Yung brought out the thumb-sized rectangle and put qi into it.

“None of your business.” Youjin Chao replied to Youjin Hong, the anger barely suppressed in his voice.

“Hahaha!” Youjin Hong keeled over, laughing as though Youjin Chao had said the most ridiculous thing ever. “But it is my business. My clan’s business. We have got to protect our customers from creepy stalkers like you. Don’t lie, Chao. You came here to peep at what good a pair the Young Mistress and Young Master Duan are! Ain’t that right, boys?”

A second round of cheers filled the floor. But Youjin Hong’s visage changed abruptly.

“Leave this place, scum.” He brought his oily face close to Youjin Chao’s. “The Dim gold hotel is no place for cripples and madlander slum dwellers.”

Yung checked the recording with his mind and grinned. All good. But damn, this is some seriously advanced technology here. Is it augmented or virtual reality? Maybe both?

Youjin Chao’s face bulged with veins. Yung could see his lips go red. But Youjin Hong was a 3rd stage body refining realm cultivator. Youjin Chao could not cultivate.

Yung did not like Youjin Hong.

So he tried something new. He took hold of the thread connecting him to the bully and severed it.

Should I really do this? At the last moment, Yung reflected on his choice. He’d be intentionally creating a scenario to screw Youjin Hong over.

“Come to think of it, are you not joined at the hips with Free Sparrow’s daughter now a days? Tell me, what do madlander women taste like? Talk around the street is they are as diseased as their brown blistered skin. After all, they drink and bathe in the Dirt stream! I admire you, Chao, for risking infecting your groin to get close to those barbarians. Guahaha!”

“Don’t go too far, Hong” Youjin Chao stood up, his eyes bloodshot.

“Or what? Hahaha!”

Yeah, let’s fuck him up! Yung didn’t hesitate anymore. He grabbed the severed thread again. Then, neither dropping nor rejoining the golden thread to his own, he channelled a scant amount of xinqi into it.

“Speaking of madlanders.” Youjin Hong changed the topic in a heartbeat. The bully could not explain why he suddenly needed to express his disdain for the rotten bunch, but he had to. “Wasn’t Old Bao’s grandson freeloading in this hotel?”

Yung had his head crouched and shoulders slumped, concentrating on the xinqi. But the pose might have looked like the submissive stance of a coward. A few of Youjin Hong’s followers sent him sneering looks. But the bully himself seemed to pass over Yung’s insignificant existence.

“First we get this cripple engaged to our Young Mistress. Then Old Bao takes in a madlander mutt. Oh, what a sad state our great clan is in!” Youjin Hong continued slamming the chair with his feet in an intoxicated manner. “And the mutt dares to turn away our summons! The gall, after our clan had graciously taken him in. The fox yao need him to do slave work, and suddenly he thinks he’s the king of the world. Give them an inch; they take a mile.”

A little more. It took all of Yung’s willpower to keep the thread from rejoining as he held it. The urge to let it go was intense. More xinqi! He didn’t have much left in store, but it was too late to back off now.

“And that vixen yao! Did you see what she looked like? Those were harem clothes for concubines! I don’t know how yao do things in their places, but Dim gold is a ren city.” Youjin Hong raised both hands in the air like it was a performance.

"Hong, I think you should leave it at that—" One of his followers tried to stop him. But Youjin Hong’s emotions must be voiced.

"I see no reason for the patriarch to treat an immodest girl so reverently. Beauty Lanlan at the Fragrant lily pavilion shows less skin than her, and she’s a prostitute in the red light district! Hey, you think the vixen will let me have a night if I pay her? Ha, haha!"

Oh boi, he done diddly did it now. Yung smiled. Youjin Hong’s groupies paled.

“Isn’t that right, madlander? What was your name again, Yang, Yung?”

Yung paled too. His mind had slipped in that moment of smugness, and he made a grave oopsie.

Aww hell diddly ding dong crap!

The thread rejoined.

The bully singled out Yung in seconds. “Tell me, madlander, why would the vixen yao keep a short, dirty thing like you as a boy toy when there are men like me around?” Youjin Hong pushed his way to Yung’s table, scaring the waitmaiden carrying the fish head roast so much that the poor girl whimpered.

“Too afraid to speak?” Youjin Hong bellowed, red-faced and saliva spat flying.

This might not have been the best of ideas. The larger boy pulled Yung up by his collar. Silky scampered out and whipped a tail at Youjin Hong’s eyes.

“Gaah!” Youjin Hong cried, throwing Yung down and covering his face.

"Mummy!” I was wrong. I won’t mindscrew people anymore. The impact sent Yung reeling. He slammed into the table, scattering rice all over the place.

Youjin Hong drew his sword and roared at Silky with a slash. The critter didn’t back down, gathering a nebula of xinqi in its wings. From the side, Yung saw Youjin Chao backhand three of Youjin Hong’s groupies unconscious. Ghostly gauntlets covered his arms.

“What is going on here?” A mellow voice cut through the commotion. Everyone froze.

A jade beauty if Yung had ever seen one, with raven hair cascading down her back in artfully woven waves. Her eyes were more prominent and keener than most, glinting like drops of vantablack in the light. Her hair was the colour of a raven’s wing flying in the deep of the night, and her Youjin robes were lined with a sparkling golden hue that accentuated her lithe beauty. Despite the shock on her face, she exuded an air of commanding grace and serenity that stopped the violence in its tracks.

Yung knew her too—the current Youjin clan patriarch’s daughter.

“Have you gone mad, Youjin Hong?” The jade beauty whispered, but it was more like a suppressed scream. “Do you know what you have done?”

He’d eff’ed up. Thought Yung resentfully. Clans got purged for less in this world.

