Chương 7: Chapter 6: SO THEY MEET

He stared at her, tongue-tied. He'd known it'd work, but… She looked so real. Like she was really there.

"It's been a while, Amyas." The sadness left Maeva's face, but the smile stayed, now bright and cheery. She stepped back, taking a look around the room, turning this way and that, yellow dress and lab coat fluttering as she moved. He could hear her sandaled feet tapping and shifting on the floor. He could even faintly smell the vanilla perfume she often had on.

"You know," she said, "I always suspected that left to your own devices you'd end up living in a bare-bones place like this. Of course you'd manage to live somewhere this drab and dull after reincarnating in a world that literally revolves around colors."

"You…" He shook off his stupor.

"You aren't real. You're a hallucination."

"I am." Maeva walked up to him. As she got closer he realized that at least one thing was different. She seemed much smaller. As Amyas, he'd only been slightly taller than her, but now she was almost a foot shorter than him. He could feel his chroma being sacrificed at a steady rate. The commands he'd given earlier had only had an upfront cost, but it seemed like this one had a continuous cost.

Still, it was an insignificant expense; he could keep it up for an hour, he reckoned, and it wouldn't take even a hundredth of a prismful. Once he raised his affinity with Authority it'd become outright negligible.

"In more technical terms…" She smirked, and he knew she was about to bring in the jargon.

"You could say I'm… a psycho-cognitive construct derived from your unconsciously formed model of Maeva Auclair's… behavioral paradigms. Hmmm. Not my best work, I must say. Psychology and neuroscience were never really my specialty and you don't know much about them either, so I'm afraid that's the best I can do." She shrugged.

"Anyway, I'm just about a hallucination. I'd say I'm more stable than a normal hallucination by courtesy of your bondskill, but still a hallucination, yeah. Nothing more than a product of your mind." She was standing right in front of him now. Slowly, she raised her hand and poked his nose. His eyes widened as he felt her touch. He reached up and grabbed her fingers. Actually grabbed it. It felt warm, and he could even feel the cool metal of her wedding band pressed against his skin.

"A very well-made product, mind you." She grinned impishly and pulled her hand out of his grasp.

"All five senses—or rather four, actually, since I don't think we'll be making much use of taste. I could even pick you up and carry you around, even though you'd be doing all the moving yourself." She frowned up at him.

"But maybe it wouldn't be so realistic, with how tall you are now. Reincarnation sure did wonders for you." She gave him another poke, this time on the arm.

"And I see someone's been working out, too. I think I might miss the scrawny you."

"All… All right." His voice came out uncomfortably tight. His heart was racing, and his head hurt. He could feel Amyas's memories rising back up, making themselves known, clouding his mind. He wasn't thinking straight.

"Well, it's good to know that this works," he said, mostly to himself—because it's not like he needed to say anything to this Maeva, did he? She was just a hallucination. She'd even said so herself just now. He needed to put an end to this. If he wanted to use Absolute Will Command to cause others to hallucinate later, he'd need to know exactly how real the hallucinations were—so far, at least, it seemed terribly real—but he could use another hallucination for that, one that wasn't Maeva.

But before he could cut off the bondskill, Maeva spoke up.

"I wouldn't dismiss me so soon if I were you." She looked more serious now, thoughtful.

"What?"

"This particular application of Absolute Will Command isn't just useful when used on other people," Maeva—the hallucination of Maeva—said. She had on what Amyas had called Maeva's teaching voice, a gentle but firm tone that just made you sit down and listen. That was Maeva. Gently forceful, reasonably headstrong.

"The ability to induce hallucinations in yourself can come in handy, too."

"Handy how?" Jieyuan said. He forced himself to concentrate not on Maeva's presence, but on her words.

"And how would you know that, anyway? You're just a product of my mind. How would you know something I don't?" Maeva shook her head gently.

"It's not that you don't know—it's that you haven't consciously thought of it. You see, you can think of me as your unconscious mind filtered through your idea of Maeva. Your mental model of her, as I put it earlier." She smirked.

"In other words, I'm you wearing Maeva-tinted glasses, made to think and act like Maeva. I only know the things you know, that's true, but I interpret them from Maeva's perspective—or what you think Maeva's perspective would be, in any case."

"And that could be useful?" Part of him—a confused, disturbed part—still wanted to just end the hallucination there and then. But if this hallucination of Maeva could help him in some way, that was a different story. He'd take any advantage he could get. And there was another part of him that didn't want Maeva to go, even if she was a hallucination. Maeva had always been something of a weakness to Amyas. His greatest one. She'd all but raised him, given how absent his parents had been in his life.

It was her fault, in a way, that Amyas's parents hadn't cared much for him (because why would they pay attention to him when they already had college-at-fourteen, doctorate-at-twenty Maeva for a daughter?), but Amyas had never blamed Maeva for it. How could he, when she gave him all the attention their parents denied him and then some more.

