The next day Lian Xie Mei was moved into a relatively small courtyard, but it was still many steps up from her prior situation. Lian Cai Yi also visited her, bringing Doctor Su along personally to check on her condition. She appeared to just be weak from lacking in nutrition so Su Long gave instructions for the kitchen to make nourishing food for a few days and prepared some medicine for her. His opinion of Lian Cai Yi also went up a few notches seeing how much she cared for her sister.
Lian Cai Yi was planning on spending most of her day trying to get any information out of this tight-lipped sister of hers, but she hadn’t been able to ask even one question when she was summoned to the palace. She immediately got dressed and made her way over. While she sat in the carriage she prepared herself.
The original Lian Cai Yi had always been afraid of the Emperor and his imposing aura, she was slightly less intimidated by the Empress Dowager. The Emperor always seemed to glare at her with a serious face, and while the Empress Dowager seemed nice, the previous Lian Cai Yi just didn’t know what to talk to her about. Even when she became a fiance to the crown prince, she couldn’t get over it and didn’t see them unless she absolutely had to. Yin was glad the original souls of Lian Cai Yi were gone, otherwise she was afraid that she would slap them for how stupid they were. These two were her greatest backing! She must rectify this situation immediately.
Inside the palace the Emperor waited with a serious face. The steward beside him took one look and sighed inwardly. The Emperor was usually quick witted in all things, well all things except this little relative of his. The first time Lian Cai Yi met him she seemed afraid, and this perplexed the Emperor leading to him having a serious face whenever they met, thus making the situation worse and worse as time went on.
“Lian Cai Yi, eldest daughter of the South Prime Minister requests an audience,” The servant by the door announced.
The Emperor only waved his hand showing to let her in.
“This servant greats your Imperial Highness.” Lian Cai Yi bowed deeply as she came into the room.
“Stand up there is no need for that, how are you feeling?” He asked.
“This servant is feeling much better,” Lian Cai Yi bowed again. “I must sincerely thank his Imperial Highness for his graciousness in sending the Imperial Doctors to help with my condition.”
“It was nothing, it is good that you are feeling better now.” The Emperor had been greatly worried about her when even the Imperial Doctors weren’t able to figure out what plagued her. Even his mother had been distressed, and it had taken a lot of convincing to keep her from rushing out to look at Lian Cai Yi’s condition herself. In the end the doctors still didn’t know what had been wrong, but she was better now and that’s all that mattered. The Emperor looked at Lian Cai Yi who seemed to be fidgeting under his intense stare. Ah, he really didn’t know how to reassure this little one. “The Empress Dowager was also worried about your condition. You should go see her so that she can see you are fine for herself.”
Lian Cai Yi made her way over to the Empress Dowager’s palace. She smiled to herself as she was let inside. She would get closer to the Empress Dowager first.
“This servant greets the Empress Dowager.” She said bowing.
“Ah little Yi! How many times have I told you you don’t have to do that when it’s just the two of us?” The Empress Dowager motioned for one of her servants to help her up and bring her over to a table with a few snacks and two empty tea cups. “You really gave us all a scare suddenly falling sick like that.” A vicious glint passed through her eye and her tone turned very soft. “You didn’t meet anyone strange before falling sick? No one gave you any strange gifts or anything? Don’t worry no matter who it is I can get justice for you.”
“I’m sorry Empress Dowager, nothing like that happened. I still don’t know why I suddenly fell ill,” Lian Cai Yi responded.
“Then don’t worry about it, here I just got this new tea you must try it with me.” The Empress Dowager motioned, and a servant filled the two cups in front of them.
Lian Cai Yi took one whiff of the tea and her mind relaxed, she took a small sip and all the tension left her body. Ever since Yin and Yang had been formed, all Yin had been doing was planning, trying to think of every contingency, anything that could possibly go wrong. She hadn’t even realized how stressed she was. “This tea is amazing! How does it do that?” She looked at the Empress Dowager, completely enraptured.
“I’m glad you like it, this tea is made with special leaves which can only be harvested around this time of year. They have to be brewed very carefully to bring out their full effects. Would you like to hear more about it?”
Lian Cai Yi nodded very enthusiastically. One of the Empress Dowager’s passions was tea, and with Yin being an eager student they talked for quite a few hours.
“Look at me go on, I have already kept you here for so long listening to my ramblings, it’s about time for me to send you home,” The Empress Dowager finally said.
Lian Cai Yi’s face fell but she quickly covered it up with a smile. “Of course Empress Dowager, thank you for your time.”
“I have a book all about some of the herbs used in tea making, I will give it to you to study since you seem so interested.”
“Thank you very much Empress Dowager.” Lian Cai Yi left with one final bow.
After they arrived back at the South Prime Minister’s Manor, Lian Cai Yi just sat in her room. Inside her consciousness Yin was deep in thought.
[“Yin... Yin!” Yang’s scream finally brought Yin out of her concentration.]
