“A reviled Ruidian most people on campus won’t even give the time of day unless I bribe them? Why would I tell a single one of those idiots confidences revealed by those who are actually letting me earn credits without trying to shaft me or set me up for a fall?”
Yinzi beamed. “See, Mother? He knows how this game is played! Okay, help me dig up these roots… carefully! I just want to snip the last two inches.”
Alex’s eyes widened as he carefully looked at the root system before him, his Qi Perception just barely able to detect the intense concentration of spiritual energy gathered right at the tip. And only because he had worked so intently with a spiritual prize that was also infused with Qi extremely similar to what he sensed like a globe of gloom he couldn’t make out with any clarity, but could at least manipulate after endless alchemical trials.
“Shadow Qi! These violet ginger roots actually have traces of Shadow Qi!” Alex’s eyes widened with awe as Yinzi beamed.
“Yes! Fantastic! You can actually sense it! I thought my mother and I were the only ones.” Her eyes widened. “Mother? Please don’t.”
Alex stilled as death’s shadow flowed over him, freezing him in place with fingernails far sharper than any serrated blade, an icy whisper in his ear.
“How do you know this?”
Alex swallowed. “I once hunted for Shadow blossoms, Lady Ning Jing.”
“And why would you ever do such a thing? Are you saying you can sense Shadow?”
Alex solemnly shook his head, wincing as death caressed his neck. “No. That and Fate are the two elements, perhaps the only two elements, that I cannot. I had… help, and it was for the sake of a friend.”
“Help? What was the nature of this help? And who is this friend?”
Alex swallowed, knowing he dare not lie. “The help was in the form of a silver fox who pointed out the Shadow blossom we needed to retrieve, and my friend was a kitsune girl whose meridians had been severely damaged after we helped take down a spirit tiger with the help of our master.”
Slowly the aura of death withdrew and Lady Ning Jing was quietly observing them once more as if she had not just immersed herself in killing shadow, a heartbeat from taking away Alex’s life.
“Interesting.” She tilted her head. “Did the kitsune recover?”
Alex bowed his head. “To the best of my knowledge.”
One perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised. “You abandoned her, then?”
Alex adamantly shook his head. “No. When last we spoke, she was well on her way to recovering. But that’s when my master and I stumbled across dark cultivators and, well...” He shrugged. “Not too long after, I was fighting for my life with a slave collar around my neck.”
“And are you now or were you ever working for the Jianghu sect? Do you also walk the path of the assassin? Are you here to gather intel on me, my family, or this school?”
Alex’s heart raced. He knew he dare not lie. But if she misunderstood, if she didn’t let him finish… but he could tell by the way her aura of Metal and Shadow was hardening to a killing edge that he was risking death even now.
“Yes! No, no, no, and no! I was an apprentice apothecary for a fallen alchemist who made healing compounds and poisons for hunting spirit beasts that I knew were really being used by the Jianghu sect.” He lowered his head. “I knew, even as I spent most of my time making healing tinctures, that I was making death as well, and yes, on some level it shamed me. But my master helped save a lot of lives, alleviated a lot of suffering, and it wasn’t my place to question the only people who were kind enough to give me a chance to rest and tell my tale, let alone put me up with a place to stay, food to eat, and a chance to learn a valuable profession!” He shuddered. “Without them, I would have been killed, or abused, violated, and then killed, a dozen times over by now. But yes. Elder Ying considered them, and even me, his useful tools so yes, indirectly, you could say I had dealings with the Jianghu sect.” He winced. “So maybe that does make me a murderer.”
He hoped his sudden doubt in himself wouldn’t threaten his cultivation base. Somehow, he sensed his massive channels were so potent that very little could. But he had given his oath in good faith earlier, and he felt physically fine, even if humiliated and a bit shamed, forced to think on things he had deliberately pushed to the back of his mind for countless months.