"For starters, I'm a direct line to your unconscious. Want to remember something, work out a theory, or feel torn over a decision? I can help you with that in a way nobody else can," Maeva said.

"I can also provide a new perspective on things—Maeva's perspective."

"That's… nice and all," Jieyuan said, "but I don't think—" Maeva rolled her eyes.

"Fine. You want something more concrete? This whole business with your memories, the color of your soul, and Daojue." Jieyuan frowned.

"What about it?" Maeva began to pace around the room, as she always did when she was thinking something through.

"There are a couple of points you haven't considered yet. You remembered your previous life when you and Daojue shook hands, but I think the important part was the contact between the two of you. Search your memories. You'd never had direct contact with Daojue like that before."

"Direct contact?" Jieyuan frowned but gave it some thought. Jieyuan quickly went over all his previous interactions with Daojue—and realized Maeva was right. He'd had several missions with Daojue, even dueled him before, but that was the first time they'd touched each other directly. He'd never gotten close enough for their mantles to touch. They might have dueled, but both of them used spear; they both fought at relative distance from each other.

"You think that was the trigger, then?" Jieyuan asked.

"Skin contact?"

"Not skin contact," Maeva said.

"Or at least I doubt it was something so mundane. Rather, I believe it had to do with your mantle s touching. Your mantle, the emanation of the chroma imbuing your soul. Your soul, which all of a sudden is looking considerably darker than before. You already came to the conclusion yesterday that the way your soul changed colors has to do with you gaining Amyas's memories, and I agree." Jieyuan frowned, making sense of Maeva's words.

"So what you're saying is that you believe that our mantles coming into contact provoked some kind of reaction in my soul, and that's both why it changed colors and I remembered my life as Amyas?" Maeva beamed at him." Exactly. Mind you, I'm not saying that Daojue has some power that can awaken the memories of others on touch, but that mantle contact between the two of you, specifically, let you remember your life as Amyas. Emphasis on the two of you.

Your mantle has touched that of others before, and I'm sure that's also true in Daojue's case. But when you two touched, it happened. That is fact."

She paused, and then added, looking a bit more unsure now, "Of course, this is all supposition at this point; we don't have nearly enough data points to make any concrete conjectures. But I think it's a start. But enough about that. There's something else: Meiyao. Whatever's going on, there's a possibility she's part of it, too."

"Meiyao?" Jieyuan said, confused. He tried to make sense of that.

"Because… Because she didn't have much of a reaction to the violet skillseed?"

"That's part of it, but there's more." Maeva kept pacing slowly around the room.

"There's also the fact that Meiyao has fourth-order heavenly affinity, like you and Daojue. You've read up on the subject. Redrealm sects can go for hundreds—if not thousands —of years without admitting someone that talented. And now there are three of you in the same batch?" Jieyuan had to admit that was a little suspicious, but it wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility.

"There's more," Maeva said.

"That little show Meiyao gave you in her garden yesterday? We don't know enough about the chromal crafts to say for certain, but her abilities as a chromal nurturer seem as unlikely as her heavenly affinity. Everything you've read on the chromal crafts indicates it's impossible to perform nurturing as effortlessly as Meiyao did."

"Right," Jieyuan said, "but the reason I know Daojue's special is because he must have something to do with my memories. Meiyao might be special in her own way, sure, but—""I was getting to that," Maeva cut him off.

"A similarity between Meiyao and Daojue. First, her appearance: green eyes and brown hair—traits that, in this world of black hair and eyes, are as anomalous as Daojue's violet eyes. And—""Well, yeah," Jieyuan cut in, "but the Liangshibai look even more unusual, with their gemstone eyes."" And," Maeva stressed, ignoring him, "there's how strong and agile Meiyao and Daojue both are. You fought them both in the entrance trials. They're both abnormally strong and fast—more so than their physiques would warrant.

And you've fought a few Liangshibai, too; they might have abnormal eyes, but that's it. They don't have Meiyao and Daojue's strength and agility." Jieyuan frowned. Meiyao and Daojue were unusually strong and fast. He knew it first-hand. Jieyuan could still clearly recall facing them in the entrance trials. Now, Daojue was both taller and fitter than Jieyuan. Daojue should have been stronger than Jieyuan, yes—but not overwhelmingly so. The same went for Meiyao. Meiyao wasn't built slight. Not even close.

She stood more than an inch over six feet, taller than most men Jieyuan knew. Humans in Jieyuan's current life—in the Chromajie—weren't exactly like the humans from Earth, biologically. The biggest difference was in the women. The idea of a frailer sex didn't exist here, biologically or culturally. Women in the Chromajie were just as strong, fast, and tough as men; they tended to be slightly shorter and didn't carry as much bulk, but what they lacked in size they made up for in density.

