Chương 40: Lìchūn: Connection 5

The outer chamber is warm enough that sweat gathers beneath Liu Yinhua's collar before she has finished settling herself. It is not hot in the way the fire had been hot. That had been hunger, panic, silk curtains blackening at the edges and smoke crawling along the ceiling while voices broke apart into shouting. This heat is older and drier where it lies in the stone beneath her knees, in the pale walls, in the thin air that makes her mouth want water even before she has begun to draw qi.

She has brought water again. The clay jar sits near the inner seam where the stone darkens, clean spring water stopped with waxed cloth and tied with cord. Lièjìng has not appeared, but he often does not. Sometimes there is a flicker of white-gold light beyond the seam, or a dry little sound that may be irritation and may be stone shifting under heat. Today, there is only the chamber. Liu Yinhua closes her eyes and sets her hands palm-up over her knees. The first breath is only breath.

The second finds the warmth in the floor, and the third draws it inward, thinly, carefully, through the opened route in her left leg and up through the channels she knows well enough now to distrust. Her dantian answers with its own heat, a small held sun, still too shallow, still too easily emptied, still nothing like what Tang Mingxia carries without effort or what Chi Yanluo gathers with the quiet certainty of someone who has never once wondered whether power will refuse him.

Which, she muses, is a very unfair thought. He works. She has seen him work, but it is only that his work begins on a road already laid beneath his feet, while hers begins with not knowing where the road is, not knowing the words for road, not knowing which part of her own body is expected to open first. The qi thins. Liu Yinhua exhales and begins again. A person could go mad measuring the distance between herself and everyone ahead of her. She is sure of it.

Elder Yun speaks of waste as if waste is a moral failing, as if qi lost through poor control is no different from grain spilled through careless fingers. Perhaps it is. Liu Yinhua wastes too much. She gathers too sharply when she is impatient, holds too tightly when she is afraid of losing what she has gathered, the heat that should sink into her dantian scrapes instead through places still too raw to bear it. She is so slow. It should shame her less by now. Everyone says the same thing in kinder clothing.

She learns quickly. She works hard. She listens. Her movement art has value. Her bow work improves. Her spark comes more often than it fails. There is praise in all of it, and warning too, because every compliment points toward the same truth: she is improving from so very little. A beautiful empty bowl is still empty. The chamber heat settles under her ribs, and she guides it lower. Chi Yanluo had said it was not a formal offer.

None of us are quite there yet, he had said, and there had been humour in his eyes only briefly, gone almost before it could soften him. Only a trial team. Only a chance to see how they fit in the field. Only a larger arrangement to be tested. Only. Liu Yinhua has lived too much of her life around only. Only one cup of wine poured for a guest. Only a song. Only a dance. Only a walk through the garden where lanterns hid the better doors. Only a patron's hand at the hip.

Only protection, and how ungrateful a girl must be to flinch from protection when she had so little of it. Only one man, only one room, only one night that would lead to so many more. Her jaw tightens, and her qi catches. She stops at once, lets the heat bleed harmlessly through her breath, and opens her eyes to the pale chamber. This is why the sun is difficult. Heat is easy. A child understands fire after the first burn, but it is truth that is difficult.

Chi Yanluo had not lied to her, but that does not make him safe. Xie Lianqiu cares for her in a way Liu Yinhua does not know what to do with, but that does not make the Crimson Wastes safe as a whole. A cost named aloud is still a cost. The Wastes do not take people in by pretending there is no cost, he had said. There is always cost. Liu Yinhua lowers her gaze to her hands.

They look elegant in the chamber light, pale fingers resting in her lap, nails neat, wrists fine enough that people look at them and think delicate. The right one aches as if to object, and she flexes it once, very slightly, and feels the old catch there. There is a cost to standing alone as well. It would be easier if the choice were between being owned and being free. She would choose freedom even if it meant sleeping cold, even if it meant hunger, even if it meant blood under her nails and fire behind her.

She has chosen worse things for less. But the sect is not so generous. It gives no clean choices. Alone, she is not free. Alone, she is only unguarded. Alone, she is a pretty lower-city girl with strange eyes, no clan, a weak dantian, and a few tricks that will not stop Guo Meilin if the other girl decides to strike out when the truce is over. Near the Crimson Wastes, she is safer, and near the Crimson Wastes, she is seen. Both things are dangerous. She closes her eyes again.

