Chapter Text
The pressure eventually resolved into rain, but still Mother insisted they leave for the teahouse.
“I struggled for this reservation!” she hissed, as she pushed servants back and forth into picking out his wardrobe. “And we only have two hours of it! Su-su already saw smoke coming from the inn— something big happened and I will not miss out on it!”
So off they went in the family coach, horses trudging miserably as the wheels sunk into the churned-up mud. For all the rain seemed to be slowing in intensity, the lack of wind and sheer volume of clouds spelled clearly that it would not soon let up; nearly an entire moon's worth of perfect weather had been rudely interrupted.
Predictably, the street was packed. The reason was self-evident.
The inn was… smoldering.
The pagoda floors had been cracked open like an egg, raining debris down onto the terrace above the second floor. Some of the debris glowed a faint red, like embers under ash. Once they were inside the teahouse proper, they could see the terrace itself was liberally pockmarked with scorches, lit with their own constellation of embers, stubbornly burning even under the rain.
There was a body.
It lay amid a massive soot stain, itself a charred, charcoal-black ruin half-dressed in tattered robes; like the assorted debris in its surroundings, it also glowed from within like a stubborn lump of spent coal. Paper talismans lay over it and around it, fluttering under non-existent wind.
It took Qiu Jianluo a moment to tell that no rain was falling within the circle of talismans.
Cultivators surrounded the body, with the scrutinizing air of surveyors, making notes, squinting into certain spots. He recognized the officious cultivator, a wooden tablet in his hand, and also the huge, ugly woman cultivator, pasting the occasional talisman down; there were other cultivators, unfamiliar ones, most of them not even dressed in the dark hanfu denoting the Peak Lord's entourage. A monk mumbled in a corner.
He also saw the cute little girl, scowling adorably at the body while clutching a sheathed sword in her off-hand. He took a moment to hope this display prompted in her an impulse to change careers.
Then he wondered about Xiao Jiu.
Where was he, during this mess? His third floor window had been blasted open, and a chunk of wall besides, but the room beyond was too dim to see clearly.
But he soon showed up under the one standing awning, gathered into the arms of his Runaway accomplice like a smug little princess— wrapped in a dark and much too big robe, his hair down, his feet bare, gazing at the charred corpse with detached contempt.
Then things happened.
Suddenly the Runaway was curled around Xiao Jiu, the corpse was missing its head and arms, and the little girl was on the opposite side of the terrace, sheathing her sword. And, well, Qiu Jianluo had seen what happened. Everything had been clear and crisp before his eyes. And still, simultaneously, it had all been too damn quick to comprehend.
His mind tried to reconstruct events.
The corpse had moved. Twitched. Suddenly lurched to its feet, stumbled towards A-Jiu.
The Runaway had turned around and showed his back to the thing, gathering A-Jiu against his chest in a little ball.
The little girl had… walked. She'd slid her blade smoothly from its scabbard, and walked past the corpse, and she'd gone very fast, but it was a walk. Calm and unhurried and sure. And with every graceful step, she'd moved her sword.
She'd sliced the corpse's head, chopped one arm in the backslice, then turned on her feet to cut the other, all while stepping past it with smooth and calm surety. Her robes had flared like a dancer's. Her hair had fluttered like ribbons.
The corpse barely had time to collapse before it was over.
And it didn't seem real, it didn't seem possible. His mind insisted that his memory was wrong. If it had been this fast, it could not have been this clear. If it had been this clear, it could not have been this fast. That was not how reality worked. It was not what reality was.
“Oh, I know him,” A-Tang piped up, turning to their stunned Father. “That's the heir to their warrior peak, Liu-something. The one with the ponytail, who just did the thing with the sword.”
The silence that fell upon their balcony also did not seem real.
“…that's a boy?” asked Mother, weakly. Once again, they were united in their thoughts.
“Yeah!” continued A-Tang, blithely. “He was guarding A-Jiu the other day, remember? We also talked a bit during my visit, but he's a terrible conversationalist. He's a little annoyed at having been named heir. Technically he hasn't earned his position yet, but the same prophecy that named A-Jiu also named him, so they're taking it for granted even though he hasn't defeated his Peak Lord master yet, which is how they do it in the warrior peak. So all he wanted to do was train, he kept going 'argh, I don't like not deserving things, boo' and it was very boring—”
Qiu Jianluo turned back to the terrace. The girl boy was nudging the corpse with the tip of a boot. The officious one approached the head with a grimace, pulled out some sort of incense pouch, and then somehow made the head disappear. The ugly cultivator woman approached the slowly relaxing Runaway and took Xiao Jiu from his arms.