Denser muscles and denser bones. This meant that despite being shorter and slighter than Daojue, Meiyao probably weighed more than him. Like Daojue, she should have outmatched him physically anyway—but, again, not to such an overwhelming extent. Fighting her had been like fighting Daojue: like going up against a battering ram. Jieyuan's frown deepened. None of what Maeva was telling him was exactly news to him, but put together like that…

It was like the thought he'd had the previous day, when he'd been considering the mystery of Amyas's memories and Daojue's connection to them. Too many coincidences could look an awful lot like a pattern. Maeva came to a stop and held his gaze.

"We already know there's more to the situation than meets the eye because of your memories. We also know Daojue is involved, because you only got those memories after you shook hands. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that someone exhibiting as many anomalies as Meiyao might be part of it as well." Jieyuan found no flaw in her logic, but it wasn't like he was trying to. He didn't want to, in fact.

Amyas had always listened to Maeva almost without question, and being lectured by Maeva like this, he felt like Amyas more than he ever had before. Feeling like Amyas shouldn't have been a good thing; if anything, it should have been something to avoid. But… Heavens, Maeva made him feel warm. Jieyuan swallowed, suddenly feeling oddly uncomfortable. Disoriented.

"So what you're saying is that I should also keep an eye on Meiyao, like I'm already planning to do with Daojue."

"Exactly," Maeva said.

"Now, again, I might be wrong. Meiyao might have nothing to do with your memories and whatever cosmic conspiracy—or whatever it is—you and Daojue seem to be caught up in. This is all abductive reasoning, not proof. But even so, looking into Meiyao should give you some insight into Daojue's circumstances. Physically, at least, they're special in very similar ways." She resumed pacing.

"You've already heard the rumors that Meiyao had a falling-out with her father, the chief elder. You don't know the circumstances, though. Look into that. And see if you can't find out who her mother is." That caught Jieyuan off guard.

"Her mother?"

"You've seen Meiyao's father, Liangshibai Junjie, before; he looks mundane. Black hair, black eyes. He's not a Liangshibai by blood; he married into the clan. So unless it skipped a generation, Meiyao's special traits must come from her mother. Hmmm. Her full name. Linzushen Meiyao."

"Yeah?"" Linzushen. Start with that. Her surname. The chief elder's wife can't be Meiyao's mother; otherwise, Meiyao would be called Liangshibai Meiyao, not Linzushen. Not to mention Meiyao doesn't have the Liangshibai gemstone eyes. So she's adopted, from another wife, or from a lover. And it's much likelier Meiyao took her mother's surname rather than her father's original one. You have no leads on Daojue's background, but Meiyao's a different story."

"All right." Getting answers shouldn't take much effort. When everyone took you for a future Orangesoul (if not a Yellowsoul, or even higher) it wasn't hard to get people talking.

"Anything else?"

"Liangshibai Yunzhu," Maeva said.

"As you saw yesterday, there's something off about her, and it has to do with Daojue. You were already planning on looking into her, but make a priority of it. If you're planning on sticking around Daojue, whatever Yunzhu's problem is might very well become yours too."

"That's… reasonable," Jieyuan allowed. Maeva beamed up at him.

"Then I've proven that I'm not entirely useless, correct? But don't worry—I'm nowhere near done yet." She stopped next to him, then dropped to the ground into a seated position and patted his meditation mat. Her lab coat splayed out under her, her yellow dress bunching up a bit.

"Get yourself comfortable, Amyas. I've got all sorts of ideas for Absolute Will Command, and I also want to chat a bit about your life. It's been a long while, and we've got some serious catching up to do. I mean—what a mess you've gotten yourself into. And this new world of yours? Goodness. What Qiyun wouldn't have given to be in your place." Qiyun. Yang Qiyun. Maeva's husband.

The two had gotten together early on; they'd both been fourteen when they met at university (both child prodigies and veritable geniuses), and they'd started dating within the year. He'd been an older brother of sorts to Amyas—with all that entailed, good and bad—given how much time he'd spent over at their place. Jieyuan stared down at this hallucination of Maeva, at her expectant, certain expression, as if she knew he'd comply and was only waiting for it. It wasn't really Maeva. She'd admitted it herself.

All of this was fake. Just his unconscious mind pretending to be Maeva, acting as Maeva would have. But she had put together all those things about Daojue and mantle-contact and also Meiyao. And it was good to have confirmation that something was off about Yunzhu, even if it was technically coming from himself. Above all that, though, there was a sad, almost desperate part of him that didn't want this to end. It felt like he was talking to Maeva. The real Maeva.

And even though, in this life, he was Haoyujin Jieyuan, right here and now he was Amyas, Maeva's little brother. He plopped down beside her, feeling helpless in the way only Maeva could make him feel. —∞— It was the first of Yellowfull, the day the Hunt was set to start. Jieyuan stood on a hill under the Ruby Arch, the colossal ruby-red stone structure that marked the end of the outer court. Below, down the hill, was Ruby Square—a massive diamond-shaped stone platform, red like its namesake.