This time, she lets the breath come slower. In through the nose, dry heat at the back of her throat. Down through the chest, past the ribs, into the lower field. She does not reach for more than the chamber offers easily as she takes a thin thread and draws it in, then another, then another, folding each into the warmth already gathered inside her. Her dantian feels small. It always feels small. But not as empty as it once had. Perhaps she does not need to be fast in all things.

Perhaps she only needs to be exact, for a spark in the right place can make a hand flinch. A word in the right place can make a room turn, an alliance in the right place can do much. Or perhaps that is only another pretty lie. Liu Yinhua breathes in. When her thoughts drift to Xie Lianqiu's smile, she lets them pass with only a strange catch in her thoughts. When they drift to Chi Yanluo's steady gaze, she lets that pass too.

When they drift further back, toward perfumed rooms and locked doors and the awful softness of voices telling her what was best, she does not follow them. The trial is weeks away, just long enough for factions to gather themselves properly. Long enough for every useful disciple to be counted, courted, flattered, threatened, or bought. Long enough for Liu Yinhua to decide whether she will stand with the Crimson Wastes for a day and let the rest of the sect draw whatever conclusions it likes.

Liu Yinhua opens her eyes as she stops the slow circulation of her qi, something once difficult a few weeks ago that has become easier than breathing. Slow, she thinks, bitter, and rises to her feet. ———— Liu Yinhua stands beneath the shade of a red-barked tree with a borrowed notebook in her hands, and watches people move. It is an old habit, truly, one borne from years of vigilance but a useful one. She would sit in her hour free of the evening, watching strangers and familiar faces alike walk the streets.

The crafting halls are beautiful from the outside, for all they are low, practical buildings of dark stone and reinforced timber, their windows narrow and their roofs vented for smoke. The formation halls are cleaner, with copper plates fixed beside the doors and thin lines of carved script running along the lintels. Further down the path, the medical halls sit apart behind a screen of pale-leaved shrubs, where the air smells of bitter herbs, alcohol, boiled linen, and the faint green sharpness of fresh-cut stems.

Disciples pass in small streams. Some carry satchels heavy with tools. Some walk in pairs, arguing over ink ratios, qi conductors, beast sinew, needle tempering. A few wear the distracted expression of people who have spent too long staring at written characters until the characters began staring back. Liu Yinhua writes nothing for a while, and then begins. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. She lowers her gaze to the page a while later.

There are names there, some gathered from Wu Cailan's complaints, some from overheard arguments, some from the posted task lists, and some from the kind of conversation that does not feel like conversation to the person being questioned until several answers have already left his mouth. She is not looking for the strongest crafter. The strongest crafter will have been taken already, or will cost too much, or will know exactly what they are worth.

She is looking for someone useful enough to matter, unclaimed enough to approach, and sensible enough not to panic the first time something in the valley bares teeth. It is an unpleasantly narrow frame of search for a person. A trio of boys emerges from the crafting hall arguing over a length of copper-threaded cord. One is broad-faced and flushed from furnace heat, sleeves rolled to his elbows, with a smear of soot along his jaw.

One is narrow and neat, his hair bound with a plain black ribbon and his satchel clasped shut with three separate toggles. The third is shorter than both, round-cheeked, and carrying what looks like half a broken gauntlet in both hands with the miserable devotion of someone transporting a wounded animal. The broad-faced boy says something about beast hide splitting under heat. The short one answers too quickly.

The narrow faced boy shakes his head with the faint pained look of someone who has been correcting the same mistake since breakfast. Liu Yinhua waits until they are near enough to notice her noticing them. It is an old thing, to make a movement small enough that the other person thinks he has caught something private. Chin lifting, eyes first, mouth after, a near-smile that is almost just the suggestion of one.

She lets the sunlight through the red leaves catch on her face and knows, with the tired certainty of practice, what they see. The broad-faced boy forgets the end of his sentence, and the short one stares openly until the third elbows him. Liu Yinhua smiles then, soft and apologetic, as if she is the one intruding.

"I am sorry, Sect Brothers," she says.