And the worst thing was, in her hands, Xiao Jiu did look like a dainty little porcelain doll.
There was going to be a banquet.
The magistrate was coming, in person. Envoys had already rushed over to make arrangements; the thrice-damned tea house was rented for several days of preparation, and many reservations were forcibly canceled, including, thank the gods, two of Mother's own.
Also, the city was churning with cultivators.
“So, uh,” said Song Fuguang, freshly arrived at Mother's invitation, and was Father really going to let that stand— “apparently the demonic cultivator they killed was a big deal, like, all these other sects came by to confirm it was him and he was really dead.”
“How frightening!” gasped Mother, delicately.
“And just think,” said Qiu Jianluo, with resentful relish, “you were hanging out with him for nights, in the dark, on rooftops.”
“Yeah!” the idiot nodded, eyes wide. “And I had no idea!”
He sipped more tea, and didn't even have the decency to do a double-take or give any sign of realizing the actual danger he'd been in.
Jianluo gritted his teeth, sucked in some air, then blew it out through his nostrils. Song Fuguang was their only visitor for the afternoon. Pretty much all his “friends” had been released already, the ruse being finished and danger passed— but they weren't really contacting him, or talking much even when he visited them. Mostly they seemed deeply rattled by the experience and unwilling to talk about it— something he would be relieved about, but for the fact that it cut down on his sources and forced him to rely on Song Fucking Fuguang for details.
Which proved to be unnecessary; an invitation soon arrived at the manor for the upcoming event, for them and all the other lesser families besides. The Cang Qiong crowd, having turned the city into a circus for over a moon and half-demolished a respectable local establishment besides, would be guests of honor.
Because apparently the magistrate had neither pride nor shame.
A-Tang insisted on selecting her wardrobe for the event ahead of time— Father hastily ordered a set of jewelry and a new broad-sleeve robe to complement her Mother-approved choices— and once the ensemble was re-dyed and washed and perfumed and re-embroidered and set aside she would check the box and count its items at least once a day. Adorable!
Truly, she was the only highlight of a thoroughly odious wait, as the city burbled its excitement over a veritable infestation of nosy immortals, floating about in the morning in their best silks as if they weren't all also trying to stumble across Xiao Jiu during one of his medically mandated walks.
Not to mention the new, non-medically mandated walks the little beast was apparently taking, now that the danger was past. Qiu Jianluo couldn't even go take a load off at some other teahouse without finding Xiao Jiu with his little runaway friend, or the officious little twit, and of course one or two of his personal healers— shoveling down sweets as if starving (as if A-Tang had never shared her own leftovers), laughing out loud, following etiquette and then dropping it and then resuming it as if it were a game, also dropping chopsticks, dropping food, picking it back up from the floor and eating it, or trying to pick it back up only to make a sudden piteous sound and then have his little coterie jump to coddle him, sometimes even picking the offending item and giving it back to him—
More than once he would fumble his bowl, or teacup, bad enough to spill its contents, and his companions would appease his fake put-upon moues with trite inanities like “haha, whoops!” or “practice makes perfect” or “fine motor functions should be back in less than a year” and then just let him make a fucking spectacle of himself. And for all that Qiu Jianluo burned to shoot him the kind of sharp look he knew always reminded the little beast to mind himself, he had no openings.
Literally. Somehow A-Jiu was always surrounded by occupied tables three rows deep, and never any free spot at his direct line of sight. One time he waded into the little defensive huddle only to be tripped up like Gao Gang at his last party, and when he tried to call out his throat made no sound; to complete the humiliation, he was raised from the floor by his armpits to find himself face-to-face with Huge Ugly Cultivator Woman, and physically placed on his feet outside.
(He then tried to stand at a window he knew was in A-Jiu's line of sight, but the sun was hitting him straight on and he couldn't see inside for shit.)
The less said about their few meetings outdoors, the better. He could step into the market street, forewarned of Xiao Jiu's presence, and cross it to the end without finding the little bitch once. Grubby stall keepers would take one look at him and have the absolute gall to point him to where A-Jiu had been seen last, and there was no telling whether they'd been truthful or not because no matter where Qiu Jianluo went, A-Jiu would turn out to have just left.
So he would be caught completely flat-footed whenever he did get a glimpse of his quarry. And more often than not, a glimpse was all he got; a flap of creamy-bright robes, seamless and unmarked, a brocade belt, his profile there and gone behind a wall of dark robes.
