“Thank you for your services,” Ai Mingxia said primly, tucking the pouch of money into one of the pockets she had sewn into her sleeves. She had forgotten how much spirit stones were worth; even one could go for enough money to support a family for a year. 

A good-quality spear shouldn't cost too much: she wasn’t looking for anything special. She already had the basic necessities, but she would like to buy a cloak for disguise as well as maybe some other pieces of clothing. She had worn the same clothing for a while now, and though she washed it and showered every day, it still felt strange. There wasn’t really anything else she needed so far that she didn’t have. The things she wanted most for, qiankun pouches, talismans and more cultivation scrolls, were things she couldn’t find here.

Ai Mingxia nodded politely to the blank-faced clerk sitting behind the desk, spun on her heel and left the building. Changhou was larger than she had remembered, more bustling and full of life in the late afternoon light. The streets were paved with warm-coloured stone and the buildings clean and sturdy. People crowded at every corner, chattering and laughing as they haggled and grinned. 

They gave her a large berth as she walked, taking notice of her bright blue robes and whispering about her as soon as they thought she was out of earshot. 

Just as they had before. But that time, she hadn’t been alone…

She exhaled softly and kept on walking, on the lookout for somewhere she could be likely to find a spear for sale. Even though she knew that there was likely nobody from Liu Xiuying’s past that would recognize her with her swanky robes and clean face, much less anybody from her own, she couldn’t help but keep a hand on one of the knives at all times. 

Spotting an armoury a few blocks away, she headed straight for it. She entered and attentively assessed the room. The store was large and well-cleaned, with shining wooden walls. Polished swords and sabres rested on wooden racks, but it wasn’t what Ai Mingxia was interested in. A row of spears rested on the back wall. A smile rose unbidden to her face. 

Rushing over, she ran her hands over the one that had caught her eye the most: a flower spear with an especially pointed spearhead and a light-coloured wax wood dowel. Gently taking it off the wall, she gave it a few well-controlled practice swings, making sure not to hit anything. Good balance, and easy to use. It wasn’t too different from Hongmei. She quite liked it. 

She gave the other spears a try as well, but still found the first to be her favourite. After taking it to the woman who seemed to be the store owner and bargaining the price down, she left with it. 

Feeling much more secure with a spear by her side, she gave it a few spins. Should she name it? Right now, it was just an ordinary if high-quality flower spear, but she was a cultivator now…

A name came unbidden to her. Taoyun. 

Despite herself, she missed them. But in the end… it was her own fault, wasn’t it? Maybe some of it she couldn’t have stopped, but…

Ai Mingxia sighed. No matter. Even though she had Taoyun with her, she still kept a hand on one of the knives. They really were high quality, already gleaming with qi: Lei Yongrui’s friend wasn’t a noble, just how did he get them? Ai Mingxia was glad she’d gotten them. Though she usually didn’t steal, she didn’t regret it. Lei Yongrui’s friend had been about to cut her face before she had taken them from him, and then she’d fed him a bit of his own medicine.

The cuts had been mostly healed now, staunched by spiritual energy, but Ai Mingxia still couldn’t help but smile at the faint lines still scattering his face. 

Entering a clothing store, Ai Mingxia frowned at the stuffy, humid atmosphere of it. She’d gotten too used to the cool breezes of Yue Ning Peak, especially not to mention that she had grown up in a austere everwinter. 

After exiting, she left with a slightly lighter money pouch and a shabby ankle-length cloak pulled over her head, the other clothing she had bought folded tightly and hidden within her sleeves. She looked shady, nothing like the disciple she was. The only indication she wasn’t just another girl roaming the slums were her boots, and even then, they were slightly grass-stained and muddy.

Evening was beginning to fall. Hidden in the shadows, Ai Mingxia made sure she could channel the art of Spring Gale Breath if she needed to make a quick escape. Holding Taoyun close by her side, pointed down and unthreatening, the other hand clutching at one of the knives, she slipped into the darker, shadier parts of Changhou. She’d have to ask somebody for Liu Zhiqiang and possibly the trafficker’s whereabouts; Liang Xiaojian would be easy to find, it was just the matter of killing him, and the Layflower ladies she wouldn’t try to interfere with until she had the means to reward them properly.

She doubted asking the patrolling soldiers would be fruitful: as far as she remembered, the slummier parts of Changhou had never been very well controlled. 

The streets in this part were narrow, dingy and badly maintained, a rotting smell lingering in the air. Garbage all but lined the unpaved ground. One would’ve never guessed of Changhou’s apparent prosperity just looking here.