[“Huh, Yang? What’s wrong?” Yin asked, only partly paying attention.]
[“I have been trying to get your attention for the last ten minutes,” Yang grumbled]
[“Really? Sorry I was thinking about something.”]
[“Yeah I couldn’t tell...”]
[“What was it you wanted to tell me?”]
[“I was trying to tell you that it was a smart plan to get closer to the Empress Dowager using her love of tea.”]
[“Yeah... A smart plan...” Yin trailed off her mind going somewhere else again. “Hey Yang do you remember that weird old guy that Lian Cai Yi met in the Yan Kingdom capital?”]
[“Oh yeah, didn’t some pages fall out of the book he was carrying, and Lian Cai Yi took them thinking they were some ancient technique but couldn’t make heads nor tails of them? What about it?” Yang asked.]
[“I think that those pages had to do with herbs and tea! Quickly help me remember everything about them.” Yin’s eyes were sparkling in anticipation.]
Yang was speechless, Yin had already left their consciousness and was getting paper and a brush to begin writing. It seems that the Empress Dowager’s obsession with tea had spread... Yin spent the rest of the day tormenting Yang to make sure they got everything correct. Yin double and triple checked every word, slowly driving Yang crazy. When they were finished they only had five pages. Only two of which actually had recipes on them, they were for a Soul Calming Tea, and a Soul Cleansing Tea. The effects of the teas weren’t written down but their names gave Yin high hopes. The ingredients for the Soul Calming Tea were no problem, but the Soul Cleansing Tea needed a mildly rare form of flower that wasn’t readily available. The rest of the pages were a list of various herbs and their attributes. They compared it to the book of herbs that the Empress Dowager had given them and most of the information was exactly the same.
[“The only thing that seems different about the information that we wrote down is that each herb has either a black or white dot next to it as well as a primary and supporting Spiritual Element,” Yang noted.]
There were five Spiritual Elements that made up everything in the world, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. When you are cultivating, it is those elements that you are absorbing to help you temper and gather Qi. The purity and affinity of your Spiritual Roots played a big role in how well you could absorb and use that type of energy. There were nine levels to judge the quality of someone’s Spiritual Roots, the higher the level the more impurities on one’s Spiritual Roots and the harder it was for them to cultivate that type of energy. Level nine through seven were considered trash and trying to cultivate with that element would be a lesson in futility. Six through four was average. Having an element at level six would allow you to cultivate that element reliably, while having a level four would make you a genius that could cultivate much faster than your peers. Level three through one were considered to be godly Spiritual Roots and would be a once in a lifetime genius.
Most only had an affinity with one element, while about one in a million were lucky enough to have a second element only a few steps behind the first. Then there was the once in a million years genius with passing affinity in at least three elements. Lian Xie Mei was this kind of genius with an affinity for Fire, Wood, and Metal, also referred to as the Holy Trinity of Spiritual roots, letting someone learn elixir and weapon crafting. Lian Cai Yi didn’t know the purity level of her spiritual roots however.
[“We still have nineteen days before we can get tested, so we can’t do too much with that information yet.” Yin said, shaking her head. No one was sure why, but a child could not get their Spiritual Roots tested until the day of the full moon after their twelfth birthday. In fact before that time someone would not be able to feel even a hint of Spiritual Power from anything. “It is ten days until The Golden Pearl’s monthly auction, and I don’t have anything planned until then, so we can take our time and learn everything we possibly can in this time.”]
Over the next ten days, Lian Cai Yi spent time visiting both Lian Xie Mei and the Empress Dowager. She also continued to study the notes on the Spirit Calming and Spirit Cleansing Tea. She had made a few attempts at making some Spirit Calming Tea, but if something went even slightly wrong the tea leaves somehow became completely unusable, not making even a subpar tea.
There was a bit of a stir in the city’s biggest herb shop, The Golden Lotus, when they started to sell Meridian Cleansing Liquid. The liquid worked wonders on cultivators at the Qi Condensation level. When they soaked in the liquid for a few hours, it helped to cleanse their body of impurities, making cultivation a lot easier. The shop ran into some trouble when they started to get low on the Meridian Cleansing Liquid and they had no idea when the person who first gave it to them to sell would be coming back. The original Lian Cai Yi had wanted to buy some of it for her father, but by the time she got there the last of it had already been sent to their sister store, The Golden Pearl, and she had had to try her luck at that month’s auction.
At the auction, she had been able to buy some of the amazing Meridian Cleansing Liquid but that meant when that month’s surprise item came out, a legendary Spirit Storing Jade, she was low on funds. When she saw that Jade she immediately wanted it for the Emperor’s upcoming birthday, but with most of her money gone competing for the Meridian Cleansing Liquid she had lost the Jade to a black-cloaked stranger. She had sent her father’s guard to try and steal the Jade from the man but he seemed to have disappeared immediately after the auction.
Lian Cai Yi wondered, how would the auction go this time?
