusiasm was going to give her a migraine.


    ¡°Yes.¡± What, was she supposed to lie and tell the brat that her sword wasn¡¯t hers? She¡¯d be using it in front of him often enough that the lie would fall apart in days. ¡°This is Huanxing Gu, the Ghost Bone sword.¡± Ten-year-old boys liked this sort of thing, didn¡¯t they? Wasn¡¯t that why anime was so popular? All of those named attacks and fancy combat styles were a young man¡¯s romance. At least if she told him the name then he wouldn¡¯t try to make an even worse one up.


    His eyes gleamed. Who knew that the little dumpling could be so very into this? ¡°The Ghost Bone sword? Li-langzhong, that¡¯s so cool!¡±


    Liu Feng grunted, his arms crossed over his chest stoically. ¡°It would be cooler if Li Hanyi would bother to figure out what it does,¡± he muttered, just loud enough for a trained cultivator to hear. What she did and didn¡¯t do would forever be a point of contention until she finally did what Liu Feng wanted.


    ¡°I prefer my needles,¡± she replied flatly. ¡°I¡¯m a doctor, not a swordsman. We don¡¯t cultivate like that on Qian Cao.¡± Best to set his expectations early about what their peak did and didn¡¯t do. Never mind that every inner disciple had a sword. What did it matter to a ten-year-old when the likes of Liu Feng were around? ¡°I know what I need to in order to defend my patients.¡±


    Of course, Liu Feng had to ruin it. ¡°False modesty doesn¡¯t suit you. Li Hanyi once successfully raided Bai Zhan with nothing but his needles and a qiankun pouch of poisons,¡± he chimed in. ¡°But I can still beat him.¡±


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Yang Jin nodded sagely, the fat on his neck wobbling. ¡°Ah, of course! Our Li-langzhong is known across the peak for his martial skills!¡±


    What¡ª what kind of terrible rumors were going around at her peak? Then again, she didn¡¯t think the title of ¡°Mad Doctor of Qian Cao¡± had been applied for no reason. Not that she particularly liked having the title at all, but at least she understood why it was even there. Li Hanyi would be the first person to admit that what she had done had been born of desperate rage, but she wouldn¡¯t go back and change a thing.


    Not that she could. She still didn¡¯t have enough points for a bookmark in the B-Point store. It was better to just learn to accept the things she couldn¡¯t change than to dwell on being chronically short on points.


    Li Hanyi was going to be a better person for her new shidis-to-be. She¡¯d turn over a new leaf, a kinder one, one that changed the reputation she apparently had as a battle-junkie to something else. Anything else, so long as it kept Luo Binghe¡¯s attention away from her. Not too smart or stupid, not violent enough to be challenged, just competent enough to keep a normal sect relationship going. But not so very attached to her sect that she¡¯d be included in the wholesale slaughter to come.


    A fine line to walk for someone like Li Hanyi, but she¡¯d be damned if she didn¡¯t try.


    Liu Feng might have wanted her to learn her sword¡¯s tricks to have a better rival. He might have wanted it because he thought it pathetic for an inner disciple to not know the shape and intricacies of their soul so very late into this stage of their cultivation. Who knew what went on in his mind?


    Some part of her wondered, yes, she¡¯d admit it, what Huanxing Gu did. But she shoved that part of her deep into the box of things not to think about until it was absolutely necessary. This? Wasn¡¯t necessary. She had her needles and her various medicinal concoctions. That was enough for her. Any more and she might become something interesting in the eyes of the System¡¯s narrative.


    But Li Hanyi¡¯s opinions on the matter meant nothing.


    Liu Feng had decided she would learn it, so learn it she would. Broken bones, exhaustion, and a world of other ills be damned. Her friend was a strict taskmaster who would allow no deviation in the pursuit of perfection, no quarter given, and no rest for the weary. Worse yet, he had set the goal in front of her new little shidis so she would have no choice but to train or risk their sad little faces.


    His sword rose to block the first needle and left the scabbard to knock away the next two. Liu Feng knew her too well. He lunged low against the ground to counter the needle aimed at his stomach, using the momentum to dash across the distance. Cold steel against her neck had her leaping back to avoid having her head cleaved from her body.


    The scar on her face, hidden beneath its customary bandages, throbbed as if to remind her of the damage he could do.


    His sword gleamed with qi, that dedicated attempt to dull his sword¡¯s edge lest he carve her up again by accident. This wouldn¡¯t stop broken bones, but at least broken bones could be fixed without scars. That was the idea, anyway.


    Only the healers of Qian Cao could say for certain just how many bones could break before the human body was irreparable. They could fix anything if they tried hard enough. That was the best part about a peak full of nonsense fantasy doctors, after all. But all of that was neither here nor there, not even a passing thought when Liu Feng sparred with Li Hanyi.


    Years of practice at it had made their desperate fights all the more graceful. Sword met sword in a whirl of gray sleeves against white robes. Steel flashed in an impossible dance they had done a hundred times and would do a hundred more before Liu Feng was satisfied with her mastery of the steps.


    Yang Jin and the Brothers Pang watched the spar with stars in their eyes. They ooh¡¯d and ahh¡¯d at appropriate times, clapped their little dumpling hands at particularly elaborate moves.


    ¡°Stop showing off,¡± Liu Feng growled, even as he locked his sword to hers and grabbed her wrist to keep her in place. ¡°Focus on the fight.¡±


    She kneed him in the gut and they sprang apart. ¡°I am,¡± she hissed. ¡°How are they supposed to learn something if we don¡¯t slow down?¡± It¡¯s not like Li Hanyi was going to stop and explain what was happening. She just angled the spar so that the little dumplings could see it better. ¡°I¡¯m not showing off, just showing an example!¡±


    He grunted, a single sound containing multitudes of meanings. The flash of his sword was all she needed to know that he was distinctly unimpressed with her logic. It was nothing but the truth, but who dared to fathom why Liu Feng was so very annoyed by it?


    Liu Feng had developed a new habit of twisting his blade every time it came close to her body. He struck her only with the flat of it, not quite pulling the blow but turning it from a cut into a smack. It wasn¡¯t something he had done before, and she wanted to blame his time away from her and whatever training he had done for the new indignity.


    Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t a physical cultivator by choice. Qian Cao¡¯s disciples tended more toward spiritual cultivation than that of body strengthening. But constant exposure to Liu Feng¡¯s sword skills had forced her to at least divert some of her time to strengthening aspects of her body that she normally wouldn¡¯t have needed to. She put her metal and earth roots to work and strengthened her bones so they wouldn¡¯t shatter under the force of Liu Feng¡¯s normal blows.


    This new habit of his made it all worth it. Instead of bone-crushing agony, Li Hanyi was able to take the force of his strikes and flow with them. She was a kite on a string of his making, bouncing to and fro, but at least she¡¯d endure.


    At least until he got tired of it and punched her in the gut.


    ***


    Li Hanyi was reasonably sure that Yue Yuan did not mean to be this much of a pain in her backside. But, here he was anyway, sheepishly chuckling and being a pain nonetheless.


    ¡°Do you have any sense of self-awareness? Or is that me asking the stars to stop shining?¡± She watched him shuffle his feet before her window, at least self-aware enough to be embarrassed by his appearance. It was early enough that she hadn¡¯t even had breakfast yet, rising with the down for her morning meditation.


    Yue Yuan blanched at her tone. ¡°Ah, apologies. I had thought it wouldn¡¯t be too early for you.¡± He held his arm to his chest and cradled it gingerly as if it would flop away from him if he didn¡¯t. His eye had been blackened, skin showing bruised where it peeked out from beneath his robes. Someone had beaten Yue Yuan and done it thoroughly.


    Meanwhile, Li Hanyi clutched her sleeping robes closed and hid her torso behind the window frame. She¡¯d come too far to be discovered just because a patient decided to arrive with the dawn. At the same time, the code of Qian Cao made refusing to treat him unlikely. ¡°You¡¯re lucky I¡¯m even awake. Go to my clinic. I¡¯ll meet you there.¡± Unsaid was the part where she would be getting dressed first without him around.


    He had the decency to blush. ¡°My apologies,¡± he murmured. Li Hanyi decided then and there not to trust his apologies, as the ease it rolled off his tongue belied an intention to do it again.


    She narrowed her eyes as she stared back at him. ¡°Somehow, I don¡¯t believe that,¡± she said flatly. He looked contrite in a school-boyish fashion, and Li Hanyi could feel her blood pressure spiking the longer he stood there. ¡°Just¡­ go. I¡¯ll patch you up, and then you can explain all this to me.¡±


    Li Hanyi watched him go with a frown before closing her window deftly against the pre-dawn chill. Never before in either life had Li Hanyi been woken up by a boy tapping on her window like a bad romance film. She wasn¡¯t sure the whole experience was worth it, no matter how handsome the boy in question was.


    [A new character plot quest has been unlocked. Successful completion will award 300 B-Points. Would you like to proceed with the quest ¡°The Price of Power¡±?]


    Curiosity alone had her stabbing the ¡®accept¡¯ box with her finger. ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s go find out what Yue Yuan¡¯s big deal is. With my luck, he pulled something or dislocated that arm while training,¡± she muttered even as she angrily began wrapping her chest in now well-practiced motions. ¡°300 B-Points and I¡¯ve not even had breakfast yet.¡±

 Chapter 15

    Li Hanyi was glad she hadn¡¯t eaten yet, or she¡¯d have thrown up in a discrete corner.


    Yue Yuan had not achieved any of his substantial injuries through training. Training implied that the person on the other side intended for him to have learned something in the process. This hadn¡¯t been training but a merciless beat-down. She hated it all the more after learning far too much about her sect¡¯s head peak and how it functioned.


    Yue Yuan¡¯s beating had been at his shizun¡¯s hands. At the hands of the very man who led their sect. This hadn¡¯t been the first time and probably wouldn¡¯t be the last, but at least this time Yue Yuan had the sense left to hop on a nameless spiritual training sword and fly himself to medical attention. But nothing changed the fact that his shizun had done this damage and had the audacity to call it training.


    What did it say about her that her first thought was that her sect leader didn¡¯t deserve his position if he abused children under his own roof? Where was her loyalty? Was it nothing compared to the morals and ethics of modern China?


    Cultivators healed quickly. That speed was probably the only thing keeping anyone from noticing Yue Yuan¡¯s injuries. But now she knew that they were happening, and Li Hanyi was not a fan. Her modern sensibilities were enraged by the thought of a grown immortal adult abusing the powers of his position and responsibilities to treat his most dedicated disciple so very poorly.


    Li Hanyi shouldn¡¯t have considered the merits of deposing the leader of her sect. But, oh, oh how she briefly considered how to replace him with her own shizun. Wang Huo was a much better teacher and parental figure, surely he¡¯d do better. Sure, it would make Yue Yuan even more likely to pester her for things, but wasn¡¯t that worth it to avoid¡­ all of this?


    His arm was swollen because it had been wrenched from its socket, his eye was blackened in the clearest imprint of a fist. Several ribs were cracked and his breathing hitched on every inhale. Yue Yuan had taken too many blows from his shizun at full strength, blood flecking his lips as he coughed.


    Airplane did barely any research when made up his world¡¯s take on ancient Chinese medicine and it was obvious. Bleeding from chest trauma? Stick some needles in the torso region, jolt her qi in to support his own, and hope for the best. Internal bleeding wasn¡¯t a crisis in ancient fantasy China, not when a strong emotion would make someone randomly cough up literal globs of blood.


