Chương 92: Planning Death, I

"It is an advantage for the both of us, so I ask -" Prefect Shi was saying. Wu Hao shuddered, feeling breath return to his body. He thought he'd gotten used to the feeling of sudden wholeness, of having an entire day's worth of injuries and pain being ripped from him from one moment to the next.

His qi reserves were full again instead of being utterly drained, his eyes shielded slightly against the sun beginning a slow descent into the horizon instead of straining to see anything against the broken-lantern darkness of the mines. And no claw ripping his heart into pieces, too. That was important. It was only reflex that kept him from stumbling, as well as the arm that took hold of his own clumsily. But even then when he looked up he saw a few eyes fixated on him.

Prefect Shi was frowning, Lady Shi looked surprised, and next to him Jin Qilong had been the one to take his arm as if he was some sort of patient. To them he must have seemed to nearly fall out of his skin between one word and the next. Wu Hao ignored their surprise, turning instead to the notification that he'd gotten a new type of technique. The claw technique that he'd learned was the Five Beasts Claw Art.

Wu Hao had assumed that arts with claws would be much the same as any fist art that focused on punching, if he'd thought about it at all, but that was a wrong assumption. The first technique of the Five Beasts, called the Pawing Mole, was a technique that focused on how to slash with the claws. It was based on the way a mole used its claws, digging itself forward through the dirt, clearing and pushing forward in one movement. Not for the first time, Wu Hao felt that he was being mocked.

An annoyed cough broke the silence.

"I'm sorry," Lady Shi said, her bulbous eyes blinking in that slightly-too-wide face.

"Who is this young man?"

"A friend of my son's," Lady Jin said. She didn't seem too surprised, but instead there was something in her qi or in her eyes that spoke to a suspicion she'd had being confirmed. A realization set in. Lady Jin knew that he was a sensor, but she wasn't one herself. She didn't know how his sensing worked, or what his response might be when he sensed something. That was why she'd asked him yesterday - a few hours from now, whatever - how his sensing worked.

And since she hadn't known, she'd just assumed that the reason for his shudder was there than that he'd detected something.

"And - does he normally do this?" Lady Shi said, then pursed her lips.

"I mean, he's not having some sort of attack or an illness, is he?"

"Not that I know of," Lady Jin said. She wouldn't have cared if he did, either.

"Speak, Wu Hao. What is it?"

"It's nothing," he said.

"My apologies, sirs and madam." Lady Jin's gaze sharpened.

"Speak," she demanded.

"What is it?" That confirmed it, Wu Hao thought. She definitely thought that he'd sensed something. Well, fine. He could pretend he had, if that was what she wanted.

"Prefect Shi, what's your connection to the Stone Soul Sect?" Wu Hao asked bluntly.

"Pardon?" Prefect Shi said, and he blinked.

"Who, exactly, are... you? They?"

"A small sect," Lady Jin said, with the languid ease of a serpent slowly coiling after sighting its prey.

"Unorthodox, like us. Not quite as successful, however. Their current master is Lan Yao, I believe, a first-grade martial artist."

"They practice the Heart of Stone Art," Jin Qilong supplied.

"Yes," Lady Jin said, and gave him a small, fake smile that sent a small thrill of pleasure run through Jin Qilong's qi.

"Something like that. Well remembered, Qilong."

"Them," Wu Hao said.

"You. Do you -""Young man," Prefect Shi interrupted, his fists clenched on his hips. his tone was even, but forcibly so.

"Our seniority differs by decades. I am a prefect, and you - who are you? Speak politely to me, at the very least, and learn to mind your manners." Lady Jin had let out a little laugh, which vanished as quickly as it'd come before. It sounded oddly girlish coming from her. Was the thought of him learning manners funny to her?

"What are your connections to the Stone Soul Sect?" Wu Hao asked again. He didn't bother to back down. What would another death be, at this point? He'd just be sent back to yesterday, which meant that it would be just after Jin Qilong's duel. That was time he could still put into something productive. If they'd even kill him for this. If it'd been the Red Dawn Sect he'd have been dead the minute he'd so much as coughed.

If they didn't kill him and just sent him to his room, well, he'd just take another death and come back again. Besides, he was taking a risk here for a reason. He wanted to be gone from the Jin, one way or another. He wanted to see what kind of man this Prefect Shi was, and there was no better way than to press him on some of the details. It'd give a good indication of how he'd react to Wu Hao's insubordination, at least.

"I've no idea what you mean," Prefect Shi finally said.

"I've never learned any of their martial arts. I've certainly never been to one of their branches. I might have met a few of their people, perhaps, at a society event?" Each of those statements rang as true in Wu Hao's senses, individually. As a whole, did that make his statement true - did that make it the entire truth? No. Wu Hao had seen the martial artist down in the mines himself, had felt the man's qi run through the near-entirety of the mines as he had been chased down and killed.

That man had sat there in a mine that had been marked as a forbidden zone, marked with the mine boss's seal. That martial artist was there for a reason, and if Prefect Shi wasn't in on that reason Wu Hao would eat his sheath. Prefect Shi turned to his wife.

"Have you met anyone from this Stone Soul Sect?"

"No," she said, frowning at Wu Hao.

"I have not. Neither has our daughter, I can assure you. Before today I hadn't even heard of them." Prefect Shi nodded, and then his back stiffened as he folded his hands across his lap. His qi roiled with agitation, and then he pointed a finger at Wu Hao.

