Chương 59: Lìchūn: Novice 4

Several eyes follow her as she approaches the blond in the middle seats. A girl near Tang Mingxia's row glances up and then murmurs something behind her sleeve. Wu Cailan sees where Liu Yinhua is going, and stills for half a breath before the broad boy beside her says something, drawing her attention away. The boy himself looks up before Liu Yinhua reaches him. His eyes are dark amber, almost red, where the morning light catches them.

"Is this place taken?" Liu Yinhua asks, inclining her head with the same careful courtesy she has used since stepping through the sect gate. His surprise is brief and open enough that she likes him a little better for failing to hide all of it.

"No," he says, and then shifts one hand from the bench as if clearing space that had already been clear. His voice is lower than she expected, warm at the edges and surprisingly friendly.

"Please." She sits with her robes gathered neatly beneath her. The wood is cold through the cloth. The distance between them is proper, perhaps a little wider than it needs to be, though she does not think either of them regrets that. The hall continues filling around them, louder now as more disciples arrive before the third bell. Liu Yinhua feels the shape of being noticed settle on her shoulders. It is familiar enough to bear and different enough to remain tiring.

The boy beside her seems to feel it too, though he does not turn to search for the source of every glance. After a few moments, he says, "You are newly arrived."

"Yesterday evening," Liu Yinhua says.

"Too late for the more informal intake."

"That happens," he says, then pauses as if reconsidering the usefulness of the answer.

"Less often with sects like this, but it happens."

"You have been here longer?"

"Two days." His mouth curves slightly.

"I am Liu Yinhua, of Suzhou," she says.

"Chi Yanluo," he replies, and gives a small bow from where he sits.

"I came from farther west." Farther west could mean many things. Liu Yinhua knows very little of the land to know which of them has emptied the space around him, and he does not offer more. She watches his face, the relaxed set of his mouth, the steadiness of his hands where they rest loosely against his knees. His nails are clean. His cuffs are too finely stitched for a poor household.

There is a faint mark near his jaw, old and pale against his skin, perhaps from a training blade or perhaps from something sharper.

"You seem to have found a quiet seat," she says. His smile shifts, not fading, but turning inward a little.

"I have a talent for it." There is a pause, and then he seems to decide against leaving the answer there.

"Some families have long memories. Some children inherit them without being asked." Liu Yinhua turns that over carefully. It is not an explanation, but it is more than nothing. Around them, the open space continues to hold. It is almost rude in its clarity.

"I see," she says.

"I doubt that," Chi Yanluo says, not unkindly.

"But I appreciate the effort." It startles a breath of amusement out of her before she quite contains it, her cheeks heating just a little. His eyes warm with the sound, and he looks away first, toward the platform, which she appreciates more than she expects.

"Forgive me," he says after a moment.

"That was discourteous."

"No," she says, waving a hand.

"Please, I should have minded my words better. Forgive me."

"Of course," he says, surprisingly earnest, "but it was still discourteous of me." Liu Yinhua folds her hands in her lap and lets the silence stretch. It is not uncomfortable yet. He does not rush to fill it, though she has the impression he could, if he wished. Some people speak because they cannot bear the space around their own thoughts. Chi Yanluo seems more willing to let a pause breathe. When he does speak again, his voice is quieter.

"If you arrived late, you may not have been told much. The instructors will explain the cultivation process better. Anything else, most sects will leave up to your own dedication to learn."

"And if I ask you?" He looks at her then. His gaze touches her face, her plain sash, the absence of a family token, and returns to her eyes with enough care that she notices the effort in it.

"Then I would say you should be careful where you sit tomorrow."

"Because of you?"

"Yes," he says simply, for all he offers a genuine smile with it. Liu Yinhua looks ahead to the red glass disc above the platform. It hangs motionless in the morning light, the colour deepening where the light passes through it. The hall is almost full now, and yet the space around Chi Yanluo remains, a clear pool in a crowded room.

"I will keep that in mind," she says. He nods.

"Good." Another girl with more knowledge of this place, perhaps, would have. Liu Yinhua thinks of Tang Mingxia's careful company, the space at the front and the crowded edges. She thinks of pretty girls with no backing and the many ways a room can decide what they are before they open their mouths. She does not move. Chi Yanluo seems to notice. His expression does not change much, but something in his posture eases by a fraction.

"You really are from Suzhou?" he asks.

"Yes."

"I have never been. I hear it is beautiful."

"It is," Liu Yinhua says, and finds the answer waiting for her as smoothly as if she had been asked about the weather.

"The canals are the city's main attraction, I've heard, if one ignores the entertainment district, but I have always found the ocean-facing port to be exceptionally beautiful." The third bell sounds, interrupting Chi Yanluo as he opens his mouth to speak once again. The hall quiets slowly, until even the late arrivals stop whispering and turn toward the platform. A side door opens near the lectern, and a woman in ornate robes steps into the hall, two stewards behind her.