"Are you disciples of the crafting hall?" The short one looks down at the broken gauntlet he is holding. The broad-faced boy says, "Yes," at almost the same time the other says, "Mostly." Liu Yinhua turns her attention to him as if he has offered her something clever.

"Mostly?" He straightens a little. He is not handsome in the way Chi Yanluo is handsome, not bright like Shen Yuanzhou, not sharp like Duan Xueheng, but he has the earnest, slightly harried look of someone who cares about being accurate.

"I study formations as well," he says.

"Low-level field anchors, stabilising arrays, conduction lines. Crafting hall handles the material side, formation hall handles inscription and activation theory, but there is overlap."

"That sounds difficult," Liu Yinhua says, and lets it sound sincere because it is.

"I have only begun to understand how much I do not understand about inscriptions." The broad-faced boy smiles.

"That means you understand more than half the people who walk into the hall asking for talismans." The narrow faced boy gives him a pained look.

"Qi pathways in cloth are not talismans, Gao Zhen."

"They have characters on them."

"Not all characters make a talisman," he protests. The short boy laughs and then stops when Liu Yinhua's eyes move to him, his face colouring as if he has been caught stealing sweets. She does not laugh at him. That would be too sharp. She lets her smile warm by a degree instead, bowing politely.

"I am Liu Yinhua." The short boy blurts, "I'm Pan Qiu," then looks mortified by having spoken first.

"Gao Zhen," says the broad-faced one.

"He Rong," says the narrow-faced formation worker.

"It is good to meet you," Liu Yinhua says, and dips her head just enough." I hoped I might ask advice? I am preparing for the Lower Valley Trial, and am looking for some information." Teenage boys, Liu Yinhua has found, are not so different from grown men in some ways and blessedly different in others. Grown men often want to be admired for what they already believe themselves to be. Boys are still deciding, which makes them easier to steer and, sometimes, a little less awful about it.

Give them the chance to be knowledgeable in front of a pretty girl, and most will reach for it with both hands, even if only to pretend they had not been waiting for the chance. He Rong is not immune, and he only resists for longer.

"What sort of advice?" he asks. Liu Yinhua hums a little before she begins.

"I have heard combat strength matters, but the trial markers require controlled qi input, and some respond poorly to brute force. There will also be terrain hazards, low-grade beasts, and injuries unless everyone suddenly becomes much more sensible than they have been so far." Gao Zhen barks a laugh, and Pan Qiu presses his lips together around his own. He Rong's eyes sharpen.

"You have read the rules carefully," he says.

"I try to read everything carefully." She glances down at the notebook, then back up through her lashes.

"I am still new enough to know I will miss many things." That softens him more than flattery would have. He Rong glances toward the path, then gestures awkwardly toward the shade as if remembering manners after the fact.

"Do you want to sit? Or— no, there is not really anywhere to sit."

"It is fine," Liu Yinhua reassures.

"I have been standing for some time already." Gao Zhen's gaze flicks over her robes and then away quickly enough that she does not have to decide whether to punish him for it. Pan Qiu clutches the broken gauntlet tighter. He Rong notices neither, or pretends not to.

"The trial will punish teams that only bring fighters," He Rong says, warming despite himself.

"Everyone is thinking about beasts and other teams because that is obvious, but the markers are the real issue. If they are using the lower valley arrays, some of the old posts are unstable. You can force them open, but the qi backlash will drain whoever does it. Maybe injure them if they are stupid."

"Can that be avoided?"

"With someone who can read the array before activation," he says.

"Or someone with a good stabilising tool." Gao Zhen lifts a finger.

"Which we can make." He Rong gives him another look.

"Which we might make if the materials are not ruined because someone overheated the copper thread," he says, pointed.

"It was one time." Liu Yinhua lowers her lashes to hide the smile she does not quite trust.

"A stabilising tool?" she interrupts into a slight gap in the bickering. Pan Qiu brightens then, apparently finding ground safe enough to stand on. He shifts the broken gauntlet under one arm and says, "A small anchor rod or sleeve-plate, usually. You feed qi through it, and it spreads the strain so the marker does not take everything from one person at once. It is not as good as a proper formation specialist, but it helps. For the trial, it would need to be light. Maybe wrist-mounted."

