Chapter 30 – Intent

  The activation of Mesmer’s Echo was the first real step Diyuan needed in order to create his Spiritweave core. After all, it was limitless Mesmer’s Echo that allowed him to pull at the pure spirit energy threads, so any understanding of the real Mesmer’s Echo—not the limitless version—could help him with the wall he was facing when it came to forming the second core.

  The original description of Mesmer’s Echo that came with the double-arte jade tablet (which was connected to Emperor’s Rule) was that it allowed him to dodge an attack he knew was coming. It wasn’t something that taught him how the enemy was going to attack, but how to dodge when he already predicted the attack. Seemingly useless, in Diyuan’s eyes.

  According to Yao Luchen’s description of Sword Intent, which had activated Mesmer’s Echo, Diyuan might need to redefine what the arte meant when it assumed he would know how the attack was coming.

  Diyuan needed three days to recover his limitless Benediction Balm so Yao Luchen stayed with them and trained with the other Black Brigade members. It was likely going to take several sessions to fully restore the young man’s Foundation core. While he stayed, Yao Luchen became popular with the men when he brought in his own expertise, showcasing why he could still be considered a genius even without his cultivation level. Though, the real reason the guys wanted to duel against the young genius was to see how their own martial skills had progressed with the new Black Brigade structure.

  Diyuan watched from the side as Yao Luchen went against the Sable Watcher’s teamwork. While the Sable Watchers only had a week of training and were lacking in many areas, they were able to fend off the young genius easily enough. Not a surprise due to their cultivation differences, but the Black Brigade limited themselves to just martial prowess.

  However, something strange was happening with Yao Luchen.

  When he wasn’t making any headway with his current sword, he would sheathe it and grab a different one he had brought with him. His entire combat style changed with the new sword. Before, he was fighting in a more straightforward manner. But now with this new sword, which wasn’t unique in any way, he became more agile in an attempt to outmaneuver the Sable Watcher’s footwork.

  “Sword Intent,” Yao Luchen said during their break. He wiped some sweat from his forehead. He had walked up to Diyuan for a conversation. “I thought it’d be a good idea to show you more of what Sword Intent does at my infant level so you can know what to expect when you meditate with the Sword Saint’s paper. I brought three swords over and each one has its own personality. Look.”

  He performed a sword dance of sorts with his main sword.

  Yao Luchen poised with his feet planted firmly on the ground. He swung with powerful cleaves, causing audible noise as he sliced through the air. Diyuan would have assumed the sword was a heavy grand weapon, but Yao Luchen’s weapon was about the same size as his own.

  Then the dance was performed with the second sword. Yao Luchen lightened his posture and loosened his body, allowing agility to shine. His movements became unpredictable (to everyone else) as he darted side-to-side or performed illusory movement. A sense of an afterimage seemed to want to form, but it wasn’t there just yet.

  The third sword was the largest of the three and acted as the defensive “personality.” Acts of deflection and redirects were shown in water-like wave motions.

  Yao Luchen was breathing heavily when he finished. The lack of a Foundation core certainly made things harder.

  The dance itself seemed to inspire everyone watching. They went back to their regular training and, oddly enough, their movements became more precise and sharper. How strange.

  Once Yao Luchen collected himself, he continued to explain things to Diyuan. “Some swords have their own Sword Intent personality: something it excels at. A swordsman doesn’t need to know what that personality is to be a good swordsman, but if he can work together with his weapon, it’ll bring better results than if he was trying to do everything himself.”

  Diyuan remained silent. The abstract idea of working together with some strange personality within a sword didn’t exactly resonate with him. It also didn’t help that Yao Luchen was the only one who could sense the “personalities.” Feng Xueying was in the area listening too, but based on her reactions, this wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before.

  Less abstractly, Yao Luchen mentioned how Sword Intent could eventually provide the ability to enhance the cultivator’s sword. Usually, a sword energy aura would wrap around the weapon, allowing it to easily pierce through the defenses of armor or a demonic beast’s hide.