Yung's lips were chipped and his head hurt like mad because he overdrew his xinqi.

The sight of his young mistress seemed to bring a sudden calm to Youjin Hong’s raging emotions, “I-I, what?” Yung could see the moment the implications of his actions clicked into his brain.

“Leave! Report to the patriarch and wait for your punishment.” The Youjin heiress turned to face the other patrons and made a courtesy. “Forgive us, dear guests. This Youjin Chun asks you to forget what you have witnessed today. The clan will owe you a great favour.”

If not, will the clan owe them great hatred?

The moment Youjin Chun raised her head from her bow, her servants ran to each patron one by one, handing over black tokens with the characters for “Youjin” written in gold and, at the same time, jotting down each patron’s name and address. “Please take this as compensation for the brutishness of our clansman. He is prone to violence when intoxicated.”

Everyone knew Youjin Hong wasn’t drunk. But most folks here had no wish to go against the local snake. The ones that did, would not voice their schemes now.

Rather take the favour than take the sword.

Youjin Chun gestured at the stairs leading down, and everyone took that as their cue to leave. Yung was about to sneak off to the stairs leading up, but a clan servant blocked his way. The heiress called out with a soft but bossy voice.

“You are Youjin Yung? The one the fox yao have taken an interest in?” Youjin Chun asked in a way that seemed more like a statement, and Yung’s headache worsened.

“Ziyou. I haven’t been given the clan name.” Yung made a show of purposely wiping off the grime and rice from his face, wincing as painfully as he could. The wince might have been a fake, but the pain was not. Though he had himself to blame for half of it.

Youjin Chun sighed. “I hope you don’t take Hong’s action to heart. Our cousin was joking when he—”

“Fairy Nanya summoned me after my meal.” Youjin Chun’s thread read caution, disdain, and fear.

“… Very well.” She said. “Serve her well as a representative of our clan.”

Yung did not nod. He turned around, limping his way to the stairs. Silky was fuming volcanic fluffs in his dantian. It’s worth it, my friend. What’s a little pain for safety? The critter wheeled over angrily. It was hard to convince children of the merits of delayed gratification.

“Elder Brother Chao…”

Behind him, Youjin Chun called out to the last remaining person on the floor. Her voice was timid, unlike the tone she used with Yung. Was it guilt? Longing? How strong do I need to be to read the threads connecting third parties? Yung could not even actively cultivate his xinqi into zhenqi yet. How strong do I need to become to fight back...

Yung looked back one last time, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Youjin Chao did not heed the Youjin heiress. His crimson eyes stared straight at Yung with beastly fixation. It was like looking into the heart of a volcano, impossibly deep and all-consuming. The paltry amount of xinqi in Yung’s dantian surged upward, toward the boy’s heart, toward the outside flame, toward the golden thread connecting them.

The feeling Yung got back was a hunter stalking a game. Curiosity and anticipation, the threads hadn’t lied to Yung yet. Thirst and domination, Yung trusted Moira’s gift.

Yet more importantly.

Damn, look at those muscles. That jawline. Them deltoids. What is he, a superstar? No, Silky, I’m not jealous of tall people. Just envious.

***

“You come before us with rice on your clothes. What manner of discourtesy is this?” Su Nanya huffed from the queen’s bed. She sat at the leg end on a pillow, her fluffy tail swaying musically. Her own legs, which seemed to go on forever, were crossed one over the other, as were her arms under her shapely buxom.

The vixen looked down at Yung with clear disgust in her eyes. It did weird things to his blood flow.

Yung, the peasant, sat on a cushion on the floor. This cushion would be discarded later, for there were food stains on his pants that clung to the fabric like dried mud. They were rough and gritty to the touch, like sandpaper, and had already dried to a crust because of the hot spring weather. They also emitted a strange scent, not quite pungent yet not desirable either. Perhaps it had chemically reacted with the outpour of sweat Yung was having a hard time controlling.

The tired teen had to look up at Su Nanya from his seiza, trying not to itch his behind.

“There was a violent bully in the restaurant.”

“We know. And?”

She knows?

“T-This lowly one asks the great Fairy Nanya to give us justice—”

“Silence, fool! And use your cranium, you base creature. Could you have not changed before our audience?” Su Nanya uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again with the other leg on top.

Just a bit more. Just a bit lower—No, wait! Yung forcefully flushed away his inner demons. So she knows Youjin Hong insulted her. Did she see me using the threads? Calm down, Yung. She hadn’t noticed before; why would she now?

“A fox yao person in full black dragged me up with a sword to my neck.”

“Maid.” Su Nanya beckoned the third person in the room. “Deduct Su Haochen’s pay. He shall reflect on his peculiarities.”

“M’lady, I distinctly remember you telling him to—”

“A servant should have the common sense to dress guests in fashionable clothing before a home audience.”

“… Understood.”

“Now then, boy.” Su Nanya lowered her gaze towards her newest employee-on-probation. Yung had to avert his eyes because Su Nanya’s were so intense. Definitely not for other reasons where his shifty eyes kept wandering. Yup!

“Tell us. Why do you think we invited you to our chamber?” The interest in her voice was palpable. The nuance in her sentence was raunchy.

“To…To…To…”

“To?”

“To test my loyalty?” Yung stammered, holding out the sound capturing token with evidence against Youjin Hong.

“Why would we need to do that?” Su Nanya threw a disgusted glance at the object. Heck if I know! Yung put it away.

“To see Lord Yaoguai again? No! To make me find the foxball.” Yung was confident in this answer.

“Do you think with your feet, boy?”

“To seduce me?” He wasn’t as confident in this answer.

“… Do you think with your groin?” Su Nanya facepalmed.