    Li Hanyi had studied this nonsensical system for years and had a pretty decent understanding of it. She didn¡¯t need to agree with it, simply combined it with the basic first aid knowledge her first life had given her. Bleeding externally? Slap some bandages on it and an antibiotic if she had one. An arm out of its socket should be put back in, that was just common sense.


    But broken ribs? Slap a poultice on it, wrap up the whole torso, and call it a day. Li Hanyi couldn¡¯t say if it was truly the most effective medical treatment, but it was what she had been trained to do. Besides, it worked in every period and fantasy drama she had ever watched. And, since this world was built on the Rule of Cool, it was guaranteed to work here.


    Yue Yuan looked like a pincushion from all the needles she¡¯d jabbed into the areas around his injuries. His meridians had a needle each, even the ones on his feet and hands. ¡°Is¡ª Li-langzhong, is all this really necessary?¡±


    ¡°Do you want to heal faster so you can go back to being beaten up by your shizun? Then yes.¡± Every part of her chafed at the thought, from her modern sensibilities to her oaths as a healer, but the very necessity of it made her act. There was no way either of them could stand up against the very head of their sect. All she could do was patch him up and send him back.


    But maybe¡­ maybe there was something else that she could do. ¡°What kind of monster uses his strength and position to prey on those under his tutelage?¡± A seed of doubt was carefully planted as she wrapped his knuckles gently.


    Yue Yuan winced. ¡°Shizun is just looking out for me and correcting my mistakes in training.¡±


    ¡°Is he now,¡± she hummed idly before strumming her qi across his. ¡°Seems to me that anything that ends with someone in the care of Qian Cao, sneaking in like a dirty little secret, is to be avoided at all costs.¡± His pained cries as her qi ran across the jagged parts of his was just an unpleasant side-effect. ¡°It isn¡¯t right and you know that.¡±


    ¡°What choice do I have,¡± he bit out around each pained groan. ¡°I have to be better. Stronger, strong enough to go back for him. Just like I promised.¡±


    So, that was why he was so desperate. Yue Yuan had made a promise to go back for someone who was ostensibly in a situation worse than what Yue Yuan was in. Such loyalty was the stuff of ballads. That kind of loyalty should have been inspiring. It just offended Li Hanyi. ¡°You can¡¯t go back for him if you can¡¯t even stand up straight.¡±


    He grabbed her sleeve with his undamaged hand. ¡°But that¡¯s what you¡¯re here for, isn¡¯t it? To patch me back up?¡±


    Here was the problem with letting plot-important characters into her life. They asked for more and more while giving less and less, depending on a charitable kindness she didn¡¯t feel. ¡°No. Helping a member of my sect is one thing. I am not your personal doctor.¡±


    ¡°But aren¡¯t you already Liu Feng¡¯s personal doctor,¡± he asked with one of those older brotherly smiles that put her hackles up. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you take just one more patient?¡±


    Over her dead body. She¡¯d never be able to break and run from the sect if the future sect leader turned her into any kind of close friend or associate. ¡°No. Liu Feng is my friend. You are not. The only thing I¡¯m going to do is patch you up this time. I hope you paid attention, because this was your only free treatment.¡±


    Yue Yuan looked shocked. Not that Li Hanyi cared what he thought, not when he was turning into a harbinger of her own demise, but she could determine at least why he was so shocked. People in this world were rarely this blunt. What she did not understand was why his shock slowly transformed into another one of those smiles.


    ¡°I think you two would get along. I¡¯ll introduce you after I go get him.¡± He nodded, then winced as the motion pulled something in his waist.


    Yue Yuan did not understand the concept of the word ¡°no¡±. Li Hanyi shook her head derisively. This idiot needed to get out of her clinic before he tried to infect her with his stupidity. No friend of Yue Yuan¡¯s was going to waltz into her clinic with aspirations of forced friendship. ¡°Nope, that¡¯s not happening. You¡¯re as good as you¡¯re going to get without resting and some basic cultivation to speed it along. Out, before you turn my hair any whiter than it already is.¡±


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    ***


    That should have been the end of it. Her life should have become nothing but studying for her exam in two years, tutoring her little shidis, and training off and on with Liu Feng. Yue Yuan was no longer a problem, she had her B-Points from it, and nothing tangentially related to the plot should have happened to disturb her peace and quiet. Nothing at all.


    That did not explain why Shang Fenhua had just popped her bedroom window open and climbed over the edge like he belonged there.


    ¡°Miao-meimei,¡± he whined. ¡°You have to help me.¡± He looked harried, like he had been unexpectantly over-worked, his hair frazzled as if he had been running his hands nervously through it.


    Li Hanyi wanted to shove him over the windowsill. She was beginning to consider the merits of locking her window at night, but then with her luck she¡¯d just get pebbles thrown at it instead. ¡°No. It¡¯s too early for plot and I¡¯m not helping you bring pyramid schemes to this poor world.¡±


    Shang Fenhua paused, head tilted as he thought about her words. ¡°You actually considered how to run pyramid schemes here? Amazing.¡± He shook his head if to clear the thought. ¡°But no, that isn¡¯t what I need your help with. Miaomiao-meimei, I¡¯m begging you.¡±


    Whatever it was, it had been enough to send him into her room in the middle of the night. She sat up in her bed, crossed her arms over her chest, and scowled up at Shang Fenhua. ¡°Fine, you might as well come right on in then. What nonsense medical problem can I help you with today? Crotch rot? Migraines? Carpal tunnel?¡±


    Shang Fenhua crossed over to her bed and knelt in front of it. ¡°It isn¡¯t medical. Well, it was medical. It¡¯s¡ª it¡¯s my king, you see. Mobei-jun.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I fix him already? What, did somebody try to kill him again? I¡¯m not responsible for that.: When he left her clinic, the soon-to-be demon lord had been as well-healed as modern sense and ancient fantasy Chinese medicine could make him. If he walked back into an ambush or something, that wasn¡¯t her fault.


    He nervously flailed in her general direction. ¡°No, no! Nothing like that! My king wants to thank you, meimei.¡±


    She blinked slowly as she tried to comprehend what Shang Fenhua was saying. ¡°He¡¯s¡­ he¡¯s welcome? I was already compensated for it. Just keep him out of my clinic in the future.¡±


    Shang Fenhua had the grace to wince. ¡°My king wants me to deliver gifts to my meimei as his personal thanks.¡± He delivered the damning words with an uncharacteristic solemnity.


    Li Hanyi paused, blanched, and slid backward on her bed further away from Shang Fenhua. ¡°Airplane. Give it to me straight. I can¡¯t say no, can I?¡±


    ¡°Not really. I mean, you could. You shouldn¡¯t. Because then he¡¯ll just send me back with more.¡± He gave a nervous little laugh. ¡°He¡¯ll think his gifts were insufficient.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s¡ª he¡¯s not trying to buy me as his personal doctor, right? No ulterior motives here?¡± It was worth asking, especially with the last patient she¡¯d had trying to win his way into her good graces for the very same reason.


    He winced again. ¡°Part of his gifts are apparently in case he needs your services in the future. He said he wanted you at your best if that happened.¡± Shang Fenhua looked as thrilled with the idea as she felt. ¡°You don¡¯t¡­ you don¡¯t have to hitch your cart to Mobei-jun like I have. Miao-meimei, your plan to be a hermit is still a very good one. I¡¯m the desperate one here.¡±


    ¡°Still can¡¯t say no, though,¡± she said flatly. ¡°It gets worse if I say no.¡± Li Hanyi snapped her fingers in a come hither motion, bidding him to bring forth her newest headache. ¡°Fine. Show me what he sent.¡±


    Shang Fenhua lit up. ¡°If it helps any, I think you¡¯ll like what he sent,¡± he chattered as he began removing three black boxes from his qiankun pouch. ¡°My king asked me about you, and I tried not to give him the impression that you wanted marriage any time in the next century.¡±


    Li Hanyi nodded, opened the first box, then closed it just as quickly. ¡°Airplane,¡± she said shrilly. ¡°This is worth a fortune.¡± The hairpin in the box was a strange silvery-white metal that almost glowed, decorated with strings of delicate yellow gems. It was the sort of hairpin designed for a woman.


    If she was right, it was also part of a wife plot. Entry number two hundred and sixty-seven on her spreadsheet, this hairpin was worth more than three designer handbags. Someone had died for Mobei-jun to get his hands on it.


    She loved it.


    The only problem was that she couldn¡¯t wear it. Aside from the fact that it was worth a small fortune, she couldn¡¯t wear something like this and still maintain her cover as a man. It was truly a gift for a young woman, the younger sister of a trusted servant who had performed a service for a prince that she should never have needed to.


    ¡°My king won¡¯t take it back,¡± Shang Fenhua said with a grin. ¡°It¡¯s yours now.¡± He flapped his hands at the second of the three boxes. ¡°Open the next one. He had me help with that. I guarantee you¡¯ll like this one more.¡±


    The second box, the same black lacquered wood as the first, was twice as large and thick as the first. She opened it slowly, then froze as she looked down at the contents. This gift was just as expensive as the first, probably more so considering that there was no one else who would find a gift like this as practical more than it was opulent.


    It was a half-mask, made of that same silvery metal and embellished with the same pale yellow gems. The mask was solid at the bottom where it would hug her cheek and lips, a delicate filigree that branched to curve over her nose and under her eyes. It curved around her face, was lined with impossibly soft white leather from some unknown demonic beast, and had indisputably been made to turn her disfigurement into an asset.


    ¡°Airplane. What¡ª,¡± she stammered.


    ¡°My king decided that you needed to be able to see with both eyes if he needed your assistance and expertise again,¡± he said with pride, chest puffed out like he himself had come up with the idea. ¡°Isn¡¯t my second male lead so considerate?¡±


    It was practical, beautiful, made just for her, and probably the nicest gift she had ever received. All she had done was save his life, and clearly Mobei-jun appreciated it. ¡°No more bandages for me,¡± she giggled, running her fingers over the metal reverently. No, not even in her wildest dreams did she think that the heir to the Mobei clan would reward her like this.


    There was still one more box to open. She almost didn¡¯t want to, not after the price of the first two, but Shang Fenhua¡¯s expectant face had her pulling the last box towards her lap with a heavy sigh. It clinked gently as it moved, the sound of porcelain against wood. Carefully, she removed the lid and stared down in shock.


    ¡°Airplane. Are these¡­ demon drugs?¡± The box contained a bevy of little jars, their names clearly written on them by someone with a very steady hand, that resembled the jars she normally used to store medicines. It had a note, gently placed in the middle, written in a bold and authoritative hand: To replace what was used.


    It was unsigned, but the bold handwriting could only have come from the future Mobei-jun. The intent combined with the boxes¡¯ contents was really all the confirmation she needed on that front.


    Airplane shrugged nonchalantly like he didn¡¯t realize that he had just handed over a small fortune in extremely difficult-to-obtain herbs. ¡°If by that you mean drugs from the Demon Realm? Probably. I didn¡¯t exactly stop to ask.¡±


    Unsurprising when even a raised eyebrow and a sharp word would send him into full-on survival mode. Airplane was many things, but strong-willed and brave were not in the mix. If his king told him to jump, Shang Fenhua would be in the air before asking why. His king said to deliver gifts to his meimei, so he did.


    But that left Li Hanyi in a bit of a dilemma.


    ¡°Shang Fenhua. Airplane. Bro. Idiot author. How did Mobei-jun get it into his head that I¡¯m your little sister?¡± The third gift was practical, the second meaningful, but the first? The first was a problem.


