“Some would consider it extremely impolite, and even lecherous behavior to touch a lady in this way,” Mi Fei said angrily.
The man simply laughed and pulled back his hand. Only then could she move again. He walked back to his chair and sat back down. Due to the difference in elevation, his head stood shorter than hers. Despite the difference in height, there was something grand about his person she couldn’t put into words. “I have descendants ten generations down that are older than you, girl. Then again, you are right. I apologize. A carved Grandmist core is far too rare. Almost unheard of, in fact.”
“Then how, pray tell, did you hear about such a thing in the first place?” Mi Fei asked. She hadn’t told her family about her cultivation method, only that her core had been healed, and she could cultivate all five elements and a strange gray substance called Grandmist. Her family thought it was the result of wielding the five elements so proficiently rather than the nature of her core. It was very telling that this man knew her secrets.
“There exists documentation,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “Information available through the Greenwind Pavilion. In truth, there are a few occurrences of such cores on our plane every year, but by the time they are discovered, their cores are old and hard. They are brittle and cannot be carved. A Grandmist core can only be safely carved within a year or two of reaching maturity.”
“What happens if they try later?” Mi Fei asked, frowning.
“They die,” Dao Lord Blackwater said casually. He seemed genuinely regretful, though she had a feeling it was more due to the loss of their core than the fate of any individual.
“Well. You’ve invited yourself in,” Mi Fei said. “Would you like tea or snacks?”
Dao Lord Blackwater cleared his throat. “Tea would be fine.” She nodded and went to fetch refreshments. It didn’t take long for her to sit at the same table and pour him Pu’er tea with small cookies Xiao Bai had made the previous day. As she did this, the man sat back in his armchair and observed her with his too-black eyes. They were deep and demonic. His hair, while jet black, also contained a few strands of white hair. His expression was worn and weary. Though he looked young, he was old, even if his body refused to admit it.
“I don’t suppose you came here for a simple chat?” Mi Fei asked.
“I came here looking for help,” the man said.
“I’m hardly the person to seek out if someone like you is helpless,” Mi Fei replied. “Perhaps you could call upon a god or immortal? Maybe Elder Zhong himself?” He was one of the few immortals her family knew of.
“For now, you are not worthy,” Lord Blackwater admitted. “But you have great potential. Moreover, I’m probably the best person on the plane to help you fulfill it. Save perhaps one of those immortals you mentioned, if you can find one.” He then summoned a ball of inky-black liquid. It floated around, perfectly at ease in its surroundings. It was similar to the water in the Burning Lake, but somehow… more concentrated?
The black water first behaved much like the water she was familiar with. But then, it did something surprising. It expanded and became a black mist, then crystalized into black metal swords. Finally, it burned to a black liquid flame. The black water was all-purpose, just like her Grandmist. “The Dao of Blackwater isn’t as flexible as the Dao of Grandmist, but on this plane, it’s close. It’s all about compatibility, you see.”
“So you offer to train me in exchange for my help?” Mi Fei asked. “What is your goal?”
“I must keep that secret,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “But should you accept, I guarantee you that any resources and any techniques you need will be made available. Most importantly, you will gain what you most want.”
“And what is that?” Mi Fei asked.
“Freedom,” the man said simply.
She hesitated. It was a tempting offer. Though she knew nothing of the man, something deep inside told her his words rang true. She could see herself soaring to new heights, independent of her family. Yet something about that bothered her.
“I might be mostly free,” she said. “But I would still owe you.”
“I would not require you to die or lose your power or dignity,” Dao Lord Blackwater assured her. “I only require an attempt in carrying out a favor. Nothing more. As long as you advance your cultivation, I will allow you unlimited freedom.”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Mi Fei said. “You will allow me. With a man like you as my master, I could never be free.”
“I would promise never to interfere,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “On my Dao heart. On my life.”
“But I would still owe you,” Mi Fei said. “All my progress will be due to your financing. Every deed of mine would be thanks to your intervention. In my heart, I would always know that I owe you. Karma would bind us.”