  During lunch, Yao Luchen talked about how the Sword Saint was able to use Sword Intent with his finger, allowing him to fight against real swords by using just the pure sword energy that extended from that finger. Even magic artifact swords might not be able to go against it.

  Someone else at lunch area overheard and joined the conversation, telling the story of how the Sword Saint was capable of doing an attack that used other people’s swords. The Saint could just take control of anyone’s sword with a flick, whether it was in a sheath or in their hand, and it would fly into the air, like it needed to obey the Sword Saint’s command.

  They continued to clamor on about the Sword Saint and some other ridiculous stories, but there was a general consensus that the Sword Saint was the undisputed strongest immortal in the lower world. If anyone was going to ascend next, it would be him.

  Could they stand a chance against Ancestor Tianxuan? Probably not since no one could. Maybe this Sword Saint was equal to Uncle Xunran?

  It was said that if someone from the upper world descended, which forcibly lowered their cultivation level to the max possible in the lower world, even they wouldn’t have an advantage against the Sword Saint. The Sword Saint was the Pavillion Leader of the Blue Azure Sword Pavillion, which was an exclusive gathering place that sects would try to have their best disciples enter.

  Diyuan continued to listen but was perplexed. The topic of Sword Intent was not something most people had knowledge on, at least according to the ramblings and guesswork everyone was having. Based on what he was hearing, some of the feats that the Sword Saint had done could be attributed to artes, but Yao Luchen was adamant that it was Sword Intent.

  What was Sword Intent? Diyuan thought it might be something they had a different name for back in the Tribulation Shroud. The ability to move swords at a distance could just be spirit control that Spiritweave cultivators could do. But based on what they were saying, even the enemy’s controlled swords sharpened under the Saint’s commands. While certain aspects seemed exaggerated, it didn’t sound like spirit control in the end.

  Which could only mean one thing: Sword Intent was a concept that didn’t exist in the Tribulation Shroud.

  Diyuan tried to compartmentalize the thought of “intent.” By the definition of the word, intent was essentially someone’s will. If someone had the will to do something, then they had the intent to do it. That required active thought. There could be no accidental intent—it must always be purposeful. So if something didn’t have active thought, how could it have intent? How could an inanimate sword have intent?

  Diyuan brought his thoughts to Yao Luchen when the Sable Vanguards were out training.

  “Think of it like this,” Yao Luchen offered, “if someone with strong Sword Intent had the desire to cut something, it would cut without regard to that thing’s defense. Armor, scales, maybe even magic artifacts, everything is cuttable. Of course, getting to such a high Intent Realm is hard, which is why the Sword Saint is so famous.”

  Yao Luchen could sense that Diyuan wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

  “Honestly, I’m not an expert on Sword Intent myself. When I was younger, I used to think I was crazy for thinking swords had personalities. At least that was true until I learned about magic artifacts. I’m sure you know of them.”

  Diyuan nodded, thinking to his Wind’s Edge dagger in his storage ring. Though they called it spirit artifacts back home, not magic artifacts.

  “Right, well magic artifacts are known to simply be better than regular weapons, hence the word magic. What are magic artifacts? They are weapons that have a special ability. It’s also something that picks their owner—no one can force a magic artifact’s ability to work for them.”

  Hm? That distracted Diyuan. That wasn’t how spirit artifacts worked in the Shroud. Artifacts were bound by blood, not a choice made by the weapon itself.

  Yao Luchen continued. “It’s said that if the Sword Saint uses a sword for longer than a month, it becomes a magic artifact. I think it’s because his Sword Intent is so strong that it awakens the personality of the sword he’s holding. So how do swords get personalities in the first place? Probably in the same way. People who understand swordsmanship and their fighting style can imprint that style onto their sword subconsciously. It’s similar to how a parent’s legacy can imprint to their children. It’s just something the child picks up by watching the parent.”

  He shrugged, not sure how else to explain it.

  Diyuan was trying to piece together all this information about intent. Spirit artifacts were another puzzle piece he attempted to understand. Apparently the weapon would choose its owner? No blood binding required? He shelved the thought for now and decided to see what the Sword parchment paper was all about.

