Memories of the Fall

—One such scroll that has seen some minor infamy in our own esteemed influence is the so-called 'Wizzard's Cursed Scroll'. This artefact, of which a few were recovered at the time, and several since have shown up at certain auctions, can be classified broadly as a 'utility' talisman, that is rechargeable. In the aid of prospective researchers identifying 'genuine' examples, I will provide a description below, focused on the key, 'unique' points of these scrolls.

Genuine examples all appear to have been 'written' on the reverse side of a substantial plan of an unnamed, and perhaps forgotten plan of a sewer for a city only identified by the last five letters of its name—shada [See included illustration for notable features to look for]. This no doubt also accounts for the vaguely inauspicious divination readings you may get when trying to use compasses around them.

Attempting to open a 'genuine' copy without using it, will immediately cause the scroll to yell 'Yer a Wizzard—', hence common identifier, accompanied by the openers name. In an interesting quirk, discussed at length in Appendix 1-A: Unforeseen Side Effects, the 'declaration' of the openers name will be their true name, irrespective of what disguises or common perceptions might beguile it at that time.

Deliberate use of the scroll on a person, object or other target, will always spawn a spherical, one-foot diameter orb of law-infused fire, that unerringly targets the most inconveniently valuable, then valuable combustible, then explosively combustible object within a 100-foot radius. This effect has led us to suspect some association with—Choob’s Lesser Explosion, discussed later in this text.

If no such object is available, the orb will usually hit the target, but its effects are generally lessened, and eighty-seven times out of one hundred tests I recorded, saw it hit the caster as well. Ten times, it just spun in place for a few minutes, before vanishing and in three times it followed the caster for a full day, before eventually finding a target of worst opportunity, while its strength was increased several fold.

Attempts to manipulate a genuine scroll beyond this point, will always be met with exclamations like 'Weak!' and 'What are you, a Sorcerer?' or 'Hah! Stupid warlock—' accompanied by the sound of derisive laughter.

If successfully cast, the user will gain a spectral pointy hat for the next forty-eight hours. Occasionally a fake beard or a robe with badly embroidered stars were awarded.

~Excerpt from ‘On the Ten Mysterious Cursed Scrolls' — by Scholar Yung of [information redacted]

~ First Item — Old Beggar's Hospitality Token ~

“I am telling you, this is sketchy as anything!”

“The Luminary Ming Merchant Organisation, who own this teahouse, is a reputable influence…”

“Is it? I recall brother Kai got scammed by them that time…”

“That was just the Qin family…”

“—Brother Shi, this is the right place? yes?”

Huang Feng Shi, who had been idly watching some butterflies flitting around the lotus flowers in the lake surrounding the pagoda he and his companions were seated in, sighed and shifted to look at the others.

The other four all stared back at him, their various views on their current endeavour mirrored in their expressions with somewhat depressingly clarity.

His sworn brother, Fang Bai Weng—whose circumstances regarding his lovely, enchantingly aloof twin sister Bai Wenqing and her Yin Yang Pure Reflection Constitution were the driving reason they were here—just looked a little bit annoyed at the reticence of the others.

Lian Shirong, his cute, sandy-haired junior sister was pouting, having just poked him in the arm to get his attention.

The other pair, Long Bai Xiao and Long Bai Xiurong—no relation to Bai Weng—were sisters currently travelling to acquire strength to fight for their family’s position in the Long Heavenly Clan.

The pair had fallen in with the three of them with the common goal of helping Fang Bai Weng’s sister with her plight. Neither were enthused about coming here, to Hongwu City on the Ming Heavenly clan’s Golden Splendour Supreme world. Their scepticism about the auction they were about to attend had only grown as the token directed them away from the shining lights of Hongwu City’s central district to this rather run down ‘old quarter’ at the heart of its southern district.

“It should be the right place,” he replied, a bit helplessly. “The instructions were fairly clear. Come to here, to the ‘Pon Zi Teahouse’, on this day before sunrise, show the token to the manager and follow their directions…”

“—He also looked at us like we were a strange species of mushroom never before seen…” Long Bai Xiurong scowled, flicking the edge of her nearly empty wine cup.