    He paled., nervously fluttering his hands as he tried to look everywhere but at Li Hanyi. ¡°Ah, well. You see. I may have, accidentally mind you, called you meimei while he was conscious. It was an accident!¡±


    The cat was out of the bag now.


    She was going to die.

 Chapter 16

    The future Mobei Jun was not the talkative type. This was Li Hanyi¡¯s only solace in the weeks since the midnight delivery of his gifts. The number of people who knew her secret had increased by one and nothing had changed. Nothing needed to, not when the people who knew tended to keep to themselves.


    It didn¡¯t mean she needed to like it. In fact, Li Hanyi hated that three people now knew she was cross-dressing in order to avoid being married off. But none of the three were of the mind to do anything with that knowledge, so she remained as safe as she was before.


    The hairpin stayed in its box, shoved safely under her bed. One day, years and decades away, she would be free to wear it in public. Until then, she¡¯d have to content herself with wearing it only with her door and windows locked in the quiet darkness where no one could see it.


    Life moved on in a semblance of normality. She wore her new mask, thanking Shang Fenhua for his kindness, and gradually the rumors of her disfigurement dwindled. Something pretty was always preferred over something unsightly.


    But the rumor mill always craved something new to mill over, and if Li Hanyi was no longer a target? It needed something else.


    ***


    Yue Yuan was officially her least favorite patient.


    No one else tested her patience like this. No one else required her to secretly pack a pouch full of supplies in the middle of the night and hop on her sword to fly off like a thief in the night. No one else made her have to do house calls.


    Apparently, Yue Yuan had finally tested her sect leader¡¯s patience and broken it. He¡¯d gotten himself beaten badly for it, then thrown into the sect¡¯s spiritual caves to meditate on his defeat. The rumor mill was abuzz with speculation on exactly what had happened, but Li Hanyi didn¡¯t particularly care. What mattered was that he¡¯d ended up horribly battered and his wounds left to fester.


    [Warning: core character details of ¡°Yue Qingyuan¡± must be preserved.]


    ¡°The hell they do. You want me to go against every tenet of Qian Cao and leave my patient intentionally crippled?¡± This high in the air, there was no one to hear her argue with the System. ¡°Then you shouldn¡¯t have put me in Qian Cao.¡±


    [Life bond with the spiritual sword is required for ¡°Yue Qingyuan¡± character details. Failure to follow will be penalized.]


    So he had to be bound to his sword, stuck cultivating in a cave for a year. Fine, she could work with that. The specific details of just how he was bound and how much of his life was spent every time he drew his sword were never actually explained. For all anyone knew, Yue Qingyuan could lose months instead of years for every time he swung his sword.


    Why that even mattered when they were immortal cultivators was beyond Li Hanyi¡¯s expertise. What was losing a day, month, year, when the whole point was to ascend to the heavens? The drama of it was what mattered, not the actual effects.


    He needed to forge his sword wrong. Fine, Li Hanyi couldn¡¯t help with that anyway. She barely remembered how she got her own. The System had nothing to worry about on that front. Let Yue Yuan mess up his cultivation for all she cared. But she¡¯d treated him too many times to not worry about him keeling over dead in the caves somewhere.


    Li Hanyi didn¡¯t care what he did after, but she was going to make sure that the future leader of her sect didn¡¯t get some awful physical defect out of the whole affair. How would it reflect on her sect if their leader had aching bones because no one treated his injuries? So much for the fabled medical prowess of Qian Cao.


    The System could shove it. Her job was clear, System be damned, and there was no way she was going to fail one of her patients just because some faceless automated text box told her not to go. She¡¯d send the bill to her shizun to go over, then send it on to An Ding for processing. House calls like this weren¡¯t free but a lucrative opportunity.


    A text box blinked in front of her. [Core chracter settings must be preserved. Failure to abide by plot will result in the deduction of 10,000 B-Points.]


    That had her stopping in midair, resettling herself on her blae so she could read the latest bit of absolute nonsense. ¡°Fine. So he has to mess it up. I can still do basic first aid so he doesn¡¯t die before he even so much as thinks about meditating for his sword.¡± Dying was counterintuitive to those precious character settings. ¡°You¡¯re making me waste time he doesn¡¯t have.¡±


    The text box blinked angrily at her. [¡°Yue Qingyuan¡± must be bound to his sword and spend his life force with each use.]


    She clicked her tongue angrily. ¡°So you¡¯ve said. That doesn¡¯t change the fact that he¡¯s in there, slowly bleeding to death. His master was probably very thorough when he threw him in there to die.¡± Li Hanyi wanted to tear out her hair. ¡°Is there anything in the original plot that truly necessitates this level of cruelty?¡±


    [User002 is permitted limited action in this instance. Failure to abide will result in the deduction of 10,000 B-Points.]


    ¡°Limited action? I¡¯ll take it. That¡¯s enough to keep him alive.¡± Her flight was nothing short of desperate as she streaked across the sky. She was only permitted a small amount of assistance, and oh, Li Hanyi was determined to capitalize on it.


    Li Hanyi had never actually been to Qiong Ding Peak or its much-lauded Ling Xi Caves. She was neither mad from qi deviations nor so morally bankrupt as to be a problem. That didn¡¯t mean that she didn¡¯t know where said caves were if only to avoid them.


    It wasn¡¯t as if they were particularly hidden either.


    Qiong Ding was in the middle of Cang Qiong, the highest peak, and the most ostentatious. It was impossible to miss. The Ling Xi Caves weren¡¯t even all that well guarded, not when all it took was a look at her uniform and panicked face to get her in.


    The rumor mill had done its job and done it well. Li Hanyi¡¯s existence was near synonymous with problem patients, and Yue Yuan was one massive problem. The guard at the bottom of the path shouted up at her even as she hovered overhead on her sword. ¡°He¡¯s in the middle!¡± It seemed, contrary to her expectations, that Yue Yuan was rather well liked. ¡°You can go in, shidi, but he can¡¯t come back out unless it¡¯s under his own power.¡±


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    Li Hanyi nodded back to the guard in thanks. ¡°Thanking shixiong for his kindness. This one is only here for basic medical necessities.¡± The System would allow her no more than that.


    ***


    The Ling Xi Caves were so dense with spiritual energy that she gagged on it. She was forced to dismount her blade in the entrance and walk, but that was the least of her problems. Her first order of business was finding her wayward patient in the veritable maze. All the while she stumbled through, Li Hanyi had to fight off the urge to plonk herself down in the path and cultivate on the sheer weight of natural serenity that filled the very air.


    This place could and would be the death of her if she didn¡¯t keep her wits about her. It would be so easy to cultivate here, breakthrough to the next stage, and keep cultivating until she would never have to worry about being forced into anyone¡¯s harem at all. She could figure out what her sword could do, refine her fighting technique, meditate on how to bring modern sensibilities to ancient fantasy China.


    Nothing would be able to stop her.


    Except, of course, the agonized wailing of a broken young man. Yue Yuan¡¯s mournful cries echoed off the stone cave walls, made her ears ring and her heart clench in sympathy. He took his exile poorly, his broken promise even worse. Here, in the cradle of Ling Xi, he would rot until there was no one left to mourn his name. Worst still, Yue Yuan knew he had been left down in the depths to die.


    She followed the sound of agony to its source.


    Li Hanyi resolved to never speak a word on what she found in the heart of Ling Xi. No one needed to know the truly pitiful sight that the future sect leader made. She might have been callous, but Li Hanyi was not cruel enough to feed this to the rumor mill.


    He was a broken mess. Blood dripped from his mouth in great black globs of saliva, splattered down the front of once immaculate robes. His once handsome face looked like it had been slammed and dragged across stone, nose bleeding freely like a fresh wound. Once cheerful eyes were bloodshot and rimmed red from crying, if he could stand to open them at all.


    Yue Yuan lay sprawled upon the cave floor, reaching for the xit with bloody hands. The stone bore the marks of where he had tried to pull himself along with broken fingers. His legs twisted at odd angles, likely as broken as the rest of him.


    Li Hanyi inhaled sharply. Their sect leader had made his judgement and carried it out with brutal efficiency: Yue Yuan was here to die.


    He turned his head towards the sound. ¡°Who¡¯s there,¡± he managed to spit out, mournful howls replaced with bitter agony.


    ¡°Just me. Li Hanyi,¡± she replied quietly. Her voice shook with a curious mix of indignant rage and sorrow for what she had found. ¡°It¡¯s just me.¡±


    Yue Yuan struggled to pull himself up, not wanting to be seen laid so low by anyone. He moaned with every painful movement. ¡°Xiao-Jiu? Is that you?¡±


    How broken and battered was he that he couldn¡¯t hear her? Oh, how far had he fallen into madness in the quiet darkness? But fixing that was beyond her permitted scope. All she was allowed, on pain of a ten thousand point penalty, was the absolute basics. It wouldn¡¯t anything more than slapping a sliver of duct tape on a leaking dam.


    She had to try.


    Li Hanyi almost felt bad about paralyzing him with a drug-laced needle to the forehead. Unluckily for him, she hadn¡¯t packed much in the way of painkillers. What treatment she did on his broken body would have to be felt every step of the way. Painkillers of the caliber he needed, after all, went above and beyond the reach of first aid.


    He gibbered as she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.


    No needles, only her hand on his back as she channeled her qi through his meridians. He coughed up more black blood all down his front as she forced him to sit up. No time to wipe it off, not when she was supposed to be in and out.


    She bandaged in a frenzy, slapping as much salve as she could on every open wound. It wasn¡¯t her finest job, nor was it her proudest moment, but it would serve.


    Yue Yuan would live to become Yue Qingyuan. That was all that mattered and all she was allowed to do. Whether he believed that the spirit of his beloved Xiao-Jiu was the one who helped him or not, what mattered was that he lived to see them again.


    ***


    Time passed as it wanted, neither too quickly nor too slowly.


    For Li Hanyi, it wasn¡¯t enough time.


    The Immortal Alliance Conference was just around the corner and all she had to show for it were piles of flash cards and a migraine that wouldn¡¯t quit. Her little shidis took to the idea of study guides and modern note-taking like ducks to water, eating up her knowledge in easily digestible chunks. But still, knowledge itself was useless in ancient fantasy China if one couldn¡¯t be poetic about it.


    She was going to fail this exam because she couldn¡¯t wax eloquent on the moon phases required to draw out the maximum amount of yin energy or some other such nonsense. What did it matter that she had more practical knowledge than half her peers when she couldn¡¯t praise the ancestors and recite some strange poem behind the names of the meridians? Who cared that she could nail a fly midair at twenty paces with a single needle when she couldn¡¯t make it look like an elegant dance?


    Li Hanyi was unrefined by ancient fantasy China¡¯s standards.


    She was generally considered crass and crude by the esteemed members of her peak, not a fellow scholar but easily relied upon to perform various medical tasks her shijies and shixiongs found beneath them. In short, they thought she was stupid and only good for the drudge work they didn¡¯t want to do.


    Normally, she was fine with that. She didn¡¯t enter her peak with any delusions of grandeur, not when the System made her one of the nameless and faceless background characters. But her letters wouldn¡¯t be returned if she didn¡¯t participate in the Immortal Alliance Conference as a proper competitor. She had no choice: she had to learn the poetic way of answering questions.


    ***


    Liu Feng stared at her, arms stiff at his sides, and was careful to stand outside of her usual precision needle range. ¡°So. You lace all your needles with monster toxins these days.¡±


    ¡°Only sometimes,¡± she said with a shrug. ¡°Most of the time, it¡¯s just my qi that does that.¡± Li Hanyi had trained and trained until she could cut paper with the force of her qi alone, nigh surgical levels of precision making her needles that much more effective.


