Chương 172: Wake Up Leo!

Eight billion fires shrank to pinpoints, the gold threads dimmed, the vast web of the Heavenly Dao folded back into the space behind his eyes where the Queen had carved her rune. But Leo's vision never returned. All he saw was white. This was familiar. He'd seen this play out before. The Battle of Fort Cambridge. The Grand Pavilion. I have a nasty tendency to black out after a fight. The thought arrived from very far away. The white still filled his vision, but his legs were folding.

Then black started eating the edges, consciousness narrowing the white to a shrinking tunnel. Somewhere behind him, Lord Sydney was calling instructions. Somewhere to his left, someone was saying his name. He couldn't see any of it. Here we go again. His shoulder hit something. The floor, probably. The impact registered as a distant thud, like hearing a door slam three rooms away. The black was winning. The white was losing.

Leo felt himself sliding toward the comfortable darkness where he wouldn't have to think about the fact that the Queen had just used him as a formation pivot. Sleep sounded nice. Two pairs of hands touched him. Leo tried to open his eyes and found that his eyelids were apparently glued shut.

"Is he breathing?" A woman's voice. Familiar.

"He's breathing." A man's voice. Also familiar.

"He's just unconscious."

"Should we get a healer?"

"Lord Sydney's handling it. We should step back." A pause. One of the hands started patting him down. Jacket pockets first, then the inner lining, then down toward his trousers. Leo's consciousness, which had been sliding peacefully toward oblivion, suddenly stopped. What.

"Liyang." The woman's voice sharpened.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for his phone." WHAT.

"His phone?" Penelope's voice dropped to a hiss.

"He just channeled a Deity Transformation vision and you're going through his pockets?"

"He has blackmail material on me. A photograph. I need to delete it before he wakes up." No. No no no. Leo tried to move. His body did not respond. The black pressed in harder.

"A photograph?" Penelope's tone shifted. Interest replaced outrage.

"What kind of photograph?"

"That's not important." Penelope waited. Liyang's hand moved to his back pocket.

"Can we focus, please? He's unconscious. The phone is somewhere here."

"Wait." Penelope's voice was closer now.

"While you're in there, check his search history." NONONONO.

"His search history?"

"Think about it. We'll never get another chance like this. He's completely unconscious. No one's watching. We could find out so much." Leo screamed internally. The sound went nowhere. I will remember this, Liyang. I will remember every second of this. Liyang found his phone. Leo felt it slide out of his pocket. He tried to move his arm. Nothing. He tried to clench his fist. Nothing. The black was still winning, still pressing in from all sides, and his body remained a useless slab of meat on the ballroom floor.

Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP. Penelope and Liyang switched to Chinese. Leo didn't speak Chinese. The conversation became a stream of tones he couldn't parse. But "locked" was English. So was "Face ID." Oh no. Someone grabbed his face. The grip was firm. Leo felt his head turned, felt fingers positioning his jaw, felt thumbs pressing against his eyelids. No. No. This cannot be happening. He tried to scrunch his face. To squeeze his eyes shut harder. To do anything that would keep his phone locked.

His face did not cooperate. The thumbs pried his eyelids open. Light flooded in. Blurry shapes. The glow of a phone screen hovering six inches from his nose. Something deep in Leo's cultivation ignited. The power that slumbered within him. The strength he never knew he had. The fire that awakened only to protect what he held dear. His hand shot up. He ripped his phone free of Liyang's grip. Leo's fingers closed around it with the intensity of a man defending his final dignity. His eyes snapped open.

His back left the floor. Wang Liyang and Penelope Ma knelt on either side of him, frozen mid-violation. Leo looked at his phone. The screen lit up. Face ID recognized him. The lock screen dissolved. The photo gallery was still open. Wang Liyang in a pink tutu. Sequins glittering. White feathers cascading from his shoulders. Arms extended in a crane pose. Penelope's eyebrow rose. Liyang's hand shot across and tapped the screen a few times. The photo vanished. Deleted. The gallery scrolled to the next image.

Wang Liyang in the same tutu. Different angle. Mid-pirouette. Liyang lunged for the phone. Leo stuffed it into his jacket pocket and rolled sideways, which was a mistake, because his body had not actually recovered and the ballroom floor hit him in the shoulder.

