Chương 157: The Young Master Is Missing

The window slid shut behind us and it made no sound at all doing it, then a second later there was a knock on the bedroom door. This was almost too timed to believe even though nobody had planned it like that.

"Young Master?" A servant's voice came through the door.

"Your father is requesting your presence for breakfast."

"A moment!" I called back and was already moving to get the rain-soaked outer robes off.

"The robes you want are in the chest by the window," Han Renyi said.

"Father had them made when I first started my cultivation training." The robes he was pointing me toward were simple but clearly well-made, dark green fabric with these subtle patterns worked into them that somehow managed to look expensive without being loud about it. I changed as fast as I could and made sure to get all the layers adjusted because the last thing either of us needed now was for some sharp-eyed servant to notice something off about the way Han Renyi was putting his own clothes on.

Even though we had been up the entire night, this body felt good, all things considered, the advancement to Qi Condensation Stage 6 was showing itself in practical ways, better stamina, faster recovery, and this general feeling of being more physically alive that made having skipped a night of sleep feel more like a minor inconvenience than a problem.

"Young Master?" The servant knocked again and now there was a slight edge of worry starting to creep into her voice.

"Ready!" I called back, then stopped.

"Han Renyi, you should take over from here. You know these people and how to talk to them in a way that I don't."

"Are you sure?" There was a note of uncertainty in how he said it.

"After everything that happened last night..."

"You'll be fine," I told him, and then stepped back and handed control over. The transition had gotten smoother with practice, it felt natural now, one moment I was the one in the driver's seat and the next I was watching from somewhere behind his eyes as he pulled the door open to find the servant standing there with an expression that was stuck somewhere between relieved and still vaguely worried.

"Young Master, are you feeling alright?" she asked, looking him over carefully.

"Never better," Han Renyi said and his smile was relaxed enough that I could see the tension go out of her posture a little.

"I just needed to change after morning practice." Her shoulders dropped slightly.

"Your father and sister are waiting," she said, and then added with the kind of concern that comes from someone who has known you since you were small, "though you might want to wash your face first, Young Master." Han Renyi touched his face, and I felt the mild embarrassment that ran through him when his fingers came away with traces of dirt and something that was probably tree sap. A stop at the washbasin fixed the worst of it and then we were following the servant down the hallway.

"Your father and sister are in the east pavilion this morning," she said as she led us through. The east pavilion. I turned that over in my head for a moment. It was smaller than the main dining hall but had a better sight line that made it easy to spot anyone coming before they arrived at the compound. Han Zhongwei was still being cautious after everything we had told him about Zhou Shentong, which was smart.

Han Zhongwei and Qingyi were already seated when we walked in, and the two of them were about as different from each other in that moment as it was possible to be, the father looked tired but was holding himself together with the composure of someone who had been managing difficult situations for a long time, while his daughter was vibrating in her seat. The moment she spotted her brother, her face opened up into a smile.

"Brother! You're late!" Qingyi announced as we came up to the pavilion, managing to make it sound like both an accusation and a greeting at the same time.

"Qingyi," their father said mildly, "let your brother sit down first." Han Renyi settled into his seat and servants began bringing food out, rice congee and pickled vegetables, and what looked like leftover fish from the previous evening that had been reworked into something that looked pretty good.

"Did you sleep well?" Han Zhongwei asked, keeping his tone casual, though the real question underneath it wasn't casual at all.

"Very well Father," Han Renyi replied even though he hadn't slept a moment, but at least the night had gone the way it needed to go.

"No strange dreams?" his father followed up, and it was clear what he was fishing for information about. I had to give the man credit, it was a good approach, worried enough to sound like a parent asking about their child, but not so direct that it felt like he was backing Han Renyi into a corner where lying would be the only option.

"Well," Han Renyi said, picking up his chopsticks, "my master did contact me last night." At that, Qingyi's eyes went wide, their father's hand stopped moving halfway to his bowl and stayed there, even the servants in the corners who had been doing a decent job of pretending to be focused on other things snapped their heads in his direction.

"Oh?" Han Zhongwei set his chopsticks down.

"And what did your esteemed master have to say?"

"He paid a visit to the Three-Leaf Clover Sect," Han Renyi replied casually as though his master dropping in unannounced on one of the most powerful sects in the region to have a chat was a thing that happened sometimes.

"He cleared up any misunderstandings that existed."

"Misunderstandings," his father repeated, and one eyebrow went up slightly.

"And the sect was willing to let those misunderstandings go."

"Yes," Han Renyi said.

"And..." He paused and looked at his father for a moment.

"I've been accepted as a disciple of the sect." The silence that came after that was heavy. Even the servants gave up on the pretense and stared. I couldn't blame any of them because it was an extraordinary thing to say, it was like being told that the tiger that had been circling your house had decided to offer you hunting lessons instead. Han Zhongwei was the first one to pull himself back together.