“Now, now, the wine is good and the view, despite it being the old city is decent,” Xiao chided her little sister, pouring the last of the jar they had been given into her cup.

“—However, we have been here for two hours!” Bai Xiurong pouted, “With one pot of wine and no refreshments! And—

“The Ming clan are the Ming clan, yes, we know,” Bai Weng sighed a bit helplessly, taking a sip from his own cup “However not—”

“—Apologies, esteemed members…”

Bai Weng choked on his wine and Xiao spat hers out in surprise, as a young woman with waist-length golden hair and olive complexion, wearing a low-cut dress that was very flattering, appeared like a ghost in the middle of the pagoda.

“Heok—!” his junior sister flinched, along with Xiurong as they turned to see what had surprised the others.

-How did she…?

Curious, he tried to use his special identification art, ‘Eyes of the Supreme King’—acquired through a stroke of good fortune when he was first starting out on his cultivation journey—on her, but all it told him was that she was an Immortal with a good, if not spectacular spiritual foundation, and that her age was eighteen.

-Did she use some treasure, or a formation? he wondered, eyeing the floor where she had appeared but it was also resolutely normal.

“There was some small delay on our side,” the golden-haired beauty murmured, bowing apologetically. “If you would all like to follow me, I shall lead you to the venue for this auction…”

“You sure know how to keep people waiting,” Xiurong sniffed, while her sister tried to stop coughing.

The golden-haired woman gave Xiurong such an inscrutable look that for a brief moment he found himself wondering if just like that, she had accidentally wrecked their chance of getting into the auction.

Even if the girl was just an immortal, which despite what his eyes were trying to tell him, he really doubted—There was something almost too… normal about what his eyes were showing him as well, and the longer he looked, the more he somehow felt like he was imagining shadows in the edges of his vision—status could be enforced in other ways.

"My companion—” he started to speak, even as Fang Bai Weng stood hurriedly.

“—No need, as I said, we can only apologise to you for the delay,” the young woman bowed formally at the waist to Xiurong and the rest of them. “It was our mistake that has caused this delay for you, it is inexcusable and very rarely happens.”

Bai Weng exhaled in relief and returned her bow as Xiao gave her little sister a scowl.

“My sister misspoke,” Long Bai Xiao gave the girl slight smile of apology as she forced her little sister to lower her head a fraction. “Please lead the way miss…?”

The golden-haired beauty nodded, but didn’t provide a name, he couldn’t help but notice. Instead, she gestured politely for them to follow after her back across the bridge.

“This is your first time at this particular auction venue, Sir Huang?” she asked as the others fell in behind him.

“Um… yes, I inherited the talisman…” he replied carefully. “Is that a problem?”

In truth, his acquisition of the talisman to get in here was… a lucky chance. However, to say he ‘inherited it’ was as far as he knew not a lie.

It had been one of a number of treasures he, Fang Bai Weng and Lian Shirong had acquired while searching a hidden space in his Huang Feng family’s ancestral land. While the owner of the ruin had not left a name, they had to have been one of his family’s descendants, or someone very close to them in any case, to have lived there long term.

Absently, he touched the necklace he wore beneath his over-robe, which had also come from that ruin, but the remnant consciousness of the mysterious old expert within was also silent.

-Indeed, relying on their guidance can only get me so far here, he reflected with a mental grimace.

“No, it is just quite an old talisman, I was a little surprised,” the golden-haired woman demurred. “Normally those who come here are of a certain… sort.”

“Which we are not?” Fang Bai Weng asked, nervously.

“Our society recruits widely, and our tokens sometimes take on lives of their own,” the young woman chuckled. “If you like, I can provide you some small suggestions though. You may choose to disregard them as you wish, of course.”

“Please…” he gestured politely for her to continue, more certain than ever now, that there was something in her strength that was, if not somehow fooling his eyes, not able to be discerned by them.

“Do not reveal your identities once you are inside,” she instructed. “Also—” she flashed him a strange smile. “Do not seek to uncover the identities of others either. That will at best lead to you losing your talisman.”