"Mr. Chen." Lord Sydney's voice cut through the chaos. The Nascent Soul Lord stood over him, formal robes immaculate, expression somewhere between concern and exasperation.

"You should not be engaging in physical activity. You need rest. Considerable rest. Not whatever this is." Leo lay on the marble, one hand still pressed protectively over his pocket. He glared at Penelope. Penelope had her hand pressed over her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking. No sound came out, but her eyes were bright with tears. Wang Liyang knelt beside him, perfectly still, his face the color of a man who had just died a social death.

"Alright, hero. Up you go." Vicky's hand closed around his arm. She hauled him to his feet, ducking under his shoulder to take his weight.

"I can walk," Leo said.

"You just rolled across the floor to protect your phone from Wang Liyang." She started steering him toward the edge of the ballroom.

"Your judgment is compromised." Leo glowered.

"You know what's funny?" Vicky's tone was light. Conversational.

"You flew across an ocean to rescue me. Knight in shining armor. Cavalier to my debutante."

"I remember."

"And now I'm the one dragging you off a ballroom floor."

"I channeled a Deity Transformation vision."

"And I'm very impressed. Lean left." They skirted a cluster of debutantes still recovering from the Queen's display. Her grip on his arm tightened slightly.

"Leo."

"Yeah?"

"I saw something." She kept her eyes forward.

"There was a line. A karma thread, I think. Connecting me to someone." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Leo glanced at her. Her expression was carefully neutral.

"I was wondering if you knew what it meant."

"Yeah." He nodded slowly.

"Same thing happened to me. Down in the Catacombs. Ashviel."

"And?"

"I was connected to three people." Vicky's head turned.

"Three?"

"Yeah."

"Three people." Her eyebrows rose.

"That's... ambitious." Leo caught her implication.

"It's not always a good thing."

"No?"

"One of the people I was connected to was a Divine Child of the Obsidian Cult." He stepped over a fallen champagne glass.

"She thinks I'm fated to kill her." Vicky was quiet for a moment.

"Kill her." She tilted her head.

"Hmm."

"What?"

"I don't think that matches what I'm feeling." She steered him around a pillar.

"Are you sure it doesn't mean you're fated to marry? Become dao companions?"

"She didn't seem to think so. And definitely not marry." Leo shook his head.

"One of the others was Mateo. I'm definitely not marrying him."

"Fair."

"Same thing with Vivian." Vicky's stride hitched. Just slightly.

"Oh." Her voice was very casual.

"So you were connected to Vivian?"

"Yeah. I think it means we'll be really good friends or something." Silence. Leo looked at her. Vicky was giving him a look he couldn't interpret.

"What?"

"Do you really think of Vivian as a good friend?" She asked.

"And nothing more?"

"Yeah." Leo frowned.

"It's just Vivian. We're friends. There's nothing between us." Vicky held his gaze for a long moment. Then she smiled. The kind of smile that suggested she knew something he didn't. Fine, she thought. I'll go on that stupid date.

"Come on." She shifted his weight.

"Grandmother's waiting." Hilda Walton stood near the far wall, silver hair catching the candlelight. Her expression was unreadable as they approached. Vicky transferred Leo's arm to her grandmother's grip.

"He's all yours."

"Thank you, Victoria." Vicky squeezed Leo's shoulder once. Then she turned and walked back across the ballroom floor. Leo watched her go. Then he looked at Hilda.

"I'm sorry." Hilda's eyes stayed on Vicky's retreating form.

"For what?"

"Everything going wrong." He leaned against the wall, exhausted.

"The confrontation during the dance. The whole disaster. I didn't know what to do." Across the ballroom, Vicky reached Edward. The prince straightened. They stood facing each other, two people whose last exchange had ended with "returns are free." Vicky said something. Edward smiled.

"Mr. Chen." Hilda patted his arm.

"You did exactly what I needed you to do." He looked at her, clearly waiting for elaboration. Hilda just took his elbow and steered him toward the exit. Apparently all she needed to do was to point a nineteen-year-old boy at the problem and let him stumble through it.

