My Brother Wants My Dao Companion? Off to Martial Uncle He Goes!
Three days after joining the sect, Junior Brother Bai Chuyan knelt in the middle of the main hall.
“Honored Master, this Disciple dares to ask. I wish to ask Senior Sister Qingluo to dual-cultivate with me.”
The hall erupted.
Shen Qingluo is my Dao Companion, the greatest beauty in the Tianxuan Sect. And this brat opens his mouth and asks to dual-cultivate with my Dao Companion.
None of the female disciples thought it was out of line. Instead they backed him up, one after another.
“Basic dual cultivation doesn’t need any physical contact. It’s only spiritual qi blending. Surely Senior Brother isn’t so small-minded?”
“Exactly! Junior Brother just wants to get better at cultivating. There’s nothing else on his mind.”
“Senior Brother, look, Junior Brother is already on his knees. Just say yes!”
Qingluo’s eyes were full of affection. She tugged at my sleeve.
“Husband, Chuyan is the boy who lived next door to me in the Mortal World. He only wants to improve… If I don’t help him, who will?”
Chuyan knelt there, chin lifted a little, and gave me a look of wide-eyed helplessness.
On the high seat, the Honored Master thought it over. From me to Bai Chuyan his gaze went back and forth, and his tone was mild but left no room for argument:
“Basic dual cultivation is a common thing in the sect. Qingluo and Chuyan have known each other since they were small, so it is only right that she lend him a hand.”
I smiled.
“Of course. Junior Brother wants to improve. How could I not support that?”
1
Chuyan was overjoyed. A flush of triumph crossed his face, and he couldn’t keep it down.
Nor had the other disciples expected me to agree so readily. Surprised looks came at me from all sides.
Qingluo was the one who turned embarrassed. She said quietly, “Husband, thank you…”
I waved a hand and turned to Bai Chuyan.
“Only, basic dual cultivation needs rich spiritual qi. The sect’s Cave Residences are cramped. Not a good place for it.”
“There’s an empty Cave Residence at the back mountain of Cuiping Peak, right against the main branch of the spirit vein. The spiritual qi there is three times as dense as the sect’s.”
“Move in first. Tonight Qingluo will come over and dual-cultivate with you.”
Chuyan’s eyes lit up.
Cuiping Peak is where the Tianxuan Sect’s spiritual qi runs richest. Ordinary disciples don’t even have the right to go near it.
Envy took the female disciples on the spot.
“Cuiping Peak?! I’ve been in the sect five years and never once got to go!”
“Senior Brother is far too good to Junior Brother.”
“Junior Brother has all the luck. Dual cultivation and Cuiping Peak both…”
Bai Chuyan cupped his hands to me, respectful in tone, humble in bearing.
“Thank you, Senior Brother.”
But the moment he turned away, the curve of his mouth gave him away completely.
Back at our Cave Residence, I turned to Shen Qingluo with a perfectly straight face.
“Qingluo, I studied Chuyan’s Bone Structure just now. His talent is much higher than I expected.”
Shen Qingluo brightened. “Really?”
I frowned. “But his constitution is unusual. If he dual-cultivates with you, not only will the effect be limited, in the long run it will clog his Meridians. The more he cultivates, the more ruined he becomes.”
Shen Qingluo panicked. “Then what do we do?”
“We need someone far above him in Cultivation Base to guide him.” I paused. “Martial Uncle Pei Yuan. He’s the best fit.”
Shen Qingluo hesitated.
“Martial Uncle’s cultivation is certainly very high, but he’s an odd one. In hundreds of years he has never taken a disciple. If I go and ask him, I’m afraid I’ll only be turned away…”
I laughed to myself.
You don’t know that old bastard’s weakness.
Put Bai Chuyan’s face in front of him and there’d be no need to ask at all. He would come over on his own.
Out loud I only sighed. “It won’t be easy. But for Chuyan’s sake, I’ll try.”
Qingluo was so moved her eyes went red. She gripped my hand. “Husband, you really are too good to Chuyan.”
I patted her hand and set off for Cuiping Peak.
Pei Yuan’s Cave Residence is locked down tight with Restrictions all year round. Any outsider who steps inside triggers the Formation.
I come and go as I please.
Three hundred years ago I ran into him in a Secret Realm. We fought to a standstill, and when it was over we looked each other over—and each of us decided the other was interesting.
Only later did I learn that both of us were far above the Honored Master in cultivation, and both of us were holed up in the Tianxuan Sect keeping our heads down.
One thing led to another, and we became close friends.
When I walked in, Pei Yuan was brewing tea.
I didn’t stand on ceremony. I sat, drank a cup, then took out an image jade slip and cast Bai Chuyan’s image into the air.
The image showed Bai Chuyan in the plain white Daoist robe of a new disciple, and his features were handsome to an unreasonable degree.
Honestly, put every female disciple of this generation in the Tianxuan Sect together and not one of them could match him for looks.
And he seemed entirely unaware of it. His eyes looked straight ahead, clean and clear. Pure. Innocent.
Holding his teacup, Pei Yuan let his gaze sweep across the image. He looked. Then he looked again.
“Whose disciple is this?”
“A Junior Brother who joined the sect only days ago. Bai Chuyan. Seventeen.” I watched him, half smiling. “What does Martial Uncle think of that face?”
He didn’t answer me. He asked instead, “Which peak did he get assigned to?”
“Cuiping Peak. Right next to yours.”
“This Venerable One has never cared for others disturbing his quiet cultivation.”
“Should I have him moved?”
“No….. This Venerable One can put up with it.”
“All right.” I folded the image away. “Here’s the thing—today this brat knelt down in the main hall in front of everyone and begged Qingluo to dual-cultivate with him. He had given his word, so I had to agree.”
“Someone so brazen actually exists?! You want This Venerable One to teach him a lesson for you?”
“Yes. No one understands dual cultivation better than Martial Uncle. I want to ask Martial Uncle to Take Human Form as Shen Qingluo and go in her place.”
“This boy doesn’t know his place. If he isn’t put in it now, he will only grow worse later.”
“Martial Uncle is right.”
“This Venerable One does it for the peace of the sect.”
“Of course. Of course.”
“It has nothing to do with the boy himself.”
“Naturally. Naturally.”
I rose, smiling. “Then I won’t keep Martial Uncle from his preparations.”
Out of Cuiping Peak, passing Bai Chuyan’s new Cave Residence, I slowed my steps, pinched a tiny spirit talisman between my fingers, and flicked it into a gap in the Residence’s Restrictions.
An Insight Talisman. Within a hundred zhang, every movement shows clear down to the finest hair.
2
Back at the Cave Residence, Shen Qingluo was still waiting for me.
“Well? Did Martial Uncle agree?”
I let the exhaustion show on my face and dropped into a chair.
“It took some doing. I wore at him for the better part of half a shichen. You know what Martial Uncle’s temper is like.”
“But once he looked at Chuyan’s aptitude, he finally gave in. He agreed to guide his cultivation himself.”
Qingluo was delighted. “Really? Then Chuyan will improve even faster from now on?”
“Faster hardly covers it. Martial Uncle’s Cultivation Base is far above the Honored Master’s. With him guiding him, there’s no ceiling on what Chuyan can become.”
Shen Qingluo’s eyes went pink with feeling. She gripped my hand.
“Husband, you are so good to Chuyan… running yourself ragged for him.”
“Then thank me properly tonight.”