The way she smiled at him as she said that, suddenly left him with a cold sweat, almost as if she had been warning him, personally.

At the same time, he felt his ‘Serene Shadowless Constitution’—the mysterious body with which he had been born—reject something in her gaze, warning him that she was, indeed, not at all simple.

“I see…” he nodded, giving her an apologetic grimace.

“Can we also submit items for auction?” Fang Bai Weng asked, to his relief, turning her attention back to the others.

-After Xiurong insulting her, did I nearly do the same, somehow? he shuddered inwardly. Or is she warning me not to rely on my eyes somehow, or…

That should be impossible, nobody he had encountered in the Huang clan had been able to see through them, or his Serene Shadowless Body—not even the old expert spiritually bound to his necklace.

In fact, that ‘obscurity’ had been a source of continual frustration in his early years, spawning multiple misunderstandings with the family’s elders. First causing them, to repeatedly fail to divine his spirit root, leading to them believing he was a cursed cripple who ‘could not cultivate’, then, later, to the conclusion that he was somehow, just profoundly untalented to the point where they instead chose to focus their ‘interest’ on his cousin Feng Fan.

“Not with that token,” the golden-haired girl shook her head at his sworn brother’s question. “Since Sir Huang here has inherited it, he is a member, but to post items you must be sponsored by an inner member, or become acknowledged as an inner member of our society yourself.”

“And what does that entail?” his junior sister asked, sounding interested.

“If you have to ask…” the golden-haired woman chuckled, just shaking her head.

“Ah, so it’s like that,” Long Bai Xiao murmured, to which he could only nod in agreement with her as his junior sister pouted at the reply.

These kinds of societies were by their nature secretive, and presumably dealt in lots of rare goods, if just anyone could easily get access there would be no secrets in the world, he supposed.

Perhaps, if he was willing to take one of those old ancestors of the Feng family into his confidence, they might have been able to help. However, thanks to the lingering misunderstandings with his Serene Shadowless Body, most of them were more politically aligned to his cousin, who was seeking to join the Huang Teng faction among the core disciples, and among those who were not, any help he managed to glean from those fence-sitting old geezers would surely come with so many strings attached as to be practically worthless.

Furthermore, Huang Teng was someone he considered a rival, and who was also rumoured to be behind the pressure being placed on his sworn brother’s twin sister Bai Wenqing. Just thinking about that made his blood simmer. There was no way someone like Huang Teng should dream of matching himself with Bai Wenqing in his eyes.

“Can you tell us about the items on sale?” Bai Weng continued, as they led them out of the courtyard, through a door he had somehow failed to notice when taking it in earlier, and into an elegantly decorated hall.

“Some, but not who is selling anything,” the girl shook her head.

“We are interested in the Nine Numinous Lotus,” Long Bai Xiao cut in. “There is a rumour…”

“Yes, one is included in this auction,” the girl confirmed pleasantly. “However, I must remind you all, actually, that you cannot speak of anything you see in this auction to anyone else not there. The very least of your problems will be losing your token at that point. Am I clear?”

“We understand,” he quickly affirmed.

According to the old expert in his necklace, the Nine Numinous Lotus that Fang Bai Weng was seeking for his sister Wenqing was rare beyond belief. Indeed, all their various efforts to stealthily source one through ‘normal’ channels had drawn blanks until, fortuitously, while investigating the origins of the invite talisman, Fang Bai Weng had learned that one would be sold at the next auction, held here in Hongwu City.

If information about it leaked out to those pressuring Bai Wenqing, they might well try to snatch it away, or work with others who could.

While he was pondering that, the golden-haired young woman opened another door at the far end of the hall and ushered them into a well-furnished reception room with a balcony that…

He could only stare, then turn around and look behind them, then at the door they had just walked through, however there was no evidence of any spatial formation, or feng shui-related trickery to explain how they had just gone from that hall to this room with its open balcony connected to a a large auditorium full of shadow-cloaked people, talking amongst themselves.

“That is impressive,” his junior sister murmured, turning in a circle.

“Please be at ease here,” the golden-haired girl informed them with what he thought was a slightly amused smile. “I will bring you drink and the refreshments you did not get earlier.”