Alex shivered. For all that he could sense Lady Ning Jing’s deadly aura, it was her suddenly intent daughter’s crimson eyes burrowing into his soul that unnerved him most of all. “He’s telling the truth, Mother.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Just like he was when he said he knew WiFu personally. He thought he could hide his truth with a smile, but it’s obvious to anyone with the wit to see it.”
The Silver cultivator flashed a rare, genuine smile. “Only those with eyes like yours, my dear.”
Yinzi tilted her head, the mirror of her mother in gesture and deadly intent. “But that’s not possible, right? I mean, the gods don’t really walk the mortal realms, do they?”
Her mother shrugged. “It hardly matters to us, Yinzi, lest they come to judge my soul, which will hopefully be long after you’ve departed for a happier realm.”
Yinzi rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like I’m going to drop dead at any moment.”
Her mother shrugged. “Girls who don’t practice their cultivation don’t get to live for a thousand years as a Silver. Now quit wasting precious time. Once the sun has set and the moon is out in full, it will no longer be the ideal time to pluck your garden and we’ll, I mean you’ll, have to wait until the next full moon.”
Yinzi quickly nodded. “Right. Okay, Alex, you can see shadow roots because you befriended a silver fox who was probably WiFu in disguise, and you fell for a kitsune girl you were desperate to save, because how could you not fall in love with your master’s other pupil, an outcast like you? Your life story practically demands it. But don’t you love Hao Chan, Yin’s cousin? You guys were practicing forbidden techniques for endless weeks on a carriage ride warping all sorts of things, weren’t you?” She grinned. “I like hanging out with you. You’re the strangest boy I’ve ever met! But Hao Chan won’t be happy to know that you already have a lover. And she still has to save herself until she reaches Silver, right?”
Alex flushed. “Liu Li and I weren’t lovers. We were friends. The best of friends.” Then he winced, realizing what he had just said. Yinzi’s smile only grew.
“Wait! Your mysterious mentor who took on a Ruidian boy as his assistant is actually the former head alchemist of Dragon Academy? Lai Leng absolutely despises him! All this happened before I was born, of course, just before mother came in and crushed everyone between her and this beautiful garden spot by the cliff’s edge. But Lady Jidihu loves to gossip! I hear the head alchemist secretly fell in love with Liu Li’s mother, then everything came to a head after she gave birth. Wait, is Lai Leng actually her father, then? Will we ever know? Her mother was kitsune, after all.”
She furrowed her delicate brows. “But then the rumors get confusing. Did Lai Leng arrange for her death? Or did she run off with Liu Li’s twin baby sister? Did she actually have both their babies?” She shrugged. “Lady Jidihu grows quiet when I take the conversation down those roads, but she did admit that her kind often bounces between, well, you know… and she blames her ultimate sire. But that’s just an excuse, I think. If you love someone, you should just be with that one person, right? Not that I’ll ever find out what love is like, cooped up in here.” She frowned at her mom. “All I get are romantic stories to read where nothing interesting ever happens and no one even dies. Or everyone dies, because people seem to like tragedies for some strange reason.”
“Romantic love is highly overrated, daughter. It is often a tragedy, sometimes a farce, and rarely worth the effort. Now quit flustering the Ruidian boy. The sun has almost set!”
Yinzi’s eyes widened. “Crap! Okay, Alex, just like before. You hold the plant by the roots just like so, and I’ll do th
e rest.”
Alex and Yinzi quickly flowed into a rhythm, Alex gently adjusting the plants in just the right position for clipping, Yinzi snipping and bagging as fast and efficiently as any professional, and only then did Alex note that she too was careful never to directly touch the plant. It was almost as if…
Yinzi nodded. “Yes. On the off-chance any stupid oath forced down Mother’s throat by a stupid alchemist considers me an extension of Mother, it is you holding the roots, and another soul entirely holding the bag! Get it, another soul holding the bag? The bag is the soul? I make wicked puns!”
She grinned, holding up her dark treasure once more. “Pretty clever, hey?”
“It’s best not to flaunt such things aloud, child,” her mother cautioned.