    The twitch of his eyebrow betrayed his annoyance. She might as well have told him that the sky was blue for all the good that did him. ¡°Which would you use to hunt monsters?¡±


    ¡°Both.¡± Her? Hunt monsters? A laughable idea to say the least. But, if she absolutely had to? She wouldn¡¯t leave anything a chance in thousands to survive the first ten seconds. Venomous as a viper, Li Hanyi relied on the success of the first strike to survive. She might be able to stand against Liu Feng for longer than a breath, but he still wasn¡¯t at his prime. A skilled fighter or particularly angry beast would have her fleeing for the hills. ¡°Absolutely both.¡±


    He hummed. ¡°Sparring isn¡¯t working. I¡¯m taking you on a night hunt.¡± Liu Feng said it like it was assumed she would just go along with it, that her shizun would simply wave fondly from the gates while she traipsed off into the world to hunt some godsforsaken monster that had decided to snack on a village.


    She blinked back at him. ¡°Excuse me? You¡¯re going to do what?¡±


    Liu Feng¡¯s lips twitched in as close to a grin as he ever would. ¡°Take you on a night hunt. There are a few villages that have requests. If spars won¡¯t unlock your potential, perhaps this will.¡±


    ¡°You have got to be kidding me,¡± she managed after a long moment, staring at him like he had lost all sense. Liu Feng did not make jokes like that, but she could hope that for once he was joking. ¡°What, you¡¯re just going to throw me at a monster and hope for the best?¡±


    The look on his face was that yes, he really did think that. He was really intending to simply throw her to the wolves and hope for the best. ¡°I¡¯ll still be there.¡± Just in case she was in any mortal peril, not because he was going to actually help with slaying whatever monsters or ghosts were plaguing the villages he brought her to.


    Oh, she was going to be in for a time.

 Chapter 17

    There was a limit to how much nonsense Li Hanyi was willing to tolerate.


    Liu Feng was rapidly reaching the point where her tolerance wouldn¡¯t be enough to keep them friends. Not only did he keep showing up to pummel her into the ground, but now he wanted to take her on a field trip to do the same in public. To make matters worse, he wanted to do it at night.


    She had no idea how he managed to get Wang Huo¡¯s permission to take her out of the sect. Li Hanyi had a sneaking suspicion that Wang Huo had agreed solely as revenge for springing the Brothers Pang on him. Or, for all she knew, he had agreed because he thought the experience would benefit her education. More likely it was both.


    No matter how it had managed to happen, it ended with Li Hanyi on the back of a horse, clinging to Liu Feng¡¯s back, and terrified out of her mind.


    They couldn¡¯t fly on their swords to the village, oh no, and neither of them was important enough to take a horse-drawn carriage. Riding their swords would have used qi, qi that they would need to fight whatever monster plagued this village. And, unfortunately for Li Hanyi, she had never learned how to ride a horse.


    The Bai Zhan disciples she accompanied were very careful not to say a single word about it. Li Hanyi got the feeling that they didn¡¯t like her enough to tease her and that Liu Feng might have something to do with it. She wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it turned out that he had threatened to fight anyone who had anything to say to her at all.


    She didn¡¯t fit in with the cheerful group. Some of them were on foot, some rode horses of their own. They chattered as they traveled, clearly used to this sort of thing, and Li Hanyi was reminded that she was the outsider looking in.


    Liu Feng didn¡¯t seem to mind. In fact, he actively encouraged his fellow disciples to leave Li Hanyi alone. Every time someone worked up the courage to come near, he scowled and kicked their shared horse in the side to make it speed up, carrying Li Hanyi away in one swift motion. ¡°Don¡¯t talk to them. They¡¯re not worth your time.¡±


    ¡°How would you know,¡± she protested. ¡°They could know how to unlock my sword¡¯s potential. There has to be some trick we haven¡¯t tried.¡± Anything to avoid facing an unknown monster by herself. There were too many chances for her to mess up and die miserably for Li Hanyi to be truly comfortable with even the idea of this night hunt. With her luck, the target would be some ridiculously powerful monster with more heads than she cared to count and a temper to match.


    In the meantime, she was being shepherded around the countryside like a young master on a spring excursion. Liu Feng didn¡¯t seem to mind that Li Hanyi had no idea how to ride a horse, only grunted and pulled her into the saddle behind him. The horse didn¡¯t seem to care, merely shuffled in place to get used to the weight before gamely trotting on. The only one who seemed to be bothered by any of it at all was Li Hanyi.


    Then again, everyone else didn¡¯t have a text box floating in front of their faces. Said box proudly proclaimed the start of a new side-quest, which Li Hanyi was putting off for as long as possible.


    [Side-quest ¡°The Ghost of Xiaolian¡± is now available. Successful completion will award the advanced weapon skill ¡°???¡±. Do you wish to accept this quest?]


    Whatever it was, there was no way that Li Hanyi was going to just let Liu Feng be right. He could have been wrong, that would have been perfectly fine with her, but instead, he was going to be right about awakening her sword¡¯s true potential. The worst part about it was that the only options the System gave her were ¡°Yes¡± or ¡°YES¡±. Experience had taught her that ignoring the box for long enough would end in the quest auto-accepting itself anyway, so she didn¡¯t feel the need to gratify the System with a response.


    The box blinked furiously as the System tried futilely to get her attention. No, thanks but no thanks, she didn¡¯t want to start talking to herself or hitting the air while surrounded by meat-heads from Bai Zhan. The System could wait until she was alone to force her into another quest. The box blinked again and again, and she merely buried her face into Liu Feng¡¯s back to avoid it.


    He grunted, swaying with the horse¡¯s movement. Liu Feng rolled his shoulders slightly to get her to stop digging her mask into the space between his shoulder blades. ¡°Are you crying?¡±


    ¡°What,¡± she replied, confused as to how that could even be a question. ¡°No! Why would I be crying?¡± He was making no sense at all.


    Liu Feng shrugged, squishing her face into his back as his muscles flexed. ¡°I thought you might have gotten homesick. You¡¯ve never left the peak, after all.¡±


    Li Hanyi pulled back just enough to punch him lightly between his shoulders. ¡°I wasn¡¯t born there, you know. Besides, we haven¡¯t even been gone for a day yet.¡± Homesick after less than six hours? Did he think she was a toddler? The idea of being homesick held zero appeal to Li Hanyi.


    All she got back for her sass was a low chuckle. ¡°Then are you frightened of horses?¡±


    She couldn¡¯t say no. Li Hanyi had never, in either of her lives, been this close to an animal this size. Sure, she could zip around on a magical sword hundreds of feet in the air and not worry about going splat on the ground below. But that was her sword, the manifestation of her own qi and potential. A horse? A horse had a mind all of its own.


    ¡°You never bothered to learn how to ride a horse.¡± He said it like it was a fact of life, the logical conclusion after watching her flounder. ¡°I¡¯ll teach you.¡±


    ¡°Liu Feng. Your version of teaching is dangerous.¡± She¡¯d rather eat her own robes than let him carry through with whatever training regime he could come up with. ¡°I¡¯ll take lessons when we get back.¡± There was a peak dedicated to just beasts, spiritual and otherwise, that raised and trained Cang Qiong¡¯s various beasts of burden. Surely, they offered lessons for any cultivators who cared to learn how to ride.


    ¡°My way is faster,¡± Liu Fang sulked, or as close to it as the permanently stoic man could be.


    A nearby Bai Zhan disciple paled. That was all Li Hanyi needed to see to know that she was right. Whatever method he used would be nothing but terrifying and dangerous. Liu Feng was the type to teach a child to swim by shoving them into the deep end of a pond. No, she¡¯d not take him up on the offer.


    Li Hanyi shuddered. ¡°Faster doesn¡¯t mean safer. It¡¯s bad enough that I¡¯m humoring you for this night hunt. I¡¯ll let a professional horse rider teach me, thanks.¡±


    The Bai Zhan disciple nodded frantically to her, mouthing the words ¡°good choice¡± up at her. He plodded along on foot, using cultivation-given speed to keep up with the horses trotting along. Most of the Bai Zhan disciples had chosen to go on foot, leaving the horses for the higher-ranked and thus more important cultivators.


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    Li Hanyi was the only one sharing a horse. She was also, in the most annoying way possible, the smallest one there. The disciples she hadn¡¯t terrorized enough were laughingly starting to call her their newest shidi, bold as anything as they all but began to turn her into their mascot after that conversation. She couldn¡¯t even bring herself to complain. Not when they started passing her snacks when Liu Feng wasn¡¯t looking.


    ***


    Cultivators of their level did not need to eat or sleep. They could and did exist solely on the ambient spiritual energy of their surroundings. A horse, on the other hand, could not. So, each night they were forced to stop and camp to rest and tend to the horses.


    Li Hanyi did not have anything to do with said horses. As the one and only doctor on the night hunt, the only thing she was responsible for was checking on the Bai Zhan disciples. For such large and loud men, they seemed to relish the opportunity to be cared for by Qian Cao¡¯s most reclusive member.


    They shoved at each other, fighting to get in line and for who was next. She solved the dilemma by staring blanking into space for a long moment, inundated by calls of ¡°me first¡± and ¡°no, me first¡±, then calling for her trump card. ¡°Liu Feng? Are you Bai Zhan types always so rowdy?¡±


    He looked up from brushing their horse down for the evening, already frowning at the mention of his name. ¡°Just knock them out if they being too loud. Or just leave them as they are and go to sleep.¡± He was far too calm about sentencing his fellows to her needles.


    Li Hanyi simply shrugged and turned back to look at the suddenly quiet crowd of Bai Zhan disciples before her. ¡°You heard your shixiong. Organized and quiet line or I¡¯m allowed to start knocking people out.¡± She grinned viciously and the older disciples started to pale.


    ¡°Li-shidi, you wouldn¡¯t, would you?¡± The kind disciple from earlier pouted down at her. ¡°Liu-shixiong is just playing around.¡±


    She had no remorse in pegging him right between the eyes and watching him freeze in place. ¡°Oh, no. I absolutely will,¡± Li Hanyi deadpanned, face unchanging even as the Bai Zhan disciples came to the swift conclusion that no, she wasn¡¯t playing around.


    The cute little shidi on loan from Qian Cao was the same monster who had raided their peak all those years ago and single-handedly thrown their peak into absolute chaos. A few of them, vaguely familiar in that distant way all former patients became, blanched as they mentally connected the dots. To a man, the Bai Zhan disciples silenced and stepped back.


    Liu Feng snorted. ¡°Guess their injuries were minor after all.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be mean to your poor shidis, Liu Feng.¡± Every part of her wanted to laugh at the Bai Zhan disciples. Instead, she scolded Liu Feng for picking on them.


    ¡°If they have time to whine, then they have time to train,¡± he replied, reaching for his sword even as he stalked towards the rapidly paling crowd. Quick as anything, the crowd dispersed, claiming all manner of chores and tasks that needed to be done around the camp. Liu Feng turned to Li Hanyi and gave the ghost of a shrug. He merely looked expectantly at her, and she shook her head.


    ¡°The whole point of going this way is to conserve our energy.¡± Li Hanyi began packing her needles back into her sleeves. ¡°Sparring defeats the entire purpose of that.¡± She sniffed, turning her nose up at the idea. Mostly, she just didn¡¯t want to be stomped into the ground where Bai Zhan disciples could see.