Her face went red all at once. She made a sound of disgust and turned toward the inner room.
Two steps in, she looked back, her voice no louder than a mosquito.
“Then… come in soon.”
That night we dual-cultivated, and both of us made a small Breakthrough into a new Realm. Shen Qingluo glowed. Something new had come into her eyes, a ripeness I couldn’t put a name to.
The same hour. Cuiping Peak. Bai Chuyan’s Cave Residence.
Bai Chuyan bathed and changed, lit a burner of good incense, and sat straight and proper, cross-legged on a meditation cushion.
He was waiting for his Sister Qingluo.
The door opened.
In the moonlight a white dress drifted in. Features like a painting, a figure all grace. Every glance, every smile, was Shen Qingluo’s.
Bai Chuyan’s heart kicked hard. The tips of his ears went pink.
“Sister Qingluo…”
“Sit still.”
They sat cross-legged, facing each other. Their spiritual qi began to blend. The basic dual cultivation began.
Bai Chuyan felt a body of spiritual qi pour into his Meridians, so deep and dense it made no sense. Wherever it passed, his Bottlenecks shattered inch by inch.
That Cultivation Base of his shot up like a rocket, straight from the third Layer of Qi Refining to the fifth.
He was wild with joy inside—so it was true, dual cultivating with Sister Qingluo really was something else.
When it ended, Bai Chuyan opened his eyes with an excitement he couldn’t hold back.
“Sister Qingluo, did you feel it? Our spiritual qi fit together perfectly.”
“Mn.”
“Sister Qingluo” didn’t get up at once. She tilted her head a little and looked Bai Chuyan over.
“The spiritual qi at your shoulders and back is a little blocked.”
Bai Chuyan froze. “Ah?”
“Take off your outer robe. Let me… look.”
Bai Chuyan blinked.
He wasn’t sure he’d heard right, but “Sister Qingluo”’s face was as calm as ever. She looked like she meant cultivation and nothing but.
He undid the robe obediently. Moonlight came through the lattice window of the Cave Residence and fell across him.
“Sister Qingluo, why are you…” He glanced at “her” mouth, and his tone turned a little strange. “Drooling?”
“Sister Qingluo” wiped the corner of her mouth.
“Watching the run of your Meridians.”
“Finished watching, then?”
“…Finished. Put it back on.”
Bai Chuyan pulled the robe back over his shoulders as he was told, and a sweetness rose in him he had no words for.
Sister Qingluo had stared at him for that long. She was obviously shy. She said she was looking at the run of his Meridians, but who looks at Meridians for that long?
He dropped his voice on purpose, with all the smugness of a young man who knows.
“Sister Qingluo, what is there on me worth looking at?”
“The layout of your Meridians is unusual.”
Bai Chuyan smiled.
“I knew it. You and I are the ones who belong together. Senior Brother’s aptitude is ordinary. Staying with him will only hold you back. Better if you come with—”
“…It’s getting late.”
“Sister Qingluo” didn’t answer him. She rose and turned to go.
Bai Chuyan froze, then reached out in a hurry to catch her sleeve.
His fingertips had barely touched the hem when “she” was already out the door.
Bai Chuyan pulled his hand back and stared at the doorway, sweet and itchy all at once inside.
Sister Qingluo was cold with her words, but she had come to dual-cultivate with him tonight. That meant she still had a place for him.
Give him time, and he would take her away from Senior Brother.
And inside the Insight Talisman, that whole scene had played out in my Divine Sense down to the last detail.
“Our spiritual qi fit together perfectly.”
“The ones who belong together.”
“Senior Brother’s aptitude is ordinary.”
And then there was Martial Uncle’s little performance reading his Meridians.
I nearly laughed myself a set of abs.
3
The next day. Morning assembly.
Bai Chuyan walked into the drill grounds bright as a new coin, wind in his step.
Two Layers in a single night. Even the Honored Master gave him a second look.
“Bai Chuyan. Not bad. Remarkable progress.”
The girls marveled, one after another.
“Heavens, two Layers in one night?”
“Junior Brother really is a genius!”
Bai Chuyan said modest things. His eyes and the corners of his brows were nothing but pride.
He walked up to Shen Qingluo and bowed, correct and proper.
“Thank you, Sister Qingluo.”
Shen Qingluo shook her head, smiling. “What are you thanking me for? Thank your Senior Brother.”
Bai Chuyan froze.
He took her to mean the arranging of the dual cultivation, and curled his lip to himself—when it came down to it, hadn’t Sister Qingluo come in person to cultivate with him? Senior Brother had only gone along with the current. What was there to thank him for?
He said, and put poison in it: “Senior Brother is certainly generous. And Sister Qingluo made quite a lot of progress last night too, didn’t she?”
Shen Qingluo thought he meant what she and I had done the night before. Her cheeks went scarlet and she shot me a look.
“You… how could you tell Chuyan everything?”
My face was a picture of innocence.
Chuyan was completely lost.
Three people, three different things. Each of them certain the others were talking about the same one.
I stood to one side and nearly gave myself internal injuries holding it in.
Just then the drill grounds went quiet.
Every disciple stepped aside to open a path.
Martial Uncle had come.
He wore a black Daoist robe. His face was cold jade, his steps unhurried, and the air around him carried weight, and nothing in it was angry.
Everyone in the Tianxuan Sect knew it: this Martial Uncle lived year-round in seclusion on Cuiping Peak and never took part in sect business. The last time he had appeared before the whole sect was three years ago.
Now he had turned up without warning, and everyone held their breath.
His gaze swept the grounds and came to rest on Bai Chuyan.
He walked up to him, looked him over from head to foot, and said in a flat voice:
“The Bone Structure is good.”
Chuyan was overwhelmed. He was about to bow when Pei Yuan had already turned to the Honored Master.
“This boy’s gift is out of the ordinary. This Venerable One intends to take him as his final disciple.”
The whole grounds erupted.
He had never taken a disciple in hundreds of years. Everyone knew that.
The girls went red with envy.
She was happy for him too. She gave him a push. “Chuyan, thank Martial Uncle, quickly! This is the chance of a lifetime!”
Bai Chuyan put on a face of reluctant pride and glowed inside. It stood to reason, after all: his talent was so high it had stirred even a Martial Uncle who lived in seclusion.
He dropped to his knees and knocked his head three times. “This Disciple, Bai Chuyan, greets Martial Uncle!”
He nodded, his face empty. “Get up.”
Shen Qingluo said to Bai Chuyan, “Chuyan, you have to thank your Senior Brother properly. If he hadn’t gone and asked Martial Uncle—”
I cut in at once. “It has nothing to do with me. Martial Uncle saw something in Chuyan’s talent. I don’t have that much pull.”
Chuyan curled his lip. Clearly he thought the same.
While Shen Qingluo wasn’t looking, I sent Pei Yuan a Voice Transmission.
“Martial Uncle, aren’t you moving fast? The boy has been here a few days and you’ve already taken him on.”
He answered without a change of expression.
“This Venerable One has always acted decisively.”
“Decisive is one word for it. You put your hands on him the first day.”
No answer came back.
4
In the days that followed, Bai Chuyan’s Cultivation Base shot up as if someone had switched on a cheat.
Every night “Shen Qingluo” arrived on time. The two of them sat cross-legged and cultivated together, and Bai Chuyan’s Cultivation Base climbed without stopping.
The sixth Layer of Qi Refining. The seventh. The eighth.