  He secluded himself and brought out the paper. He would hold it and get the feeling of being cut before letting go of it. His Mesmer’s Echo would always save him from actually getting sliced. Part of him wanted to think of it as seeing the future attack, deciphered through the world known as Intent. As the arte’s description originally stated, it wasn’t teaching him how to predict the attack, as “prediction” wasn’t accurate since the attack was already in motion in some way, even if not physically. For this Intent world, the act of cutting had already happened.

  The more Diyuan played with the paper, the more he began to understand how it operated. The paper itself started to react differently, as if it was understanding that he was training against it. In a sense, its “personality” was coming out and trying to circumvent his Mesmer’s Echo arte by doing feints and multi hit attacks. But it wasn’t a real personality in the sense that people had them. In fact, there was something it reminded Diyuan of.

  Di Guilin, his Avatar Incarnation ghostly puppet.

  His puppet didn’t have its own personality; it was merely an extension of Diyuan himself. When Diyuan had given the instructions to go scout, that order came with assumed information. It assumed how Di Guilin should react if an unexpected situation appeared, or how it should handle and interpret the information it had collected. Where did Di Guilin get its assumption? The Avatar Incarnation could probably interpret Diyuan’s intent on how he wanted things to be handled within the original “package” that told it to go scout.

  In the same way, this Sword parchment paper was similar to his Avatar Incarnation in the sense that it packaged the Sword Saint’s intentions. According to Yao Luchen, the paper was supposed to react to those who could resonate with intent in some way; a starting point for that world.

  Several things clicked. Pieces of the puzzle that seemed random now fit together.

  Mesmer’s Echo never reacted to anything within the Tribulation Shroud because it was an arte based off of the “intent” rules of the world. But some rules within the Shroud were simply missing, such as the tribulation lightning trial that cultivators had to go through if they wanted to advance to the Dharma great realm. If there were no intent rules, then Mesmer’s Echo would be a dead arte.

  However, Diyuan could go around that limitation of Mesmer’s Echo a little bit due to having the Limitless Body physique. With his limitless abilities, he could activate artes in a way they couldn’t otherwise be used, breaking the limits on them.

  For Mesmer’s Echo, it had given him seemingly random abilities that had nothing to do with dodging attacks. First, the ability to use sound transmission and also to listen in on sound transmissions. Sound transmission had always been assumed as a safe means to converse with someone privately. Even in the historical records of the upper world this was assumed to be true. If intent had such a cheat to listen in on sound transmission, surely there would have been warnings about it in the records. Therefore, Diyuan felt like he could categorize this as something unique to the limitless version of the arte—much like how Stunlock Bind was capable of stunning people from a distance despite the normal version requiring physical touch. Of course this was a theory and he’d update his thoughts if he gained more information.

  Second, limitless Mesmer’s Echo allowed him the use of paper talismans above his realm. Under normal conditions, low-grade talismans required someone to be at the Foundation realm, mid-grade required Spiritweave realm, and high-grade talismans required a Dharma cultivator to activate it. Yet, limitless Mesmer’s Echo bypassed all of that. And what did Diyuan know about talismans on this side of the Shroud? His own personal talismans had stopped working, as if they were dead. According to Auntie Mei Yi, talismans could only be used if the user was the intended recipient when the talisman was purchased or created.

  Yet, there was no rule about cultivation realms. Diyuan had not heard how certain talismans could only be activated by certain cultivation realms on this lower world. The only requirement was the intent behind the talisman, not whether someone was at the Spiritweave realm or not.

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  Based on that information alone, Diyuan theorized that the intent rules were indeed dead within the Tribulation Shroud. Dead in the sense that the heavens removed them, or obliterated it, when it destroyed the world and cut off access to the upper world. Dead in the sense like how tribulation thunder would no longer appear either. Even here in this lower world, Diyuan had already seen the initial appearance of tribulation thunder when it had come to threaten him about his divine pill.