    As the precious little shidi, the only one to tame Liu Feng, Li Hanyi had been given a spot to sleep by the one campfire. Now, no one would contest that spot for fear of being stabbed with mysterious needles. Either way, she spread out her blanket roll with the confidence that she would remain unbothered in her sleep. No one would discover her secret because no one wanted to get so close to the Mad Doctor of Qian Cao.


    No one, that is, except for Liu Feng. He spread out his own bedroll right next to hers with a grunt. ¡°Don¡¯t hog the fire.¡± They might be cultivators, but every bit of qi they used to regulate their temperatures mattered at their level. What was the harm in sharing the fire? They were both male, after all.


    Li Hanyi didn¡¯t get much sleep that night. She lay still on her back, meditating, and rose before the sun to quietly traipse off into the woods to relieve her bladder and change her clothes where no one was looking. A branch breaking in the distance had her flurrying into motion, shoving her arms through her outer robe sleeves.


    Liu Feng¡¯s appearance shouldn¡¯t have surprised her. For all of his gruff demeanor, he liked to make sure that Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t wandered off and gotten lost. Or, even worse, tried to flee back to her safe mountain peak. He let out a soft sigh when he saw her, mostly dressed and red-faced before him. ¡°Don¡¯t wander off.¡± Unspoken was the threat that he would have to hunt her down if she did.


    Li Hanyi folded her robes closed and belted them shut with a scowl. ¡°I can¡¯t even have a moment¡¯s peace?¡±


    ¡°This is a night hunt, not a summer trip,¡± he countered. ¡°We don¡¯t know the target yet.¡± And if they didn¡¯t know, who knew if Li Hanyi would be eaten or not by their target.


    She gulped. ¡°Point taken. Stay with the rest of the group.¡± She did not think herself immune to danger. Far from it, in fact. As the childhood friend of many named characters, she was first on the chopping block for dramatic backstory building. One foot out of line and Lie Feng would have a new regret to fuel his need to grow stronger.


    Liu Feng nodded. He jerked his head back towards the camp as the first light of dawn began to break over the horizon. ¡°Come. The others hunted a Horned Rabbit for breakfast.¡±


    ¡°Is that even edible?¡± Just because a monster had an animal name as part of its name didn¡¯t mean that it was that animal. A rabbit and a Horned Rabbit were two different things.


    ***


    She would never be able to eat rabbit again. Not after knowing the succulent complexities of Horned Rabbit, the way the fat was in the perfect marbling ratio to make the meat tender and moist. She¡¯d never forgive the smug look on Liu Feng¡¯s face after the first bite made her moan and the empty skewer had her looking for more.


    They¡¯d cooked it over the fire without even a trace of salt, with nothing but the meat¡¯s own flavor to make it palatable, and somehow it was the best meal she had ever had. No, she¡¯d never be able to eat regular rabbit again. Even thinking about the smoky flavor had her drooling.


    Liu Feng tossed her the eponymous horn with a glance at her mask. ¡°Have a new hairpin,¡± he grunted. Clearly, he was jealous of the gift he had never thought of and wanted to outdo the mysterious giver of such an expensive gift. Liu Feng never did anything in halves, and so Li Hanyi had a sinking feeling she¡¯d be getting fed and given all kinds of monster parts for quite some time.


    In another world, the spiral-shaped and vaguely opalescent horn might not have been out of place on a narwhal. Lacking suck creatures, but not about to lose to nature¡¯s complexity, Airplane had taken inspiration to make his monsters that much more believable. She almost regretted not paying as much attention to the flora and fauna as Cucumber-laoshi, but she had been to the aquarium and zoo enough times to be able to recognize where the parts had come from.


    Horned Rabbits were rabbits with horns. Much like how a narwhal was a weird dolphin with a horn, not like how western unicorns were horses with horns pasted on their foreheads. The Horned Rabbit¡¯s horn had jutted out from its lower jaw, an overgrown tooth that worked it¡¯s way up and over its head. Apparently, it used the whole of its body to jab the thing into its prey, but Li Hanyi didn¡¯t care much about the particulars.


    She cared that it glimmered, was the length of her forearm once she ignored the curled part at the end, and twisted prettily in a tight pattern. Once she spent enough time carving it with her qi, it would be a solid and pretty addition to her sparse hairpin collection. ¡°Thank you, Liu Feng,¡± she grinned back gratefully.


    He grunted in reply, quietly embarrassed at his gift¡¯s success. But Liu Feng was even more pleased when she neatly shoved it into her sleeve pouch. ¡°Good. Now let me show you how to saddle a horse.¡±


    Li Hanyi rolled her eyes but followed after him anyway. ¡°You just don¡¯t want to do it yourself.¡±


    His quicksilver grin was all the answer she needed.

 Chapter 18

    The town of Xiaolian, much like any other town, did not have its own cultivators. In the event of monsters or ghosts, they were forced to appeal to the closest righteous cultivation sect or pray that a wandering cultivator stumbled into their town. Xiaolian¡¯s middling size attracted a few such cultivators, but none had come this season.


    Cang Qiong was more than happy to take Xiaolian¡¯s custom. Bai Zhan Peak especially had jumped at the chance for a night hunt so close to their sect. It was only a little strange that they requested a specific Qian Cao disciple to accompany them.


    None of this particularly mattered to Li Hanyi.


    All she cared about was that, after days of travel, she would get accommodations in the house of the requester. A room she only had to share with Liu Feng was better than a communal campfire. At least she could send Liu Feng out while she bathed, claiming basic decency. If there was anyone obsessed with keeping up honorable and decent interactions, it was Liu Feng.


    She didn¡¯t understand why he had been so swift to declare himself her roommate for the duration of the night hunt. Did he trust her so little? Did he think she would head for the hills at the first sign of trouble? Who knew what his reasons were, but Li Hanyi had no qualms about taking shameless advantage for her own purposes.


    Li Hanyi did not want to think about why the other Bai Zhan disciples nodded sagely and didn¡¯t try to fight for the other bed in the room.


    Instead, she chose to focus on the solemn face of the town¡¯s mayor as he beseeched the Cang Qiong cultivators to defeat the evil plaguing the town. The town wouldn¡¯t survive if it continued to lose its young people, and so he humbly begged the cultivators to do something about it. Li Hanyi, for her part, spent much of his impassioned speech wondering if the town was losing people because the mayor and his wives were eating them.


    His jowls quivered as he blotted the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief that his plump first wife handed him. Li Hanyi glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes as she gently sipped at her tea. At least she knew that none of the food was poisoned enough to affect either Liu Feng or herself. Years of making her own poisons and testing them on Liu Feng had given them both terrifying resistance to the most commonly available poisons.


    She didn¡¯t much care about the fates of the nameless rank and file who were dumb enough to not test their food before they ate it or developed immunity of their own.


    The mayor seemed sincere enough. If she ignored the gold on his fingers and the opulence of his home, Li Hanyi could almost buy the sad portrayal of an elder just trying to look out for his community. But she had enough sense to conclude that he was either involved in the deaths or simply trying to protect his finances.


    Whatever the reason, the Cang Qiong cultivators were going to be expected to hunt down the cause of Xiaolian¡¯s slow death. Worse, Liu Feng expected Li Hanyi to take on the brunt of the actual slaying after he hunted down whatever monster was killing Xiaolian¡¯s youths.


    ¡°Honored cultivators, this lowly one begs that you take pity upon this poor town,¡± the mayor wheedled, jowls wobbling as he bowed to the Cang Qiong disciples.


    Li Hanyi pressed her lips together to keep from laughing at the caricature come to life. She breathed out of her nose and simply followed Liu Feng¡¯s lead in bowing slightly back, desperate to avoid the cloying smell of incense and sweat. Prolonged exposure to cultivators had removed her resistance to the odors of the mundane world, after all.


    Not that the mayor¡¯s request really mattered. The Cang Qiong disciples were in Xiaolian for a night hunt. Everything malignant in and around Xiaolian was going to die. A night hunt cared not for the environment, only that it was a target-rich one. Wu Jinhao, Peak Lord of Bai Zhan, had not raised his disciples to care for more than that. However, Chang Jinfei, Peak Lord of Qian Cao, cared only that this might finally convince Li Hanyi to transfer peaks and stop being a thorn in his side.


    The hope was that the number one problem disciple would enjoy herself so much that she willingly packed up her things and moved to Bai Zhan.


    Li Hanyi wanted to laugh at that. As if the System would let her go anywhere but where her background character role was. Besides, she actually liked being a member of Qian Cao. Li Hanyi had a job there, one that served a purpose. On top of that, she was always free to indulge in whatever medical research she so chose.


    This night hunt was the antithesis of Qian Cao¡¯s guiding principles. The only involvement a good Qian Cao disciple should have had was staying out of the way and having their patients brought to them. But Li Hanyi was a different kind of disciple, one that would actively be participating in the hunt.


    Liu Feng, the ranking disciple on the night hunt, grunted at the mayor. ¡°We will take care of it.¡± That was all he had to say. No flowery promises or pretty words for their leader, no.


    The mayor seemed flustered, but gamely pressed on. ¡°Honored cultivators, this lowly one thanks you for your care and consideration¡ª.¡±


    Li Hanyi was not ashamed to admit that she tuned the man out and spent her evening stuffing her face with food she¡¯d never get on Qian Cao.


    ***


    Li Hanyi was not blessed with the same stamina that Liu Feng had. She would never be able to keep up with him on a physical level, and bridged the gap as much as she could with her cultivation instead. When that failed, she relied on good old-fashioned poison-laced needles.


    The same needles that he was making her give up.


    ¡°No,¡± she said for the last time, arms crossed over her chest so that he couldn¡¯t just reach into her sleeves and grab her pouches.


    Liu Feng simply stood, one hand outstretched, and waited. ¡°You can¡¯t focus on your sword if you still have tricks.¡±


    Since the whole point of taking her on this night hunt was to get Li Hanyi to use her sword, even she had to see the logic. ¡°But what if it¡¯s too much?¡±


    ¡°If I think you might die, then I¡¯ll intervene.¡±


    Gods but sometimes she hated him. Then he went and said things like that. Things that made her heart flutter until she shoved the thoughts into a mental hole and buried them. ¡°You have to promise. If I¡¯m in over my head, you have to protect me.¡± Dignity? Pride? Who cared about those when she could die just to acquire a weapon skill.


    He shrugged in the tiniest twitch of his shoulders. ¡°Very well. This Liu Feng swears to defend you.¡±


    ¡°Good enough for me.¡± If you couldn¡¯t trust the most honorable character in the novel, then you couldn¡¯t trust anyone. That didn¡¯t mean she had to like it, and she scowled as she handed over her sleeve pouches.


    He tucked them gingerly into his own sleeves and stretched his hand back out. ¡°The rest.¡±


    Li Hanyi said some very uncomplimentary things in English before bending down. She hiked up her pants legs and unrolled the bandages there, slapping the bundles of fabric and metal into his hand. ¡°Fine.¡±


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    He tucked them gingerly into his own pouches. Then stretched his hand out again.


    Over and over they repeated the process. Legs, arms, the lining of her shirt, the hidden needles clinked as she removed them. He reached his hand out one last time and Li Hanyi scowled. ¡°That was all of it!¡±


    He pointed to her hairpin. ¡°You lace that with Bone-Faced Spider venom.¡±


    ¡°Well, yes¡ªwait. How did you know that?¡± Her eyes narrowed at him. There was only one way for him to know that.