He stared down at the crowd of disciples gathered there, like a sea of red with swirls of orange and flashes of yellow and blue. He'd never seen so many cultivators gathered in one place. There had to be hundreds of them, all of them gathered for the Gleamstone Hunt. And even then, Ruby Square was big enough that they could all split up into little cliques, big enough to look like it could just swallow all of them up.

Directly across from him, on the opposite hill, was the Topaz Arch—twin to the one he was standing under. A monumental structure of orange stone, easily over a hundred feet tall and twice as wide as that. The sun hung high in the sky, and both arches cast massive shadows over the square. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Meiyao and Daojue barely paid a glance to the crowd below as they continued on down the hill.

Jieyuan's new spear bobbed slightly where it was strapped to his back as he made his way down with his teammates. He'd gone to the Inscribers' Division and managed to trade Rongkai's sword for a third-step Redrealm chromal spear, throwing in his old one to sweeten the deal. Given that chromal spears were significantly more expensive than chromal swords at the same step, it'd been a suspiciously good bargain.

He wasn't sure if that was because cultivators were terrible at bargaining and being a merchant's son was finally paying off, or because he was a fourth-order Firesoul, guaranteed to be scouted in the Radiant Gold Summit. He had a similar experience when he bought a couple of stamina augmenter pills from a concocter from the sect's Refiners' Division for only a couple of prisms. As they reached the square, heads turned their way.

A few disciples returned to their conversations after a glance, but most of them kept on staring, even if discreetly. Mostly it was Daojue and Meiyao they were looking at, but Jieyuan got a few looks sent his way. Some of these disciples he knew from the times he went around hunting for rumors, and he gave them brief nods and got a few uncertain nods back. He doubted that after the Hunt he'd be seeing any of them again, but being polite cost him nothing.

They hadn't agreed on it beforehand, but Meiyao had started leading the way from the moment they'd met up this morning, and when she came to a stop in an emptier part of the square, so did he and Daojue. It was moments like this that reminded Jieyuan that Meiyao was, indeed, a Woodsoul, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Leadership came naturally to Woodsouls. Unthinkingly so. Woodsouls were all about fostering growth, in themselves and in others.

They were by far the best with people out of all the alignments. Jieyuan took a look around. He didn't pay much attention to the outer and inner disciples in ruby and topaz, but his eyes lingered on the core disciples, the ones wearing emerald. Those he'd be seeing later, at least, during the Radiant Gold Summit. He noticed a woman in emerald robes walking their way. Liangshibai Yunzhu. Tall, hauntingly beautiful, and looking like she'd taken a plunge in a pool of rubies.

Today she had gauntlets and greaves on, and he wasn't surprised to see little rubies on the back of her gauntlets' hands and on the exposed sides of her greaves peeking out of her robes. She was looking their way, not at him but rather at somewhere to his left. He didn't need to follow her eyes to know it was Daojue she was looking at. Walking next to her was a man in topaz robes, in plain steel greaves and gauntlets, and with a sheathed sword hanging from his belt.

Jieyuan had never seen the man before, but he immediately recognized him all the same. Just the fact that the man was an inner disciple and together with Yunzhu would've been more than enough, but there was one thing he had that nobody else did. A thick white blindfold covering his eyes and most of the upper half of his face. Dajinzhi Qingshi, in the flesh. The sect's strongest inner disciple. And also, as far as Jieyuan knew, the sect's only blind disciple. Jieyuan studied the man more closely.

Short, straight black hair. Broad-shouldered, tall. What little of his face was left bare looked angular, handsome. By his side, Meiyao grumbled something. Jieyuan couldn't make out the words, but he'd have bet on it being a curse. Daojue also noticed the approaching pair, turning their way, but he didn't have any other reaction otherwise. Yunzhu waved cheerily as she approached, beaming, radiant like a blood moon.

The crowd parted around Yunzhu and Qingshi like Jieyuan had often seen mundanes get out of the way of cultivators back in Radiant Gold City. Hurriedly, but discretely, so as not to draw attention to themselves. They were all cultivators here, proud men and women whose lives revolved around facing and overcoming unimaginable pain, but the crowd this side of Ruby Square was mostly outer disciples, first-step and second-step Redsouls.

To them, the approaching pair of fifth-step Redsouls might as well be envoys of the Heavens themselves. Not wanting to be caught staring, Jieyuan looked away and past them, into the surrounding crowd, even as he sent his soulsenses their way. He focused on Qingshi's soul first, searching for its song. With his soulsenses, Jieyuan heard a deep, resonant melody, and in his mind's eye he saw an altar of steel and stone. He kept his soulsenses trained on Qingshi's soul.

