Chapter 5 - The Silver Lotus

Peach petals fell incessantly in the courtyard, as if trying to drown out the painful sorrow harboured by the little girl in mourning beneath its branches. A simple memorial tablet was erected here, not wanting her mother's spirit to be tainted in the Mao Clan's prayer hall.

The little girl's amber eyes, which were usually so strong, independent and cold, seemed so hopelessly fragile, misty with tears... though a whirlpool of rage and despair seemed to grow in its depths.

"Mother... I'm so sorry..."

If only I was stronger. Strong enough that nobody would dare touch the people I care for.

If only I was wiser. Wise enough to see all the tricks and ploys that monster could've played.

If only I was able to bring you away from this demon's nest...

You stayed here for us, to give us the status and reputation of a mao clan descendant, but you must've known... none of that would've ever mattered as much as having you alive. Why did you choose to suffer, mother? Didn't you promise to watch as I became a master blacksmith?

"Shuhai..."

A gentle voice resounded throughout the silent courtyard, prompting the little girl to look up at the tearful, red-eyed figure.

"You're still here... you know mother wouldn't want you to torture yourself like this."

The young boy spoke softly as he approached, a bowl of something warm and sweet-smelling in hand.

"I managed to sneak into the kitchen and make you your favourite sweet tofu pudding."

He seemed more of a mess the closer he approached, with even the depths of his eyes seeming red, but he still managed to work up a smile and attempt to hand-feed her.

"...I'm not hungry brother..."

The little girl refused solemnly as she continued kneeling before her mother's spirit with misty eyes, barely sparing him a second glance.

"It's winter now... eat this to warm yourself up at least."

He persisted more gently, hoping to use reason to get through to her.

"No..."

She stubbornly refused without much thought, merely wanting to continue wallowing in her thoughts and prayer for a bit longer.

"P-please... Shuhai. I don't want you to get sick too..."

The little boy suddenly cracked under her repeated refusals, tears welling up again despite how he tried to withhold them.

As the droplets rolled down his face and into the ceramic bowl, the little girl felt as if a haze began to slowly lift over her mind.

Faintly, she awoke from her stubborn sorrow, finally feeling the biting chill of winter through her thin robes and how haggard her only family member left was.

"Brother... don't cry, I'll eat, I'm sorry."

She croaked out, reacting subconsciously to seeing her dear family member as such.

That's right... I still have people left to protect here...

With her frozen limbs, the little girl silently hugged her older brother.

"I'm sorry, thank you brother... let's go inside?"

She spoke carefully whilst wiping his eyes with her sleeve and giving him what could only be called an attempt at a smile.

After recovering from his daze, the little boy gently hugged her back as his tears continued to fall.

"Yes... I'll warm up your pudding for you. I already heated up the Kang in your room but go and wear your old winter coat too. You're freezing."

He smiled sadly as he pat her head, before holding her hand and leading her inside, as if afraid she'll renege on her decision and go back to her self-torturous mourning.

"Be good Shuhai, you're all I have left now..."

He whispered softly, his smiling, weak, tearful face the last thing imprinted in her mind of that memory.

---

"But... even back then, were you thinking of how to kill me? Mao Kai..."

Mao Shuhai whispered to the canopy above her as she awoke, the sun barely rising outside her window.

It had been three years since that day. Why... had things come to this? Was all that meticulous care over the years, sheltering her from the wind and rain within the wolves' den, really just a lie? A deceitful act?

When had he turned against her? Or... was it from the very beginning?

The questions she agonized over would have no answers for a very long time.

Thinking logically, she tried her best to put such futile thoughts at the back of her mind. She had a busy day ahead afterall, though just thinking of her last task brought back a smile of excitement to her face.

Quickly climbing out of bed, her smile stiffened as she grazed the fragile wound from yesterday against the wooden bed frame. With a sigh, she promptly applied the same soothing cream from yesterday onto her wound as she glanced upon Yue's sleeping figure, curled up tightly within the soft woven basket.

Letting her new companion sleep in peace, Mao Shuhai quietly made her way outside, dressed in some simple grey-ish men's robes with her hair tied tightly into a bun with no extra decor. If one didn't look too clearly, she'd seem every bit a common poor man, but she had never been one to care about such things.

Mao Shuhai had seen the forge in passing when she recounted the materials in the storeroom the other day and the excitement of working in one for the first time managed to push her other thoughts to the back of her mind.