"I hope you'll learn not to randomly accuse people in power, boy," Prefect Shi said. In a low voice, he added: "It might end badly for you." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"I see," Lady Jin said softly, breaking the silence.

"Well. I apologize for my charge. You'll apologize as well, Wu Hao." That statement was very much different from the slow, deliberate pulse of approval that she let seep out of her core, though. That pulse felt fake, manufactured, and somehow not like it belonged. It was a clumsy effort, but it was there and it was unmistakenable. She approved, then, and she was signalling it to him.

"Yes," Prefect Shi said, his eyes still on Wu Hao until Wu Hao bothered to look away.

"Apologize." Damnit. He'd learned the sort of man that Prefect Shi was, then. Little chance of making his escape that way, unless he had something to actually interest the man. The problem was that Wu Hao didn't have any sort of secret on the Jin. Wu Hao bowed.

"I apologize, sir," he said.

"I won't do it again. I'll mind my manners." Prefect Shi sighed. His fingers tapped against his thigh, he looked over at Lady Jin, budged his head just a fraction of an inch, and as their eyes met a silent conversation must have happened between them, because moments later Prefect Shi put his hands on the table again. His qi uncoiled, he gave a short annoyed glance at Wu Hao, and then cleared his throat.

"As I was saying," Prefect Shi said.

"Before we were so rudely interrupted." Lady Jin smiled. The conversation went on from there. It wasn't quite the same as the last time, but the general feeling of the conversation remained the same, if somewhat more tense. Wu Hao had the feeling that he'd dropped a rock into a river, and while the currents had shifted, the direction that the water went hadn't changed. The same rights were negotiated, the same parts of the contract were hammered out or explained.

He stood there, tucked into the sidelines, head bowed in apparent contrition, until Prefect Shi stood up to leave. Shi Huyin stood up next, bowing to Lady Jin, and then her almond-shaped eyes turned to Wu Hao.

"Please take my father's advice to heart," she said. Her father gave a small but stiff smile, and then the family made their way over to their carriage again. Wu Hao waited in the ensuing silence until Jin Qilong spoke.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

"With the Stone Soul Sect, I mean, what's -""Lady Jin knows," Wu Hao said dully.

"Do I?" she asked, taking a small sip of her tea.

"I'd like to hear it from you." But a small thread of annoyance shot through her qi all the same, the feeling not of a real setback but just a small advantage lost. It was a very small victory, but he'd take it for now.

"I'm a sensor," Wu Hao said, doing away with the pretense.

"I can sense qi. I sensed a qi that looked like rock. I've seen such qi before and that was when I met a martial artist from the Stone Soul Sect." There. Technically true, if misleading, in the example that Prefect Shi had set for him.

"Looked?" Lady Jin said, actually seeming somewhat interested for once.

"How so?" Wu Hao's mouth twisted. How to explain? It wasn't a real sight, and he couldn't have reached out and touched the qi and felt rock. Trying to see qi with your literal eyes was like trying to taste with your nose.

"Hard," he said finally.

"It felt old. Immovable but... separated from the rest, brittle. That's how rock feels."

"That's the impression you had of Prefect Shi?" she asked, her eyes sharp.

"No," Wu Hao said.

"His qi was more... solid but solid in the way oil is. More than water. There's something sticky to it, too. I saw that rock qi float on the surface of his core and I knew." That was a lie, but what the hell. He was the sensor, not she. It wasn't like she could verify.

"Hmm," Lady Jin said, and sat back and considered it. She appeared to have bought the lie.

"What does my qi feel like?" Jin Qilong asked. Wu Hao had nearly forgotten that he was there.

"Apple," Wu Hao said offhandedly.

"Apple?" Jin Qilong repeated.

"What does that mean? Is that... good?" Wu Hao shrugged, which was all the answer he could give to that particular question. Did purple taste better than yellow smelled? The question itself was nonsense.

"Shush," Lady Jin said, her tone even.

"I'm thinking." Jin Qilong paled, nodded. There was a spine in there, lurking, and until Wu Hao drew it out of him Jing Qilong would remain like this: a weathervane for whichever way his mother decided to blow him towards. She was reaching a decision, Wu Hao thought, and from the way her eyes flickered to his, it had to do with him. He'd proven that his talents were useful, and he'd linked in the Stone Soul Sect, all without frustrating her more than he already had.

That was good, because he found himself hoping that she'd send him to the mines. It was the first time that he'd gotten out of the clan compound in his entire stay, and though the ride over had been utterly dismal and his experience there worse, Lady Jin probably wouldn't trust him enough to send him off to do something important without also sending along a guard. Which would be Wang Hangsheng, probably. And the smith, but Wu Hao didn't care about him.

Lady Jin frowned at him and he wondered if he might have said that out loud, but he hadn't.

"Wu Hao."

"Yes, Lady Jin?"

"Tomorrow morning, before dawn, you will go to the south courtyard," she commanded.

"You will meet Wang Hangsheng there. He will act as both guard and as your warden."

"Yes, Lady Jin. Where will we go?" Wu Hao asked.

"The mines," she said.

"See if you can detect the traces of the Stone Soul Sect or whoever else there. Report directly to me."

"Yes, Lady Jin." She took another sip of her tea.

"You've done well. See that you continue to be useful and you might find yourself rising faster than you expect."

"Yes, Lady Jin."

"Good. Do you have anything else to add?"

"No, Lady Jin." She looked at him for a moment longer, then set her tea down.

"Dismissed," she told him. Wu Hao nodded, turned, and walked away, plans brewing in his mind already.