Given the whole deal with Daojue and Qingshi's role in it, Jieyuan reckoned it'd pay to have Qingshi's song memorized. Soul songs were especially hard to memorize. Redsouls gained perfect memory on seventh-step, but spiritual songs supposedly remained an exception to it. Just sensing it once wasn't enough. You had to concentrate on a soul's song for a good while to commit it to memory. Yunzhu wasn't smiling anymore as she and Qingshi came to a stop in their little slice of Ruby Square.

Rather, she was scowling, frustrated. A dull, clicking sound came from Qingshi. A tongue click?

"How come you three aren't at third-step Redrealm yet?" Yunzhu demanded. She looked between the three of them, arms crossed over her chest.

"I was sure that you'd have already broken through by now." Jieyuan glanced at Meiyao, who was looking faintly amused. Her plan to delay advancing to third-step Redrealm until after the Hunt started was already paying out if it meant it'd give them an excuse to stay away from Yunzhu. The woman was acting normal now, but Jieyuan would rather not take any chances given what he'd seen from her the last time they met.

They were headed to the Inner Valley anyway, but he didn't think Meiyao would be volunteering that information. As far as he could tell, she'd also noticed Yunzhu's disturbing behavior last time, and there was the whole thing between Qingshi and Daojue, whatever that was. They were better off keeping their intentions to head to the Inner Valley a secret, even if an elder would be secretly watching over them.

"Sorry to disappoint, Yunzhu," Meiyao said, not sounding sorry at all.

"We figured it'd be better to stay as outer disciples and stick to the Outer Valley for now." She looked between Yunzhu and Qingshi.

"Are you two on the same team, then?"

"Unfortunately, no," Qingshi said. His voice was deep and smooth. An orator's voice. Practiced.

"It's been a while, Meiyao. It's good to see you again. You as well, Daojue." Daojue had no response. He only leveled Qingshi with his usual, stony glare—one that Qingshi didn't see. For obvious reasons. Meiyao, for her part, opted for a snort.

"I'm sure it is." That dull, muted sound came again, and this time Jieyuan caught Qingshi's jaw moving slightly. That settled it; Qingshi was indeed making that clicking sound with his mouth. Was it some kind of tick? Qingshi turned his head toward Jieyuan, who found himself staring straight into the inner disciple's white blindfold. It was a thick piece of white cloth, much thicker than the same-color neck shroud Qingshi wore wrapped around his neck.

"And you must be Haoyujin Jieyuan, yes?" Qingshi asked.

"My master's wife, Protector Wanxin, mentioned she was your proctor in the entrance trials. You left quite the impression on her. It's a pleasure to finally meet you." Qingshi extended his hand, and Jieyuan didn't hesitate to shake it. If nothing else, it was important to keep up appearances; they were in a crowd, and he could feel others looking their way, some more discretely than others. Jieyuan was no stranger to this game.

He still had his soulsenses focused on Qingshi's soul, and he felt that he was already close to memorizing the inner disciple's song.

"The pleasure's all mine," Jieyuan said.

"I've also been looking forward to meeting you. You're something of a legend in the outer court."

"Ah, yes, I'm well aware of my reputation." Qingshi tapped his blindfold, smiling wryly.

"I'm afraid it's unavoidable, given my… circumstances." Qingshi's forehead creased slightly and lips quirked up as he took on a pensive look. Despite the blindfold covering his eyes and most of his nose, Qingshi had an expressive face. That wasn't what Jieyuan had expected; both Qingshi's heavenly affinity and alignment were well known. Third-order, Metal.

Jieyuan had envisioned the inner disciple as more of a stereotypical Metalsoul, someone cold and apathetic, even if not as much of one as Daojue, who stretched the stereotype to absurdity.

"I imagine you three won't be long in advancing to third-step once the Hunt starts," Qingshi said, thoughtful.

"And there's nothing stopping outer disciples from entering the Inner Valley, as far as I know. Meiyao, I'm guessing Protector Yuyan gave you a mind-linker with her cipher already recorded in it, so you could contact her as soon as you broke through?"

"She did," Meiyao said; she sounded a touch put-off. Jieyuan had a feeling she knew where Qingshi was going with this and didn't like it any. Qingshi smiled genially.

"As I thought. Well, there you have it. Yunzhu can record her cipher in it as well; then, Meiyao, once you reach third-step, you can bond the mind-linker and use it to contact Yunzhu to arrange a meet-up. That way, you'll still get to hunt together, even if for only a day or two." A meet-up with Yunzhu? Jieyuan wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. He shifted his gaze to the woman in question—and froze.

Yunzhu was staring dead into Daojue's eyes, and just like when he'd met her a little over a week ago, there was a dark depth in her eyes: pitch-black pools hiding a bottomless abyss. Daojue stared back impassively. But this wasn't Daojue's usual flavor of stony. There was an edge to his expression, something sharp and wary: like he was eyeing a threat and was ready to take action at a moment's notice.