Forges, like its name implies, were large rooms built solely for the purpose of blacksmithing. They often had various tools and features that aided blacksmiths in their work, from precise heat-manipulators to protective covers that prevented explosions. Some even had multiple furnaces for ease of more complicated work!

But such rooms were very pricey to build. Furnaces were already expensive, how could one spare the funds to build an entire room around it? There were reasons why there weren't many blacksmiths around, and this was certainly one of them.

It didn't come as much of a surprise to Mao Shuhai that Herong Courtyard had such a treasure, considering that Mao Qing claimed to be her grandfather, but it was a very pleasant sight to her eyes nonetheless.

What Mao Shuhai usually used, was a portable furnace she stored in her spatial ring. Safe to say, it took up a large majority of the space, but she could never bear to risk it being tampered with or damaged, hence she resolutely kept it safe with her whenever she wasn't using it. She had painstakingly acquired it with the help of Lei Xinyi's connections, and her own starvation, when her rusty old bulky furnace finally broke beyond repair.

Her eyes were twinkling with excitement and wonder as she entered, a stark contrast against her usual iciness, though she quickly studied how everything worked, knowing she didn't have much time.

Although she had never been in a forge before, her years of focused research and studying had led her to quickly figure out most of the main functions in the room.

Firstly, she headed over to the central furnace, which one could tell had been meticulously maintained at a glance, and sent out a wave of her spiritual qi, relaying the elemental attributes she would be working with and the size of the product she'd be forging. This set the furnace aglow with a faint reddish hue, symbolic of the fire attributed gem she'd be working with, as it made its own adjustments internally based on her instructions.

Pressing down the slightly giddy happiness rising up within her at this moment, Mao Shuhai quickly set to work on deciding the other materials for her fire-starting pendant. She already had some ideas in mind, but testing them out and tampering with them in person was vital to the success of her first second-grade creation.

Previously, she had used silver and gold for her first-grade pendant, and although it worked well for what it was, there were far more ores and minerals out there steeped in spiritual essence that could bring forth much greater effects.

With that in mind, the simplest upgrade would be to use White Silver and Black Gold. Fundamentally, they were similar in essence to their spirit-less counterparts of silver and gold, but were simply stronger and more versatile. They were widely used in blacksmithing as a whole and were almost a staple of sorts. She knew that there was quite an abundance of these materials in the storeroom, so she didn't fear the quantity needed if she made mistakes, but she wondered if this was truly the best way to improve from her previous creation.

Blacksmithing was dear to her, and although she could just take the easier route and get to work using those staple materials, especially knowing she didn't have much time, the gears in her head had already started turning as she entered a scarily hyper-focused state.

She didn't even notice when Yue had arrived at the windowsill and began curiously watching her go about her business. And behind her, much to both of their obliviousness, was Mao Qing, leisurely stroking his beard as he watched her work.

After comparing countless materials and theories, having absorbed libraries' worth of blacksmithing knowledge and research reports in the past, Mao Shuhai settled on Scarlet Jade and Black Gold.

Scarlet Jade was a gorgeous mineral, and somewhat appeared to be a mix of metal and gemstone, with its red metallic texture but lovely reflections in the sunlight. It was often used as a cheap/fake alternative to gemstones in jewellry, which Mao Shuhai was unfortunately 'gifted' quite often, but she was therefore actually quite familiar with it.

She would often study her cheap low-class jewellry whilst bored of her shu sister's or mother's great acting, and created some fun blacksmithing ideas in her head because of it, since it was as strong as a metal and contained great compatibility with the fire attribute.

Qi would flow much smoother through Scarlet Jade than White Silver, particularly for what she was making.

Black Gold was, as she said earlier, just a more spiritual qi compatible, stronger and versatile mineral than regular gold. But, it was also sturdier than White Silver, which would even out with Scarlet Jade's slight brittleness, and as a whole fused with Scarlet Jade better.

These two materials had less of a compatibility than common silver and gold, and would be harder to fuse well, but since she was aiming to create something at a higher level than usual she was aiming to go all in.

Sadly, more than two materials for this small piece of jewellry would likely make it more unstable than powerful, requiring great precision and decisive control over her spiritual qi which she currently didn't have.

She eagerly wanted to play with everything, but the rational side of herself managed to hold firm.

After cleaning, polishing and measuring each of the materials she was using with practiced hands, although most of them were unfamiliar and new to her, she finally began the actual blacksmithing process.