In a handful of days he had his hand on the threshold of the peak of Qi Refining.
The whole Tianxuan Sect was talking about this monstrous new disciple.
Bai Chuyan’s nerve grew along with it.
Every night, when the session ended, he found some way to make “her” stay a little longer.
But each time, “Shen Qingluo” only used the opening to feel this and check that, and then stopped. She never stayed.
It fanned the fire in Bai Chuyan’s chest until it burned higher every night.
On the ninth night, he couldn’t hold himself back any longer.
Before the session, he took a stick of Spirit-Melting Incense he had dug up in the Black Market and hid it in the incense burner.
The incense hurts no one and bewitches no one. All it does is make whoever breathes it grow attached to the person closest to them.
His thinking was simple: once the incense burned, Shen Qingluo would open her heart to him and stop holding herself back.
The session began. Their spiritual qi blended.
The Spirit-Melting Incense spread through the room without a sound.
Pei Yuan really had been careless.
All his attention was on guiding the spiritual qi. It never crossed his mind that his own disciple would tamper with the incense burner.
On a Spirit Severing cultivator, the Spirit-Melting Incense barely registers. But Pei Yuan had most of his Spiritual Energy sunk into holding the transformation and the dual cultivation together, and his defenses were close to nothing.
“Sister Qingluo” went limp all at once and pitched forward, falling straight into Bai Chuyan’s arms.
Bai Chuyan’s head rang.
With great care he lifted his hands, meaning to steady “her” shoulders.
And fumbled.
One hand did land on her shoulder. The other slid down an inch further. He had meant to support “her” waist, and it kept going to somewhere it had no business being.
What his fingertips touched nailed him to the spot as if by a body-fixing spell.
Wrong.
Very wrong.
Bai Chuyan’s mind went blank for a full three seconds.
His hand jerked back as if it had been burned. He threw himself three steps away and hit the stone wall with his back.
“You… you…”
His lips were trembling. His pupils shrank hard. The look that had been nothing but affection a moment ago shattered completely, and what took its place was a fear that went into the marrow, and collapse.
“Who are you?!”
The face in front of him began to change.
The soft features faded inch by inch, and in their place came a hard, cold face with sharp edges.
The white dress became a black Daoist robe.
Pei Yuan sat where he was, expressionless, and flexed the wrist he had sealed.
The incense had burned itself out. His Spiritual Energy was back to what it had been.
“It’s… Martial Uncle?”
Bai Chuyan’s voice was shaking.
“These past days… the one dual-cultivating with me… it was you the whole time?”
Pei Yuan didn’t answer. He only said:
“Your Cultivation Base went from the third Layer of Qi Refining to the peak in nine days. Good result. We continue next time.”
Bai Chuyan looked like he had been struck by lightning. His head rang.
Nine days.
Nine days of “Sister Qingluo.”
Nine days of everything he had said to Pei Yuan.
Fated.
Made for each other.
Senior Brother doesn’t deserve you.
His stomach turned over.
“No… this can’t be…”
His eyes went down to Bai Chuyan, his tone flat as always.
“Why panic. Male with female or male with male, what you cultivate is the Dao, not the person.”
“I was your Master all along.”
He paused.
“From now on we skip a step. No need to transform.”
Bai Chuyan scrambled backward on hands and heels until he was wedged into a corner.
“No! Martial Uncle, stay away from me!!”
He made no move to follow. Pei Yuan stayed where he was, frowning a little.
“Do you find This Venerable One ugly?”
Chuyan was close to tears.
As if that were the question.
Every sweet memory of those nine days had broken into pieces.
All of it came into my senses through the Insight Talisman, clear down to the last detail.
I had just finished cultivating with Shen Qingluo. I was propped against the bedhead and nearly choked laughing.
5
The next day. The main hall.
Bai Chuyan knelt before the Honored Master in front of everyone, tears in his voice.
“Honored Master! This Disciple has a charge to bring, against Martial Uncle Pei Yuan!”
The hall erupted.
Charge a Martial Uncle? No one had ever done such a thing since the Tianxuan Sect was founded.
He frowned. “On what matter?”
Bai Chuyan ground his teeth. Every word came out bleeding.
“Martial Uncle he… he disguised himself as Senior Sister Qingluo and dual-cultivated with this Disciple for nine days straight!”
“He deceived this Disciple!”
“He was plainly making sport of this Disciple!”
The hall went dead silent.
Then whispering started up on all sides.
His face was complicated. He thought it over before speaking.
“Bai Chuyan. When you joined the sect you were at the third Layer of Qi Refining. Now you stand at the peak. Six Layers in nine days. That speed is a record for the Tianxuan Sect in a hundred years.”
“You say Martial Uncle bullied you. But your Cultivation Base went up, solidly and truly. Do you call that bullying?”
Bai Chuyan choked. Then he turned and pointed at me.
“It was all Senior Brother’s plot! He was the one who sent Martial Uncle! He deceived me from beginning to end!”
Every eye turned to me.
Shen Qingluo turned too, her eyes full of confusion.
“Husband, is it true?”
I stepped forward with an open face.
“It’s true that I asked Martial Uncle. Chuyan’s constitution is unusual. Dual cultivation with Qingluo alone would do little for him, and would eat into his Foundation Depth instead.”
“Martial Uncle’s cultivation reaches the heavens. He used a transformation to take Qingluo’s shape because Chuyan knows Qingluo well. A relaxed State of Mind lets the spiritual qi blend more smoothly.”
“All of it was for Chuyan’s good. It took real work to get Martial Uncle to agree.”
Shen Qingluo didn’t get angry. She looked moved instead.
“So that’s how it was… Husband, you thought of everything.”
Bai Chuyan shook with rage. “You—”
I cut him off, and my tone turned serious.
“There is one thing I am curious about, though.”
One word at a time, I spoke to Bai Chuyan.
“Basic dual cultivation needs no physical contact.”
“Martial Uncle’s transformation is flawless. Face, voice, breath, not one crack in it.”
“Bai Chuyan. How did you work out that the other person was Martial Uncle?”
The hall went quiet.
The color drained out of Bai Chuyan’s face.
The other disciples caught on and started muttering to each other.
“Right. How could Martial Uncle’s transformation show a crack?”
“Transformation can’t change… one part of you.”
“What part can’t it—oh.”
“…”
“Understood.”
A stifled laugh ran through the main hall.
Chuyan’s face went red, then white.
He couldn’t say he had dosed them with the melting incense.
Even less could he say what he had touched.
His gaze sharpened.
“Bai Chuyan. This Venerable One would also like to know. How exactly did you find out?”
Bai Chuyan opened his mouth. Not a word came out.
I took a step forward. My voice wasn’t loud, but the whole hall heard it clearly.
“Could it be that he lusted after my Dao Companion?”
Bai Chuyan began to shake all over.
Qingluo’s face changed too. Something in her eyes went from heartache to coldness when she looked at him.
“Chuyan, you…”
“I didn’t!” Bai Chuyan panicked. “I never did anything to Sister Qingluo—no, that wasn’t Sister Qingluo—I mean—”
The more he tried to explain, the worse it got. Tears started falling.
Just as the scene was about to spin completely out of control,
a cold voice came from outside the hall doors.
“No.”
He walked into the main hall at an unhurried pace, his robes stirring, his presence steady.
Everyone stepped aside to open a path without being asked.
He glanced at Bai Chuyan kneeling there in a miserable state and said without a change of expression:
“This Venerable One was careless in his transformation and showed a crack. It has nothing to do with him.”