"Yunzhu?" Qingshi asked, frowning a little, after a few seconds had passed and Yunzhu had yet to respond. Yunzhu shuddered, blinking, snapping out of it (whatever it was).

"Right, yes! That's perfect! You must contact me after you three advance." She brushed her hair over her ear. There was a smattering of ruby earrings on it—her ear was more ruby than skin, really—most of them studs. She plucked the bottommost stud and held it out toward Meiyao.

"Here," Yunzhu said, looking at Meiyao expectantly.

"Just press yours to mine, and—""I don't have it with me," Meiyao cut her off. Yunzhu's smile slipped.

"You don't? Why not? You didn't bring it with you?"

"I threw it away," Meiyao said flatly.

"What? Why? Wait— Oh, come on, are you still mad at Aunt Yuyan?" Yunzhu gave Meiyao a searching look.

"Meiyao, she had nothing to do with… with that matter. It was Uncle Junjie and Grandfather who set it all up. You know that." If the way Meiyao's expression darkened was anything to go by, that hadn't been the right thing to say. She fixed Yunzhu with a stone-cold expression that even Daojue would envy.

"I want nothing to do with any of them."

"You… All right. That's… All right. Forget it," Yunzhu said.

"Look, I'll link my mother, ask her to bring over another mind-linker for you before the hunt starts. And it'll be a completely new one; nobody will have its cipher, I promise. Then I'll just record my cipher on it, and—""No." Yunzhu stared at her.

"Why not? Isn't this exactly what you—""No," Meiyao repeated, colder.

"Come, now, Yunzhu." Qingshi put a hand on Yunzhu's shoulder.

"You're making Meiyao uncomfortable." Meiyao rounded on Qingshi, lips curling back, baring her teeth.

"I'll show you uncomfortable, you rotting—""No. No, no, no," Yunzhu said, putting her hands up as she stepped between them.

"I won't have you two fighting. Qingshi, stay out of this. Meiyao, stop picking fights. Really, you can be such a Firesoul sometimes." Yunzhu gave Meiyao a long, challenging stare. Meiyao met it evenly, coldly.

"You know what? Have it your way." Yunzhu sighed heavily and put her earring back on.

"Heavens know why I even bother." Meiyao ignored her, staring off into the crowd. For a while, nobody spoke. They just stood there, gathered but also apart, in very awkward silence. Well, this is nice. Jieyuan shifted his weight between his feet uneasily; Qingshi looked just as uncomfortable. Meiyao and Daojue were both as still and cold as winter nights, and Yunzhu seemed like she couldn't decide between glaring daggers at Meiyao and looking pointedly away.

Jieyuan shifted his soulsenses over to Yunzhu; he didn't think he'd already memorized Qingshi's song yet, but he was too curious about what Yunzhu's was like. She seemed so perfectly normal right now. Even if he wouldn't remember it later, he'd still be able to recall his impression of it. The moment he stopped focusing on Qingshi, his memory of just what his song was like vanished; all that was left of it was lingering impression that it'd been deep and powerful.

Jieyuan's soulsenses found Yunzhu's soul and delved deeper, searching for her soul's song. A dissonant dissonant scramble of sounds struck him. Blood-red jagged shards of crystal, vibrating to the chaotic symphony, screaming CRYSTAL BLOOD LUST. Jieyuan jerked his soulsenses back. He had to stop himself from taking a step back too. What the rot? He checked on the others for a moment, but it didn't look like anyone had been paying attention to him. Swallowing dryly, he warily returned his attention to Yunzhu.

His soulsenses found her soul's song again, and though he'd braced himself for it, he had to keep himself from cringing. Seriously, what the rot is this? You couldn't really judge someone by their soul's song; it was a bad idea to draw any sort of conclusion from it, really. Someone's song could be indicative of their personality, but more often than not, soul song and personality were completely unrelated. Still, though.

If Yunzhu's song was anything to go by, there really was something terribly, horribly wrong with her. You didn't judge a book by its cover, sure, but if it was bound in human skin and depicted acts of gruesome torture, you'd better be a little concerned. The uncomfortable silence lingered a little longer (though in Jieyuan's case it was now tinged with apprehension). Qingshi ended up being the one to break it, clearing his throat.

"This will be the first time you'll be facing chromal beasts, yes?" Qingshi asked them. Jieyuan glanced at both his teammates, saw that neither of them seemed to be in the mood for talking, and decided to pick up the slack.

"It is. Why? Do you have any advice?"

"I do, yes." Qingshi shot Jieyuan a relieved smile, like he was thanking him for playing along. If Qingshi was supposed to be some kind of dastardly evil mastermind, the way Daojue and Meiyao painted him out to be, Jieyuan sure wasn't seeing it. Then again, you'd expect a a proper dastardly evil mastermind to be able to hide their nature, so that didn't mean much, either.

"I joined the sect five years ago, so the first time I faced a chromal beast was also in the Gleamstone Hunt," Qingshi said.