There was nobody around, but Ai Mingxia could hear a rowdy group of men drinking from the other side of the row of buildings she was pressed against. That wouldn’t do: the drunk might not even be able to answer correctly even if they knew where Liu Zhiqiang was, and even though she could take them all, they wouldn’t think so. She had to find a sober, alone, and hopefully more anxious person, and decide whether she would simply question or outright threaten from there.

The first person she asked, a middle-aged woman with a brown braid, had met him before but years ago, and it didn’t seem as though she was lying. The second hadn’t heard of either sibling at all, and neither had the third. 

By the time she found the fourth, a timid-looking, scrawny boy with shoulder-length brown hair that looked to be a few years older than her bone age, it was already the dead of night. Luckily, Ai Mingxia’s eyes had long adjusted, but the faint lamplight was nothing less than strangely eerie.

Making sure there was nobody else in the vicinity, Ai Mingxia slowly walked towards him, making sure that her knives stayed concealed and Taoyun unsuspecting. 

Appearances could be deceiving, but Ai Mingxia figured that threatening him might make him more likely to blurt out the wrong answer, whether on purpose or not. 

“Excuse me,” she greeted primly.

The boy took one look at her and took off running in the opposite direction.

Ai Mingxia sighed and gave chase, catching up to him easily. Her hood fell off her head, but she decided to catch him first. Grabbing him by the ends of his threadbare grey clothes, she said in a tone that was meant to be placating but likely came off as anything but: “Calm down. I just want to ask you something.”

The boy, upon looking at her, stiffened and suddenly stopped running. Ai Mingxia pulled the hood back over her head head as soon as she had the chance. He stood there like a jittery mouse, eyes jammed tight as if he couldn’t see her, she didn’t exist. Just how old was he? At least he wasn’t trying to make a run for it again.

“Do you know of anybody called Liu Zhiqiang?” Ai Mingxia questioned gently. “Or anybody named Liu Xiuying, for that matter?” If he did, then he might know how to find the traffickers, but asking now might overwhelm and confuse him. 

They stood there for a few awkward seconds in silence. Taking the chance, Ai Mingxia subtly re-assessed him: no weapons, as she had thought, not even any stitched into his clothing. Strange; perhaps he had the backing of some gang or organization? It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t as though she was going to hurt him, and they couldn’t touch her anyways.

Finally, a few strangled words came from him: “...Don’t…”

Ai Mingxia waited patiently for a continuation, but instead, he tried to run away again. However, Ai Mingxia had long seen it coming and caught him by the wrist. How difficult. “Don’t leave, please. I need you to tell me everything you know about them. I’m not here to hurt you.” His panic, if annoying, was more than understandable: after all, a shady-looking stranger in a cloak had pursued him even after he had run. She wouldn’t trust her either.

“I… Don’t pretend…” The boy opened his eyes at last and looked at her almost defiantly. “Just kill me already.”

Ai Mingxia squinted at his face, before almost stepping back in shock. In the darkness and the rush of the action, she hadn’t realised earlier, but this… This must be… His face was the same as Liu Xiuying’s, the same sharp angles, the same long nose, the same taut onyx-black eyes  — This was Liu Zhiqiang, in the flesh!

Fate had never favoured her, but… This was too lucky! But she couldn’t rush… it had been Liu Zhiqiang and all he cared for, and she might be able to get the whereabouts of the traffickers from him as well.

Allowing the natural edge within her voice to surface, Ai Mingxia spoke. “You recognize me? Your sister that you threw to the dogs?”

“I —”

Ai Mingxia cut him off. “I know you don’t regret it. You did what you had to do.” With a sigh: “You might find it strange, but I’d like to reconcile.”

“R-really? But I…” Liu Zhiqiang seemed genuinely taken aback, eyebrows shooting up like stars. 

“Yes. I cannot lie, I hold some resentment towards you, but I know you just did what you had to do. You cared for me, but not more than you cared for yourself. That is the natural state of being, I think. Unless?” 

“There is nobody,” the boy in front of her replied in a tone that held almost some sort of finality, despite his shaking legs. 

“Please, tell me there is somebody you care for, more than you cared for me, somebody you’d die for, somebody you’d kill for…” Ai Mingxia sighed yet again. “I mean no harm, but I just want to know… know that you’ve changed. I have enough power that you can’t do it again, but I just want to know. I’ve finally found you, and I don’t want you to lose me again… I want to know you’ve changed.” Of spirits and humans, only humans wore masks. Only humans acted. Ai Mingxia had always struggled with it. Yet, today, the words came easy. They seemed to convince him.