Sitting cross-legged in a lotus-flower position to allow for better qi circulation, she materialized a mould for her pendant out of her amber qi. It was a strange, translucent object that floated by the crimson flames of the furnace, taking a similar shape to the initial pendant she had made, but glowing faintly gold and amber.

There were times in the past where she had resented her elemental spirit roots for this very part of the blacksmithing process. She was fine that she wasn't blessed with a fire spirit root for fire tampering, but additionally being without an earth spirit root, meant that her mould would easily unshape and melt out of her control.

Rather, she had thunder and wind, both very free-flowing, albeit potentially destructive, elements.

She smiled nostalgically at her younger self, albeit she was still young now, and made the neccessary adjustments to her mould based on the characteristics of the new minerals she was working with, before throwing in her materials.

When she first started her venture into blacksmithing, she missed out on much of the crucial equipment needed for it. It was already hard to secure non-poisonous food to eat, hence something like good equipment was definitely a luxury at the time.

One such equipment was gloves, or tongs, or whatever other spiritually-enhanced equipment there is out there to resist the spiritual flames of a furnace when not being of a high enough cultivation level.

As such, Mao Shuhai became very good at throwing her materials into her mould/furnace, exactly where they needed to be. Naturally this got easier as she rose in cultivation level and got physically stronger, now, she could even just place her materials down by hand due to how strong she's gotten.

But back then, she'd create some 'amazing' things. Like a hammer head that was well-sculpted, but basically detached from its handle. Or a helmet with a random, tall black spike on its head. Aiying, who had known her from way back then, would often roll around laughing seeing her early works.

The Scarlet Jade was thrown in first, then the Black Gold. She monitored the process carefully, watching them clash then slowly die down and fuse together. She felt that since her cultivation had risen, she could perceive her minerals' states better, and found it easier to know when and how to lower/raise the fire's temperature and ferocity.

But still, she didn't slack off because of it. She remembered Mao Qing's critique with clarity, her moulding and fire control needs work.

As such, she perceptively focused her attention on both, meticulously keeping the mould and fire stable whilst dealing with the changes brought by her melting minerals.

She felt like she could see how her past self slacked off, and slowly entered a rhythm as the skies turned orange.

Just as the sun had set, she carefully brought the mostly-finished product out of the furnace. She didn't expect to spend this long on the pendant, albeit she knew that she'd, as always, pour her heart and soul into it.

She purposefully spent much time tampering with the materials using her qi in the furnace, allowing them to fuse completely, and additionally giving off faint wisps of amber qi. Unlike the silver and gold seperated coils she had before, the materials she had used this time had merged into one completely, creating a beautiful reddish-black metal that reflected stunning scarlet in the light.

Cautiously, she slotted the fire gem inside the pendant with the help of her spiritual qi, and witnessed it flash vibrantly as it firmly resonated with the fused minerals around it. Finally, she allowed the pendant to settle and cool off to the side. She wouldn't be able to tell its grade until later.

"Beautiful merging. It is truly a feat."

A voice praised lightly behind her, prompting Mao Shuhai to turn around with a beaming smile.

Her so-called grandfather was a mysterious fellow, but his skills were nothing to joke about. She respected him as an elder, and such praise was a blessing for her, who had no elders left she could confidently say she cherished the praise of.

Mao Qing chuckled lightly before inquiring softly.

"Have you thought of a Qi Signature yet?"

Mao Shuhai was briefly startled by the question, before entering deep thought.

A Qi Signature was a Rank 2 artisan skill, widely used skill by blacksmiths, alchemists and other crafters alike. It included marking items using a very specific thread-like layering of spiritual qi that showcase that they are the crafters, and prevent others from selling off their works as someone else's.

It was something that could only be done during the item's stages of creation, being physically embedded into the item itself.

As such, once the pendant cools down completely, it would be too late to sign it.

Considering that Mao Qing inquired this of her now, Mao Shuhai decided to assume the meaning of his words and settle on her Qi Signature now. It's not like she had never thought about it, being addicted to blacksmithing and all, hence she already had a solid plan for her Qi Signature.

Taking out an old silver ring from her spatial space, she simply walked over to her cooling pendant and began copying the engraved symbol on the ring onto the back of her pendant, using her amber qi.

It looked like gold threads of light were being woven into a flower-like shape, that were forcibly dyed silver in the end to match the silver of the ring, using the naturally occurring qi around her.

This ring was a dear memento of her mother, hence it was quite simple why she had chosen it as her signature.

But little did she know, this symbol would soon cause a great wave throughout the land, under a fittingly noble name.

The Silver Lotus.