  Interestingly enough, even that heavenly event had a sense of intent within it. Diyuan had “interpreted” what it wanted from him. It had said two words: Do Not. So was intent tied to the heavens?

  As a result of the dead ruleset, things required different actions to work properly within the Shroud. Talismans required certain cultivation realms. Spirit artifacts required blood.

  Ah.

  With spirit artifacts in mind…

  The third and most important thing about limitless Mesmer’s Echo was its ability to pull our pure spirit threads from the dead energy that came from broken spirit artifacts. Could that be some manifestation of the intent that each spirit artifact had? When Wind’s Edge was sharper than a normal weapon and could pierce a higher cultivator’s defenses, was that because it was coated with Sword Intent?

  He mused some more and started to do some guesswork. If a normal weapon could be imprinted with a “personality” intent in some way, then later get awakened and become a spirit artifact, was there another awakening that could make it become a divine artifact like the Reflection’s Pagoda? Something to ask Lady Pagoda when he met her again.

  Di Guilin itself was created from the pure energy that came from spirit artifacts. In that sense, Di Guilin was a being of pure intent. The Netherwind Crane inside the Carcass Grotto hoarded broken spirit artifacts, likely to consume the intent within them. And all of that—the pure energy that Avatar Incarnations consumed—was something his limitless Mesmer’s Echo could control.

  So then, his Spiritweave core that he wanted to make, Mesmer’s Echo was using intent in some fashion to work around the vortex problem. Perhaps the better he got at intent stuff, the better chance he had in making his second core.

  Diyuan focused inward and tried to create his Spiritweave core. Like before, when he simply gave the order, the pure weaves of spirit threads would pull out of the spinning vortex, which was still continuously feeding his Foundation core in an attempt to breakthrough to a level that didn’t exist. However, unlike before, where some would connect and then fail to connect with others, Diyuan noticed some unusual activity.

  The pure threads purposely wove around, missing another thread, but leveraging the vortex’s pull so that it could speed up and connect at a spot it normally would have failed at. More threads did something similar, and even more connections happened.

  But there were still other problems, so the connections dispersed, rejoining the vortex.

  Nonetheless, this was progress! He didn’t have to give specific instructions on how to create the core, his intent to the pure weaves would know what he wanted and interpreted it in a way that would allow it to succeed.

  Which meant he now had a tangible goal: learn more about intent.

  Success was something now within reach.

  ***

  When the three-day timer was up for Diyuan’s Benediction Balm, he prepared for Yao Luchen’s second healing session. Same as before, Feng Xueying stood guard off to the side. The core continued to progress and heal, then his healing arte broke once more. After the session was done, they joined the training out in the back, more out of habit now.

  Or at least they should have been training. Instead, the guards were debating who would win in a battle of pure martial skill: Yuhan Diyuan or Yao Luchen? Up until now, they’ve never seen Diyuan actually fight with martial skill. He had overwhelmed the former Black Brigade leaders and he had taught them some stuff, but his skillset never had the chance to be shown off. How would he do against Yao Luchen?

  Diyuan was curious to give it a try as well.

  They faced off against each other. Manager Fanjian took a break from his administrative work and came to watch. Diyuan was using a standard sword, not his black cold steel. Yao Luchen carried forth the weapon he had used when he performed the agile sword dance.

  Diyuan stood without any stance. Since Yao Luchen was going to use the agile skillset, Diyuan simply needed to parry and redirect the strikes, not block them head on.

  Yao Luchen charged forth. He darted left and right. There was a strange sensation in that Diyuan’s mind wanted to predict the next movement of the young genius, but the sudden unorthodox movement discombobulated him a little, like watching someone walk forward but move backwards.

  But it wasn’t a big deal. There were other tells.

  Diyuan lifted his sword and tilted it at an angle, causing Yao Luchen’s “surprise” strike to veer off course. In a swift counter, Diyuan used the flat of his sword to tap Yao Luchen’s neck.

  That wasn’t the end of their match. Yao Luchen would try again. As the cheers from the brigade members continued to grow, so too did the wide movements grow for the young genius. Diyuan was reminded of the first floor of the Reflections Pagoda, where he had to fight his own reflection on a tournament stage. There were audible cheers there, too. The entire event had both participants be flashy, not efficient.