Xiurong flushed slightly at her words, but this time, wisely said nothing.

“Thank you,” he saluted her formally.

“To bid, you can speak from the balcony, or your seats here, your words will reach without difficulty,” the young woman added. “You can reveal your presence if you will it, on the balcony, but as I said before, I would… advise retaining anonymity.”

“We will take your words to heart, miss,” Bai Fang replied with a bow of his own.

“With that, please excuse me,” the young woman chuckled.

“Okay, I take some of that back,” Xiurong muttered once the golden-haired girl had departed. “This is actually a little impressive.”

“It is,” her older sister, who had gone over to look at the decorations on one of the tables, confirmed. “These are all proper antiques, and the books…”

Following her gaze, he found, to his surprise that there was a remarkably comprehensive reference library of herbs, cultivation materials pills and various scrolls and texts detailing the works of forging masters and such lining the wall.

He was still browsing along them, when the golden-haired girl returned with two younger women, carrying wine and several trays of high-quality spirit food.

“If you need to contact me, for any reason, you can do so via the token,” the golden-haired woman informed him with a bright smile as the girls laid out the food. “That is also how you will be contacted to receive any goods you are successful in acquiring."

“I understand,” he nodded, saluting her politely again.

“In that case, please enjoy the auction,” the girl chuckled, returning the bow and then bowing to the others as well. “I hope you meet with some success.”

Once they had left, Xiurong immediately scurried over to the food.

“That’s more like it,” she declared, grabbing a leg of some spirit fowl and wolfing it down. “Nub bwad spirit food either, not as good as back home, obviously, but for a place like this…”

Her sister just shook her head as she sat down and also started to help herself.

“Esteemed Experts, thank you for your patience!”

Just as he was about to sit down, a woman’s voice echoed through the room from the hall beyond.

“We apologise for the delay, it was because we had to spend some extra time ensuring the provenance of one of the items that will be presented to you today,” she continued as he made his way over to the balcony.

The auditorium their room adjoined was about the size of a large garden courtyard. The ground floor was partly given over to seating space around tables, which were filled with cultivators, all shrouded in shadow-like obscurity. Taking in the other balconies, of which there were about fifty, near as he could tell, their occupants were similarly disguised. The only ones not so disguised were those on the raised platform at the far end—a dark-haired beauty wearing an elegant and flattering gown of blue and gold, a blindfolded girl of about fourteen with silvery hair wearing the robes of the Ming clan, a pair of youths in grey scholars’ robes and several inscrutable guards armed with staves standing in a formation around the platform itself.

“That is a very profound obscurant formation,” his sworn brother remarked, coming to lean on the balcony beside him.

He could only nod in agreement at that assessment. He could just about make out others’ genders, but only where someone was standing on the balcony like he was or talking. Weirdly the facial expressions of others were also discernible, but there was nothing… memorable, somehow about anyone he looked at. Recalling the golden-haired beauty’s warning, he refrained from trying to use his ‘Eyes of the Supreme King’, but even just passively taking in the other balconies he felt a profound sense of pressure.

“Care to give us a spoiler!” a booming male voice called out from the middle of the ground floor, accompanied by some laughter.

“All I will say is it is one of the show-piece items,” the beauty replied giving the speaker a cute wink.

“Hopefully it’s not the lotus,” his junior sister muttered, joining them.

“Lets hope,” he agreed, accepting a cup of wine from her.

“I am sure you are all aware of the rules,” the dark-haired beauty continued, giving the hall a sweeping look. “But as a reminder—”

Her words drew more laughter from the lower floor.

“—Barter is preferred, unless the seller specifies. We will appraise items that are traded. If you wilfully try to exchange fake goods, you will be penalized, and the seller reserves the right to refuse, though they will have to justify their decision. I know you are all very… enthusiastic, but do not cause inconvenience for others, you will be permanently barred if you do. If you try to rob us…”

The laughter became markedly more nervous, he couldn’t help but note, as she trailed off rather theatrically.

“—Well, you all know what happened that time,” the dark-haired beauty chuckled wryly.