Hilda guided him through the palace corridors. Leo's legs worked well enough now, but she kept one hand on his elbow, steering him past servants and guards and the occasional dazed cavalier wandering in the wrong direction. His mind was elsewhere. He turned his attention inward. His sea of consciousness was tender, bruised from the Queen's inscription. He pushed through the discomfort and looked. The two characters sat side by side. Struggle. He knew that one.

The Corpse Eternal had branded it into him months ago, and he'd grown used to its presence the way you grew used to a scar. It pulsed with ancient hunger, the distilled dao of a cultivator who had clawed his way to power ages ago. Form. The new one. It felt different. Cooler. More structured. Where Struggle radiated outward in jagged waves, Form held its shape with rigid precision. The Queen had said they would fight each other. That they would check and balance, too busy with each other to bother with him.

Leo watched them. They weren't fighting. They weren't doing anything. Two characters sitting in his consciousness like books on a shelf. Maybe it was a realm thing. The corruption she'd warned about, might be invisible to him until he broke through to Gold Core. Or Nascent Soul. Or higher. He filed it away. Something to monitor. Something to research when he had time. A different thought surfaced. Grandpa Shen gave him The Struggle of Ten Thousand Swords Seeking Heaven.

But the Queen had simply written Form into his consciousness and sent him on his way. No handy formation. No instructions for how to actually use it. Had she forgotten? He made a mental note to ask Lord Sydney. Hilda steered him around a corner. The doors to the entrance hall opened before them. He was getting the sense that he wasn't supposed to. Not yet. The palace grounds had transformed.

Carriages lined the drive, torchlight flickering across lacquered doors, but the orderly procession of arrivals had dissolved into something warmer. Families clustered on the steps. Mothers embraced daughters. Fathers stood back with expressions caught between pride and confusion. The debutantes were talking over each other.

"Did you see it? The threads?"

"Eight billion. I can't stop thinking about it. Eight billion."

"I thought I hated Catherine. But I saw her fire, and it looked just like mine." Hilda helped Leo into their carriage. The door closed. They lifted off the cobblestones. Through the window, Leo watched the palace recede. The Heavenly Dao. The Queen had called it sustenance. The living force that connected every being to every other, the web that kept eight billion fires burning. He had seen it. He didn't know what the Queen had wanted the debutantes to see. He didn't fully understand what he'd seen himself.

But those girls on the steps, crying and laughing and holding each other like they'd discovered something precious... Whatever the Queen had wanted to show them, she'd shown it. The rest was up to them.

The next morning, Leo wore jeans. It felt like a victory. A week of morning coats and ceremonial sashes, and now he stood in the hotel dining room in a t-shirt and sneakers, feeling human for the first time since he'd landed in London. The hotel had put together something called the Queen's Morning Breakfast. Gold-embossed placards everywhere. A complimentary spread three times the usual size. Their way of commemorating the historic events of the previous evening. Historic events. That was one way to put it.

Today's breakfast was different. Cavaliers who had stood rigid in midnight blue now slouched in hoodies. Mothers who had radiated disapproval now chatted over coffee. Everyone looked younger without the season weighing them down. Leo caught people looking at him as he crossed toward the buffet. A Belgian Superior tipped his hat. A Pemberton smiled warmly. A Swedish cavalier gave him a look that was harder to read, somewhere between respect and rivalry. None of them approached. None of them spoke.

That was fine with him. A hand waved from a window table. Penelope Ma sat in a pool of morning light, her smile wide enough to see from across the room. She'd claimed a corner spot with a view of the gardens, wearing dark jeans and a cream sweater. Gold earrings caught the light when she moved. Without the elaborate gown and ostrich plumes, she looked sweeter. More relaxed. Leo felt a smile spread across his face before he could stop it. He started toward her table, then caught himself.

This was the woman who had tried to investigate his browsing history twelve hours ago. He adjusted his expression to something more guarded and walked over.

"You made it." Penelope smiled.

"I was starting to think you'd slept in."

"I couldn't miss the breakfast." Leo sat down.

"Vicky woke me up and told me how great it was."

"So you came for the food." Penelope's smile didn't waver.

"Not the company."

"The company is a bonus."

"Smooth recovery." She tilted her head.

"You practice that one?"

"It just came to me."

"Liar." A waiter appeared at Leo's elbow. Leo scanned the menu, gave up, and told him he wanted one of everything. Penelope slid a folded newspaper across the table.