Bai Chuyan’s head snapped up. He stared at Pei Yuan, blank.
He was getting him out of this?
Pei Yuan didn’t look at him. He inclined his head to the Honored Master.
“This matter began with This Venerable One. This Venerable One will handle it.”
He turned to Bai Chuyan, in a tone that allowed no argument.
“Come back to Cuiping Peak with This Venerable One.”
He was still on his knees, mouth open, his mind unable to catch up.
Pei Yuan looked down at him and added:
“No need to transform from now on. Saves trouble.”
Bai Chuyan’s pupils went through an earthquake.
“No… there’s no need, Martial Uncle. This Disciple thinks he can cultivate on his own just fine, or—”
“That was not a request.”
Pei Yuan held out a hand.
Bai Chuyan stared at the hand, shaking all over.
Several hundred pairs of eyes in the hall were on him.
He had no way out.
Bai Chuyan shut his eyes and put his hand in it, in despair.
Pei Yuan pulled him up, an arm around his shoulders, and walked him out of the hall.
Bai Chuyan went along with the arm around him, stumbling, tears running down his face without a sound.
As he passed me, he used what strength he had left to glare at me, hard.
I watched him go with a smile.
Qingluo stood beside me, watching Martial Uncle’s back and Bai Chuyan’s back until they vanished in the direction of Cuiping Peak.
She was quiet a long time before she spoke.
“Husband.”
“Yes?”
“With Chuyan… did he really find out because Martial Uncle botched the transformation?”
“Martial Uncle said himself that it was his mistake.”
“But Martial Uncle’s transformation has never once slipped in hundreds of years…”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Shen Qingluo looked at me, her gaze complicated.
“Husband, tell me honestly. Is it really true about Chuyan…”
I put an arm around her shoulders and cut the subject off.
“Let’s go. Don’t think about it. Martial Uncle will teach him properly.”
Shen Qingluo bit her lip and let it go.
Only, as she left, she muttered something under her breath.
“Keep Chuyan away from me from now on.”
6
Bai Chuyan stayed on Cuiping Peak for half a month.
When he came back out, his Cultivation Base had made the Breakthrough from the peak of Qi Refining into the Early Stage of Foundation Establishment.
Foundation Establishment in half a month. In any Sect, that speed would be appalling.
But the price was there for anyone to see.
His eyes had grown more complicated than before. The venom was still in them, but something had been added, something you couldn’t put a name to. Like a wild cat kept too long in a cage, hating the cage and unable to walk away from the bowl of food inside it.
He still gave me no friendly looks.
Bai Chuyan kept quiet for a stretch of days.
But a green tea’s nature doesn’t change just because he has taken a few losses.
He was only waiting for a better opening.
He learned Thousand-Li Voice Transmission, a high-grade Cultivation Technique with no limit on distance. It drops your Divine Sense straight into the other person’s mind. Nothing about it is anything but private.
The first thing Bai Chuyan did once he had the technique unlocked was send a Voice Transmission to Shen Qingluo.
Late that night.
The two of us were cultivating together in our Cave Residence, our spiritual qi blending, right at the critical moment.
Shen Qingluo’s Divine Sense gave a sudden ripple.
Her brows drew together. The rhythm of the session broke.
“What is it?” I opened my eyes.
Her face was anxious.
“Chuyan sent a transmission. He says he… he’s run into trouble with his cultivation.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He says when he made his Breakthrough to Foundation Establishment, his spiritual qi ran backward and his Meridians went out of order. He needs… he needs advanced dual cultivation with a female cultivator to settle it.”
She bit her lip. Her voice dropped lower and lower.
“That means… the kind that needs physical contact.”
I said nothing and let her finish.
Shen Qingluo hesitated, then added one more thing.
“He said… if Sister Qingluo can’t, then forget it. At worst his Meridians snap inch by inch and his cultivation is finished. He can spare this life. He doesn’t want to be a trouble to Sister Qingluo.”
Oh, that’s rich.
Doesn’t want to be a trouble, so he sends a transmission in the middle of the night to interrupt other people’s cultivation.
Doesn’t want to put pressure on anyone, so the first thing out of his mouth is that his life is nothing.
Textbook green tea. Straight out of the manual.
Shen Qingluo fell for it, of course. She was close to tears with worry.
“Husband, could Chuyan really be in danger? He only just broke through. An Unstable Foundation can send things wrong, and his Foundation Depth is only days old…”
Her eyes came to me, all pleading.
“Why don’t I… go over and see? Just to steady his Meridians. Nothing else…”
I took her hand. My tone was calm.
“Qingluo, don’t rush.”
“I have the shape of Chuyan’s situation now. Spiritual qi running backward is no small thing. But precisely because it’s no small thing, you going there won’t help.”
Shen Qingluo froze. “Why not?”
“You stand at the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment, and so does he. Your Spiritual Energy simply can’t hold down Meridians in that kind of disorder. Force the advanced dual cultivation and you won’t save him. You’ll be the one who gets burned.”
The color went out of Shen Qingluo’s face.
“Then… then what do we do?”
“Martial Uncle.”
“But Martial Uncle is in Closed-Door Cultivation—”
“Chuyan is his final disciple. For something like Meridians snapping and a cultivation in ruins, Martial Uncle would come out even if he were crossing a Heavenly Tribulation.”
I shut my eyes, moved my Divine Sense, and sent a Voice Transmission straight to Cuiping Peak.
“Martial Uncle, that precious disciple of yours is acting up again. Says his spiritual qi is running backward and his Meridians are scrambled, and he wants advanced dual cultivation with a female cultivator.”
Pei Yuan’s reply came back almost at once.
“Advanced dual cultivation? Physical contact?”
“Yes. He sent it to Qingluo in the dead of night, and the weeping was something to hear.”
Silence, for one breath.
“This Venerable One is on his way.”
I added: “He doesn’t know you’re coming. He thinks it’s Qingluo.”
“This Venerable One understands.”
Silence again, for one breath.
“He really said his Meridians were about to snap?”
“His exact words were ’this life is nothing.’”
“His Meridians are in perfect order. This Venerable One cleared them for him yesterday.”
I nearly laughed out loud.
“Then Martial Uncle is still going?”
“Of course he is going. Did the boy not ask for advanced dual cultivation?”
“This Venerable One will grant it to him.”
7
Cuiping Peak. Bai Chuyan’s Cave Residence.
He lay on the bed with his collar half open, his face flushed, his breathing quick.
He was putting everything into the performance.
Brows locked together, fine beads of sweat on his forehead, and every so often a muffled groan of pain.
Inside, he was glowing as he worked it all out: Sister Qingluo is soft-hearted, she will come. And this time it’s advanced dual cultivation, which means physical contact. Skin against skin, spiritual qi blending…
Just thinking about it made his heart beat faster.
The door opened.
In the moonlight, a figure walked in.
Bai Chuyan didn’t open his eyes. He went on performing, his voice weak to the last degree.
“Sister Qingluo… you came… I’m sorry, Chuyan shouldn’t have troubled you…”
“It’s my fault, but it really hurts… my Meridians feel like they’re about to snap…”
“Sister Qingluo, could you… come a little closer…”
A shaking hand reached out.
A hand closed around it.
Warm. Strong. But—
The knuckles were sharp.
The palm was rough.
The grip was too strong for a woman.
His eyes snapped open.