He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he drank several sips of tea. Then, he sighed. “You are wise for your age. Wise, but foolish.” His voice was resigned. “Your answer?”
“I’m sorry, Senior, but I must refuse,” Mi Fei said. “It isn’t meant to be.”
He nodded. “That is your prerogative. Your own choice freely made. Remember that you have refused me once. I will ask again, in time.” He put his cup down, got up from his seat, and gave her a tired smile. “I wish you all the best, Mi Fei.” She blinked, and in that split second her eyes were closed, he vanished. Think on what I said, came his voice in her mind.
With his disappearance came a presence she’d forgotten existed. Mi Fei shuddered as Xiao Bai the Jade Rabbit covered the short distance between her and the kitchen. It was only now that she realized their bond had been blocked. “What’s wrong?” she asked. She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. “I smell an old geezer. A powerful old geezer.”
“Some old man called Blackwater wanted to take me on as an apprentice,” Mi Fei said.
“Did you accept?” Xiao Bai asked.
“Of course not,” Mi Fei said. “If I won’t bend for my blood, why should I bend for him?”
“Oh,” Xiao Bai said. Her ears drooped.
“You were thinking about all the food you would get if I accepted, weren’t you?” Mi Fei said.
“You caught me,” Xiao Bai said. She grinned. “Actually, I know about him. I’m happy you said no. He talks about the good of the realm and all, but at his core, he’s a bit of a cruel person.”
Mi Fei shrugged. “I don’t feel like sleeping anymore. Wide awake now. Do you want to look through our pictures again? Think about the old days?”
“Sure,” Xiao Bai said.
The two women jumped into their shared bed and the lights dimmed. They laughed as they talked about dangerous adventures and near-death experiences.
“I just wish I had a better camera,” Mi Fei said, flicking through the pictures. The resolution was terrible, and so was the lighting. The object was tough to control at a distance and not very durable. For a moment—a very brief moment—she imagined herself using a sleek jade object. It could take pictures of anything. It could capture time itself. She barely had time to register the thought before it slipped her mind.
“No one ever makes good camera treasures,” Xiao Bai grumbled. “We’d spend a fortune for marginal benefit.”
“But then we’d have slightly better pictures, which would be a huge improvement in our quality of life,” Mi Fei pointed out.
“Yeah,” Xiao Bai agreed. “All right, let’s buy that next.”
They continued speaking into the night, forgetting all about the old monster’s visit. Because as much as they were looking at pictures of the past, their minds were set on the future.
Chapter 4: Flight
Cha Ming and Huxian took the long way back to the guard station. They moved swiftly but on foot, using disguises, shadow pathways, and short-range teleportation to work their way through the streets. Some might think it was overkill, but in Cha Ming’s estimation, safer was better than sorry when it came to Lord Dripping Blade. He was just as vicious as his
son, and more importantly, he was over a thousand years old and still alive.
The moment they’d left the Wei family estate, cultivators were on their tail. They’d lost those, but now, several hours later, they weren’t even halfway to their destination. It was only now that they dared lessen their breakneck pace and relax, even a little.
“I hate back alleys,” Huxian complained. “They make me feel all slinky and unwanted.”
“Better to think of yourself as discreet and tricky,” Cha Ming said. “We’re so important, we have to hide our identities.”
Huxian chuckled. “I’ll save that one for later. Your talk with Dripping Blade—it didn’t go well?”
“As well as I expected it to go,” Cha Ming said. “How was Xiao Bai? And tell me—how much does she really remember?”
“Everything,” Huxian said. “Every single darned thing. She’s exactly the same demon I met on Jade Moon Planet. Just younger. Less powerful.”
“And you believe her?” Cha Ming said. “What she said about Yu Wen?”
Huxian shrugged. “Us demons aren’t like you humans. Maybe foxes like me or spiders might be tricky, but a Godbeast like her? She’s as honest as can be. It’s in her nature, Cha Ming.”
