“Welcome back, Liu Xiuying,” the tall brown-haired girl greeted cordially, sky-blue gaze moving away to peer back into the cup, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. 

Ai Mingxia forgot to give a reply. Why were her eyes like that? Was she related to Qi Niao? Was her imagination just playing tricks on her? 

… No matter. Si Ma Zhilian was just another of her targets. If she was already garbed in that light red, then she must already be at Blossom. Ai Mingxia wasn’t sure exactly what stage Liu Xiuying was at now, since she had nothing to compare to, but she couldn’t be more than Sprout. And Si Ma Zhilian would be by far the easiest target of her clan, too. Exactly which arts had Liu Xiuying trained up to this?

Ai Mingxia had been able to kill cultivators while being unable to cultivate herself with ease, but not before her fox-spirit blood had awakened. Though Liu Xiuying could cultivate, she was likely below average in terms of strength and nowhere near on par with Si Ma Zhilian.  

Ai Mingxia stepped past Si Ma Zhilian to what she assumed was her room, as the other door was ajar and showed clearly expensive decorations lining the wall. She stumbled slightly, but Si Ma Zhilian continued sipping at her tea, saying nothing.

The door was locked. Ai Mingxia reached back for the house key from when she had tucked it back inside her sash, hoping it was still the same system in place. With a slight squint, she spotted the barely noticeable ridges on the other end of the clearly visible key. Same system then. Turning it around, she unlocked and opened the light-coloured bamboo door. 

Liu Xiuying’s room was painted white and utterly bare but for a white-blanketed bed, a bamboo dresser, and a desk with only a few pieces of parchment on it. A large window let calming sunlight in. Had Liu Xiuying purposedly hidden or destroyed everything that she held precious to her before her death? Ai Mingxia had done the same. She hadn’t had much to destroy, but it had helped ice her heart over with frigid hoarfrost before it began to thaw again.

After closing the door and locking it, Ai Mingxia reached for the scrolls, making sure to not tear any of them. Sitting down on the bed, Ai Mingxia pulled her white sleeves up again. The rot had spread a bit, but it was still easily covered. She’d have to get to fulfilling Liu Xiuying’s wishes soon. 

Unfolding the most worn of the parchments, her eyes widened. It was the same meditation exercises for Engrailed Soul that she hadn’t been able to use effectively in her own body. Reaching back into her sash, she pulled out one of the blue spirit stones she had found earlier. The energy within it thrummed in her hand.

 Sitting in a cross-legged position, she closed her eyes and stilled her thoughts. She had used these meditation exercises for centuries, but she’d never been able to use them for anything other than calming her mind.

The flame of warmth within her, which she assumed must be her golden core, breathed along with her. It quivered and shivered, before it slowly, slowly, grew stronger. 

The energy within the spirit stone dimmed until it faded away completely. Feeling more revitalized than she had been ever since she had been summoned to this body, she slowly opened her eyes, feeling as if her eyelashes were sticking together.

Spidery shadows crept across the wall, ivory slivers of cool moonlight enveloping her. A quick glance outside the window showed a wan moon and a cloudless sky. There was a strange sort of feeling in her stomach, but she wasn’t sure what it was. 

Silently, she re-folded the Soul meditation exercises. Ai Mingxia, despite never being able to cultivate, knew the theory of qi. Qi was the root of cultivational power, and there were many different aspects it could conform to. How easily one could channel a given aspect was largely dependent on the individual. 

Ai Mingxia suspected that she would have trouble cultivating the arts that Liu Xiuying had chosen. Hopefully she had misjudged her and they weren’t so different after all.

Judging by how the other disciples were acting, it seemed it had been two to three moons since Liu Xiuying and the rest since the Choosing. Specially tailored coloured robes generally weren’t given out until the two-moon mark, and most of the disciples had acted too familiar and at peace with each other to have reached the three-moon training exercise. 

Liu Xiuying had deemed herself untalented, but she had surely broken through to the Billowing Breeze stage and unlocked at least one meridian by now. As she had overheard the instructors say so many years ago: if the core was the heart, then the meridians were the veins. Full-blooded humans were born with them all clogged up with the flotsam of mortality, however.

Ai Mingxia hadn’t had any at all. Even if some types of spirit-blooded people were born with a few open… her fox-spirit blood had choked them out before they could form.

…

Cultivational arts and techniques could not be used without open meridians because it was impossible to channel qi outside the body without veins for it to flow through. Meridians could be found in the limbs, spine, heart, lungs, and head. However, the last two were too difficult for inexperienced cultivators. It was possible to open meridians that ran through other major organs, but the techniques to do so were uncommon, so most people didn't think about it until later in life.

 To make matters more complicated, meridians had to be attuned to various elements or aspects in order to be used for techniques. Each technique required a specific number of properly aligned meridians to be used. Realigning meridians was possible, but a cultivator would then be unable to use any techniques that relied on the original alignment. In this way, meridians imposed a hard limit on the number of arts that a cultivator could practice at any given time, even if it was theoretically possible to open dozens of meridians in each part of the body.

Closing her eyes and focusing her mind, Ai Mingxia could feel a sort of strange, boundless energy running through her limbs. She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed before: when she hadn’t been focusing, she’d barely felt it… But now, it was as if every movement could jump a mile.

She vaguely remembered the instructor had said that the meridians in the legs were used primarily for movement techniques. Figures that someone of Liu Xiuying’s past and disposition would’ve wanted to learn how to run away before how to punch back. 

Ai Mingxia had always fought before she could’ve ever thought of flight. 

Opening her eyes, she unfolded the second parchment. The art of Spring Gale Breath. Ai Mingxia wasn’t sure why she had expected any different.

She would’ve preferred fire; even if it wasn’t in the same manner, she had wielded it before. Wind was too… light and fast and airy even when it was a tempest and it made Ai Mingxia think of her. 

Fire was destructive, hissing and infernal, frantic and unstoppable, as if it was a creature of its own. Something about her fox-fire dancing like a little spirit of immolation had made her feel safe. 

And she didn’t have that anymore. Suddenly, even though she had grown up in a land of arctic everwinter, she’d never felt so cold. 

Taking a deep breath, she laid down. Despite herself, tiredness was falling over her like a shroud. Placing the now-lifeless spirit stone and the parchment by her bedside table, she closed her eyes and soundly fell asleep.

Perhaps if she still had her fox-spirit ears, she would’ve heard a girl with the sky contained in her eyes and a brown silky waterfall of hair open the unlocked door. 

Perhaps if she hadn’t been so tired, her instincts would’ve jolted her awake and she would’ve woken up to see those eyes staring right at her and a talisman held to her head.