Chương 34: What Sisters Carry

Xie Yu found him before he found the dormitory. She was sitting on the low wall outside the East Hall with her legs dangling over the edge, a cloth bundle in her lap, and the green ribbon in her hair catching the last of the afternoon light. She spotted him coming up the path from twenty paces and waved with both hands, which meant she'd been waiting long enough to get bored, which meant she'd been waiting too long.

"Lan-ge!" He lifted a hand. His chest was still carrying the fragment's silence, the shape of Su Yan walking past with Liu Xian, the gold on the western ridge. He set it down. Carefully, deliberately. His sister was here.

"You look terrible," she said when he reached her.

"Thank you."

"I'm serious. You look like you haven't eaten." She thrust the cloth bundle at him.

"Sit." He sat on the wall beside her. His lower back seized as he settled — tight-muscled protest from a full day on sixteen-year-old joints that had been asked to do things they hadn't trained for yet. He breathed through it. The stone was warm from the day's sun. Below them the outer-disciple courtyard spread out in its familiar geometry: the practice posts along the southern edge, the plum tree behind the East Hall whose blossoms had dropped two weeks ago and left the branches bare and honest.

A pair of second-year disciples were crossing toward the refectory. One of them tripped on a flagstone. The other laughed. Xie Yu untied the cloth bundle. Inside: two pork buns, still warm, and a small ceramic pot with a cork stopper.

"From the inner kitchens?" he asked.

"Where else?"

"You're going to get caught one of these days."

"I've been doing this for two years. The cook on evening shift is half-blind and all the way deaf." She pushed a bun into his hand.

"Eat." He ate. The bun was good. Pork and scallion, the filling still hot enough to release steam when he bit through the skin. His sister watched him chew with the critical attention of a physician monitoring a patient, which was, he supposed, exactly what she thought she was doing.

"What's in the pot?"

"Ginger and dried tangerine peel. For your stomach."

"My stomach is fine."

"Your stomach has been not-fine for a week. You think I don't notice when you skip the morning congee? You've skipped it three times." She uncorked the pot, poured a measure into the cork-cup, and set it on the wall between them.

"Drink it after the bun." He looked at her. Fourteen years old. Green ribbon. Quick eyes. Her mother's daughter in every particular that mattered: the directness, the medical instinct, the flat refusal to be told she was wrong about a diagnosis she'd already made. In his chest, the chorus hummed low and steady. Su Yan's presence had resettled, thin but there.

"Thank you, Yu-er." She shrugged, already pulling apart her own bun.

"Someone has to." They ate in companionable silence. The fifth bell had faded; the sixth wouldn't ring for the burn of another incense stick. The courtyard emptied slowly as disciples drifted toward the refectory or the dormitories. A sparrow landed on the practice post nearest them, regarded Xie Lan with one black eye, and flew off. Sorry, he thought at it. Reflex. The bird hadn't done anything. He hadn't done anything to the bird. The apology fired anyway, quick and silent as breath.

"Lan-ge."

"Mm?"

"I advanced." He turned to look at her. She was eating her bun with a casualness she'd clearly practiced. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Mid Qi Refining," she said.

"Third stage. Instructor Deng confirmed it yesterday." Third stage. She'd been at second stage three weeks ago. That was fast. Faster than the standard Lingmen curriculum predicted for her cohort. Faster than most outer disciples managed in a full season. Faster than she should be. In the first timeline she hadn't hit third until — he cut the thought short. Held the number. Kept it.

"That's wonderful," he said. He meant it. He also meant the cold thing that moved behind his sternum when she said it, and the quick calculation his soul ran without asking permission: how long until she hit fourth, how long until she hit fifth, how long until someone on Cangshi Peak looked at the progression charts and circled her name.

"Third stage in, what, nine weeks since second?" he said.

"Eight."

"Eight weeks." She glanced at him sideways.

"You're doing the voice."

"What voice?"

"The voice where you repeat what I said but slower, because you're thinking about something you won't tell me." She bit into her bun.

"You always do it." He laughed. Genuine. She was terrifyingly observant for someone who still stole pork buns from a half-blind cook.

"I'm thinking that eight weeks is impressive."