"You three have at least seen a gleam beast before, yes? Most of our enthrallers specialize in them, and I believe new disciples in Gleamstone Hunt years are assigned at least one mission in the sect's vivarium before the Hunt."

"We have," Jieyuan confirmed, recalling it, a mission with about fifty other teams of outer disciples. They'd spent a whole day in the sect's vivarium, purportedly to run some errands for the elders of the sect's Enthralling Division. Most of their team's time, though, had been spent listening to an enthusiastic elder rattle off about his favorite deadly beasties.

"Then you'll know that most of their body is covered in gleamstone," Qingshi said.

"Don't bother trying to break it unless you've got gleamstone weapons yourselves—and I don't think any of you do, yes? It won't get you anywhere. Gleamstone is even harder than diamond at the same step; using steel or any other metal, you'd need an Orangerealm weapon to damage." Good to know.

"Is there a trick, then?"

"Yes. Aim for the gaps in their gleamstone armor," Qingshi said.

"Where these gaps are located varies according to the beast's race, but some likely locations are the—""The base of the neck," Yunzhu cut in, tracing a line over the collar of her outer robe, just under her neck shroud. She was back to fixing Daojue with that intense, utterly unnerving stare. It was like the whole discussion with Meiyao just now hadn't even happened. Rotting Heavens, just what is wrong with this woman? Jieyuan almost backed away.

He'd never seen someone whiplash between cheery and creepy like this before. It was worse than if she were to act like this all the time; the way Yunzhu sometimes acted like a normal person made her bouts of unsettling behavior even more disturbing. Undaunted by the odd looks she was getting, Yunzhu continued, her horrifying gaze still set on Daojue, "As well as the center of the chest, over the heart."

She reached out with her hand in Daojue's direction, the rubies in the knuckles of her gauntlets glistening, one finger outstretched. Just as she was about to touch Daojue's chest, Daojue's hand snapped out in a blur, snatching her wrist and holding it in place. Heavens' sake. For just a moment, they were all still. Frozen in place, at least in Jieyuan's case with the horrified fascination one would watch a natural catastrophe.

A quick glance around told him that though the others were just as still, it might be for different reasons. Qingshi was visibly tense, jaw clenched, his face tight under his blindfold. Meiyao had stopped playing the apathetic bystander, her eyes intent and focused on the unfolding situation. Her hands, in fact, were drawing closer to the handle of her saber, and Jieyuan found himself doing the same, adjusting his posture so he could pull his new spear from its straps on his back at a moment's notice.

But then Yunzhu giggled softly and pulled her hand back, effortlessly breaking Daojue's grasp (and reminding Jieyuan that she was a fifth-step Redsoul and that no second-step—not even Daojue—would stand a chance against her).

"Sorry about that," Yunzhu said. Bashful. Like she'd just stumbled onto Daojue or made some other silly mistake. Like she hadn't just been caught trying to molest Daojue, or whatever the Heavens she'd been trying to do. A chuckle came from Qingshi. It sounded awfully forced; some of the tension had bled away from the inner disciple's face, but not all of it.

"Well, Yunzhu's quite right. As she said, gaps in a gleam beast's armor are commonly found at the base of the neck and over the heart." He paused, then added, a bit more deliberately, "Another good place is the eyes. Targeting them isn't so easy, of course, but they're by far the most vulnerable part of a gleam beast's body. And in most cases, damage to the eyes can be an incapacitating wound."

Qingshi smiled a wry little smile and tapped his blindfold, just as he'd done a short while ago, after introducing himself to Jieyuan.

"Trust me, I should know." That had Jieyuan recalling perhaps the most famous story he'd heard about the man. Qingshi was blind—that much was a fact. But it hadn't always been like that. When Qingshi joined the sect, there were those who thought he was faking his blindness, that he could actually see through his blindfold. Now that he'd met Qingshi, Jieyuan could see why others would think that. Qingshi didn't act as a blind person; he carried himself as well as someone with two perfectly functioning eyes.

The matter of Qingshi's disability was settled when the inner disciple took off his blindfold after winning a tournament in the inner court, in front of thousands of inner and outer disciples, and revealed a stretch of burnt, scarred skin where his eyes should have been. Before he joined the sect, Qingshi had been a blacksmith's apprentice, and he'd supposedly lost his eyes in an accident in the forge. That still begged the question of how exactly it was that Qingshi perceived the world, though.

Supposedly he mostly relied on his soulsenses, but Jieyuan had heard that when Qingshi took the entrance trials of the Gleaming Stone Sect he'd ranked first in all the stages, including the dueling stage. Qingshi hadn't been a cultivator at the time, so he couldn't have been relying on his soulsenses at the time. Jieyuan knew that a blind person's other senses were augmented to make up for their lack of vision, but was it really to such an exaggerated extent?