    Liu Feng gave her a look like she was the stupidest person alive and he didn¡¯t pity her for it. ¡°Did you forget what you wrote?¡±


    She had hoped he wouldn¡¯t, but it seemed like he really had. ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to read them!¡±


    One immaculate brow rose and he stared at her. ¡°They¡¯re my letters. What else would I do but read them?¡±


    Her mouth gaped wide as she stared back. There were so many things in those letters. The desperate need to be known, bitter truths and half-formed dreams. She wrote of loss, love she would never admit aloud, and more ways to kill a man than any maiden should know. He could ruin her, unmake her, have her cast out of her peak as a liar. ¡°Trade them. Don¡¯t read them, just trade them with me. Burn them and scatter the ashes to the winds. But don¡¯t read them.¡±


    ¡°Then you should give me a fight worth remembering.¡± Neat fingers beckoned to her hairpin once more. ¡°Show me your sword and I¡¯ll give you one.¡±


    ¡°Deal.¡± She unpinned her hair and felt it fall down around her in a curtain of striped white and inky black. Li Hanyi slapped her hairpin into his hand and then busied herself with twisting the mess of her hair out of her face.


    Liu Feng took pity on her and gave back a strip of some ribbon, white and pale as his own robes. ¡°Use that.¡± Quietly, he slipped the bone hairpin into his sleeve.


    Grunting her thanks, Li Hanyi quickly braided her hair, looped it, and secured the resulting bun in place with his ribbon. It was a style she used to do back in her first life when she was trying to look professional while working herself to the bone, so unbelievably anachronistic that it made him flush and look quickly away.


    ¡°Do it properly.¡±


    ¡°Give me back my hairpin then.¡±


    Neither of them would budge, but Li Hanyi solved the impasse by picking a random direction away from Xiaolian and springing off. Let him fume about impropriety all he liked: she¡¯d have the last word on what she did with her own hair. Li Hanyi turned up her nose at his displeasure, landing neatly by a tree, her hand on her sword hilt.


    Liu Feng landed on a sturdy branch overhead, clearly ready to abide by his promise. ¡°Show me your best, Li Hanyi.¡±


    ***


    Her best was nothing special.


    The first monster the pair found was a Three-Headed Bull, so-called for its three heads and bullish appearance. Every time Li Hanyi encountered a new monster, she wept bitter tears for each failure at creativity. The Three-Headed Bull, apart from being a particularly angry bovine, was also known for having particularly strong bones that made a very useful adhesive. It was also dumb as an ox despite having three brains at its disposal.


    What mattered the most to I Hanyi was that it craved human flesh above all other meat.


    It didn¡¯t have the decency to be an herbivore. Oh, no, that beast salivated great globs of rancid saliva at the sight of her and bellowed lowly as it charged. Li Hanyi wanted no part in whatever its dinner plans were and dodged neatly out of the way with her sword outstretched. She struck at its legs, neatly severing the tendons to hamstring the beast, and watched it crash to the ground.


    Essentially an angry barrel on four sticks, the Three-Headed Bull did not fare well with two of those sticks unable to be used. But still, it floundered after her, desperate for a pound of her flesh, and it used its remaining legs to heave its bulk across the ground. Its teeth gnashed as it bellowed in pain and frustration, and Li Hanyi might have felt badly for it¡­ if it wasn¡¯t trying to eat her.


    The bullish creature dragged itself after her with its forelegs, teeth grinding as she sprang back and away. Striking any of its heads would do her no good. She lacked the upper body strength to cleanly separate any of the heads from its massive frame. Instead, she would have to fight it with wits instead of brawn.


    All mammals subscribed to the same anatomical issues. Brain, lungs, heart, circulatory systems, muscles, the works.


    Three heads meant three brains, but one body meant only one heart and two lungs. She should feel guilty about cutting down another living thing in the prime of its life, but instead, she only felt numb. Li Hanyi had no fear for her own life or safety, not with Liu Feng hovering so close. It was an exercise in skill for her, not a danger.


    Perhaps that was why she didn¡¯t move when the bull lowered at her, its sides covered in foam as it raged at her. It moved faster than she would have thought possible, one great horn gouging at the dirt beneath her. Her sword glanced off its horn, the length of one of its noses, and embedded uselessly in the meat of its shoulder.


    She went flying, knocked off course by the monster¡¯s advance. The Three-Headed Bull gave no quarter. So desperate for the taste of her flesh, it all but slathered itself in loam as it dragged itself towards her retreating body. It paid no mind to tactics or strategy, only its own ravenous hunger. Li Hanyi did not have the confidence to do any fancy tricks like what they did in the movies.


    No, she stuck to what she knew: rolling gracelessly in the dirt and loam until it was all over her formerly pristine robes. Not that she cared about being perfect and pristine when a Three-Headed Bull was trying to feast on her corpse. Li Hanyi rolled, keeping her sword clutched tight to her chest, lashing out only to keep its teeth at bay.


    She regretted ever thinking that a night hunt would be simple. Regretted ever thinking that an overly complex cow would be easy picking for her first kill. As she rolled over a rock that dug into her stomach and the small of her back, she even regretted becoming friends of any kind with Liu Feng. Would that she could return to a life of simple medical training and spare herself this suffering.


    Cultivation did not automatically equate to combat skills. Especially not when medical cultivators were really only trained in basic self-defense and not much else. Li Hanyi was, and probably would remain, the only exception. She kept thinking that, almost as if she obsessed over it, as the monster of a bull bore down on her with murder in its heart.


    This was not what she signed up for when she agreed to go on this night hunt. Li Hanyi gave her best shot at it. The only way she would get better at fighting monsters was by fighting monsters. That didn¡¯t mean she had to like it. And, oh, by all of her ancestors, did she not like it.


    The bull lowed, angry and mean, pawing at the ground with a massive hoof. Its back legs dragged as it rushed her once more. She watched it move and readied her sword for its next move, hoping against everything that she could manage something to bring the beast finally to its end.


    ¡°Don¡¯t just flail your sword at it! Be one with your blade. Feel the way it wants to move and trust it!¡± Liu Feng, safely ensconced in the trees, called out to Li Hanyi. It was good advice if she ignored the weird mystical nonsense that all cultivation-related information tended to be.


    Li Hanyi flipped herself to her feet, stabbing upward as she went, and gave an undignified snort. ¡°Easy for you to say¡ª you¡¯re safe and sound up a tree!¡± Follow the way her left buttock. If she did what her sword wanted, it¡¯d end up tip-first, stuck in the ground, where it would do exactly zero good to anyone, let alone its owner.


    Li Hanyi got lucky.


    Somehow, her sword and the bull managed to line up just so, the razor-sharp edge of the sword parting the monster¡¯s flesh like a hot knife through butter. Its guts spilled out, steaming and reeking to high heaven, onto the ground. A killing blow made by accident was still a killing blow. Blood soaked the grass, spreading in great globs of thick near-black liquid, even as the bull struggled to get back to its feet.


    A beast was a beast no matter what the shape. It lacked the intelligence to know that it was already dead.


    Cutting off its heads was a mercy.


    Li Hanyi flicked her blade to clean it of the bull¡¯s blood and gore before she carefully resheathed it. She gave a heavy sigh as she turned to look at Liu Feng. ¡°Let me guess. Not good enough?¡±


    Liu Feng simply stepped out of the tree, face blank as he all but walked down on the air itself, unruffled as he stalked across the clearing. ¡°Li Hanyi. The purpose of taking you on this night hunt was to help you discover what your sword¡¯s ability is.¡± His mouth flattened into a thin line and his eyebrows furrowed. ¡°Flailing around isn¡¯t going to do you any good. Nor does it reflect well on your teachers.¡±


    ¡°Ah. You have¡­ a point.¡± She had the grace to wince and look away from her friend. Her performance against the bull didn¡¯t reflect well on anyone at all, least of all Liu Feng himself. ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m used to fighting monsters, Liu Feng. Set your expectations a little lower.¡±


    ¡°Again.¡± He jerked his head toward the forest. ¡°Next time, stay on your feet.¡±


    Li Hanyi spared herself a moment of self-pity before she brushed off as much grass and dust as she could reach. She never should have expected anything else from the baby War God of Bai Zhan. He would keep throwing her at monsters until she pulled an impossible trick out of nowhere. What made matters worse was that she needed this more than he did. ¡°Lead the way.¡±

 Chapter 19

    Night hunts were for seasoned cultivators, not sheltered greenhorns like Li Hanyi. She can¡¯t say she regrets coming (even though she does to her very core) without running the risk of offending Liu Feng. Her shizun had warned her that this wasn¡¯t for the faint-hearted and she had taken the stupid deal anyway.


    Li Hanyi had no one to blame for her predicament but herself.


    She¡¯d spent an awful lot of time carefully cultivating a reputation as an aloof and eccentric little lordling, the furthest she could go from the truth. And now, here she was, immaculate ashen robes stained with grass and hair a mess. There was blood on the hems of her sleeves and splatters of ichor dotting the side of her face. No, Li Hanyi was not having a good time.


    She was dirty, miserable, sore, tired, and fed up with the entire affair. Li Hanyi wanted her needles back and knew she wouldn¡¯t get them. So, instead, she began resorting to the same high-speed tactics that drove Liu Feng¡¯s blood pressure through the roof. There was no room for grand-standing, no prideful show of skill, or honorable manners.


    Li Hanyi hit the monsters as fast as possible. Her sword was a silvery flash in the night, the only sign that she was even there, and she slipped through the trees like a ghost. There was no pride to mar her blade, only a fierce and burning need to get this done and over with so that she could go home and never come out on a night hunt again.


    She had to be quick to get the drop on monsters that could smell her very spiritual energy from ten paces out. Faster and faster, cutting deep and with nigh surgical precision. Li Hanyi left rational thought behind. Instinct, honed over years of sparring with a baby war god, was the only thing that mattered. The moral quandary of taking so many lives could come later.


    For now, she would worry about staying alive long enough to regret what she had done. Fast enough that she didn¡¯t even so much as rustle the grass as she passed overhead. Quick enough that the most anyone saw was the ghost of her shadow beneath the trees. Faster and faster until she was nothing more than a malevolent ghost, surviving on blood and death.


    Li Hanyi was more than willing to become a monster in order to kill monsters. There was no room in her heart for doubt, only death. Every swing of her blade put her closer to the ideal perfection Liu Feng wanted from her. Closer and closer until she would fall over the knife edge into true mastery.


    At least, that was the goal.


    Her goal wasn¡¯t to have the most successful kills under her belt. A pity, since she would probably be number one in the race to the finish. With Liu Feng at her back and a whole forest of malignant monsters before her, there wasn¡¯t much else she could do. On the upside, at least her kills were getting cleaner and cleaner.


    But this wasn¡¯t a trip just for Li Hanyi to practice the fine art of monster-hunting. The whole point of this was for her to figure out just what made her sword special enough to be a cultivation tool. She hated it.


    Li Hanyi wanted nothing more than to go home.


    As if it could read her thoughts, the System chimed a dire warning. [Mission failure will lead to a reduction in character satisfaction points!]


    She scowled as she perched neatly on a branch. Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t worked this hard for this long to just throw away all the progress she had made with being Liu Feng¡¯s friend. Failure was not an option. ¡°A hint would be nice,¡± she groused under her breath.