Then Qiu Jianluo would hasten his pace, the crowd would thicken rather than part, robes in confusing shapes and colors mixing and shuffling before his eyes until he was gone—
Of course, the one time that didn't happen, Qiu Jianluo was so stunned he didn't even think to move.
“I used to steal from this guy, hehe,” the little beast was bragging as he handed over a little coin to a youtiao seller, face turned to his companion with an impish grin and looking not remotely dignified.
Said companion was the unfairly, unrealistically beautiful little boy who had fooled Jianluo with his looks, and who now frowned up at the merchant with a coy little pout.
“Glad to see you remember!” laughed the old man, handing over a pair of paper-wrapped youtiao without even trying to spit on them. “Might this humble street seller request back pay from such a regular customer, then?”
“Back pay!” Xiao Jiu cried out, outright cackling, as he handed one over to his coquettish companion. “The nerve of this asshole! As if you didn't kick my ass and run me out more often than not! Even when I made it with my prize it never came without a nice crunchy dusting of street on it.”
Qiu Jianluo wished he'd fumble the youtiao and eat more street, but instead all he got was the seller rearing back with a put-upon face.
“Come now, little gongzi!” he pleaded, and Jianluo felt a sudden hot surge in his throat at the blatant misuse of a respectable title. “I wouldn't have done that if I'd known about the prophecy thing!”
Xiao Jiu immediately turned to his pretty boy friend.
“You heard him,” he said, casually. “A starving kid is not worth food unless you know he'll grow up to matter.”
“Gongzi,” the seller whined. “I didn't mean it that way—“
Xiao Jiu, mouth full of clean youtiao, interrupted him with an imperious wave of his hand.
“S' normal,” he said through his teeth, his cheeks stuffed, not even look at the old man. “E'ryone did it. Yurr' not special.”
The pretty boy put on a very flat attempt at looking both extra pretty and solemn, despite staring down at his uneaten youtiao.
“It's not right,” he piped up with an overly sweet voice.
“Right is hardly normal,” A-Jiu shrugged, his plebeian cynicism in full view, stepping away from the cart while brandishing his half-eaten youtiao. “Normal is hardly right. You're just spoiled!”
The pretty boy trudged after him, still whinging it isn't right to himself, and by the time Qiu Jianluo thought to follow them, A-Tang was done buying her new hairpins and Hong-er was asking him about his own purchases and he didn't even remember what he'd been meaning to buy anymore—
In a fit of pique, Qiu Jianluo declined from so much as leaving the compound for two days in a row, after which he was just about ready to chew off his own arm. Tang-er never once stayed behind with him! Not even when he had the help cook her favorite sweets! And those morning strolls were taking way too long—
On rejoining the strolls he found that A-Jiu's small group of tagalongs had inflated to ludicrous proportions, and the little beast now toddled at the center of a black-robed wall besieged by another, multicolored wall, both sides fiercely engaged in a bizarre battle of politesse which the brat was smugly pretending to be entirely unrelated to.
Mother approached the battlefield and proceeded to ingratiate herself to whoever was closest, while Tang-er ignored both sides and strolled into the heart of the fortress untouched and unimpeded.
Qiu Jianluo tried to follow her and found himself accosted and subsequently engaged by a buddhist monk who was weirdly intense about basic baby morality. To make matters worse, Mother somehow heard him over the din of sectarian gossip and shot him a look so severe he felt compelled to take the social gauntlet seriously and pretend to be really into Master Kong.
Over the guy's shoulder, he could see A-Tang and Xiao Jiu safe in the middle of the black-robed circle, cheerfully swinging their joined hands. There was a bright peal of laughter. He could not tell from whom.
Qiu Jianluo made all the right noises and said all the right words, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the monk was pitying him.
By the time the Magistrate arrived, with all the pomp and circumstance involved, Qiu Jianluo had learned this much:
The other sects of note were Huan Hua Palace, whose disciples paid regular fees to give Father pause, Zhao Hua Monastery, who were most likely to gaze long and irritatingly at Qiu Jianluo, and Tian Yi Overlook, who were said to be important but seemed otherwise entirely nondescript.
There were a whole bunch of smaller, less important sects. Father still demanded he treat them with full courtesy, however— because Cang Qiong, it turned out, dressed its disciples according to Peak affiliation, and the black formal robes were just one of a whole gamut of different colors and cuts.
Was this asshole a nobody from Tian Yi, or a nobody from Cang Qiong? The answer was a big fat fuck you to Qiu Jianluo specifically. Cang Qiong even had its own coterie of monks to gaze forlornly at him! He swore to put a foot through a shrine just for their weird attitude.