“Yes, yes!” an elderly woman called out on their left. “The boisterous ones all know, just get on with it, some of us are not made of time!”

The dark-haired beauty sighed and shook her head.

“Well, without further ado, I will introduce the first item today…” she waved a hand the centre of the open area shifted, becoming a slightly raised platform, upon which was an elegant table carved with strange, slightly eye-watering patterns. At the same time, the perspective around it shifted so that when he focused on it, the table was clearly visible as if it were no more than a few feet away from him.

“This table was created by a certain proscribed diviner, shortly before his accident with North Star Grotto,” the beauty continued as various appreciated exclamations resounded from around the hall. “—of which I am sure you are familiar. The seller is open to any means of trade, so we will start the bidding at ten Dao Jades, or complete cultivation methods of equivalent worth.”

“It’s a table?” Long Xiao, who had come over as well now, leaving her sister to scarf food, eyed the object on display sceptically.

It was hard not to be a bit underwhelmed, he had to agree. Up close it was actually a bit uncomfortable to look at. The lines seemed a bit tortured and the whole this felt aesthetically… jarring?

“I’ll trade the complete ‘Ten Steps of Tao’!” a youthful voice called out from the middle of the ground floor.

“Twelve attuned Dao Jades!” an older voice declared from the upper story to their left.

“A Good Fortune Star Chart!” a woman called out from the front of the lower area.

“An original ‘Eight Strategic Demises’ divination manual and Fifteen Dao Jades!” the older voice repeated.

…

Unfortunately, the next hour was… well, he was not sure what he had expected, but with the warnings that the golden-haired women had given, and the seemingly exclusive nature of the auction, it was actually a bit… underwhelming?

While it was true that there had been some interesting items—a seizing orb and a scroll of sealed Retribution Lightning had been particularly eye catching, but both had been snapped up at slightly eye-watering prices. The remaining items, like the table that had been the first item, were mostly rare bits of esoterica more reminiscent of a village courtyard sale than a proper auction.

“I told you,” Long Xiurong pronounced, from her seat, as they watched an old man trade almost three Hundred Dao Jade for a purportedly rare plant pot made by an expert he had never even heard of. “The Ming influences really are excellent at scamming people.”

“Shush, sister, someone might hear you,” her older sister grumbled, eyeing the other balconies.

“Now, esteemed experts!” the beauty managing the auction stepped forward, once again. “Can I present for your interest, the first of our… ‘event’ items.”

Immediately, the lower floor became a hubbub of interest, focused on the silver-haired, blindfolded girl as she brought forward a jade tray on which rested a simple, slightly worn spirit wood box and placed it on the display plinth.

“Everyone!” the beauty clapped her hands, quelling the hubbub as the girl opened the box carefully and took out a slightly battered book and placed it on the tray. “I can assure you that we, the Luminary Ming Merchant Organisation can guarantee that its provenance is entirely and verifiably genuine—”

“What do you reckon it is?” Bai Weng, who had gone to get some more wine, asked, coming back over.

“—It is also a first edition, with personal annotations by the author…” she continued. “So, without further ado, I will open the bidding on this volume of ‘Prospective Marriage Partners for Your Favourite Niece — A Divination Guide’ at ten Celestial Jade.”

“T-Ten?” Fang Bai Weng spluttered, as the space around the book shifted as with the other items, making it seem as if they were only looking at it from a few feet or so away.

He was glad his mastery over the effects of his ‘Serene Shadowless Body’ allowed him to hide his own shock. Ten Celestial Jade was a preposterous sum for what appeared to be a simple, slightly battered almanac that the blind-folded girl was currently holding up.

Even his ‘Eyes of the Supreme King’ could glean nothing from it.

“Prospective Marriage Partners?” Shirong, who had also come back over, repeated, frowning.

For a brief moment, he thought she actually looked like she recognised it, but that had to be his imagination he was sure, because his junior sister, while powerful, was really not that worldly or interested in those kinds of things—

“FIFTY CELESTIAL JADE!” A young woman’s voice rang out from across the auditorium from the upper level to their left.