Alex grinned. “It’s a beautiful garden. I’m glad I can help maintain it,” was all he said as Yinzi gave a pleased nod and finally put her terrible instruments away.
He was more than happy to stay another hour and carefully weed the garden in its entirety, his Qi Perception and Biochemical Mastery assuring he only ever removed base plants and weeds without a trace of spiritual potential while Yinzi and her mother ate a meal hurried over by deferential servants, the pair quietly eyeing Alex the entire time with mirrored expressions.
Alex couldn’t help shivering under their regard. At times Yinzi was the most light, bubbly, and open girl he had ever met, the polar opposite of her mother.
At other times they seemed to move and think as one.
Alex felt the oddest chill as they raised their teacups and sipped in perfect concert, mirroring even their blinks and the delicate furrowing of their brows.
“You missed a weed, Alex,” they both said in perfect concert before sharing brief smiles.
“Actually, that’s woodburrow root. See the corkscrew shoots? Potent in both Earth and Wood Qi. More diffuse than some of your plants, but some alchemical formulae are aided when a pair of elements that normally oppose instead work together in tandem.”
The exquisitely beautiful and chillingly odd pair shared pleased smiles again.
“Thank you, Alex, we didn’t know that,” they said in tandem once more, before Yinzi yawned, instantly breaking the illusion that they were mirror images of one another, scratching her thick mane of brilliant white hair. “Teach me its secrets?”
And in short order, Alex had conveyed the bit his talent had allowed him to deduce, nibbling a few fibers with their permission, giving a thoughtful nod. “It’s a little more potent than what I found in the Deepwood, naturally good for strengthening the body’s humors and fighting off respiratory infection and I think, yes, I’m almost certain that if an alchemist with knowledge of body cultivation were to experiment with it, he might gain insights into better furthering his art upon ingesting the proper potions or tinctures. But as to the actual details? I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
Yinzi tilted head curiously. “You got all that just from tasting it?” She flashed a brilliant smile. “Fantastic!”
Alex winced. “I think we’ve all shared things that best go no further than this garden.”
Yinzi nodded. “But I’m totally telling Lady Jidihu about you. She’ll be so happy to know you’re actually interesting, and not some crazed homicidal rapist like Lai Leng and his nephew keep insisting! And now it all makes sense why they hate you so much.”
Her mother rose up, gently kissing her daughter’s cheek. “Enough, daughter. The hour grows late, and it’s time for good little almost-foxes to go to sleep. And if you’re really good, I’ll have the servants bring you some more of those romantic fables you so enjoy critiquing after pouring over them for hours upon hours.”
Yinzi grinned, giving Alex an unexpected hug and scampering back a second before her mother formally addressed him. Though she had a slender frame, the mirror of her mother’s, Yinzi’s strength was already considerable.
“You have done us a service, Alex, and shown yourself to be anything but what that bastard and his brat of a nephew painted you to be. This pleases me.” Powerful hands gently turned over his palm, placing several shimmering coins within.
Alex bowed his gratitude just as the brilliant full moon broke free of bashful clouds, bathing the garden in a silver-blue glow.
“Thank you, Lady Ning Jing. It was an honor.”
Qi Perception check made! Soul Sight perception check made!
That was when he saw it, and desperately wished he hadn’t.
And the suddenly-deadly gaze the former assassin was giving him, her bemused half-smile transforming instantly to an expression both cold and alien, made it clear that Ning Jing understood exactly what he had seen.
It explained so much about her daughter’s curious eccentricities.
An odd mixture of her mother and someone else Alex almost thought he knew.
For when the brilliant moonlight caressed Yinzi’s grinning form it showed more than a girl with pristine snow-white hair, crimson eyes, and eerily beautiful features. It also revealed the shadows of proud fox ears where none could be seen before, a tail of pure darkness flicking back and forth, its owner mirroring the puzzled curiosity of her mother’s gaze before she finally got it.
“He knows,” Yinzi whispered, her gaze now just as intent as Ning Jing’s own.
Alex could sense his death in both their eyes, and the sad regret in Yinzi’s.