Cha Ming sighed. He’d been hoping for a different answer. Not long after they’d arrived in the Burning Lake Prefecture, they’d seen Mi Fei for the first time. He and Huxian had instantly recognized both her and Xiao Bai at a glance. Xiao Bai had also recognized them, unlike Mi Fei, who had only briefly acknowledged them. At first, he’d thought it was because she was hiding her identity. He’d retained his own memories between lifetimes before, after all. Why couldn’t she?
“Couldn’t Xiao Bai’s memories just be ancestral memories, then?” Cha Ming asked. “That would explain a lot.”
“Ancestral memories wouldn’t let her remember the first words she said to me when we met,” Huxian said. “Or the names of all my friends. Cha Ming… the way she acts, I don’t think she has ancestral memories. They’re all her memories. Across lifetimes.”
Cha Ming frowned. “Is that even possible?”
“I’ve heard of stranger things,” Huxian said. “Buddhas remember all their past lifetimes, and Siddhartha is just one of them.”
“Fine,” Cha Ming said. There was no sense in pressing Huxian. In truth, he was just depressed. After so long chasing after her, Yu Wen had appeared out of nowhere. But she knew nothing about him, and he had no way to make her remember. “Maybe I should take her to see a Buddhist monk.”
Huxian laughed. “You can’t just take someone in to a monk. Besides, Xiao Bai said she can’t remember.”
“Can’t or shouldn’t?” Cha Ming asked.
“A combination,” Huxian said. “Apparently, she’s seen some pretty awful stuff. Her and Xiao Bai go way back. And by that, I mean hundreds of lifetimes, not just this last one. Thing is, judging by the way she talks, if you add up all her lives and memories, she might have seniority over my ancestor.” He shivered.
“Well, at least she doesn’t act her age,” Cha Ming said consolingly.
“I think that’s why we get along,” Huxian said. “We’re both awesome, and she’s pretty chill about me.”
Cha Ming wished he could be as optimistic as his brother fox.
They were quiet for a while. It was dark out, and lights lit up the entire city. There were tall skyscrapers everywhere, so the traffic was only dead relative to the usual hustle and bustle of daytime. There were still many people around, even in alleys. Yet something felt darker about this night. A difference in lighting, perhaps?
Cha Ming looked up. The city lights were blinding, but with his Eyes of Truth, he could still see the sky. Tonight, there were no stars. An oddity in this city, where every day was graced by clear skies, and only a few hours were reserved for rain every evening.
He frowned as a drop of it fell on his face, just missing his eye. “It’s not time for rain yet, is it?” It only rained at specific times. People knew to stay indoors at those times, and the sudden appearance caused everyone to scatter and clear the streets.
“There’s still forty-three minutes to go,” Huxian said. His ears twitched when a few black droplets hit his face. Like Cha Ming, he didn’t like getting wet.
Cha Ming felt a shiver run down his spine. The streets, which normally would have been moderately busy despite the late hour, were now empty. A sense of crisis enveloped him. It was a sixth sense, and one he had learned to trust. “Look out!” he said, then grabbed Huxian by the collar and jumped to the side. A large blade-wielding cultivator cut a gash into the pavement. He was a peak-core-formation cultivator, and a strong one at that.
“Just one human?” Huxian said indignantly. He grabbed at the demon weapon on his back.
“No time!” Cha Ming said, pulling him along. As he did, three more cultivators ran out of an alley. He and Huxian bolted across the street, interrupting land-roving vehicles that honked in displeasure. One of them rear-ended another, and sirens went off.
Cha Ming and Huxian ignored those and ducked into another alley. There, they found a group of black-cloaked cultivators.
“Grab my hand!” Huxian said. Cha Ming did, and they teleported a short distance onto a nearby terrace. Huxian had a gift for space, and as long as he had enough demonic energy, he could teleport anywhere within his dominion. In this city, his dominion occupied around 200 meters, depending on several factors that could strengthen or weaken it. It wasn’t often that anything weakened space-time.
