It was not the most comfortable of experiences. But to travel sitting upon her servant’s shoulder was one of her most luxurious vanities, and shape-shifting her internal organs had solved the problem of mere balance.

Nanya, such graceful a being, flicked her cute ears, casting a tired glance at the madlander laywoman accosting her Yung.

“I think Chao’s out training. He got hurt pretty bad a few days ago, but took some pills and says he’s fine now.”

“That sounds like him.” Said her servant with a wry smile, hiding his disappointment.

This Ziyou Ling girl had a broken heart; Nanya could tell, the daydreams were but one of the clues. Such an ailment seemed to be the most common affliction plaguing the eligible maidens of this village, including herself.

This Ling girl, she had a tainted physique, though.

Perhaps her purity was stolen by a rogue man of yang? It was adorable to Nanya how the girl forcefully kept her spirits high, despite oh so clearly regretting her choices. Nanya, being the most generous princess, decided she should warn this maiden. Of the fickleness of the male machismo, of those who cultivated the extremities of yang. Lest the authority of their fair yin lay smeared on the bed.

At the moment, though, her worrisome mother needed to be refuted.

"Won't you at least meet him?" The Su fox clan's matriarch said, her tired voice coming from Nanya's pingtian grade sound transmission artefact. It was telepathic admonishment sent straight to her soul, as mothers were wont to do. "If nothing else, claiming parts of his extreme yang will all but guarantee that you'll pass the lightning tribulation this turn."

“We are no cheap harlot.” Nanya huffed, the very notion disgusting her tail.

"Then why this madlander boy?" Her mother's sigh prickled her nerves. As if she had any right to say that! "A mere shell of a man. Your cardinal physique starts to waste with each touch you share. For what? Paltry gains in jingqi? Revenge? This is self-destructive, my foolish daughter."

“Yet you would ask your daughter to sell her honour for, mayhap, an even tinier step up in our graceful cultivation. To that promiscuous he-whore no less.”

“Who taught you such language!?” The matriarch was aghast, and Nanya quickly shut her mouth. There was an awkward silence.

“A momentous step up, my daughter, for the jade empress calls the sun.” Her mother continued, her tone lamenting. Nanya knew she was right, yet it was the spirit of the matter that was tiny. We are no cheap harlot!

The vixen could imagine the demure nine-tailed fox rubbing her temple on the other side of the landbridge, and smirked at the thought. Oh, how devious she was.

“So your honour would not be sold,” Her mother said, “For he is the Radiant sun daochild. What better a man could you hope for?”

“One who is loyal.”

“Yaya—”

“We are Nanya!”

“And that manner of speech. Since when do you use the royal we?”

Nanya swore she could hear her father trying to calm her mother down, but there was no need to answer her grand designs to the worrywarts. “We are more than one. It is but proper etiquette for those who are many such as we.”

“… I worry for you. Your father and I don’t want to see you waste your physique and future away for a tantrum.”

"Surely that is a jest?" Nanya knew she should not say such hurtful words, but they left her dainty soul before she could control her rage. "Father and you, who left for closed-door cultivation the moment we were born? We were raised by maids and butlers for the first century of our lives! Where were you when we needed you the most? Yet here you are now, claiming your unjust ownership over our sovereign choices!"

“Yaya.”

“Nanya! We will not repeat ourselves.” She would not. She swore she wouldn’t!

“Your aunts and uncles aren’t your maids and butlers.”

“Of course they are. They love it when we pamper their plays.”

“No, then why does Feng’er contact me to vent for hours every night?”

That insolent maid! Nanya huffed and puffed and thumped her servant with her tail, "Tell us, mother dearest. What was the first matter you arranged for us in our whole elegant lives, after you had come out of closed doors?"

There was no reply, and Nanya couldn’t help but feel guilty. But she needed to make her position to them transparent. Just as her servant had, to his own unfair maternal family.

"You officiated our engagement to that adulterous beast of a lowlife. For what? Some vague promise of political peace?"

“You weren’t against it then.” Her mother said.

“We must admit. He was a desirable man. But we did not expect infidelity, alas to our damsel soul.”

"The Radiant Sun princes have the duty to sire as many children as possible, to nurture the best of their bloodlines. The possibility was always there, and you knew that. I had imagined you made peace with it ages ago."