"I know."

"And that you're wonderful."

"I know that too." She grinned. Quick, bright, the grin of a girl who had not yet learned to hide what pleased her.

"Instructor Deng said my meridian stability is above average for the cohort. She said my qi-circulation efficiency is in the top five. She also said I should eat more, but she says that to everyone, so I'm choosing to ignore it."

"You should eat more."

"See, this is why I bring you food. You need it more than I do." He drank the ginger infusion. It was good. Warm, sharp, the tang of dried tangerine peel cutting through the sweetness. She'd brewed it herself; the proportions were slightly off, the tangerine stronger than the ginger, but the instinct was right. Their grandmother had taught their mother. Their mother had taught Xie Yu.

The recipe was three generations of mortal women's knowledge sitting in a ceramic pot on a stone wall at the foot of an immortal sect's outer peak. He held the cup in both hands and let the warmth settle into his palms.

"Top five," he said.

"Mm-hm."

"Out of how many in your cohort?"

"Thirty-two." She paused.

"Well. Thirty-one. Chen Bai dropped out last month. Family emergency."

"So top five out of thirty-one."

"Top three, actually, if you count the written assessments. But Instructor Deng only confirmed the qi-circulation ranking." She pulled her knees up onto the wall and sat cross-legged, facing him. The green ribbon trailed over one shoulder.

"Lan-ge. I want to tell you something." His hands tightened on the cup. Just slightly. Just enough that his knuckles whitened against the ceramic.

"Tell me."

"An instructor asked me to consider a special advancement test." The mountain air was still warm. The sparrow had come back, or a different sparrow, landing on the same practice post with the same one-eyed regard. The second-year disciples had gone inside. The courtyard was nearly empty.

"Which instructor?" he asked. His voice was level. Two centuries of practice kept it level.

"Senior Sister Qiao. She handles the medical-cultivation assessments." Xie Yu tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was their mother's.

"She said there's a testing window in six weeks for disciples who've demonstrated accelerated progression. If I pass, I'd be placed on an advanced track. Specialized instruction. Better resources."

"Better resources."

"Lan-ge. The voice."

"Sorry." He set the cup down on the wall. Carefully.

"Tell me more about the test."

"It's a standard aptitude evaluation. Qi-control, meridian mapping, a practical component. Senior Sister Qiao said the practical usually involves treating a simulated injury on a formation dummy." Her eyes were bright. This was what she wanted. This was the thing she'd been carrying around all day, waiting to tell him, waiting to see his face when she said it.

"She said my medical aptitude is unusual for someone at third-stage. She said most disciples don't show that precision until fifth or sixth."

"She's right."

"You haven't seen me work."

"I don't need to." In his chest, the fragment shifted. A thin pressure, like a breath held too long.

"The panel," Su Yan said quietly.

"Ask her about the panel." He didn't need the reminder. He'd already been running it. She studied him. Quick eyes. Their mother's eyes, dark and direct.

"You're doing a different thing now."

"What thing?"

"The thing where you say something nice but your jaw does that." She gestured at his face.

"That." He unclenched his jaw. He hadn't realized it was clenching. Two centuries of practice, and his fourteen-year-old sister could read his tension in three syllables.

"I'm proud of you," he said.

"I mean it."

"I know you mean it. That's why the jaw thing worries me." She was too smart. She was too smart and too fast and too talented and too visible, and every one of those qualities was a thread that, if pulled by the right hand, would unravel into the same shape it had unraveled into before. Different names. Different faces. The same web. A note from T. J. Cheng: If you're enjoying this, I'd love to have you on the email list — chapter updates, world notes, and the occasional behind-the-scenes thought.

You can sign up at https: //tjcheng. substack. com. Xie Yu clocking the jaw-clench and the repeat-it-slower voice — I rewrote that beat three times trying to get the balance right between funny and unsettling. Did it land for you, or did her perceptiveness tip over into feeling too sharp for fourteen? I read every comment. Drop yours below — I'd love to know what you think.

📖 Glossary (new terms in this part) incense stick (一炷香, yī zhù xiāng) — A unit of time — roughly how long it takes a standard incense stick to burn down, about half a shichen (thirty minutes).