“EIGHTY!” the old man, cloaked in shadow in an alcove to their left who had eventually won the bidding on that strange table, called out immediately after.

“TWO HUNDRED! GIVE THIS OLD MAN FACE!” a thin, Confucian gentleman dressed in red and purple robes on the far side declared, actually stepping out of the ‘concealment’ of his alcove.

“Heok! Isn’t that the Commandery Prince Fuhai!” Bai Weng gasped.

“Uh-huh,” Long Xiao agreed, her own expression paling slightly as well.

“THREE HUNDRED!” the first old man repeated, more forcefully, his expression turning serious.

“Three fifty,” another woman called out also stepping out of the shadow of her booth, to reveal herself as a matronly lady with greying hair, wearing the regalia of a Teng clan Heavenly Duchess.

“D-duchess Teng Minhua?” Someone else, from below blurted out from down below. “Wasn’t she in seclusion?”

“Even someone like her is here?” his junior sister gasped, putting her hands to her mouth in shock that mirrored his own.

“Four Hundred,” the first speaker declared a bit more coolly.

“Hey, can you even afford that much!?” the Duchess Minhua cut in, glaring at that balcony to their right. Even though they were not the focus of her gaze, in any sense, he felt cold sweat on his neck.

“Yes! Can you?” Commandery Prince Fuhai agreed, narrowing his eyes.

“Four hundred… going once…” the auction beauty cut in, drily.

“Faugh! Four hundred and Ten!” Commandery Prince Fuhai groaned.

“Four Twenty!” Duchess Minhua scowled.

“Four Fifty!” the first old man hissed.

“First her, now you!!” Duchess Minhua ground her teeth, rounding on the old man. “Don’t think I can’t recognise you!”

“What the fuck…” Huang Feng Shi could only mutter under his breath, watching the old elders, eminent figures who stood at the very top of their respective cultivation powers bickering like old women over the price of fish.

“Might I remind you, that it is against the rules of our auction house to expressly reveal the identity of another?” the auctioneer murmured a little reprovingly, glancing up at Duchess Minhua’s balcony.

“Good! Good! Very Good!” the old man stepped forward to reveal his presence properly, as a bearded scholar dressed in greed robes embroidered with a shifting, nebula-like skyscape. “I, Mu Long, will remember this, you dried up old wench!”

“Really, this auction is as delightful as I recall,” the first woman chuckled lightly. “Four Sixty.”

“—Four Eighty!” Commandery Prince Fuhai snapped, gripping his balcony.

The others all turned to the Commandery Prince, who was visibly pale now, his hands clenched on the balcony edge, then Mu Long, who looked like he was about to spit blood.

“Going once…” the auctioneer murmured, her gaze flitting across the various bidders, then the rest of the hall.

“…”

“Going Twice…”

“Just take it you rotten old bastard, I hope it is a fake!” Duchess Minhua spat, stepping back into the ‘shadows’ on her balcony.

The others all turned to the alcove where the first woman had spoken up.

“Haha… Four Sixty is my limit,” she replied airily, waving a hand.

“Sold, for Four Eighty!” the auctioneer declared, clapping her hands.

“How many Dao Jade is that?” his junior sister muttered, moving her fingers. “Like, one is a thousand?”

It was indeed a staggering sum that put his earlier thoughts on the prices some were paying here, thoroughly in the shade.

“—more than I have ever seen in one place?” Xiao chuckled weakly as they all shook their heads in agreement.

“There are old experts like that bidding? Are we even able to contend for the other items?” someone below complained, clearly unhappy. “The first items were all so… banal as well!”

“Your style sure is good, brother, to call some of those items banal…” a young woman beside the speaker chuckled admiringly.

“Well , that was dramatic, wasn’t it,” the auctioneer murmured, waving forward the next item. “This one though is… I think, actually better.”

“…”

Her remark was met by stony silence from around the upper level of the auditorium and some nervous laughter from those below them.

“Hard crowd this,” the young-sounding woman observed, to more nervous laughter from below.