"Now," Qingshi said, "to any new disciples, I'd recommend taking it slow and hunting a first-step Redrealm beast to start with. But between Daojue and Meiyao, I know that any such warnings will fall on deaf ears. And I doubt a Firesoul will care much for caution, either. So I won't waste my breath." He placed his hand back on Yunzhu's shoulder.

"Yunzhu, we should get going. It's almost time. I need to meet up with my teammates, and you with yours."

"Hmmm? Right, of course," Yunzhu said, looking away from Daojue—whom she'd been staring at, again.

"It really is a pity we won't get to hunt together. And trust me, Meiyao, we'll be having words later about this whole situation. Aunt Yuyan is miserable, you know? So is your brother. And they're not at fault at all. Sure, your father is… well, you know. And Grandfather is acting like an idiot. But you shouldn't take it out on everyone else." She looked at Meiyao expectantly, but Meiyao did not react, pretending not to hear. Yunzhu rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Well, I guess I'll see you three after the Hunt then. Just bear in mind what Qingshi said, and I'm sure you'll get first place." Qingshi gave them a nod before walking off. Yunzhu gave them a little cheery wave before following. Jieyuan watched them leave. He went over their conversation. Qingshi had given no indication that he was up to something—but then again, Jieyuan hadn't expected him to, not in the middle of a crowd like this. If anything, Qingshi had seemed almost like a kindred soul to him.

Were the situation any different, he could've seen the two of them getting along just fine, both of them mundane-borns who'd risen to the level of clan-borns. Yunzhu, on the other hand… Jieyuan hadn't managed to learn much else about her over the last few days. All he knew was that he wanted as much distance between him and her as possible, especially if Daojue was involved. That woman was an outright menace. As Yunzhu and Qingshi disappeared into the crowd, Jieyuan shifted his attention to his teammates.

Daojue had gone back to his usual state of both looking and acting like the perfect statue. Looking at him, Jieyuan realized with some amusement how Qingshi and Yunzhu were only problematic when you added Daojue to the equation and perfectly pleasant otherwise. It was like Daojue brought out the worst in others. Meiyao, on the other hand, was looking at the crowd. No—not at the crowd, Jieyuan realized, but at someone. He followed her eyes to a man in emerald robes, a core disciple, who was walking towards them.

The man was still a good distance away, far beyond Jieyuan's soulsenses, but Jieyuan could see the angular lines of his face and his yellow eyes. Or rather, his citrine eyes. A trueblood Liangshibai. One with third-order heavenly affinity, given the color of his eyes. The man came to a sudden stop after a couple of steps. He was frowning, hesitating. Jieyuan glanced back at Meiyao and saw that she was glaring at the man now, her lips drawn tight. She couldn't have looked less welcoming if she'd tried.

Slowly, the man nodded and turned around, walking away. Jieyuan leaned closer to Meiyao.

"Your brother?" he asked quietly. Meiyao turned her glare to him.

"Mind your own rotting business." Jieyuan scowled. Heat rose inside him.

"I was just—" Don't get mad, don't get mad. Ground yourself.

"Never mind." He turned away from her. But then, feeling himself cool down a little, he couldn't help but sneak a glance at her. She had her brow deeply furrowed, lips half-curled, jade-green eyes hard and cool as she stared at nowhere in particular. Even like this, fuming, incensed, borderline murderous, she looked like a dream. Heavens damn me. He didn't know what it was that she and Yunzhu were talking about—why she'd fallen out with her father, and from the looks of it, all of her family.

He'd looked further into Meiyao as Maeva had suggested, but details on any recent developments concerning her were scarce. Most of what he'd learned had been about her mother, Linzushen Lianhua. Maeva had been right; it was indeed from her mother that Meiyao inherited both her family name and her looks: her green eyes and brown hair and impossible beauty. Lianhua had been a protector of the sect, an elder of the core court. She'd married Meiyao's father together with a Liangshibai woman.

Shortly afterward, Meiyao's father was adopted into the Liangshibai Clan and made chief elder. Eleven years ago, Lianhua was declared dead, supposedly killed in a mission outside the sect, but nobody had been able to tell Jieyuan what exactly that mission was or how she'd died. Thinking on it had Jieyuan frowning. As Maeva had pointed out to him, Meiyao might be part of whatever it was he and Daojue were involved in, so he'd have liked to know more—both about Meiyao's mother and her falling out with her family.

He couldn't imagine getting anything out of Daojue on his background, but Meiyao might be willing to share further down the line. Or at least she'd seemed that way until her conversation with Yunzhu. He wasn't so sure about that anymore. And right now was definitely not the time to bring either matter up. Not unless he wanted to get intimate with the blade of her saber. He didn't try to make conversation, and neither did either of his teammates. They spent the rest of their wait in silence.

As the sun drew closer to its peak, as midday drew closer, the conversations around them quieted down and soon died as disciples started looking up, toward the sky, waiting.