And speaking of weird attitudes, they were all Really Weird about Xiao Jiu, but that went without saying. All the cultivators were fucking weird about Xiao Jiu, and it made him want to flip tables. Everyone kept playing nice to the little beast, and pretending he mattered, and attending him like he was a, a, a high-end courtesan—
That was an urchin. He wanted to scream it into their faces. An urchin!! A fucking slave!! Picked right out of the dust and filth of a street!! Even if that one old white-bearded creep in nine layers of gold brocade really want to get into his ass, or his yin energy, if the two were even separate when it came to cultivation— regardless, that was not his choice to make, it was the choice of his owner.
By all rights, Qiu Jianluo should be making that choice.
No one else had a right to A-Jiu's body.
So he sat at the Magistrate's banquet, seething, fuming behind a polite smile, eyes tracking every covetous glance measuring up his property.
Or, at the moment, the empty set of tables where his property was supposed to sit, once the Cang Qiong delegation arrived. They weren't late. They probably weren't actually going to be late. If anything, Qiu Jianluo was expecting them to be anally punctual in an attempt to annoy him specifically.
It was working. He was annoyed.
He was even more annoyed when they arrived respectably early, a retinue of luxuriant fabric and subtle adornments he would love to sneer at if it weren't for two things: one, a spot of sunlight hit something in the walking group and momentarily spattered the salon in colors he didn't even know the name of, and two, there was a Goddess.
She was an absolute giantess of a Goddess, standing head and shoulder above the sect leader; her skin was pure jade; her lashes were like feathers; her eyes were shining jet; her hair was blacker than the night, and it brushed at her ankles and gleamed with the iridescence of a butterfly's wing.
Xian Shu, the words rose amid murmurs, as even other cultivators gaped at the Goddess. Even the monks, even the old geezer in his brocades. This was another Peak Lord, apparently, one very rarely seen, and much widely coveted.
He did not dare covet. He had few betters, but he knew one at a glance, and she was it.
But he was distracted from her beauty when she knelt— at the front, directly to the sect leader's left— and he spotted Xiao Jiu in the gap between them.
Xiao Jiu was kneeling at the row of tables directly behind the highest-ranking members of Cang Qiong's party, between the runaway and the officious asskisser. The lying pretty boy, the doctor, another apparent girl and one of the many monks who'd pestered Qiu Jianluo were placed in the next row. The many black robed disciples who'd arrived with their group, followed by a scattered handful of other colors, had been guided to one of the side banquets.
(As if they were lower than—)
Xiao Jiu wore turquoise blue and cool greens; pale layers, topped by a darker robe and a deep, jewel-like sash, the brocade of which reflected the ambient light in facets. He wore no hair crown— aside from the Peak Lords, only the runaway did— but half of his hair was tied up in a knot, held with a ribbon— more brocade— and dangling with thin gold chains accented with pearls and jade beads.
Despite his better reasoning, he looked over his shoulder. He knew he shouldn't have. He knew what he would see.
But A-Tang, in peaches and pinks, also wore dangling chains from her hair, pearls and jade; her sash was also faceted brocade in deep orange; and the cut and drape of her sleeves mirrored his.
A-Tang didn't notice him. She was scratching absently at a carving on her bangle. He turned back around to stare into nothing and furiously wonder how did they know.
He suddenly wanted to flip the table before him, run home and question every servant, track down the tailors and embroiderers who had worked on her outfit and shake them by the neck. Who let this happen? Who let them know to ape his sister in such a crude, disrespectful way—
The Magistrate arrived, and the banquet began.
After all the necessary courtesies and introductions and toasts were done and over with, the question of what had happened at the inn came up, and a tedious back and forth between Peak Lord and Magistrate took place; starting, of course, with the purchase.
“Two gold taels, truly?” The Magistrate asked, as if he weren't aware of the other one hundred and sixty eight a noble family in that very room had been cheated out of. “I hear he was little more than a starving mongrel but three xún ago. Given how far he's come, the product certainly seems worth the price!”
“Cang Qiong abhors the practice of slavery,” said the Peak Lord, gravely. “All lives are priceless before the heavens. However, the portents spoke of a need for haste, and so we humored the contemptible custom. Money was not a concern.”
The Magistrate gave that speech the consideration it deserved, and moved right along.
The Peak Lord went on to blame the cauldron rumors for attracting the demonic cultivator, a man by the name of Wu Yanzi who had apparently been long pursued by whatever passed for law enforcement among the sects. This was sadly corroborated by the local bureaucrats, who had been visited and chided by the Runaway several times in those first days— before Xiao Jiu ever left the inn on his first constitutional.
