Jia was fuming after the meeting. She’d just met the legendary grandmasters of Qin’s great sects, the pride of the great empire that spanned half the continent—and found them wanting. How much time had they wasted on meaningless squabbles and posturing? They’d spent more time trying to make everyone else look bad than actually discussing anything of substance, then when they actually did finally start talking about the treaty, they almost immediately ended it.

She settled into the frigid waters of the Purewater spring and huffed.

“I still can’t believe we’re letting Sun Quan get away with everything. We have a direct confession from one of the assassins that he’s from Silver Orchard and acted under the elder’s direct orders.”

Eui’s healing Wood essence pulsed through their bodies, soothing her pain as it slowly repaired their injuries. The way tribulations burned through their meridians and scorched their bodies made it difficult to heal.

“Not like they’d have trusted a confession from someone being mind-controlled. Eunae could have gotten him to say anything she wanted, how would they know whether it was true or not?”

“I don’t know, maybe their magical lie-detecting powers? They seemed pretty happy to rely on empathy when questioning everyone else.”

At the edge of the pool, Yue stirred the water idly with her feet.

“I think Princess Seong did the right thing. Embarrassing Sun Quan would only make him an enemy. This way, he’s forced to play along while still getting to save face. It’s win-win.”

Eui snorted.

“Tell that to Eunae. She was furious when Misun made her give up the prisoners.”

Yue shrugged.

“Exchanges and ransoms are common enough practice. Would you prefer a public execution? Or maybe Eunae could keep them enslaved forever.”

Jia shuddered.

“Don’t even joke. Alright, fine—Misun’s right, I’m wrong. I still don’t like it.”

“Nobody’s asking you to. I heard you did quite well during the talks—sorry I couldn’t be there to see it myself.”

“I really have to question your idea of ‘doing well.’ Which part did we do well in? The part where we let ourselves get baited into defending our cultivation method, or the part where we ran away in the middle of our speech?”

Yue covered her mouth and giggled.

“I think some of the southern elders were quite impressed by your decisiveness—not to mention the show you made of thwarting the assassination. Between that and Misun’s deals with the Silver Orchard, I think things are going about as well as we could hope for.”

Eui furrowed her brows.

“What about Yan De? He was acting weird. Also, you can just join us in the water, you know—I’m sick of craning my neck to talk to you.”

“I’m quite happy where I am, thank you. I’m not as comfortable exposing myself as you two are.”

“But pajamas are fine?”

Yue crossed her arms and scoffed.

“Underclothes are still clothes, and that was in the privacy of my own room, not out in the open on top of a mountain. Anyway, as I was about to say—I suspect that my father knows something we don’t. He hasn’t pressed on anything yet because it hasn’t mattered to him. On the other hand, being charitable to you now drops your guard and lends him credibility if he takes action against you later from a position of supposed neutrality.”

Jia felt her head spinning. She wasn’t cut out for this stuff.

“I don’t see how—”

All three girls froze as they felt an oppressive aura sweep across the plateau. Yue grimaced and bit her thumbnail.

“Damnit. Speak of the devil. He’ll wait for you to get dressed, but I suggest skipping it and using the avatar to meet him.”

Jia blinked.

“Uh, what? That was Yan De, right?”

Yue nodded.

“He’s announced his presence, and expects us—or at least me—to tacitly understand that he is to be attended. It would be an insult to keep him waiting.”

Eui grimaced.

“Are you serious? Who does he think he is?”

Yue gave her a flat glare.

“The most powerful man in the empire short of the God-Emperor himself, both in terms of influence and personal strength. Now let’s not offend him any further than we already have, hm?”

 

---

 

As Yue promised, the girls found Yan De waiting patiently for them at the bottom of the stairs as they came down from the peak. He gave them a perfunctory greeting that was slightly more than a nod without managing to cross all the way into being a bow.

“Good evening, girls. Yue, I’ll be speaking to ‘Yoshika’ alone—you can return to your room.”