    ¡°Your sword is named Ghost Bone. That¡¯s all the hint you should need.¡± Liu Feng gruffly reminded her, perched on the branch above her. ¡°The name and your own nature determine what your blade can do.¡±


    Yes, thank you, Liu Feng for that completely useful information that did her no good whatsoever. Ghosts, not even the weird western ones, didn¡¯t have bones. Well, that wasn¡¯t entirely true. They had the bones they left behind when they died. Those bones were the thing that tethered them to the world of the living. Whatever was done to the bones would affect the ghost.


    Li Hanyi rolled her eyes. What, was her sword supposed to be a fancy way of performing an exorcism? Sure, she¡¯d get right on that. Li Hanyi: acupuncturist, family doctor, and exorcist. A one-stop shop for all your health needs.


    She could treat disease on a physical and spiritual level. How nice. No, thank you, Li Hanyi did not want the fantasy Chinese people to start thinking that her treatments were all they needed to be healthy. They could kindly continue the fine art of washing their hands, thanks very much.


    But the idea stuck with her. Maybe this really was what her sword did. It was a hypothesis, sketchy at best, but it was far better than just flailing her sword around and hoping something would happen. Without this hypothesis, her sword was about as useful to her day-to-day life as boiled cabbage.


    ¡°Huh,¡± she hummed thoughtfully. ¡°Might as well give it a try.¡± Li Hanyi was not foolish enough to tempt fate by asking the universe for the worst that could happen. No, she¡¯d test the hypothesis, prove it wrong, and move on with her life.


    ***


    Either this was the angriest pixiu in existence or Airplane had been unspeakably lazy again. Her money was on the latter. Previous experience had taught her that the worldbuilding of Airplane¡¯s so-called masterpiece was determined solely by how many energy drinks and cups of instant noodles he had consumed as he worked.


    So, not a pixiu. The beast had the head of a proper Chinese dragon, the body of a lion, two sets of majestic antlers, and wings. It looked like a pixiu but very much wasn¡¯t a pixiu. It was probably called something stupid like Winged Lion-Dragon and survived on a diet of virgins.


    ¡°Ah. A malevolent Winged Lion-Dragon.¡±


    Li Hanyi should find the cultivation world lottery and play it. At this rate, she¡¯d actually win just by guessing something ridiculous like chapter counts or how many comments on average a chapter got. She could make enough money to abandon her sect and raise chickens in some distant corner of the world.


    The Not-Pixiu snuffled about, searching for something in the dew-dampened grass. It wasn¡¯t looking in their direction and didn¡¯t seem to have caught so much as a whiff of their scents. That was good, great even.


    Her sword left its scabbard as she leapt, focusing her spiritual energy through the blade. Purify, purge, whatever. Scour the thing clean of evil energy and move on to the next monster in the woods. (There were an awful lot of monsters in the Xiaolian woods. If she didn¡¯t know Airplane¡¯s shitty worldbuilding, she¡¯d think this was some kind of trap.)


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    The beast turns, flares its wings wide in warning, and Li Hanyi lops off its snarling head in a spray of blood.


    Except¡­ she doesn¡¯t.


    Her sword hit its mark, that much she knew for certain. But its head stayed firmly attached to its body with not even a scale out of place. Her sword went right in and out like a ghost through a wall, a silvery cloud of condensed spiritual energy that shimmered like moonlit fog in the air.


    Li Hanyi skidded to a stop, stared at her sword, and then the Not-Pixiu. ¡°What,¡± she monotonously said to the universe, ¡°the fuck.¡±


    The Not-Pixiu sagged in place and began to deflate like a balloon left over from a child¡¯s birthday party. As it collapsed into itself, bits of it flaked off like ash on a previously nonexistent wind. Soon, the only thing that remained of the beast was a silvery orb the size of Liu Feng¡¯s fist.


    Liu Feng soared down from his spot in the trees, landed beside Li Hanyi, and simply grunted.


    Li Hanyi frowned back at him. ¡°Don¡¯t give me that look. You¡¯re the one who wanted me to figure out what the Huangxiang Gu did.¡± Ghost Bone, Bones of a Dead Ghost, whatever. Ghosts didn¡¯t do¡­ whatever this was.


    He grunted again and pointed at Li Hanyi¡¯s head. ¡°There¡¯s more white in your hair.¡± His hand hovered between them, close enough to touch, and unwavering in its steadfastness. ¡°What did you do?¡±


    She resisted the urge to laugh. If she started, she knew it would just turn into a hysterical breakdown. Of course, whatever she just did had increased that whole Mystical White Hair nonsense she had going on. Nothing she did would ever turn out right. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± she replied honestly. ¡°I just figured¡­ ghosts and their bones meant an exorcism.¡± An exorcism of what, she didn¡¯t know.


    It wasn¡¯t as if she had been specific with what she had wanted exorcised. If she should even be calling it that. She¡¯s going to call it that, however, because she didn¡¯t know what else to call it. The System wasn¡¯t exactly being helpful on that front either.


    The blue text box in front of her face simply said: [Huangxiang Gu hidden technique has been unlocked.]


    Great, wonderful, how very great for her. What even was the hidden technique? Was it supposed to be a secret even to her, the sword¡¯s owner? That wasn¡¯t a very useful hidden technique, now was it?


    Li Hanyi was not an idiot. She might not be considered a fantastic scholar by ancient fantasy China standards, what with her inability to confidently regurgitate facts in the most flowery language possible, but that didn¡¯t make her an idiot. Modern academics were just a different way of thinking.


    She was entirely capable of putting two and two together to make four. So, I Hanyi looked back at the facts. One: her sword was named, essentially, Ghost Bone. Two: said sword did some strange things when she inserted qi and thought really hard about exorcising her enemy. Three: the Not-Pixiu had somehow turned into an orb instead of a corpse.


    The conclusion had to be made that her sword did something with exorcisms. It wasn¡¯t a difficult conclusion to come to. The only real question was what exactly she had just exorcised.


    She refused to think about the new white streaks in her hair.


    Instead, she folded her arms neatly at her waist and tucked her hands into her sleeves. She crossed the grass to stare down at the silver orb that was all that remained of the Not-Pixiu and hummed thoughtfully. ¡°Do you think it¡¯s an egg?¡± It didn¡¯t match any of the treasures in Proud Immortal Demon Way. She would know.


    Liu Feng knelt beside her and scooped the silvery orb up. He rolled it in his hands briefly before tossing it at Li Hanyi with a snort. ¡°It¡¯s an egg.¡±


    Cultivators did not squawk. They did not fumble as they tried to catch maybe-eggs thrown at their heads. Li Hanyi did both of these things at the same time. She tossed the orb from palm to palm, startled at its warmth and the sheer amount of spiritual energy it gave off. There wasn¡¯t a trace left of the malignant malice the Not-Pixiu had before she had struck the beast.


    ¡°Huh,¡± she muttered. ¡°I think I might know what my sword does.¡±


    Liu Feng gave her a blistering look normally reserved for idiots. ¡°You¡¯re going to hatch it.¡± He sounded completely fed up with her nonsense and she hadn¡¯t even started.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to hatch it,¡± she confirmed as she tucked it into her sleeve for safekeeping until he gave her back her pouches. ¡°For science.¡±


    ***


    Liu Feng was a wonder to behold in action. Now that Li Hanyi had fulfilled her part of the deal, Liu Feng was free to clean up house. And, oh, how very quickly he set into motion. A baby war god was still a war god and she would be wise to remember that.


    He didn¡¯t let her rest on her laurels either. Li Hanyi, needles and drugs still stowed away in his sleeves, was still expected to hunt what she could with her sword and martial prowess. But compared to Liu Feng? She lacked his effortless grace and power, the sheer skill that only came with practice.


    There was some saying about fearing not the man who had practiced a thousand strokes but the man who had practiced one stroke a thousand times. Whoever said that had never met Liu Feng. Even without becoming a Peak Lord, he was a veritable force of nature. Unstoppable as a hurricane, more dangerous than a meteor strike, Liu Feng was already far deadlier than any cultivator in the whole of Cang Qiong.


    The only way to kill him was to make him kill himself.


    Or, and Li Hanyi tried very hard not to think about this, use an in-depth knowledge of poisons and medicines to incapacitate him, then kill him while he couldn¡¯t fight back. As his current personal doctor, she was doing her absolute best to make him immune to even that. Sure, that meant that he was guaranteed to star losing every spar. But she¡¯d never had any illusions that she would be his equal anyway.


    Watching him in action was a surefire way to remind herself of that simple truth. Water was wet, the sky was blue, Liu Feng could kick her ass with one hand tied behind his back. He was poetry in motion, the kind of mythical master that would have taken an entire stunt and CGI team to replicate. Not that it mattered.


    Liu Feng did as he pleased and all that pleased him was fighting.


    He fought until there were no more things to fight and still loked for more. Liu Feng turned to her with a scowl, his sword still flickering with the last embers from a clean-cut stroke, and grunted. ¡°There were too many.¡±


    Oh. So it wasn¡¯t just Airplane¡¯s awful world-building. This was some kind of nefarious plot at hand and she couldn¡¯t remember which one. No matter which plot it was, it probably was supposed to lead back to a wife plot of some kind. But Li Hanyi and the rest had sprung it early, before the protagonist had even been born.


    Whichever wife this plot was for could thank her for it later.


    For now, there was the great mystery of why there were so many monsters running around the Xiaolian woods. So very many different monsters. It was like someone had tried to run a zoo and all the animals had decided to opt out. Then, all the young people died. None of these things made any sense separately or together. This had to be Airplane¡¯s world-building at work.


    Li Hanyi gave a long-suffering sigh. ¡°Worst possible case is, what, a monster fighting ring? Underground betting?¡±


    He grunted again. ¡°Talk to the mayor.¡±


    There was a lack of any personal responsibility that made Li Hanyi pause. She didn¡¯t particularly want to talk to the fat man with the wobbling jowls and no sense of taste. Judging from Liu Feng¡¯s deadpan face he didn¡¯t either. ¡°Isn¡¯t that your thing? Ranking cultivator here and all that?¡±


    ¡°I did it last time.¡± That was the most childish thing she had ever had the displeasure of hearing come out of his mouth.


    Li Hanyi was not proud of herself for entering into a staring contest with Liu Feng. She was even less proud when she lost. ¡°He¡¯s disgusting. Did you not see how much he was sweating? How much his jowls wobbled?¡± She shuddered. ¡°He served us gold dust on duck dumplings when his town looks like a ghost town.¡±


    He blinked back at her, nonplussed. ¡°You¡¯re going to talk to him while I find the source of all these monsters.¡± Oh. So she was going to be the distraction.


    ¡°Can¡¯t I just knock him unconscious and let him sleep for three days? He won¡¯t even notice,¡± she whined back at him. ¡°I can knock out his wife too. Just as a bonus precaution.¡±


    Liu Feng frowned at her. ¡°That isn¡¯t necessary. I won¡¯t need that long.¡±


    ¡°Fine,¡± she groused and clicked her tongue. ¡°You¡¯re such a spoilsport. My way would have been faster.¡±

 Chapter 20

    In another life, Li Hanyi would never have had to do this. Client meetings were for management and she was far too low on the hierarchy to matter. But the System had seen fit to intervene in her demise, and now she got to pay the price for a second chance.


    She would have been perfectly happy somewhere else. Anywhere else. But no, Liu Fend needed her here to distract the mayor and his wives. No real instructions had been given. Just go there and keep them there. That was no small feat. But Li Hanyi would find some way to make it happen, just as she always had and always would where Liu Feng was concerned.


    Li Hanyi made her way back to the Xiaolian mayor¡¯s house a bedraggled mess. Her robes were stained by grass and blood, her hair a loose braid tied with a ribbon that didn¡¯t match, and her silver mask had bits of grass stuck in the filigree. She was the very picture of a cultivator who had gotten in over their head.