  Well, Diyuan intended to fix that.

  Each time Yao Luchen came in, Diyuan would dodge his sword by a sliver before tapping him with the flat of his sword. Midway through, Yao Luchen swapped swords and shifted skillsets. That didn’t matter as Diyuan continued to showcase such a difference in skill.

  Eventually, Yao Luchen was out of breath and yielded.

  “Each time you just barely dodged, I was afraid I’d have cut you,” Yao Luchen breathed out.

  “You might have different styles with different swords, personality or not, but there is still the same person holding the weapon.” Diyuan pointed at Yao Luchen. “All your movements were wide meant to be flashy. It doesn’t help that you’re young and prone to praise and cheers. That’s not good for a cultivator.”

  “Boss, you’re younger than the rest of us.”

  “Boss, you’re only a few years older than him.”

  Diyuan looked over to his level 5 Foundation officer. “Feng Xueying, make their training rougher next time.”

  She saluted solemnly. “I will be sure to make them dizzy enough to see grey hairs on your head.”

  The jolly atmosphere even affected Manager Fanjian. “Giving advice before you even experienced back pain.”

  Diyuan noticed the absence of his female guards from the last few training sessions, but remembered that they had each received one of the Beautification Pills. They had gone into seclusion to get their scars healed.

  Eventually the mood shifted to training as Yao Luchen approached Diyuan for advice.

  “How do I fix my problem? The one where you said I’m exaggerating my movements?” Yao Luchen asked.

  “Your intent,” Diyuan said. “Since we like the topic of intent so much these past few days, lets use it. I’m not talking about Sword Intent, but just normal intent. What’s your goal when you fight? If it’s to show off, then you don’t need to change anything. But if it’s to kill, then you need to do that efficiently. Some of those moves you did wouldn’t even strike at a lethal part of the body. It might not even cripple them from countering you.”

  “Kill?” Yao Luchen seemed uncomfortable. “I guess I haven’t killed anyone before so I’m not used to the idea. Have you killed before?”

  At that moment Feng Xueying was walking by. She stopped and pretended to look over the training, but she was very obviously listening to their conversation.

  “Yes, I’ve killed plenty of people. As a cultivator yourself—well, one that will regain your cultivation abilities soon—you need to be prepared to kill. You might think no one will bother you if you don’t bother anyone, but I doubt the Niu family will leave you alone when you’ve regained your Foundation core. But sometimes the cultivation world is even more ruthless, where someone might come to kill you just to practice their artes. For someone like you who wants to understand Sword Intent, you should probably understand why a sword is sharp.”

  Yao Luchen chuckled. “You might be better suited for Killing Intent than Sword Intent. I’m joking, of course, but I guess I never thought of those things because I never had the power to do anything about it.”

  Killing Intent? Was that a thing?

  But Diyuan didn’t need to ask since Feng Xueying decided to drop her act. She turned towards them and joined the conversation.

  “Tell me about Killing Intent,” she said, but then grimaced slightly. “I mean, everyone’s heard of killing intent, but I wasn’t aware it was official, like Sword Intent.”

  Yao Luchen nodded. “There’re all sorts of Intent Realms. Sword Intent and Killing Intent are the two most famous ones, though. I assume there’s one for spears and other things, but I don’t follow those weapons as closely as the sword. The Sword Saint makes it easier since he’s freely sharing his lessons.”

  Feng Xueying leaned forward, her eyes briefly flickering to Diyuan. “Tell me more about Killing Intent. What’s it like? If the parchment paper wrote ‘Murder’ on it instead of ‘Sword,’ will it kill the holder? Is there a…black color associated with it?”