The auction beauty eyed that alcove, then just sighed. “Well, I’ll let the item speak for itself, I suppose,” she continued wryly. “As before, we can confirm that this is totally authentic, though as you will see, it has not been… um, tested. It is also the item for which the auction was delayed by two hours, incidentally. I open the bidding on this ‘Old Elder’s Special Recursion Scroll’ at one hundred… Celestial Jade."

“…”

“It’s actually a…” a slightly strangled observation from the far side of the auditorium cut through the confused silence.

“I thought all of them were destroyed by the Kong Clan!” Mu Long spluttered.

“This is a one time use item,” the auction beauty added, a little helplessly.

“EIGHT HUNDRED CELESTIAL JADE!” the first speaker screamed the words out.

“ONE LUMINARY JADE!” Duchess Minhua retorted.

“A L-Luminary…?” he had to turn to the others, but all of them, even Long Xiao, shrugged helplessly, clearly as ignorant as he was.

“—Three Luminary Talismans!” the young-sounding woman on the balcony to their left cut in.

“You…!” this time, it was the turn of the initial bidder to glare in the direction of that alcove.

“Going once…” the auctioneer murmured, though even she looked a bit shocked now.

“Can we see the particulars of the scroll itself?” a younger sounding man asked, from almost opposite them. “While they have a certain reputation…”

“Ah… I am afraid the seller is unwilling to divulge certain aspects of it,” the beautiful auctioneer replied a little helplessly, “also another reason for the earlier delay, so…”

“A pity. Oh well, I, Commandery Prince Qin, bid Four Luminary Talismans,” the ‘youth’ declared.

“Even Prince Qin is here…” Long Xiurong gasped, as a murmuration of shock and surprise spread through the hall. “Will anyone actually dare bid against him?” she asked, somewhat rhetorically.

“We can only hope that the lotus your sister needs isn’t something that enters into their eyes, brother Weng,” his junior sister added sympathetically to Bai Weng, who was looking understandably shocked.

He could only nod in agreement. While he was confident, thanks to the words of the old expert in his necklace, that the item they could put forth for it was a worthy match, the backing of some of these experts was beyond all their expectations. Rather than saying they ‘had’ backing, they ‘were’ the backing scions like him leveraged.

Prince Qin was effectively the administrator of the whole of Ming Tian city, that ruled the world they were on, and his family also had serious influence in Hongwu city as well. Even Prince Fuhai who was an old warlord of the Ming clan could not really compete with him. Even they were not really in the league of someone like Duchess Minhua, who was herself an administrator of a starfield with multiple supreme worlds. While he had not heard of this ‘Mu Long’ before now, it was clear he was some reclusive old super expert as well to clash openly with those two.

“If we even bid on the third item, can we walk out of here, despite what she said?” Xiao muttered, giving him some serious side eye.

“It should be fine,” he reassured them. “We have some cards in hand, after all…”

From what he understood, despite its rarity, the Numinous Lotus wasn’t something that was especially useful to peak experts unless they wanted to egregiously waste heavens riches for little gain. Setting aside his confidence in his ‘Serene Shadowless Constitution’, he also had quite a few material cards in hand that could allow them to flee even a venerate realm expert, should their status as juniors in the Huang clan prove insufficient. The golden-haired girl had been very confident in her words regarding the anonymity of those bidding as well, so he had to place some faith in her.

“Mmmm…” Bai Weng nodded, biting his lip, but still didn’t look convinced, nor truth be said did any of the others, despite his words.

“—Any further bids?” the dark-haired asked, eyeing the rest of the upper level.

“Five…” the woman who had bid three replied drily.

Prince Qin narrowed his eyes as he stared at that young woman hidden in shadow, while most others, himself included, could only look at her in awe. To announce so clearly that she was going to enter a bidding war against someone like Prince Qin, on his home turf, meant she was either very confident, or had serious backing.

“Six,” Prince Qin stated after a moment, nodding to Prince Fuhai as he did so.

“Seven,” the young woman replied without pausing.

“Eight, and if you let me have this item, I, Qin Shuang will owe you a favour.”

“Are the favours of a Commandery Prince so valuable these days?” the young woman chuckled.