Without another word, Yue bowed and hurried away. The exchange bothered Yoshika deeply. There was no love there, only authority and fear. For all that she despised her father, Yue hadn’t even considered anything other than immediate quiet compliance.

Yan De cocked his head slightly and regarded Yoshika archly.

“You should learn to rein in that sort of hostility if you’re going to be keeping the kind of company that can and will hold such errant thoughts against you.”

Yoshika didn’t even bother to hide her scowl.

“Maybe I just prefer to be honest.”

“An honest thief, is it? How uninspired.”

“I never stole anything.”

Okay, actually Yoshika had stolen quite a few things both before and after becoming a cultivator, but it felt like conceding anything to Yan De would be an irrevocable loss.

“Let’s not discuss such matters here in the open. May I come up to the peak? I’d hoped to meet with the individuals behind this unusual avatar of yours.”

“No. Like I said before, it’s the same either way.”

“I’m not sure that it is, and I’d like to make that determination for myself. The request was rhetorical—just giving face to our hosts, since it would be rude of me to intrude on their sacred ground uninvited.”

Yoshika shrugged.

“Then you shouldn’t have asked, because the answer is no. Get your invitation from someone else, preferably while we’re not naked.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow and coughed awkwardly.

“You caught us at a bad time.”

“My daughter was with you. I trust you’re not corrupting her with your...proclivities.”

Yoshika grimaced.

“It’s a spring. We were bathing.”

“Ah. Well in that case, I’m more than happy to wait for you to compose yourselves.”

He wasn’t going to let it go, was he? This was a man who was used to always getting his way, and as much as Yoshika wanted to deny him, this wasn’t the hill to die on. She’d already dressed her real bodies while they were talking anyway.

“Fine, let’s go.”

She turned on her heel and began ascending the stairs ahead of Yan De, who shook his head and followed.

“I was under the impression that my daughter had instilled some basic etiquette in you. You should know better than to stand above your betters or walk ahead of me.”

Yoshika did remember that, actually. She just didn’t particularly care to follow it at the moment, and was happy to hide behind her presumed ignorance.

“Is this really how things are done in the empire? Backroom deals, assassination attempts, needling each other to elicit an embarrassing outburst? How does anything get accomplished?”

“I’m afraid I’ll need you to be more specific. I don’t recall offering you any insults—in fact, I recall stepping in to defend you.”

“Sure, after your Bai crony did all the dirty work for you.”

Yan De released a small breath through his nose—too subtle for Yoshika to tell whether it was from amusement or something else.

“Is that how you saw it?”

“Am I wrong? Bai Renshu was obviously trying to curry favor with you.”

“Of course he was. They all were. I am Yan De, of the Great Awakening Dragon Sect. There are ten thousand men more powerful than you who would kill their own mothers just for the chance to grovel at my feet.”

They reached the peak, and Yoshika bowed in greeting with her real bodies while her avatar sat itself down in the middle of the blackened crater where Eunae’s tribulation had just taken place.

Yoshika responded to Yan De in Eui’s voice.

“But for some reason you’re here talking to us. Why?”

“Why indeed? Did Zheng Long try to make a deal with you?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t order it.”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t, but the boy is quite dependable—or at least predictable. If only my own son had been so agreeable.”

On a petty whim, Yoshika switched to speaking in chorus with both bodies.

“We’re getting really tired of all the cryptic bullshit. Either tell us what you want or leave us alone.”

Yan De was unfazed, keeping his attention on Eui’s face as he replied.

“Our traditions exist for a reason, you know. Establishing rapport, needling each other, speaking in code—it serves a purpose. Cultivators have to manage their emotions very carefully, not only to prevent their power from running out of control, but because their peers can read every little instability.”

Yoshika frowned. Fine, if he was going to maintain eye contact with Eui, she’d switch to Jia’s voice.