  Yao Luchen rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I’m not too sure on the details. I only know what I’ve heard. Apparently, a mortal can achieve Killing Intent when they’ve murdered a lot of people. I think they said that these people have their own unique energy, which gives strength to their weapon and lets it pierce an immortal’s defense, similar to Sword Intent. I’ve heard stories where a mortal wanted revenge on an immortal for killing his family, so he cultivated Killing Intent just so he can stab his enemy in their sleep.” He shrugged. “We would need to ask an expert in the Intent Realms to know for sure, though.”

  Diyuan didn’t miss Feng Xueying’s curious look on the topic. Since Yao Luchen only had limited information, it was best not to make too many assumptions about the more niche intent things. Killing Intent might not apply to himself, after all.

  “So if we want to learn more about intent, what are our options?” Diyuan asked.

  “The main one is the Blue Azure Sword Pavillion, but good luck getting into there. You’d have to stand out even as an immortal, which none of us are. And even if you did stand out, you’d need an invitation, which typically is only given to the big powers of the region, like the Virtuous Wind Sect. A more realistic goal, the one I’m pursuing, is to learn from the Mistress of the Brush.”

  He told Diyuan about this person. This Mistress of the Brush was a Supreme Elder at the Virtuous Wind Sect. She wasn’t a normal elder in the sense that others at the sect were elders. The only reason Yao Luchen knew that was because the Mistress of the Brush was one of the three who wandered the world together. She had teamed up with the Sword Saint and the Divine All-Healer when they were younger and had explored small worlds, along with other adventures. And “brush” here meant an ink brush, which was her chosen weapon apparently.

  Not that Diyuan knew how that would work.

  “She’s staying at the Virtuous Wind Sect because of the Holy Daughter candidate,” Yao Luchen explained. “Oh, speaking of the candidate, you’ve met her before, haven’t you, Senior Feng Xueying?”

  Feng Xueying nodded. “She gave me the pill recipe to mend my core. I hope I get to meet her soon again. I want to show her that it worked.”

  During the conversation, Yao Luchen mentioned how the Virtuous Wind Sect had something else he would like, though he figured it’d be impossible to get. The Sect had a weapon known as the inheritance sword, something of a relic that had passed down to the next leader of the sect. It was supposedly owned by the founder of the sect, so he assumed it would have a strong personality, maybe even be close to awakening as a magic artifact.

  Feng Xueying brought out her weapons to have Yao Luchen test for a personality, but he simply shook his head, stating that they still didn’t have any personality that stood out. Out of curiosity, Diyuan brought out his black cold steel sword.

  “Oh, this looks unique,” Yao Luchen said as he took the sword. But the moment he held it, he flinched. “What…?”

  “What’s wrong?” Diyuan asked.

  Yao Luchen held the sword away and scrunched his nose like it smelt bad. “This…isn’t a sword? I mean, it is because a blacksmith made it a sword, but there’s no personality—there’s nothing. It’s like it doesn’t see itself as a sword. What metal is this?”

  Diyuan shrugged. “Black cold steel.”

  He handed it back. “Never heard of it. Well, maybe there’s something else going on there I don’t know about. Remember, I’m not the intent expert. I just sense things.”

  Diyuan held onto the black cold steel sword for a moment. It didn’t identify as a sword? Or could it be because it was forged in the Shroud where intent was presumed dead? Well, it did have an ability to absorb impacts and artes defensively, so maybe that affected intent in some way too. But as always, that was just guesswork.

  The days progressed. Diyuan continued to repair Yao Luchen’s core whenever his Benediction Balm was available. He also kept up with his pill refining as he was preparing for the next phase of strengthening the Black Brigade.

  So far, everything was going smoothly.

  ***

  Deacon Hu knocked on the door. On the other side, bathwater sloshed. Then it sloshed again, louder this time. Intentional. She had been summoning him recently like this, timed so the smell of water and some other fragrance filled the air. Some may think seduction was in play, but they would find an early grave instead.

  Which was what she would do with him if he wasn’t careful. Owner Leng Ji was like that.

  “Lady Leng, you’ve called for me?” Deacon Hu rubbed at his hand. It had been reattached thanks to the perfect tier one healing pill, but he couldn’t get rid of the feeling of losing a part of his body so suddenly.