How funny it was. Years ago, it was somebody else saying something similar to her instead.

“Truly. I haven’t changed. Not at all.” He looked down, and in that moment, he really seemed a broken man. Maybe in another life, where she didn’t know what he’d done, where she didn’t have a mission, she’d pity him. “But you have.” His words came out unexpectedly. They were almost proud. “You — I wouldn’t have ever expected you to be like this. Dad would’ve been proud.”

Was he acting? Maybe he was acting. Either way, it didn’t matter all that much. She just needed to see if she still knew how to get to the traffickers and then she could skewer Taoyun through him and send him to the dusty grip of death. Easy as that. 

Ai Mingxia sighed and let something between a wan smile and grief creep upon her face. “I know it’s strange to ask but, do you — do you ever know what happened to those nasty traffickers? I hope they got fed to the rats.” 

Liu Zhiqiang met her eyes, a weary breath escaping him. His shaking ceased but his shoulders slumped. “They’re — they’re still out there. I can take you to them if you wish.”

“Why would I?” Ai Mingxia understood what he meant, but… She had slipped up earlier; best make him believe she cared not for revenge that it would not even cross her mind. She almost wanted to laugh. Liu Zhiqiang had wanted so much for vengeance she had summoned her. 

“For — for revenge, of course. I — I’m sorry. For a second I was scared there.”

Ai Mingxia stared at him, eyes conveying a message: Why? But before he could stammer out an answer, she looked away. Saying she would want to report them would make Liu Zhiqiang too worried; after all, he was somebody that had sold his own sister to them, so she’d shed justice and simply go for heroism. “I wouldn’t want to kill them… but I would like you to bring me to them, to free the others. I don’t want them to suffer what I did.” 

After words like that, what could Liu Zhiqiang do but follow the leash of his fear? Or perhaps it was guilt. It didn’t matter.

The trip was silent. The whole way, Ai Mingxia stayed wary, but it really seemed as though Liu Zhiqiang wasn’t going to hurt her. He could switch sides and call the traffickers to help him, which might be a problem if the green-clad woman really was a cultivator, but it shouldn’t be much of an issue. They couldn’t call the authorities, and if this cultivator was meddling in the affairs of the non-cultivators and had sunken so low, then she doubted she was a threat. The authorities, both before and after she killed Liu Zhiqiang and the traffickers, were null in the equation.

Two siblings, recently reconciled, walking in pitch-darkness, with nought to lead their way. But the second’s soul had disappeared in a bloody ritual, never to be recovered, and the first was about to feel his breath leave his body. 

Liu Zhiqiang thought of hope. Ai Mingxia thought of slaughter. It was almost reminiscent.

She had been hopeful once.

Right as Liu Zhiqiang stopped a few metres back from a large-looking, shady warehouse, he spoke in a moment of surprising honesty. “I was scared that if you were out to kill the traffickers, you’d be out to kill me too.”

Softly, she replied, “I wouldn’t.” 

There was a defensive array painted around the warehouse, as she had suspected: no wonder they hadn’t been caught yet. It also meant Liu Zhiqiang truly wasn’t lying. The array was sloppy, but perfectly functional. It would disorient any mortal that came near it, awakening and strengthening the instincts within them that urged them to go back. By the time they were back to their senses, they’d be streets away.

As she was assessing it, Liu Zhiqiang spoke again. His voice, and his face, were so tentative and so hopeful. “A-mei… I know it doesn’t seem much like it, but I love you.”

Ai Mingxia’s voice caught in her throat. She swallowed. “I… I know.”...  For him to live any longer, he’d just be a nuisance. 

“And I know that you don’t love me back and it’s okay because I did something horrible, but —”

His words were cut off by his scream; a quiet thing, raspy, almost accepting. 

Taoyun ripped through the air, fast as a blink, biting into his skin, ripping into it. There wasn’t much to stop the impact, so nothing did.

Liu Zhiqiang bled out in seven seconds. Eyes vacant. Mouth open. Breath rattling against ruined throat.

Despite herself, even though she had killed countless people, Ai Mingxia couldn’t bring herself to look away. 

She did not let herself sigh. 

What was done was done. The blood spilt had already spread.

It was the way it had always been.

---

First kill in her new life ?! She's making great progress with those missions, though.