"They want to accept the person who killed one of their own elders as a disciple." Han Renyi shrugged.

"I think killing one of their elders while I was still at Tier 1 is a large part of why they want me."

"Brother is incredible!" Qingyi declared, beaming with pride, and then her expression shifted slightly.

"But is it safe? What if they have something planned?"

"That's a reasonable thing to worry about," their father agreed, and he leaned forward slightly.

"Are you certain about this, son? What does your master think?"

"It was his idea," Han Renyi said, and I could feel the relief in him at being able to say something that was completely true for once.

"He's a busy person and this way, I'll have guidance available even when he can't be present." I watched Han Zhongwei's shoulders settle back down as he processed that explanation. If the mysterious master had arranged it himself then it must be safe, the logic was interesting on how much weight an unseen authority could carry if people already believed in it.

"Even so," his father said after a moment, "be careful. If they try anything at all..." He trailed off, seeming to realize partway through that warning about sect politics felt a bit strange given what his son had already demonstrated he was capable of handling. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I will," Han Renyi said.

"And if anything does go wrong, I can always reach my master." His father nodded, satisfied with that.

"Good. Now that this matter is sorted, we can move about freely again. The silk merchant from Red Stone City arrives today and we need to be prepared for the negotiations."

"I could help with that," Han Renyi offered.

"I haven't contributed to anything since before my breakthrough..."

"That would be nice," his father said, and the warmth in his smile was real.

"Though I do hope merchant work won't feel beneath you now that you're a cultivator." Han Renyi shook his head.

"Never. This is what our family is built on, and I wouldn't be where I am without it." The satisfaction that moved through Han Zhongwei at that answer was visible on his face. It was clearly the right thing to say. The rest of breakfast passed with Qingyi talking about her studies, their father going over business prospects, and Han Renyi managing to steer around most questions about his master without it becoming obvious that he was doing it.

By the time everyone finished eating, the sun was up and the compound had come alive around them.

"Young Master," the servant from earlier appeared as we left the dining hall, "shall I prepare your formal robes for the meeting with the merchant?" Han Renyi shook his head.

"No need, we'll be doing practical work today, something I can move around in would be better." The servant blinked before covering it with a bow.

"Of course, Young Master, I'll lay something out right away." Walking back to change, I could feel the quiet satisfaction coming off Han Renyi.

"Happy to be back in the family business?" I asked him.

"More than you know," he said.

"After my breakthrough, Father decided I should be focusing on cultivation and he meant well by it but..."

"But you missed being part of how the family runs," I said.

"That makes sense. There's something real about that kind of work that other things don't quite replace." He agreed without putting it into words and changed into something practical: sturdy pants, a plain shirt, and a pair of boots that had been through a lot but still had plenty of use left in them.

"Brother!" Qingyi's voice rose up from the courtyard below.

"Are you coming? Father says we'll miss the morning rush if we don't leave soon!"

"Coming!" Han Renyi called down, then hesitated at the door.

"Ling Zhuo... will you be involved today?" I thought about it for a moment. The commerce of this world was interesting to me and I was curious about how it worked in practice, on the other hand, this was Han Renyi's territory.

"No, I'll watch. You know how to handle this, and I'd probably only get in the way." The relief that came off him was noticeable.

"It's just that I've been doing this my whole life and..."

"And you don't need me stepping in and making it all mine," I finished.

"I understand. I'll stay quiet." He smiled as we headed down to meet his family.

Blue Horizon City lived up to its name. The morning sun hit the blue-tinted stone of the outer walls in a way that made them shimmer, and from a distance it looked striking, but up close, the wear was everywhere once you knew to look for it. There were hairline cracks running through the defensive formations, patches where the special coating had worn thin or flaked away, guard positions that should have had twice as many people standing at them.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Han Renyi thought, noticing where my attention was going.

"The outer defenses are mostly decorative at this point anyway. The protection for the city comes from the sect territories that border it on all sides." That made sense even if it was a little depressing. Why keep pouring resources into maintaining expensive defensive formations when you could just let the sects handle it? Though I did find myself wondering what the price of that arrangement looked like in practice.

The streets were busy even this early in the morning, merchants setting up their stalls, workers moving goods from one place to another, and the air full of the noise of a city getting started with its day. The smell was that particular mixture of breakfast food and too many people living close together that seemed to exist in trading cities regardless of which world you were in.

"Young Master Han!" A fruit seller called out cheerfully as we passed his stall.

"No training today?"

"Helping with the family business today," Han Renyi replied with an easy smile. I noticed the automatic way he adjusted his pace and how he was carrying himself as he said it, not the formal bearing of a young master but not too relaxed either, the right balance to keep good relations without coming across as arrogant.

Though I noticed something else about the crowd as we moved through it, the way people were giving our group space wasn't the deference you'd see for a merchant family of middling status, there was a wariness in it, especially from people who had enough cultivation sensitivity to pick up on what was walking past them.