Foreseeing problems, the Peak Lord had summoned further disciples from his sect, who arrived discreetly at some point during the second xún; their investigation had already started by the time the slaver made his kidnapping attempt, and once the crowd of peepers became a problem, the Peak Lord roped in the soldiers provided by the Magistrate.
When asked about the stratagem that finally brought the man down, the Peak Lord, to general surprise, waved Xiao Jiu forward to speak.
“My seniors were deeply shocked by the fanciful tales that had spread through the city,” A-Jiu enunciated with great care, his eyes lowered, his posture perfect. “Unlike the lurid tales of popular books, such practices are not merely unorthodox, but anathema to righteous cultivation— as a meridian system that can so blithely steal from other bodies is itself unsound and ultimately unsustainable. The study of true cultivation manuals make it clear: such a thing as a cauldron is unrealistic nonsense. But it is nonsense that the unlearned believe.
“It appears that these ignorant rumors attracted an ignorant person of great arrogance,” he continued. “And in the experience of this one, having survived slavery and the streets, the ignorant and arrogant are the most dangerous. Thus a cultivator of unsound and unsustainable techniques, believer of unrealistic nonsense, came to steal an imaginary panacea, and caused great harm in his pursuit.
“My honored seniors sought to protect me from those rumors,” he went on, nodding to the peak lords before turning back to the Magistrate. “And from the presence of a murderer, when his victims first came to light. Their intentions were noble, but their actions unnecessary; once this one learned of the problem, its solution seemed obvious.
“We did not know the location of the demonic cultivator, or of his captives, but we knew the location of his target. As long as he sought me, he had no choice but to approach me; I had but to convince my betters to make appropriate use of the means at hand.”
The assembly oohed and gasped. He offered himself as bait! They mumbled to each other, hands to their chests, in exaggerated displays of emotion. How noble! How self-sacrificing!
What a load of shit.
“Honored martial uncle was at first unwilling to put this one at risk,” Xiao Jiu continued. “But when the second wave of victims were found, priorities had to be reviewed. This one's health had improved enough that I could not be spared from a cultivator's duty.”
“Were you afraid?” Asked the Magistrate.
“Not in the least,” answered Xiao Jiu. “I was in the care of kind and experienced seniors, and strong and dutiful juniors. To exist was my sole duty. I would dare call it restful.”
More oohs and aahs. Xiao Jiu affected a look of serene piousness. A toast was raised in his honor. Father poked Jianluo's knee until he pretended to drink.
Once the guests were given leave to mingle, A-Tang quickly scurried over to Xiao Jiu, who was himself wandering about with a couple of his asskissers. Together, they looked like matching dolls, fit to be put on a high shelf; they made the gold-draped delegation look drab and fake.
Qiu Jianluo followed them from afar, having been unfairly harangued by Father into not causing a scene. For hours. That very day and also the previous day. He knew better! But Xiao Jiu might not, so. Just in case.
If something happened, he had to make sure blame was correctly assigned.
Xiao Jiu and A-Tang spent an inappropriate amount of time inconveniencing the Goddess before running off; now they were pestering some older girl in gold— presumably a girl, Jianluo no longer trusted any stunningly beautiful cultivator to be of the female persuasion— bouncing around her and tugging at her sleeves; she smiled beatifically down at the two, patted A-Tang's head, adjusted A-Jiu's collar, and then excused herself, hands in her sleeves.
A-Tang tugged A-Jiu along in a random direction. Jianluo turned to follow and almost ran into a cloud of lilac silks and fluttering ribbons.
It was the Goddess.
She blinked slowly down at him; at the tip of each of her eyelashes there was a tiny gem, and the corners of her eyes were accented by three in a row. When she fanned herself with her richly embroidered tuanshan, her skirts and sleeves brushed at each other with a teasing susurrus, and the scent she wafted hit him like a cart.
“Where are your parents?” She asked absently. Her voice was rich and warm, like the song of a xiao.
He felt like a bug. An ungainly amalgamate of limbs and carapace, unfit to be stepped on. Was this what it was like, to know himself lesser? He tried to unglue his tongue from his palate, distracted by the sway of her fan.
The fan flapped before her face, and as it passed, she became the Huge Ugly Cultivator Girl.
Jianluo turned around and stumbled back to his table.
“There you are,” said her rich voice, thick with amusement, somewhere over his head. “We should talk. Little Maiden Qiu is definitely a match for my peak!”