"I heard you've been collecting these." Leo looked at the headline. GOLDEN GENERATION: Queen's Gift Moves Debutantes to Tears The photograph showed the ballroom from above. Debutantes in white gowns, faces turned upward, tears streaming down their cheeks. And in the center, suspended in a column of purple light, a figure Leo tried not to recognize as himself. He smiled.

"Thanks." This one he would keep. The rest of the week's coverage, he'd rather forget. He tucked The Sun beside his plate. The waiter returned with a teapot and two cups. Penelope poured for both of them. Leo took a sip. Oolong. Definitely not from the hotel's standard service.

"So." He set the cup down.

"Why did you want to meet?" She stared at him.

"What?" he said.

"That's genuinely how you open?" She leaned back in her chair.

"No pleasantries? No compliments? Just straight to interrogation?"

"I'm not interrogating you."

"You asked me why I wanted to meet. Like I'm applying for a position. Like this is a job interview." She pressed a hand to her chest.

"We're on a date, Leo. The most unromantic opening line in the history of dating." Leo felt heat rise to his face. The waiter returned with Leo's food. The plates kept coming. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Sausages. Mushrooms. Beans. Black pudding. Penelope watched the parade of dishes with visible amusement. He started eating. Eggs first, then bacon, then the black pudding he'd sworn he would never touch and was now genuinely going to miss. Penelope sipped her tea and watched him.

"I wanted to get a proper look at you." Leo glanced up, mouth full of sausage.

"Kim Yuna talks about you constantly." Penelope set down her cup.

"Did you know that?" Leo swallowed.

"Kim Yuna?" He frowned.

"I feel like I haven't seen her in ages. I barely met her once or twice."

"Once or twice." Penelope's eyebrows rose.

"You must have made quite an impression. She brings you up every time we talk. Leo Chen this. Leo Chen that. The American who stole her heart." Leo set down his fork.

"I wish she would talk about me less. Last I heard, half of Korea swore life-and-death enmity with me."

"That's an exaggeration." Penelope waved a hand.

"It's maybe a quarter of Korea. And most of them are just being dramatic."

"Most of them?"

"If anyone has a genuine bone to pick with you, it's her fiancé." Leo raised an eyebrow. Penelope did not elaborate. She picked up her teacup, took a slow sip, and watched him over the rim with visible enjoyment.

"I don't blame her, you know." She leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"I've known you for three days. You ruined the Royal Ascot, crashed a casino, got arrested, channeled a Monarch's vision, and had a blackmail war with my cavalier on a ballroom floor. I barely know you, and I feel like I'll be telling stories about you for the rest of my life." Leo quickly raised both hands.

"Please don't tell me you have some fiancé you're about to sic on me too." Penelope laughed. The sound was bright and genuine, and several heads turned at nearby tables.

"Nothing of the sort." She waved a hand.

"The only thing in my future is deciding whether to form my Gold Core or not." Leo nodded slowly. He knew what she was weighing. At Foundation Establishment, she was free. Free to play around, build her brand, travel the world, live the life she wanted. Gold Core meant Catacombs tours. The Chinese Catacombs had some of the highest fatality rates in the world. Some people chose to stay at Foundation Establishment forever, and Leo couldn't blame them.

Penelope's expression suggested she hadn't decided which kind of person she was. She changed the subject.

"What about you? What's next for Leo Chen?"

"Actually, that's the whole reason I came to London." Leo picked up his fork again.

"I was trying to arrange training sessions with Hilda Walton."

"Training?" Penelope tilted her head.

"For the NFL? You just advanced to Foundation Establishment a year ago. Everyone else in that league has decades of experience. And you think you can compete with them?" Leo smiled.

"I think I can do more than compete." Penelope studied him for a long moment. Then she leaned forward, her expression shifting from disbelief to something closer to fascination.

"Tell me everything." Leo cut into his eggs.

"How much time do you have?"

"My flight's at three."

"Then we should order more food." Penelope waved to the waiter. The morning stretched on. The breakfast plates piled up and were cleared away. The tea was refilled twice, then three times. Other guests came and went, but the corner table by the window stayed occupied, two young cultivators talking about flying aces and formation work and the gap between what everyone expected and what might actually be possible.