Her right wrist aches faintly, as if offended by being mentioned even indirectly.

"Would something like that work for any qi type?"

"No," He Rong says at once. Then, after a moment, " Mostly no. Neutral conductors are easier but weaker. Elementally aligned ones are stronger but interfere if the team's qi is too mixed. If you have fire, wood, metal, and wind all feeding into one marker through a bad plate, it can—""Kick?" Gao Zhen suggests, his grin wide.

"Explode," He Rong says, with an almost betrayed look. Pan Qiu winces.

"Kick first, usually." Liu Yinhua makes a thoughtful note. She does not need to understand all of it yet— she just needs to know who does.

"Then for a mixed team, a neutral stabiliser is safer?"

"Yes," He Rong says.

"Boring, but safer."

"Boring things are often very safe," Liu Yinhua says. Gao Zhen laughs again, and this time He Rong's mouth twitches too. She asks about healing next, because one question should always lead to another before the first has finished feeling important. Pan Qiu knows more than the others there, though he insists he is not medical hall, only that his older sister is. Bruise salves will help with blunt-force injuries, but cuts from beast claws need cleansing powder first or the salve can trap filth in the wound.

A clotting strip is better than loose bandages when running. Bitterroot pills are cheap and good for keeping someone moving after qi strain, but using them before the strain settles can make vomiting more likely.

"Who would know that properly?" Liu Yinhua asks. Pan Qiu gives her two names. One is already with Jiang Wenhao, said with the sourness of someone who thinks charm has stolen a useful person from the common good. The other is X u Qinghe, who works more often in the medical halls than the yards." Liu Yinhua writes that down.

"Is he good?" she asks. Pan Qiu hesitates.

"He is… careful." Gao Zhen rolls his eyes.

"For fighting, brave is more useful."

"For fighting, brave is often what other people call stupid," He Rong retorts. She lets the conversation continue longer than necessary because longer conversations leave more behind. Gao Zhen tells her which crafters have already been pulled toward Guo Meilin's circle, naming them with enough irritation to reveal more than he means to about his own chances. Pan Qiu mentions that several medical assistants are refusing trial teams unless promised part of the rewards in writing.

He Rong says, after some hesitation, that formation disciples are wary of Crimson Wastes groups because border disciples have a reputation for solving delicate mechanisms by defaulting to hitting nearby problems very hard. Liu Yinhua does not defend anyone. Instead, she tilts her head and says, "That sounds inconvenient."

"It is," He Rong says.

"Are you entering the trial?" The question is gentle enough that all three boys realise, almost at the same time, that she has not only been asking generally. Pan Qiu looks at Gao Zhen. Gao Zhen looks at He Rong. He Rong looks at Liu Yinhua. Ah. A small cluster, then. Not claimed, perhaps, but not separate either. Friends, or something near enough that one answer might drag the other two behind it.

"We have not decided," He Rong says carefully. Gao Zhen looks as if he has decided several times and been overruled. Pan Qiu looks as if he would be relieved if the mountain made the decision for him by collapsing right this moment and crushing him.

"It is dangerous," Liu Yinhua agrees.

"Yes." She does not press, and instead, she closes the notebook with both hands and gives them another smile, softer now, as if she is grateful rather than measuring every breath they have given her.

"Thank you, you have been most helpful." Gao Zhen straightens.

"It was nothing."

"It was not nothing," she says, and lets her gaze touch each of them in turn.

"I asked because I did not know, and now I know more, Sect Brothers." Pan Qiu's ears go red, as He Rong clears his throat.

"You should speak with Xu Qinghe if you want someone medical. Or Liao Ning, but she will ask for payment."

"Xu Qinghe," Liu Yinhua repeats. Liu Yinhua tucks the notebook against her chest and bows her head again.

"I hope your work goes well, then." She steps back before the conversation can curdle into awkwardness and begins down the path toward the medical halls, not quickly enough to look as if she is fleeing and not slowly enough to invite immediate company. Behind her, she hears Gao Zhen say, not as quietly as he probably thinks, "She is much nicer than people say." Pan Qiu makes a strangled sound. He Rong says, "You should not believe everything people say." Liu Yinhua keeps walking. No, they should not.

Unfortunately, people usually did.