Pei Yuan sat on the edge of the bed, expressionless, holding his wrist and reading his pulse.
“Meridians intact. Spiritual Energy running smooth. Not a sign of anything moving backward.”
His eyes came up, and he looked at him.
“Chuyan, your acting needs work. A man whose spiritual qi really is running backward does not stop to arrange his hair.”
Bai Chuyan’s hair had indeed been carefully arranged. A few loose strands fell just so across his forehead, framing him to draw pity.
Now all that carefully built pity was a joke.
“Mar… Martial Uncle? Why are you here? Aren’t you in closed-door cultivation? Where is Sister Qingluo?”
“She can’t come. The two of you are close in cultivation. Advanced dual cultivation would backlash on you. No one is more suited than This Venerable One.”
Pei Yuan let go of his wrist. His tone was flat.
“Did you not ask for advanced dual cultivation? This Venerable One has come in person.”
“Or perhaps your Meridians stopped hurting all of a sudden?”
Bai Chuyan nodded wildly.
“It doesn’t hurt! Not one bit! It stopped a moment ago! Martial Uncle, you don’t need to—”
“It doesn’t hurt?” Pei Yuan raised an eyebrow. “A moment ago you were ready to throw your life away. This Venerable One comes out of closed-door cultivation in the middle of the night, and you tell him it doesn’t hurt?”
Bai Chuyan’s face went white.
Pei Yuan stood and looked down at him.
“Since the Meridians are fine, all the better. No time wasted on healing.”
“Tonight works well. This Venerable One will teach you the correct use of advanced dual cultivation.”
“So that you don’t make this kind of joke again.”
Bai Chuyan sprang off the bed and scrambled for the door.
“No need, Martial Uncle! Really no need! I was wrong! I’ll never do it again!”
“Stop.”
Bai Chuyan’s feet nailed themselves to the floor.
Pei Yuan walked toward him, every step unhurried.
“Chuyan. You faked illness in the middle of the night to trick Shen Qingluo into physical contact.”
“As a disciple of This Venerable One. Having done this, what punishment do you think fits?”
A tremor had started in his lips.
“Martial Uncle, I… I know I was wrong…”
“You know you were wrong?”
Pei Yuan walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Then this works out well. You can make up for it.”
“This Venerable One will teach you tonight’s advanced dual cultivation himself.”
Bai Chuyan’s tears came down in a rush.
“Martial Uncle!! Please!!”
Meanwhile.
Qingluo and I got our cultivation back on track.
Qingluo was easier in her mind and threw herself into it. Her spiritual qi moved like flowing water.
That night the two of us made another Breakthrough, into a small Realm. Shen Qingluo glowed, lovelier than ever.
Just before sleep she asked, out of nowhere:
“Husband, is Chuyan all right over there?”
“With Martial Uncle there, what could happen?”
“True.” She rolled over and muttered, “Only, Chuyan never gives anyone a moment’s peace… scaring me half to death in the middle of the night…”
I shut my eyes. The Insight Talisman brought me what was happening over on Cuiping Peak.
It was Pei Yuan’s voice, low and level:
“Straighten your back.”
“That’s only the first shichen.”
I quietly shut the Insight Talisman off.
Martial Uncle really has a way of teaching.
8
At morning assembly the next day, Bai Chuyan was late.
The first time he had been late since he joined the sect.
Everyone else was already in place. The Honored Master was about to speak when a figure finally appeared in the hall doorway, shuffling.
Bai Chuyan’s face was white. He held on to the doorframe and dragged himself in one step at a time.
Every female disciple looked over at once.
“What’s wrong with Junior Brother?”
“He looks terrible… is he ill?”
“Why won’t his legs stop shaking?”
Bai Chuyan set his teeth and forced himself to his place, and sat down.
He sat, and his leg gave a twitch and he nearly slid off the meditation cushion.
Shen Qingluo hurried over, her face full of heartache.
“Chuyan! What’s wrong? That business with your Meridians last night, isn’t it better?”
Bai Chuyan’s lips trembled. He said nothing.
He didn’t know how to answer.
The Meridian trouble had been an act. The aches all over his body right now were real.
Shen Qingluo crouched down and studied his face.
“So pale. There’s no color left in your lips… Chuyan, what actually happened to you last night?”
Bai Chuyan finally squeezed out an answer: “Martial Uncle… treated me all night.”
Technically, that wasn’t a lie.
Shen Qingluo relaxed. “That’s good, then. If Martial Uncle took a hand in it, there’s nothing to worry about. But why do you still look like this?”
The corner of Bai Chuyan’s mouth twitched. His gaze went past Shen Qingluo and fixed on me.
I walked over and looked him up and down with a face full of concern.
“Junior Brother, what’s the matter with your legs?”
Bai Chuyan ground his teeth, his voice pressed down to almost nothing.
“You—stop—acting.”
“What?” I leaned a little closer. “What was that, Junior Brother? Too quiet. I didn’t catch it.”
Bai Chuyan’s chest heaved with rage, but Shen Qingluo was right there and he couldn’t let it out.
I patted his shoulder, my tone perfectly sincere.
“Last night Martial Uncle broke off his closed-door cultivation at midnight to treat you. You should be properly grateful. Martial Uncle has a strange temper. He is cold to everyone. But you he cares about. A bond between master and disciple like that doesn’t come often.”
The corner of Bai Chuyan’s eye was twitching.
Shen Qingluo nodded and nodded.
“Chuyan, Senior Brother is right. Martial Uncle broke off his closed-door cultivation for you. You can’t go on worrying him like this.”
Chuyan drew a deep breath, then another, and forced the words he wanted to say back down his throat.
“…Understood.”
Another month passed.
When Bai Chuyan came down off Cuiping Peak, he was a different person.
His Cultivation Base had reached the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment. That speed was a first even in the history of the Tianxuan Sect.
But cultivation wasn’t where the change was biggest.
It was the man himself.
Whether it came from Pei Yuan’s Cultivation Technique or from something else, Bai Chuyan’s looks had grown… finer.
His skin was whiter and smoother than before. The line of his jaw had softened. His waist had gone narrow. There was a sway in his walk that hadn’t been there before, and his voice was lighter and softer than it used to be.
At the sight of him, the female disciples stopped short.
“Why does Junior Brother keep getting better looking?”
“Paler than me! It’s infuriating!”
“Does anyone else think he’s started to look a little like… like a Senior Sister?”
Bai Chuyan himself seemed unaware of any of it. He still carried that same look of reluctant pride.
Only, when he walked beside Pei Yuan now and then, the two of them did look something like Dao Companions from a distance.
One day Shen Qingluo came to find me.
“Husband, Chuyan says he has been cultivating on Cuiping Peak for over a month and wants to get out and test himself. He heard the sect is opening the Cuiping Secret Realm for treasure hunting next month. He wants to go with you.”
I was cleaning my sword and didn’t look up.
“Why doesn’t he come and say so himself?”
Shen Qingluo looked a little embarrassed. “He said… he was afraid you would refuse, and asked me to put it to you.”
I smiled.
Bai Chuyan didn’t dare come to me himself. He went the long way round and sent Shen Qingluo. He knew I wouldn’t refuse her.
This brat. A month of quiet, and here he goes again.
Treasure hunting in the Secret Realm, and he volunteered for it. He wants something.
“Fine. Let him come.”
Qingluo was overjoyed. “Husband, you’re wonderful.”