    The mayor met her at the front door, panting and sweating as if he had run a marathon while everyone was away. His chins wobbled and the rings on his fat fingers glinted in the light from the braziers. ¡°Honored cultivator! Is aught amiss?¡± He sounded nervous. As if he automatically assumed the worst case had happened and all of her fellow cultivators had been wiped out.


    He trembled as he stared, but the look in his eyes was all greed.


    Li Hanyi managed to scrounge up a cheerful smile out of the ghost of Qian Cao¡¯s training. Who knew that learning to keep a straight face during treatment would come in handy like this? As far as the mayor was concerned, Li Hanyi was a bastion of compassionate concern. ¡°No, no, dear sir. All is well with my fellows. The hunt proceeds as well as can be expected.¡± That was to say that the Bai Zhan disciples were cleaning out everything in the woods and Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t done all that much to help.


    The mayor nodded along as if everything made perfect sense. ¡°Of course, of course,¡± he simpered as he rubbed his fat hands together. ¡°Ah, but then how might this lowly one assist, Honored Cultivator?¡±


    Li Hanyi watched the sweat roll down in fat little trickles and realized that she did not, in fact, have a plan. Liu Feng had told her to distract the mayor without knocking the man out and she wasn¡¯t exactly known for her social skills. How in the hell was she supposed to distract this man for hours with just talking?


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    Absolutely the fuck not.


    She hadn¡¯t gone through all this effort to waste her points on having the System use what it considered the optimal route. That way led to the protagonist¡¯s harem. No, Li Hanyi would figure it out herself. What did she, a Qian Cao disciple, have to offer?


    Oh. The solution was staring her straight in the face.


    ¡°Honored customer,¡± Li Hanyi began with her most charming smile. ¡°It had occurred to this one¡¯s betters that this one would be better suited to ensuring that the health of Honored Customer was not being threatened by whatever is killing the youths of Xiaolian.¡±


    When in doubt: fall back on being a doctor.


    ***


    A full physical in her first life involved an awful lot of nudity, poking, and methodical prodding. On top of that, there was always the dreaded combination of blood work and urinalysis. But this was ancient fantasy China. People didn¡¯t just pee in cups to figure out if they had some protein imbalance or whatever.


    Everything could be figured out by examining someone¡¯s qi.


    Li Hanyi wished she was kidding about that. But no, as an experienced Qian Cao disciple, she had learned how to diagnose all manner of ills and conditions by simply touching a patient¡¯s meridians and running her own qi through. That didn¡¯t mean that she wanted to touch the mayor. Nope, not with how greedy and gross he was as he looked at her. No thanks.


    Instead, she draped a thin handkerchief over his wrist before she pressed her fingertips to his skin. The gauzy silk would keep her from having to touch him directly and made him feel oh so important. Like an emperor or some high-born lord instead of some random town¡¯s mayor. Li Hanyi wasn¡¯t about to tell him otherwise and ruin the entire distraction.


    Because that¡¯s all this was: a distraction.


    There were things medically wrong with the mayor that Li Hanyi did not need to touch his qi to know. Chiefly, the most glaringly obvious, the mayor was overeating. Now, Li Hanyi did not begrudge anyone a snack and a good meal. Far from it, in fact. Good food made people happy.


    But the mayor was taking that to an extreme.


    His town was on the brink of collapse, people dying, and parts already falling to ruin from neglect. Rumors were already spreading about ghosts in the streets and monsters in the woods, causing potential visitors to stay far away. And yet, here the mayor was, living it up like a lord.


    He was overweight, sedentary, over-heating in his brocade robes, and probably drinking more wine than water. His cholesterol was probably sky-high, liver fatty and burdened with cirrhosis, and his heart was probably working overtime to keep the paranoid man going.


    But Liu Feng needed a distraction, so a distraction he would get.


    This man was going to be in the peak of health by the time she was done with this examination and treatment. She wouldn¡¯t even need her needles to do it. Li Hanyi would never tell Liu Feng, but she could still accurately hit a pressure point with nothing more than two fingers and her own spiritual power.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    She pressed two fingers to the mayor¡¯s upturned wrist with a professional smile. ¡°Please, allow me to examine you, Honored Customer.¡± Flattery would get her everywhere when it came to a vain man and the mayor was no exception.


    His wives tittered amongst themselves about how sweet and professional the young man was. Such a shame he wore a mask over half of his face. The young cultivator would have his pick of women when he grew up otherwise. One of them boldly declared that the mask just added an air of mystery and she wouldn¡¯t mind, only to be quickly shushed by her elders.


    What did the mayor of a dying town even need with three wives?


    He puffed up his chest, proud as a peacock, and the mayor couldn¡¯t hide his pleased smile. It was rare for a medical cultivator to examine a normal mortal. Usually, they only did so for the obscenely rich and incredibly destitute. And yet, here Li Hanyi was, offering to do a full physical on the mayor for free. He¡¯d be a fool to decline.


    Li Hanyi closed her eyes, ignoring the man and his wives in favor of concentrating on the flow of qi within the man¡¯s body. She kept her face carefully blank to keep from laughing at how very right she had been. The hard part was going to be phrasing the diagnosis and subsequent treatment in a way that suited the ancient fantasy Chinese sensibilities. She had to remember to be¡­ poetic.


    ¡°Hm. Have you been experiencing difficulties with chill?¡± Li Hanyi removed her fingers and the handkerchief with another carefully bland smile. She folded her hands in her lap, graceful as any cultivator should be. ¡°Your energies are stagnated and riddled with damp. It¡¯s a good thing my shixiong sent me back.¡±


    His wives, dramatic little things they all were, gasped and tittered at the diagnosis. But the mayor? He looked terrified. ¡°What do I do, honored cultivator?¡±


    It wasn¡¯t as if the man was going to die right that very moment. Not from an ailment so common that every little old grandmother had an herbal blend on hand to deal with it. In her first life, it even came pre-packaged in the grocery store.


    Li Hanyi closed her eyes and prayed to the cosmos for patience. When she opened them again, she was all professional. ¡°Honored sir, the cure for what ails you is simple and complex at the same time. If you ignore my advice, this will kill you slowly but surely.¡±


    His wives began to wail and Li Hanyi held up her hand for silence. ¡°Your spirit is plagued by greedy demons. Would that I could banish them for you, but this is a battle you must fight within yourself. I can only guide you along the way.¡± That was poetic enough for her role as a mystical healer, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Whatever it takes, honored cultivator!¡± His jowls wobbled as he blubbered, pitiful and pathetic to the last.


    Li Hanyi smiled thinly. ¡°Very well. Remember this well, honored sir, for without it you will perish before your time.¡± She felt like she was pretending to be a sideshow performer, masking the truth behind ominous prophecies. ¡°As your qi has stagnated, you must teach it to move once more. Slowly and carefully, you must guide the flow. Start small, walk in the sunshine-filled garden with your most beloved.¡±


    The wives sounded delighted by this part of the treatment plan.


    ¡°The food you eat must be carefully managed. Avoid heavy, fried foods and meats.¡± Li Hanyi could and would give this man a treatment plan that would turn him into a monk. No meat, alcohol, fried foods, or anything fattening. Daily walks in his garden with his wives. Diet, exercise, and human interaction. All the parts needed for a healthy and happy life. In theory, anyway.


    She could keep going for a very long time.


    And she did.


    ***


    Li Hanyi tucked her hands in her sleeves and waited at the entrance to the mayor¡¯s house. The mayor and his wives were holed up in their bedroom, terrified out of their minds of the impending cholesterol-driven deaths their lifestyles would lead to if they didn¡¯t change the errors of their ways.


    The ancient fantasy Chinese commoner was not prepared for the concept of clogged arteries and livers wasting away thanks to a diet of wine and fried pig feet.


    Liu Feng blinked at her as she stood there, placid as a frozen lake. He hummed once and strode across the paving stones toward her. ¡°Li Hanyi. I told you not to knock anyone unconscious.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t,¡± she snapped back at him with a frown. ¡°The mayor and his wives are currently experiencing the absolute horror of how human bodies function.¡± The uneducated never did well when introduced to the full possibilities of how the human body could and would fall apart at the tiniest inconvenience.


    His eyebrow quirked up and Liu Feng snorted. ¡°Somehow, with you, I get this feeling that is just as bad.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Harming innocents isn¡¯t what Cang Qiong stands for.¡±


    ¡°A little mental scarring will do them good, honestly.¡± Li Hanyi pulled her hand out of her sleeve to flap it at him. ¡°A lifestyle like that is bound to kill them. And now they know exactly what it does to their bodies. In sordid, graphic, detail.¡± The only thing Li Hanyi hadn¡¯t done was give them a mandatory Powerpoint presentation complete with illustrated slides.


    Liu Feng frowned all the harder. ¡°Be that as it may, Li Hanyi, you didn¡¯t need to go that far just to distract them from whatever nefarious plot they had going in this town. Tea would have sufficed.¡±


    She grimaced. ¡°You need to stop associating with shizun,¡± she muttered under her breath. Li Hanyi cleared her throat noisily before speaking up. ¡°Look, I did what you asked. You don¡¯t get to be picky about the method after the fact. Now, did you do your part or do I need to go back in and start talking about venereal diseases?¡±


    The look on his face could only be described as determined yet baffled disgust. ¡°Why is that your solution to needing an additional distraction? No. Nevermind that, I don¡¯t really want to know.¡± Liu Feng shook his head as if to clear even the ghost of such a thought from his mind. ¡°Look, here is the cause of all the monsters in the woods.¡±


    He held out his hand, palm outstretched, and Li Hanyi squinted as she stared at the broken mess of paper slips and blood-stained porcelain. ¡°Someone put a lure in a tree.¡± His nose wrinkled in disgust at the very thought. ¡°So now we need to find out who.¡±


    She reached out to take a shard of the porcelain between two fingers, turning it this way and that in the firelight. Something about the pattern looked familiar. ¡°Was this¡­ a teapot?¡± The curves of the remaining porcelain looked as if they belonged to a squat little teapot, one that probably had a matching set somewhere. Li Hanyi tilted the piece to squint at the bloody writing on the outside.


    Liu Feng snorted derisively. ¡°Was. It¡¯s not anymore. It was stuffed with monster bait and I had to burn it to stop the lure.¡± He closed his had and tucked it back into his sleeve. ¡°Your part in this is done.¡±


    The ever so helpful System window that popped up at his claim said otherwise.


    [Sidequest ¡°The Ghost of Xiaolian¡± has now reached the final stage. Complete the goal to finish the quest and unlock the advanced weapon skill ¡°???¡±.]


    Li Hanyi sighed. ¡°You mean your part in this is done. Mine¡¯s just begun.¡± She tucked the shard into her sleeve before turning on her heel to head back inside. ¡°Monsters in the woods, a teapot as a lure, the youth of Xiaolian dying¡­ and through it all, the mayor and his wives are thriving.¡±


    She grinned back over her shoulder at Liu Feng. ¡°You didn¡¯t think I would just let that go, did you?¡±


    He clicked his tongue at her. ¡°You really can¡¯t just let it go, can you?¡± And yet, somehow, he managed to sound both proud and amused at her declaration. ¡°Li Hanyi, you already figured out who set the lure, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t the faintest idea, actually. But I bet I know someone who does,¡± she replied smugly. ¡°Come on, Liu Feng. This will be entertaining at the very least.¡±