  The splashing stopped. There was a brief silence.

  “Are you aware,” her voice was regular, not bothering to speak louder despite the distance and door between them, “that no one connects the masked immortal to Yuhan Diyuan?”

  “Yes, Lady Leng.”

  “We have lost face from that. And you’ve done nothing to avenge your Junior Brother.”

  Deacon Hu, despite being reprimanded once again, didn’t feel guilt. He had survived an upper world immortal, did he not? Survival was the only thing that mattered. The murder of his Junior Brother was random and without real cause. Sure, they had considered killing Yuhan Diyuan, but he wouldn’t have known that. To take a life for what they’ve done was an escalation, one that was not concerned for dispute or even war. He rubbed at the unnaturally smooth part of his skin where his hand had reattached to his wrist.

  “Yes, Lady Leng.”

  The water moved again. She was standing, he assumed.

  “But, fortunately,” she continued, “I will give you an opportunity.”

  Deacon Hu felt panic rise. He wanted nothing to do with the masked immortal. “If that man truly is from the upper world—”

  “Buffoon. There are other explanations for your incompetence. A simpler explanation may be the truth. But you need not take action directly against them. A borrowed knife, in this case.”

  He could hear her step out of her tub and onto the polished wooden floor. She was making her way towards him. He turned away from the door, already knowing what would happen next. His gaze fixed down the hall, finding a print on a hanging scroll.

  The door slid open behind him. Water droplets pattered to the ground from her body. She would be fully naked still.

  A pale arm extended past him, water dripping on his shoulder. She held forth a small key, one that opened one of their treasure vaults.

  He took it without looking.

  “Last I heard,” she said near his ear, “the Niu family still intends to obtain tribute from the Black Brigade. I want you to go and give them…additional ideas. Take the key and gift one of our tools. Do mention how the women at the Black Brigade are no longer scarred. I’m sure the families of those women would like to go collect their now useful daughters.”

  So that was why she had included the Beautification Pills as compensation. Something as valuable as that, which had their own segment during the Golden Auction, given so freely was odd indeed.

  “Lady Leng, with Patriarch Niu Bolin still in seclusion and recovering from his battle against the Sunset Garden, they may hesitate to cause trouble…”

  Deacon Hu could hear her walk away, followed by some rustling of fabrics. She would be putting on clothes, then. But perhaps not fully. He knew that she had a ruthless rule. While she dressed in a manner that showed a bit more skin than others, the area of her body where her clothes do cover her would hide her own scars; scars she would purposely not heal. Any who set eyes on those scars would be killed by her. To let herself be so exposed openly was a game to her, one she played when she wanted to kill someone.

  “All the more reason,” she said. “A branch family member would be eager to climb the ladder when an opportunity rises. Praise from their patriarch upon his return is a strong dose of spirit.” More rustling of fabrics. “Find a puppet and give him the desire to connect with the more prominent families, specifically the ones who have women in the Black Brigade. Let’s see if those women are willing to scar their faces a second time. A hard thing to do after feeling the relief and joy of removing permanent scars.”

  When she had finally fully dressed, he could hear her walk down the hallway away from him. He would still not risk looking in case it was another trap. She paused before heading down the stairs.

  “There is indeed something else I’m curious about. Tales are spreading of the Black Brigade’s laws protecting those who have never cultivated. Justice would be delivered through death if any broke such flimsy people. Quite an easy law to propose if no one challenges them. I would like you to give one last suggestion to whatever Niu puppet you choose.”

  Deacon Hu waited for a moment for her to speak but realized she was waiting for him. That meant Owner Leng Ji’s games were over. He turned to face her. All her scars were hidden under her clothes, which was her old wedding dress, previously torn then rewoven to be anything but modest.

  “Yes, Lady Leng?”

  Owner Lend Ji had a wicked smile. “If there is a woman who remains with the Black Brigade, better yet if she scars herself again, have her family specifically be the ones to kill a mortal in the Black Brigade’s territory. Let’s see if Yuhan Diyuan would be willing to kill the father of one of his loyal subjects.”