I put the sword down, put an arm around her waist and said with a laugh, “You’ll thank me again tonight?”
She went red, slapped my hand away, and ran.
9
Half a month later, the Cuiping Secret Realm opened.
I led the party. Shen Qingluo and twenty-odd disciples came along, and Bai Chuyan was among them.
He was quiet to a strange degree. He fought for nothing and grabbed for nothing the whole way. When he saw me he gave me a respectful “Senior Brother,” so well behaved it hardly looked like him at all.
The third day in the Secret Realm.
The core region. The ruins of a collapsed ancient hall.
An ancient sword stood driven into the altar at the center of the hall.
The blade was black as ink, and the cold coming off it bit. A dark red gem was set into the hilt, like a closed eye made of blood.
Everyone stopped walking.
A cold pressure spread out from the sword. The disciples whose Cultivation Base was weaker had already started to go weak in the knees.
Bai Chuyan stared at the sword, his eyes bright enough to frighten.
I walked up and pulled the ancient sword out.
The blade gave a low hum, and the dark red gem lit and went dark.
I studied it, then said to everyone:
“This sword is called Nilin. Its Grade is not low. There is a remnant soul sealed in it, and it is fierce.”
Chuyan’s eyes were nailed to the sword. His throat moved.
I noticed the look in his eyes.
“What? Does Junior Brother want it?”
Bai Chuyan froze, then shook his head.
“This Disciple wouldn’t dare. A treasure like this belongs to Senior Brother, of course.”
“I have a sword of my own. I have no use for it.”
I turned the Nilin Sword over and held the hilt out toward Bai Chuyan.
“For you.”
Bai Chuyan’s breath stopped for a beat.
He reached for it, and I pulled it back.
“There is one thing, though.”
I turned to him and let my tone go serious.
“The sword spirit in this blade is fierce, and the seal on it is unstable. At the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment you are nowhere near enough to hold it.”
“When we get back, show it to the Honored Master first. Let him tame the sword spirit himself and steady the seal. Then it can be passed to you.”
“Until then, do not draw it. Do not pour Spiritual Energy into it. And do not try to drive it.”
“Is that clear?”
Bai Chuyan nodded hard, his expression sincere past faulting.
“This Disciple understands! Senior Brother, rest easy. This Disciple would never do anything reckless!”
I took in that sincere face and handed the sword over.
Bai Chuyan took it with both hands and held it against his chest, reverent.
“Thank you, Senior Brother.”
He lowered his head, and the corner of his mouth curled up.
The last day in the Secret Realm.
The disciples split up to sort through what they had found. I went alone into the depths of the ancient hall to read what was left of the Formation marks.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
Bai Chuyan came over, looked around once, and made sure it was only the two of us.
“Senior Brother, there seems to be another chamber over here. Should we take a look?”
His tone was casual. His face was natural.
But I noticed his right hand never left his waist. The Nilin Sword hung there.
“Let’s go.”
I turned and started toward the chamber, my back to him.
Behind me, two seconds of quiet.
Then a roar.
“Die!”
Sword qi split the air.
Chuyan drew the Nilin Sword, poured every drop of his Spiritual Energy into the blade, and swung at my back.
Black sword qi carried a killing intent that reached the sky. This was the opening he had bet on: only the two of us, no witnesses, and any story he liked afterward to walk away clean.
The sword qi closed on my back.
Three chi. Two chi. One chi.
Then it turned.
It bent as if an unseen hand had taken hold of it, and came back along the path it had come out on.
His eyes went as wide as they could go.
Blood flew.
A scream bounced off the walls of the chamber.
Bai Chuyan clamped both hands over the lower part of his abdomen. Blood pumped out between his fingers. He dropped to his knees, convulsing, and let out a scream that would not stop.
“Ah—my—no!!!”
10
The Nilin Sword hit the floor with a clang. The dark red gem on the hilt lit and went dark again, like a sated beast closing its eye.
I turned around, looked at Bai Chuyan lying in his own blood, and shook my head.
“I told you. Don’t draw it. Don’t drive it. You wouldn’t listen.”
Bai Chuyan had no room left to talk back. He rolled on the floor with the pain, and every scream came louder than the one before.
It was too loud to miss. Within moments the other disciples came running toward the sound.
The crowd poured into the chamber.
Blood everywhere, Bai Chuyan curled up on the floor. Everyone froze.
“Junior Brother!”
“What happened? What is going on?”
“Blood… so much blood!”
Chuyan lay flat on the ground, shaking all over, his face nothing but tears and sweat.
His head came up, and he saw the disciples gathered around.
His expression changed in an instant.
“It was Senior Brother…” His voice was raw and came in pieces. “Senior Brother he… he used that sword… he tried to kill me…”
The whole chamber went quiet.
Every look turned to me.
I stood a few steps away with nothing in my hands, watching him with no words left in me.
Bai Chuyan cried harder, his voice shrill.
“I only followed Senior Brother in to look at the chamber… he drew the sword all at once and cut at me… I had no time to dodge…”
“He has always wanted me dead! From the day I joined the sect, he has wanted me dead!”
The girls’ faces changed.
“Senior Brother, how could you—”
“Junior Brother is hurt like this!”
“Senior Brother, that’s cruel even for you!”
Bai Chuyan used what strength he had left to turn his head and look around, and finally found Shen Qingluo outside the crowd.
“Sister Qingluo…”
One hand reached toward her, and blood ran down his arm and dripped.
“Sister Qingluo… Senior Brother is trying to kill me… save me…”
Qingluo’s face went white. She was shaking all over.
Her eyes went to the blood on the floor, then to me. Her lips moved a few times.
“Husband… what is this…”
There was shock in her eyes, and confusion, and a thread of doubt.
She took a step forward, about to demand an answer.
I raised a hand and stopped her.
“The Secret Realm’s time is up. Get him back to the sect first and we’ll talk there. Everyone out, with me.”
They carried Bai Chuyan out of the Secret Realm. The party returned to the sect, and Bai Chuyan was carried into the main hall.
Up on the high platform, the Honored Master sat upright, his face heavy.
Chuyan lay on a stretcher, his face the color of paper, his clothes soaked through with blood. A sight no one wanted to look at.
Seeing the Honored Master, the tears came again.
“Honored Master! This Disciple has a charge to bring against Senior Brother!”
His voice was raw and came in pieces, but every word was bitten out hard.
“In the Secret Realm… when it was only the two of us… Senior Brother used that Nilin Sword… and struck to kill!”
“This Disciple had no warning at all. One stroke… one stroke…”
He couldn’t go on. He curled up with the pain.
The hall erupted.
He frowned and looked at me. “Lu Ci. Is this so?”
Before I could speak, two female disciples came forward.
“Honored Master, this Disciple can testify!”
A Junior Sister named Qin Ruoyan got there first. “This Disciple was searching for treasures nearby. I heard screaming from the chamber, and when I reached it I saw Junior Brother in a pool of blood, with Senior Brother standing right beside him!”
“And the Nilin Sword was at Senior Brother’s feet!”
Another Junior Sister followed at once. “This Disciple saw it too! Senior Brother’s face was cold. He wasn’t rattled in the slightest. Like… like he had expected it all along!”
The talk in the hall grew louder.
“Senior Brother hurt him on purpose?”
“That was his Junior Brother’s… heavens…”
“That’s too vicious! However bad things were between them, you don’t go that far…”
Bai Chuyan cried harder and rode the wave, piling on more.