"We seem to have made an impression," I said to Han Renyi as another cluster of pedestrians stepped aside and found somewhere else to be.

"The Three-Leaf Clover Sect wouldn't announce what happened last night," he replied.

"So it's probably the news of the Zhou Shentong situation that's traveling around." He was right, I could catch fragments of conversations as we passed through:"... that's the one who..."

"... took down a Tier 2 by himself..."

"... Three-Leaf Clover elder is dead..." We reached the Merchant District eventually. Saying the Han family shop was modest would be the generous way to put it. The frontage was clean and well maintained and the sign above the door said Han Family Textiles in calligraphy that was quite good, but I could see everywhere that expensive materials had been swapped out for cheaper alternatives over time. Also, it was clear that maintenance had been put off again and again to save money.

This was the sign of a family fighting a slow and steady decline.

"It isn't much," Han Renyi said mentally, and there was an apologetic quality to it.

"It has its own character," I replied, which was true. There was something worth respecting about a family that kept their dignity intact while they were fighting a losing battle. Inside was more spacious than the front suggested, though a lot of the display space was empty and the emptiness was hard to hide. What was there had been arranged with skill though, every remaining piece positioned to catch the light in the best way, to draw the eye and create the impression of abundance even where the stock was thin.

"Good timing," Han Zhongwei said as we came in.

"The silk shipment should arrive shortly. Renyi, can you clear some space in the back room? Qingyi, I need you to pull the records for the last three transactions with Merchant Liu." I watched through Han Renyi's eyes as the family settled into what was a long-practiced routine. Han Renyi moved crates with the enhanced strength his new cultivation level gave him while his sister looked for the documents their father needed and Han Zhongwei moved between supervising and reviewing his accounts at the same time.

The work itself was straightforward but there was something satisfying about it anyway. Han Renyi knew where everything was supposed to go and how to stack things for stability while keeping them accessible, his new physical strength made the lifting easier, but it was the years of practical knowledge that showed. This was the type of merchant business that Wei Lin would have approved of.

"Young Master?" A small voice came from the direction of the doorway and broke through the rhythm of the work. We turned and found a boy standing there, ten years old maybe, in clothes that were plain but had been kept clean, and he was holding something wrapped up in cloth pressed tightly against his chest.

"Yes?" Han Renyi set down the crate he was holding.

"I was hoping you could help me," the boy said, and his voice had a slight tremor running through it.

"What's wrong?" Han Renyi asked, keeping his voice gentle, and I could feel the pull in him between the instinct to help and the habit of caution that living in a cultivation world builds into everyone. The boy's eyes filled with tears.

"My family is dying," he said quietly.

"I've tried everything I can think of, but no one can do anything and I don't know what else to do." I felt Han Renyi's chest tighten around that. This wasn't a story he was hearing for the first time, with the rouqi of the world continuing to thin out more and more, people were fading. Sure, cultivation could slow it down for those who had it, but even that was growing harder as the available energy shrank year by year.

"I'll try my best," Han Renyi said carefully.

"But I don't know if what I can do will be enough."

"No," the boy said, and something in the way he said it had changed, the tremor was gone.

"You can't help them. But he can." And his eyes moved, not to Han Renyi's face, but through it somehow, to somewhere deeper, settling directly on the place inside his consciousness where I was, which was impossible, which was so impossible that for a second, I couldn't even process it.

"Get back!" I tried to take control from Han Renyi but the air around us had gone wrong somehow, it felt like trying to push through something that kept giving way without letting me move, like the space between thoughts had turned solid. The cloth dropped away from what the boy was holding and what was underneath it was a heart, but not a human heart or anything close to one, it was larger than it should have been and its surface was crystalline.

You could see through it, it was still pulsing with a light that was dying but that pulled at the edges of reality around it as it did. The space in the storage room began to fold.

"Outsider," the boy said, and his voice didn't come from his mouth anymore, it came from everywhere and nowhere in particular, "I have found you." And then there was nothing.

Back in the storage room of the Han family textile shop, Han Zhongwei looked up from his account books and frowned at the empty space in front of him, unsettled by something he couldn't name. Hadn't his son been standing right there a moment ago?

"Renyi?" he called out and set his brush down. Nothing came back.

"Qingyi!"

"Yes, Father?" Her voice floated in from the front of the shop.

"Did you see where your brother went?"

"Isn't he with you?" Han Zhongwei stood up slowly and looked at the crates that had been half stacked against the wall, one of them still balanced on the edge of the stack, steady, as though the person placing it had stopped existing in the middle of the motion.

"Young Master Han was here a moment ago," one of the servants offered from the corner.

"He was talking to... there was a boy, wasn't there?"

"What boy?" Han Zhongwei asked sharply. The servant's brow creased and he was quiet for a moment, looking troubled.

"I... I can't remember what he looked like. I know there was a boy, but I can't..." He trailed off and didn't finish the sentence.

"Why…why can't I remember what he looked like?"