He neither whimpered nor cowered, merely smiled as he looked death in the face.
“WiFu would be proud,” was all he said.
The pair suddenly stilled, and Alex could almost taste the thoughts racing behind their gazes.
“Is it true?”
Alex nodded to the voices, in concert once more. “It is.”
“What’s he like?” Yinzi whispered.
Alex tilted his head thoughtfully. “Enigmatic, clever, funny. Deadly. The type of acquaintance who will put your life in peril for the sake of a larger cause, and you will be all the stronger for it. Assuming you survive. And if you don’t? At least you died for something. Which beat the hell out of the meaningless death I died once before.”
He blinked and shook his head, realizing he was saying too much before those captivating eyes.
Yinzi grinned and kissed his cheek, clasping his hand with her slender one, and leading him to the gate.
“Goodbye, Alex, thank you for coming to see us. And Alex?”
Alex winked. “What happens in the garden, stays in the garden.”
She chuckled softly, turning to her mother. “I like this one. We should keep him.”
Ning Jing’s icy features softened into the tiniest of smiles. “Panheu’s already claimed him. And you know how he likes his games.”
Yinzi snorted. “He caters to spoiled noble brats like the gentlest of uncles, but half his actual disciples go missing. Probably dead.”
Her mother nodded. “And the other half are forged to the heights of Bronze in record time, all without tainting their meridians with excessive cultivation pills. Zhao Doushi even made Silver.”
Yinzi sighed. “I hope he doesn’t kill you too soon, Alex. I’d like us to be friends.”
Alex grinned. “I’d like that too.”
“Good. But you really can’t tell anyone about our adventures today, okay? Because then we really would have to kill you, and I’d feel awful and have big screaming rows with Mother for the rest of the season, and I’d really like to avoid that. Life’s not fun when you’re at odds with the people who love you.”
Alex bowed low. “I would like to avoid that as well.”
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“Do you really know my father?”
Alex winked. “Can’t say a word on that. I’ve just stepped onto the path!”
She laughed as he waved farewell, quickly making his way back to Panheu’s gated property, where he collapsed with a groan when he finally made it to his humble bed in the garden shack, grateful his first day formally attending Dragon Academy was finally over, and more
than a little bit surprised to find himself still among the living.
7
“So you were perceptive enough to apot the trap, clever enough to sense the importance of winning over the clerk, and resourceful enough to squirrel away mundane treasure on the off chance that base metal would avail you precious alliances and resources, even here in Dragon Academy. And, of course, you were right! Well done, Alex!” beamed none other than Panheu, sipping his morning tea after having spent half the morning pushing a still mentally-drained Alex to his utmost in White Crane kung fu, refusing to let up until Alex was able to sense the whirlwind of Light Qi once more, finding the surge of enlightenment coming just a bit easier than the day before, able to hold onto the flow just a bit longer as he sparred with his master, before they eventually retired for tea.
Panheu turned to Zhao Doushi who had come by the estate seemingly by perfect coincidence the moment their session had finished, who gratefully took the tea his master offered.
“Our Alex is a resourceful one, isn’t he?”
Zhao snorted and took another sip of his drink. “Resourceful enough, after playing the fool with Pan’s students.”
Panheu’s grin widened. “And yet he has grown so much from a single day of conflict. Look at the weight of fear flashing behind his eyes when he laughed away our requests as to all the details of his work assignment!” He smirked. “As if Ning Jing was interested in anything as base as weeding her flower gardens!”
Zhao finally flashed a cold smile. “At least he’s wise enough to keep Ning Jing’s confidences. Now I actually have hopes that he might survive the week.”
Panheu chuckled. “Myself as well. Isn’t this exciting? Well, I trust you know your way around now, Alex. You may use the time piece by the manor if you have yet to forge a perfect mental clock. A flaw I recommend you correct with all haste. Zhao and I must be off, Alex, but fear not, the gate now has a taste of your blood, and knows to let you in without destroying you utterly.”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3 Page 11