“Senior Brother has always had it in for me… from the day I joined the sect he has gone at me at every turn…”
“This time in the Secret Realm he told me to go with him, just so he could find his chance to strike!”
“This Disciple… this Disciple only wanted to cultivate in peace… what did this Disciple ever do wrong…”
11
His tear-streaked face came up, and he turned his eyes to Shen Qingluo in the crowd.
“Sister Qingluo…”
His hand went out toward her. Blood ran along his arm and dripped onto the blue stone floor of the main hall.
“Sister Qingluo, believe me… Senior Brother really was trying to kill me…”
“Please save me… it hurts so much…”
Her face was white. Her lips were trembling.
Her eyes went to Bai Chuyan, covered in blood, then to me, standing silent to one side.
The girls couldn’t wait any longer.
“Senior Brother, not saying anything is the same as admitting it!”
“Junior Brother is hurt like this. Have you no conscience at all?”
“Senior Brother plays the honest, steady one in front of everyone. And all along you were this dark underneath!”
Shen Qingluo finally stepped forward, her voice tight.
“Husband… I never thought you were this kind of person! I was wrong about you!”
Every eye in the main hall came to rest on me.
His gaze settled too.
“Lu Ci. What do you have to say?”
I looked around the hall.
Bai Chuyan weeping prettily. Two female disciples burning with righteous anger. The rest muttering to each other, their looks complicated. Shen Qingluo biting her lip, her eyes written full of hatred.
I sighed.
“Watch to the end. Then we’ll talk.”
I took the Insight Talisman from inside my robe and pushed a thread of Spiritual Energy into it.
An image appeared out of nothing in the middle of the main hall, so clear that every last detail stood out, and everyone could see it perfectly.
Bai Chuyan in the image looked around him and made sure there were only two people.
His right hand moved toward the Nilin Sword at his waist.
I turned and walked ahead.
Chuyan drew the sword.
A roar.
“Die!”
A stroke aimed at my back.
The sword qi reversed and came back on Bai Chuyan himself in a Backlash.
A scream. He went down.
From start to finish, I never moved a finger.
The image ended.
The hall was silent as death.
The two female disciples who had testified went red in the face. They wanted a crack in the floor to crawl into.
Not one thing they had said was a lie: when they arrived, Senior Brother had been standing there, the sword at his feet, his face cold. But their heads had filled in a truth that ran exactly the other way.
Qingluo’s face went from white to iron grey.
She swung around toward Bai Chuyan.
“Bai Chuyan!”
The pitiful look on Bai Chuyan’s face broke apart completely.
His mouth hung open. His pupils shrank hard, like a rat caught in a light.
“You attacked your Senior Brother from behind?!”
Shen Qingluo’s voice was shaking, but not the shaking of heartache.
“He gave you that sword out of kindness! In front of everyone he told you not to draw it and not to drive it! You didn’t listen, and then you struck from behind while his back was turned?!”
“And now you have the face to lie here and smear him?!”
“Bai Chuyan. I treated you like my own little brother since you were small. Is this how you pay me back?”
She turned to me. Her eyes were still red, but her voice had steadied.
“Husband, when something like this happens, tell me first next time. I don’t want to be made a fool of again.”
His lips still had that tremor in them, and the tears kept falling, but no one cared any more.
The disciples came apart completely.
“So he was the one who attacked Senior Brother from behind!”
“Crying like that a minute ago, and all of it was an act!”
“He has the face to bring charges in public? Shameless!”
“Serves him right! Serves him right he took the Backlash of the sword spirit!”
“And I spoke up for him. Disgusting!”
The two female disciples who had testified wanted to swallow back every word they had said. They shrank into the crowd and hardly dared to breathe.
That gaze was cold enough to freeze a man.
“Bai Chuyan. Attacking a fellow disciple from behind inside the Secret Realm is the same as turning on the sect. Then bringing false charges against Senior Brother in public, and deceiving your Honored Master. On top of everything before this—”
“Do you know what that earns you?”
Chuyan curled up on the stretcher, shaking without stop.
He didn’t dare look at the Honored Master, or at Shen Qingluo, or at anyone.
His gaze swept toward the Hall doors in despair—
12
On the high seat, the Honored Master was about to pronounce judgment—
The Hall doors were flung open.
A sharp killing intent came through the air.
Pei Yuan strode in, his Daoist robes snapping behind him, his face a little pale. The news had dragged him out of Closed-Door Cultivation before his spiritual energy had fully settled.
But he said not a word. He went straight through the crowd and stopped in front of the stretcher.
The moment Bai Chuyan saw him, he came apart completely.
He threw himself at him and grabbed the front of Pei Yuan’s robes, sobbing too hard to draw breath.
“Martial Uncle… why did you take so long…”
“They all cursed me… everyone cursed me…”
“I know it was my fault… but it hurts… Martial Uncle, it hurts so much…”
Pei Yuan looked down at him and was silent for a long time.
Then he bent and lifted Bai Chuyan into his arms.
Chuyan curled up against his chest and buried his face there, shaking all over with crying.
Pei Yuan raised his head and looked at the Honored Master.
“This Venerable One did not teach him well. I am taking him back to teach him again.”
For several breaths the Honored Master stared at him, and at last he nodded.
Pei Yuan turned and walked out of the Hall.
At my shoulder, Qingluo kept her eyes on the doors where Pei Yuan had disappeared. It was a long while before she spoke.
“Husband.”
“Mm.”
“Chuyan… will he recover?”
“With Martial Uncle there, he won’t die.”
“Then his…”
“That part is harder to say.”
I drew her against my shoulder and walked toward the doors.
“Come on. Let’s go home.”
Half a month later.
Most of Bai Chuyan’s injuries had healed.
Which parts had healed and which had not was not a thing one could politely ask about.
But he could walk now, though his steps were still a bit awkward.
When Pei Yuan brought him out, he was a different person again—his eyes softer, his skin fairer, his waist slimmer. Walking among the Disciples, he was better-looking than most of the female ones.
People whispered about it in private. What in the world was that Cultivation Technique of Martial Uncle’s? How had the Junior Brother come to look more and more like a Martial Aunt the longer he cultivated?
Then one day the Sect put up a notice: the challenge for the position of Senior Brother, held once a year.
The rule at Tianxuan Sect is that the Senior Brother does not hold his seat for life. Once a year the platform is opened, and any Disciple may step onto it and challenge. Win, and the position of Senior Brother changes hands. Lose, and you may not challenge again for a year.
This platform had been put up for six years now.
In six years, not one person had climbed onto it.
My Cultivation Base is overwhelming among my own generation in the Sect, and every single person here knows it perfectly well. Stepping up there is not courage. It is asking to suffer.
This year was the usual formality, to be got through.
From the high platform, the Honored Master asked the question he always asked.
“Is there a Disciple willing to challenge for the position of Senior Brother?”
The whole grounds went quiet.
The proceedings were about to be declared finished—
“This Disciple is willing!”
A bright voice rang out from the crowd.
Bai Chuyan stepped forward.
13
He wore a brand-new set of white robes, with the jade pendant Pei Yuan had given him at his waist. Every inch of him had been tidied into place.
The grounds erupted.
“Is he insane?”
“The Junior Brother is challenging the Senior Brother?”
“He’s at the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment, and Senior Brother is…”
Shen Qingluo grew anxious. “Chuyan, stop this nonsense!”
Bai Chuyan lifted his chin, his whole face certain he would win.