Her robe is the same silver-grey as theirs, only in the way a candle is the same as a bonfire, layered and cut with vermilion glass thread that catches the light as she walks, and every shift of the light reflects scattered fragments onto the ground around her. Her blonde hair is streaked with iron, her face lined, her pale eyes clear enough that the room seems to straighten beneath them, and her skin has the faintest blue cast. Liu Yinhua lowers her gaze with the others.

Beside her, Chi Yanluo does the same, and in the small movement of his sleeve she sees the fine stitching at his cuff catch red in the morning light. The formal intake begins. — - - - - - - - - - - - - — The woman reaches the lectern without hurry, though the room stills as if she had struck a bell. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. She does not look old in the way Liu Yinhua knows old women to look.

There is no stoop in her shoulders, no softness in her hands, no tremor at the edge of her mouth. Her hair is darker blonde at the roots and silver through the length of it, pinned in a plain coil at the back of her head, and her face has the smooth severity of someone who has long ago ceased to care whether young people find her kind. The Vermilion Glass thread in her robe catches and somehow keeps the morning light as she turns to face them.

"I am Elder Yun," she says. Her voice is clear enough that she does not need to raise it.

"I am one of the elders assigned to guide and watch the outer sect this year. You will hear these rules once now. If you forget them, you will bear the consequence of forgetting them." No one speaks.

"For the first three months of the year, there will be no fighting between new disciples. No duels. No challenges. No private contests arranged under another name. You have been granted a grace period so that your foundations may be set before your pride has the opportunity to cripple you. Do not mistake this for indulgence." Her eyes pass over the room as she speaks, and Liu Yinhua feels the attention of the hall tighten with each word. No one looks especially surprised.

Perhaps they had been told already, before they ever came here. Perhaps they had simply expected that even cultivators must have rules when gathered in sufficient number.

"During these three months, three forms of training will be made available. Spiritual cultivation will be held under my instruction. Physical cultivation will be held under Elder Huan. Weapons training will not be open to all. Those who excel in the first month of physical cultivation and receive Elder Huan's recommendation may attend. Those who do not will wait until they are judged ready." There is a small shift through the room at that, quiet enough not to be called a murmur.

Liu Yinhua sees the boy with the fine sword move his thumb once against the hilt, then still his hand.

"Lessons will be held each morning from the first bell to the third. If you are late, you will be turned away. If you are disruptive, you will be removed and you will not be permitted to return. If you waste an elder's time, you will not enjoy the manner in which it is reclaimed." Elder Yun lets that settle for a moment, then continues.

"Each disciple will receive a monthly allowance of five red spirit stones. They are to support your cultivation. Whether you spend them wisely is your concern. Mortal necessities will be provided within the novice district, though waste and theft will be dealt with as waste and theft." Liu Yinhua thinks of the scroll open across her knees the night before, of the strange low warmth in her abdomen and the way it had vanished the moment she tried to hold it.

She does not yet know if that is a fortune or a pittance, only that everyone in the room listens more closely when Elder Yun says it.

"You are not permitted to leave the mountain, the outer sect district, or the marked training grounds in the nearby forest and lower ranges without explicit permission from the sect or while acting on sect business. You are not permitted to send or receive correspondence until the midpoint of the year. Requests made before then will be ignored unless a sect elder decides otherwise." This time, the room does murmur.

She has no one to write to, and no one who would write to her with anything but anger, but the rule still settles oddly in her chest. Beside her, Chi Yanluo's expression does not change, though his gaze lowers a fraction. Elder Yun waits until the room has remembered itself.

"No killing. No maiming. No crippling of meridians. No deliberate destruction of another disciple's ability to cultivate. If you break these rules, your family name, your patron, your wealth, your tears, and your excuses will not save you from discipline. If you believe otherwise, you may test it and serve as a lesson for the rest." Liu Yinhua believes her. In Suzhou, she has heard many people threaten, some because they meant it and some because they had no other recourse.

Elder Yun does not seem to enjoy anything. She speaks as if describing the slope of the roof or the hour of the bell, and that makes the room colder than anger would have.

"There is one final matter. Disciples without clan or noble sponsorship who ascend to the inner sect will owe six years of military service. That service may be completed within the sect army or within the provincial forces of the Blueglass Isles, according to assignment and need. It is the price by which the sect and province recover their investment in unbacked talent." The word unbacked draws more attention than Liu Yinhua would like.

Liu Yinhua keeps her eyes on the platform and does not look to see who looks at her.

"You will present yourselves now to the stewards at the front of the hall and collect your first five red stones. After that, you are dismissed. Lessons begin tomorrow at the first bell. Make your choice before you arrive." She turns from the lectern before anyone has fully begun to move, and the red glass disc behind her catches a sudden flare of gold. For a moment, Elder Yun is there, then she is not.

Light flashes across the platform, brief and hard, and the sound that follows is not a bell or a crack but something like a hammer striking hot iron. It rings through Liu Yinhua's teeth and fades at once, leaving only the empty lectern, the two stewards, and a room full of disciples.