“He was an outcast to his clan, a son of an unloved concubine. We took him in, such benevolent our mercy! He promised us his eternal love, lamenting the fate of his mother concubine in the imperial harem. We gave him our heart wholly. Yet! Yet that man delivered us his tainted body, no better than the imperial father he so detests." Of course Nanya was aware of princes taking concubines. But with their love, their unspoken promise, she had expected her fiancé to discard such an archaic rule. "It was our Su fox clan that sheltered him, nurtured him. Yet such is his face; he threw dirty water at our compassion. The gall, the absolute disrespect! And when he did so with all his misplaced miniature pride, why did you not support us in our righteous indignation? You wish to act as our mother after all this time, but your actions do not prove it. We do not need your conditional love."

"Since when did you have such a sharp tongue? Who has been teaching you these…." If the matriarch was offended, she didn't show it.

“We are no child that needs coddling!” Nanya said with a scorching tone.

The silence returned, and Nanya knew her mother would no longer press the engagement issue. For now, that is.

The vixen sighed. She knew her mother loved her, but sometimes, that love could be smothering, one-sidedly so. “It is our dear servant who opened our eyes. A mere shell he may be, he is yet infinitely better.”

“… have you fallen in love?”

"What?" Nanya recoiled, then clicked her tongue as though she had heard the most chucklesome thing under the heavens, "Such riotous droll! Mother, we did not know your humorous side. We, such unattainable a maiden, to love a mere layman? Tut tut!”

“Yaya, I don’t want to interfere with your life. I really don’t. But I don’t want you to suffer either. Looking at this boy’s talent, he can reach the xiantian 1st realm at best? He’ll live only a fraction of what you will.”

“We are not in love.” Nanya repeated, growling.

“I admit, his dao is strange. Something to do with fate and emotions? But that won’t be enough to carry his cultivation. Neither will high quantities of xinqi. Sometimes, talent is what stands in between love more than anything else.”

“You never listen to us!” Nanya finally screamed.

“I worry for you! I don’t want you to make a choice you will regret. Not like this! I don’t want to lose another child before I pass!”

The regret hit Nanya like a sledgehammer, and her servant stopped walking, looking at her with worry.

"We cannot regret. We would like it if you could trust our judgements more readily." Nanya said, calming down, "We prefer you not to worry."

"Well, I wouldn't be so worried if you were more responsible. When the effigy of Su Xiya was lost, how do you think I felt leaving you alone?"

“We shall recover our fifth occultic foxball soon. That wrong will be righted.”

“There are easier ways to pass the tribulation. I want you to know, you can count on your father and me rather than doing everything on your own.” Her mother said.

"We know." Nanya believed her. The matriarch's heart was in the right place, but not her actions. After all, the leader of the wealthiest clan in the world had too heavy a responsibility to always care for her wayward daughter. Nanya mused at the thought, then decided to pander to her mother, "We do love you, Mother dearest. Don't you know?"

“….What do you want?” A wary voice replied.

“You would send over some pingtian realm contraceptives for us?”

“You really love this boy, don’t you?”

"We do not!" Her banter backfired, and she was left flabbergasted. "Yet even if we did, it is our choice." Suddenly she felt quite defensive, uncomfortably so.

"I will speak to you again tomorrow. I know this will fall on deaf ears, but if you lay with the boy, your cardinal physique will go to waste. Though perhaps your current one may benefit."

“You spend a king’s bounty in pearlitecast spirit stones to actuate a nagging session with us every single day, and you talk of wastefulness? Do you not have other matters to attend to?”

“In fact, I do. Your father is furious and plans to erase that madlander boy from existence.”

"Dare him, that old geezer! We will usher a heavenly vow never to speak to him again." Nanya was furious.

“…I will pass that on.” Her mother said, sighing for the umpteenth time.

Nanya rolled her eyes. For the first chapters of her life, her parents were absent. When they returned, they were strangers, yet they treated their already adult daughter like she was a toddler.

As though they had been the ones to raise her, and now they would decide her fate.

She knew they loved her with all their heart. And their relationship was better now. But she would never give up her sovereign will.