“Sister Qingluo, I am not being nonsensical. These past six months I have cultivated day and night under Martial Uncle. Today I mean to test the results.”
Pei Yuan stood at the back of the crowd, his brows drawn together.
He sent Bai Chuyan a Voice Transmission. “Get down. You are not his match.”
Bai Chuyan sent one back. “Martial Uncle, rest easy. I have made preparations.”
Pei Yuan sent another. “Listen to me. Get down.”
Bai Chuyan did not answer.
I sent a Voice Transmission to Pei Yuan.
“Martial Uncle, he won’t listen to you. So I’m going to hit him?”
Pei Yuan was silent for two seconds.
“Not the face.”
“Fine.”
On the platform.
Bai Chuyan and I stood facing each other.
He drew a deep breath and then gave a loud, shrill whistle.
The ground shook.
An enormous Spirit Beast came flying from the direction of the back mountain, landed at the edge of the platform, and threw a sky of dust into the air.
It had the body of a tiger and was red-gold all over, with a single horn on its forehead. The weight of an ancient bloodline came off it in waves.
The Crimson-Horned Golden Ní.
Descendant of a Divine Beast of high antiquity. The Tianxuan Sect had captured it in a Secret Realm a hundred years ago and sealed it away in the Spirit Beast Garden at the back mountain. Nobody had ever managed to tame it.
Until now.
It lay down at Bai Chuyan’s feet as meekly as you please, making a low rumbling in its throat.
Every Disciple on the grounds drew in a sharp breath.
“The Crimson-Horned Golden Ní?! He actually tamed the Crimson-Horned Golden Ní?!”
“That thing has the bloodline of high antiquity!”
“With a Spirit Beast like that, the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment could challenge above its Realm, couldn’t it?”
Bai Chuyan stroked the Golden Ní’s horn with satisfaction and threw me a provoking smile.
“Senior Brother, do you have anything left to say?”
I did not look at him. I turned my head to Pei Yuan at the back of the crowd.
“Martial Uncle, only you and I can undo the seals on the Spirit Beast Garden. You gave it to him?”
Pei Yuan’s face was expressionless.
“He begged This Venerable One for a long time before This Venerable One agreed.”
I stared at him for three seconds.
“…Martial Uncle, could you be serious for once.”
“This Venerable One is always serious.”
But there was one thing Pei Yuan had not told Bai Chuyan.
When this Crimson-Horned Golden Ní was first captured, its savagery burst out of it and it very nearly tore half the back mountain apart.
Pei Yuan and I joined forces and beat it for three days and three nights before it finally submitted.
When it went down on its knees, it was kneeling to my face.
On the platform.
Bai Chuyan swung himself onto the back of the Crimson-Horned Golden Ní and looked down at me from on high.
“Senior Brother, this grudge between us ends today!”
“Golden Ní—attack!”
The beast gave a low roar, muscles wound tight, coiled to strike—
And then it raised its head, and saw my face.
Its pupils shrank to slits.
Every red-gold hair on its body stood on end, plain to see.
The pressure of its ancient bloodline vanished in an instant, gone without a trace.
In its place came a fear out of its marrow, down into its soul.
It gave a whimper—
And lay down.
All four legs flat to the ground, head buried between its front paws, tail tucked in tight, shaking all over.
Its low roar had turned into a whine, like a big cat frightened by its owner.
Bai Chuyan: ???
“Golden Ní? Golden Ní! I told you to attack him! Get up!”
The beast did not move an inch. It shook even harder.
Bai Chuyan panicked. He slapped its head, kicked its belly, pulled at its horn.
“Get up! You are a Divine Beast of high antiquity! What do you have to be afraid of him for! Get up!”
It finally reacted.
It flung its head to one side, hard.
“Smack.”
The horn flipped Bai Chuyan off its back. He flew through the air in an arc and slammed down onto the platform with a thud.
It seized its chance and scrambled over to my feet, curled itself into a ball, looked up at me with a pair of big damp eyes, and made a coaxing sound deep in its throat.
Nothing of an ancient Divine Beast left in it.
Nothing but a big cat that had been wronged.
The grounds were utterly silent.
14
Bai Chuyan picked himself up off the ground, dust all over him, staring in disbelief at the Crimson-Horned Golden Ní lying at my feet and acting like a spoiled pet.
“This… this is impossible…”
I looked down and stroked the Golden Ní’s head, and it shut its eyes at once in contentment.
“This one made quite a fuss when it first arrived. Martial Uncle and I spent three days and three nights beating it into submission.”
Bai Chuyan shook all over with rage.
The Spirit Beast was no use to him now. He still had his own Cultivation Base.
He drew the sword at his waist and charged me with his teeth set.
“I don’t need a Spirit Beast. I can still—”
I stepped aside from his blade and patted him on the shoulder.
Just once.
Bai Chuyan flew backward and crashed down at the edge of the platform.
He tried to struggle up, his legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees again.
I stayed where I was. I had not even drawn my sword.
“Again?”
Bai Chuyan set his teeth and came at me again.
I patted him once more.
He flew off again.
A third time. A fourth. A fifth.
Every time I used one hand, and one light pat. No torn sinews, no broken bones, no marks left behind, but every one of them landed exactly where it needed to and put him down flat on his back with all four limbs in the air.
Pei Yuan watched from below the platform, his face expressionless, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
The sixth time, Bai Chuyan lay flat on the ground and could not get up at all.
His white robes were grey with dust, his hair had come loose, his jade hairpin was gone. His face, though, was perfectly clean. I had kept my promise and left the face alone.
The grounds held their silence for a few seconds, and then laughter exploded across them.
“The Junior Brother really has no idea of his own weight…”
“The Senior Brother used one hand the whole time, and never even drew his sword!”
Chuyan lay on the ground, listening to the laughter coming at him from every side, and his eyes finally went red.
Not the kind of red he had been faking.
This one was real. He had been wronged past the point of bearing it.
Pei Yuan had come up onto the platform at some point without anyone noticing. He bent down and swept Bai Chuyan up into his arms in a bridal carry.
Bai Chuyan went rigid all over, and his face flushed scarlet in an instant.
“Martial Uncle—what are you doing! Put me down!”
Pei Yuan did not hear a word of it. He turned and carried him down off the platform.
“Going back to snug—… to treat you.”
Bai Chuyan: “…What?”
“Treatment. Strained sinews and shaken bones need seeing to quickly.”
Bai Chuyan opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He wanted to struggle, but there was no strength left in him. He wanted to curse, but Martial Uncle held him steady, his chest was hard, and the wind his walking raised blew straight against Bai Chuyan’s burning face.
When it came down to it, he said nothing more. He only turned his face to the other side and looked at nobody.
Several hundred pairs of eyes watched the two of them leave.
The quiet lasted a long time.
Qingluo stayed at my side, watching until the two of them had gone from sight in the direction of Cuiping Peak. Then she said:
“Husband, I heard Martial Uncle say go back and… snuggle?”
“You must have misheard.”
It was still lying at my feet, rubbing its head against my leg.
I gave it a kick. It made an aggrieved noise and lumbered back toward the back mountain.
That night.
We were at the Cave Residence, in Dual Cultivation.
In a pause between cycles, she spoke suddenly.
“Just how close are you and Martial Uncle?”
“So-so.”
Through the Insight Talisman, Bai Chuyan’s voice came again.
“Martial Uncle! I don’t want to snuggle—!”
(The End.)