They ran across the ledge of the building, and there was rain all around them. Their pursuers jumped after them, some with treasures, and others with strong bodies and legs. One of the cultivators was a half-step rune-gathering cultivator, so his steps were light and carried him far. They ran, and as they ran, the rain intensified.
“I can’t believe he got the weather controllers on board with this,” Cha Ming said.
“Well, you did threaten him,” Huxian said.
“I told him I couldn’t be bribed,” Cha Ming said.
“You implied you would come for revenge if you had enough reason to do that,” Huxian said with an exasperated tone. “To be honest, I’d do the same thing. But you’re supposed to be smarter than me, even if you aren’t nearly as fast or as handsome.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Cha Ming said.
Huxian agreed, and together, they stepped into the shadows of a building. Light and darkness inverted. Creatures of shadow nipped at their heels, but their pursuers were blind to them. They did, however, manage to follow them in the right direction.
“They’re tracking me somehow,” Cha Ming said. He focused his vision and saw a black karmic tether. Summoning destruction qi, he tried to snap it, but the thread glowed gold the moment he did. “The guy really spares no expense, does he?”
“Well, he is over a thousand years old,” Huxian said. “Compound interest is a thing in pretty much every world.”
“Just when I was starting to feel old,” Cha Ming muttered.
They ran until the shadow world could no longer support their run and emerged near a wide canal that cut through the city. It wasn’t necessary to have water flowing through the city like this, but there was a certain aesthetic to a traditional view along the water. They ran across the rooftops of three-story buildings. Their footsteps were soft and padded. It wasn’t long before they were joined by a set of gray-cloaked men.
“Those aren’t like the others,” Huxian warned.
“Gray men,” Cha Ming spat. “Great.” Gray men were a sort of assassin you could find in the darker areas of the city. They were expensive and useful, and as such, the prefecture lord put up with their illegal existence. Likely in exchange for a few favors. Like chasing two silver-ranked Kingfisher Guardsmen through the city, for example.
One of them disappeared and reappeared behind Cha Ming, who drew his staff and swung. The gray man’s body crashed into a concrete wall moments later. The others follow
ed their leader, tearing through space and forcing their way to Cha Ming. They were suicide assassins, slaves facing certain death to try landing a single hit with poison-coated knives.
Some of the gray men fell to Cha Ming’s inky brush strokes, and others to Huxian’s four-bladed shuriken. It disassembled and reassembled to create throwing knives, short swords, and up to four small shuriken. They fought in the shadows, as neither side wanted to cause a scene.
“That’s the last of them,” Huxian said, tossing the bloodied body of a gray-cloaked man onto the roof. “I bet someone’s regretting hiring them.”
“I thought they were plenty worthwhile,” a voice said.
Cha Ming’s eyes narrowed as none other than Lord Dripping Blade stepped out from behind a curtain of rain. A large one-edged blade floated in front of him, dripping with a silver liquid. A silvery domain floated around him, constricting anything inside it.
If that were all, Cha Ming wouldn’t be too worried. A domain was powerful, and it could beat his down pretty badly, yes, but it was what lay at the center of that domain that was truly threatening. Rune-gathering cultivators had concentrated their authority to the point that the center of their domain was called a world projection. There, Lord Dripping Blade could easily control space.
Run, Cha Ming said. I’ll escape, just like we discussed.
Take care, Huxian said. He knew better than to argue. Before he took off, however, he threw his demon weapon at Lord Dripping Blade and imbued it with the power of his manifestation. Faced with a full half of Huxian’s power that could devour even a Taotie, Lord Dripping Blade was forced to expend all his power to defend for an entire second. The weapon disappeared as the attack ended, and so did Huxian. Meanwhile, five talismans shot out from the Clear Sky World. So did the Tri-Sealing Pillars. As they formed a powerful barrier all around him, Cha Ming summoned a gray slip of paper. He poured qi into the talisman.
Crown of the Starry Sky: Book 11 of Painting the Mists Page 8