“I love you too, my foolish daughter.” With that, the Su fox clan matriarch severed the communication, and Nanya sent her gaze towards her dear servant.

Ziyou Yung was seated in front of an old tombstone, crosslegged. He had spent the morn clearing the place up with the broom her Su Xiya had purchased. The Ling girl helped where she could, but Nanya assumed that she herself was the reason why this madlander maiden tagged along.

The day was mournful, and Nanya would not deny it their tears.

By the grave site, the first batch of spring flowers blossomed quietly, but their colour was ever so sullen. The pollen that irritated her adorable nose had lost its strength too, replaced by the gratifying scent of wilting florescence.

The ocean breeze did not reach under the orchard canopy with their full obnoxious might, but the salty taste on her tongue remained constant.

Ziyou Yung clapped once, lighting the incense ball. The tomb was a sorrowful thing, Nanya thought. A sad slab of stone was the only way she could refer to it, carved with the names of her dear servant's parents. They might have once become Nanya's family had she the heart to give Ziyou Yung his selfish wish. Edges cracked, moss green growth on the surface that threatened to devour the solemn sanctity; the grey tombstone had long turned muddy.

Thin strands of smoke rose from the incense and dispersed in the air, and her servant dearest’s prayer for good health, good fortune, and a good death fell on deaf ears.

A backwoods tradition no doubt. The boy did not even burn the paper money.

Nanya decided, she must do something heartening for the poor little orphan. Her ears twitched, and she sent a seething glare at the Ling girl. The madlander maiden had stepped on a twig, ever so slightly disturbing Ziyou Yung's asymmetrical euphonies.

The boy was no musical savant, and his sense of rhythm was criminal at best. But the tune he always hummed had a magic to it neither Nanya nor her Su Xiya could ever fathom clearly. The song danced with Ziyou Yung’s dreams and emotions, but it was a dance new to this world. The grand dao stirred with each peak and trough of her servant’s boyish voice, a heavenly rhapsody to Nanya’s sublime eyes.

And this Ling had dared to disturb. Such a sin!

Her servant clapped again, and his voice grew mellow.

"O Great and wondrous Dao, we humbly do come,

To offer tribute to our parents' sacred lives,

Their love and wisdom, like the morning sun,

Has guided us through joy and pain and strife.”

The ending verses to the Tapestry of Tribute, 'The Grand Dao's Embrace.' Nanya knew it by heart, for it was her Su fox clan that first sang this prayer upon the Void connecting land bridge.

"In death, they journeyed to your vast expanse,

Their spirits soaring with the winds of fate,

And now they dwell in realms of light and dance,

Beyond the veil that separates mortal from great."

A slight quiver in Ziyou Yung’s voice, and he stuttered when saying ‘beyond the veil.’ Nanya wondered why, even though she had scried his daydreams. Who was her servant praying to? And why did he miss them so much, when he was but two years old when they had died?

"O Dao, we pray that you embrace their souls,

In your vast and radiant, infinite light,

And grant them rest, and joy, and lofty goals,

In your eternal presence shining bright."

The tune had changed. Inadvertently or perhaps intentionally. It was not a song Nanya knew; neither would have Ziyou Yung’s parents. There was a small rustle by the graveyard, animals going to and fro. A mudmouse, showing its pointy head from a thicket of wild berries. It glanced at the three, then turned away, back to foraging and escaping the mudsnakes and the mudbirds. How small its life was, for it would never know the dao. Never live longer than two years of the sun and moon.

Yet even such a creature knew how to mourn its pack.

"And as we mourn their loss, we seek your aid,

To find the strength to carry on their flame,

To honour them in word and deed, and trade,

And keep alive the glory of their name."

Such was the verse for the mortals, the unawakened who could not cultivate.

Like the mudmouse, they would never achieve the dao. They would never strive for immortality. To live on through their deeds and in the memories of their family, friends, subjects, and enemies. There was something admirable about these short lives. Better to not cultivate and live to the fullest, than to cultivate and live sparingly, discarding their pride and honour for that one treasured herb and this one magical artefact.

Nanya could not relate.

Her mother’s words echoed like a haunting ghost. That her servant would live a fraction of the time she would. That there would come a day she would not be able to kiss his lips, hear his words, and share his sorrow.