“Well I’m not going to bother trying to lie to you, even if I doubt you’d ever consider giving me the same courtesy, so you may as well just get on with it.”

He didn’t flinch. Most people struggled with figuring out where to look when speaking to her, but Yan De firmly held Eui’s gaze.

“Join my sect.”

Yoshika choked. After her long history with the Awakening Dragon sect—the bullying, the kidnapping, the false accusations—those were the last words she ever expected out of Yan De’s mouth.

“I’m sorry, what?! Is this some kind of attempt at humor? A joke only thousand-year-olds would get?”

“I’m completely serious. I’ll make you core disciples—peers to Yan Hao and Yan Ren, whom you’ve already met. You can keep the storage ring you’re so fond of—though I’ll have to insist that you return the awakening stone, as it never should have left the sect.”

Yoshika slowly regained her composure as he spoke. His face didn’t betray any hint of his intentions—not that she expected it to. She straightened her shoulders and tried to meet his steely gaze with her own, speaking in Eui’s voice and forgetting the petty games she’d been playing a moment ago.

“Elder Yan De, your sect and your clan has caused me nothing but trouble for as long as I’ve known they existed. The very first time Yan Zhihao spoke to me, it was a thinly veiled robbery. I had nothing to steal, but that didn’t matter. He had power and I didn’t, and to him, that was reason enough.

“Yan Yue and I are now friends, but when we first met she kidnapped us, nearly destroyed our cultivation, and attempted to hold Eui—that’s me, by the way—ransom. That was just before your precious Zheng Long and Yan Hao tried to frame us for murdering your son and killed Jia in the process.”

That finally got him to break eye contact, giving Jia a questioning look. She shrugged.

“I got better.”

While his attention was still on Jia, she switched back to Eui’s voice and continued her story.

“Even after all that, it still wasn’t enough. Zheng Long continued to make trouble in the most annoying petty ways he could, and Yan Hao abused his authority to rig the tournament against us. For no reason other than having the audacity to defend ourselves from their abuses.

“Now, after all that, after we traveled all the way here to help protect our best friend from being subject to that very same abuse—by her own father, no less—you want us to join you?”

Yan De pursed his lips.

“If you are troubled by the matter of Yue’s marriage, I can have it annulled. This sect is ultimately of no consequence to me. The world is changing, Yoshika, and men of my wisdom know when we must change with it.”

“You know, Zheng Long said almost the exact same thing when he offered his truce.”

“He’s an intelligent young man, albeit misguided. My offer is not so naive—I will turn you into a ruler of men. A cultivator without equal among your peers, to usher the world into a new era, unfettered by the whims of foreign divinity.”

Yoshika took a breath to center herself and smiled. Finally, she had some idea of what Yan De wanted—even if he was probably lying through his teeth.

“Then it is with great pleasure that I tell you—if you offered me all the gold in the world, a mountain of mana crystals and beast cores, the head of your God-Emperor, and topped it all with the Sovereign’s Tear itself, I’d tell you to take every last bit of it and shove it all the way up your ass, along with your offer. No, Yan De. We will not join you or your sect. I have no interest in any future you envision.”

His expression didn’t change, but Yoshika nearly fell to her knees from the unbearable pressure of his aura. As the air was driven from her lungs and her hearts threatened to pound out of her chests, she considered that maybe she’d taken it a little too far.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, Yan De’s rage abated. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

He sighed and shook his head, looking openly disappointed.

“Well, I tried being civilized. You have only yourselves to blame.”

Despite his threatening words, the grandmaster turned and left without another word.

It was only when he was well and truly gone that Jia finally released the breath she’d been holding. She gave Eui a concerned look.

“What was that about?”

“I have no idea, but whatever it is we’d better tell Yue before—”

Eui was interrupted by a portal tearing open in front of them. Yoshika barely had time to register the face of Sovereign Shen Yu before she was dragged in by an invisible force and knocked unconscious.