The intake of breath from around the auction house was audible.

“I don’t know who that woman is, but she is now my idol,” Xiurong murmured, shaking her head in admiration.

“Ho Ho…” an old-sounding man in an alcove to their right suddenly burst out laughing. “Youngsters today sure are boisterous. I’ll bid Nine—”

“Wait a minute…” Xiao suddenly paled, turning towards that speaker.

“—Twelve,” the young woman replied, not even looking over.

“Does anyone even have twelve on hand?” Duchess Teng cut in archly. “Young lady, your style is very big.”

“Indeed, youngsters should know their limits,” the old-sounding man agreed, stepping forward to reveal himself as a jovial, bearded old man wearing an ostentatious white and gold dragon robe emblazoned with the Long clan’s sigil. “I, Long Tianteng, bid Thirteen!”

“Motherless… it is that old evil!” Long Bai Xiao gasped, clenching her fists.

“Sister?” Xiurong stared over at the old man.

“That bastard of an old geezer is the one standing behind that Longwei,” Xiao hissed.

“The one who ruined your family's ancestral land?” He asked unable to hide his own shock.

Xiao nodded angrily. “—And protected those who crippled our father.”

“Fifteen,” the young woman replied blandly, while Xiao was speaking.

“SIXTEEN!” Qin Shuang almost spat out the words, glaring at both of them now.

“Twenty luminary Talismans,” Long Tianteng declared a bit more forcefully. “And I will also trade the seller a Venerate Realm Cultivation Scripture of their choice from my personal library.”

“Are we allowed to include barter?” the young woman asked, a hint of a frown visible on her shadow-beguiled face.

“Mmmmm…” the beauty overseeing the bidding nodded. “Yes, the seller is amenable.”

“In that case—” the young woman started to speak again.

“I’ll Trade an Entrance talisman to the Golden Splendour Pagoda and Twenty Luminary Talismans!” Qin Shuang declared flatly, cutting her off.

“—A Matching Set of Six Solar Jade Slabs!” another young woman cut in from the upper story.

“—An attuned Luminary Jade!” an old man from their right snapped.

“—A Sealing Jar with Primordial Grandmist Qi in it!” a youthful voice shouted out, drowning out the others.

“A Sealed Yin Yang Retribution Hall!” an older-sounding man declared from the upper story.

“A sapling of a Luminary Dragon-eye Mango Tree!” someone else added.

“—A scroll painting from the ‘The Young Master’s Voyage Beyond Heaven’ series!” an old man beside Commandery Prince Fuhai interjected.

“A divination chart for a complete set of Dragon Spheres!” a young woman yelled.

“D-dragon spheres?” Xiao squeaked, sitting down on her chair in shock.

“Are… these people okay?” Shirong mumbled, looking around like she was seeing seniors for the first time.

He could only agree, there. These items were all priceless beyond compare, and yet they were being tossed out for what appeared to be a profoundly sketchy looking rolled up parchment scroll that had no aura whatsoever.

“—An original copy of ‘How to ensure your use of aphrodisiacs doesn't give you a son in law’!” a woman’s voice cut through the crowd. “With personal notes on two recipes by the author’s best student!”

“I’ll trade one Cursed Scroll Painting of the most Serene Moon-Choob, and its instruction book!” a hooded old man on the lower floor called out, almost at the same time.

“An original version of ‘How to Anger Gods and Influence People!’,” the young sounding woman who had previously offered the Six Solar Jade slabs interjected softly.

That brought an audible intake of breath from some in the upper story, shadowy figures turning to look in her direction.

“Do… you actually have one?” the young woman who had started this all off asked sceptically.

“Would I offer it if I didn’t?” the other woman replied archly.

“…”

“Ahem…” the dark-haired beauty coughed politely. Somewhat surprisingly order was restored.

“The introductory volume of ‘Identify, Manipulate, Eliminate,” a tired sounding middle-aged woman shrouded in shadow spoke up from the opposite side of the hall, just along from Duchess Minhua’s balcony. “It has both appendices and the almanac. I can confirm it works.”

“Ah… Uh…” Qin Shuang actually turned to look at this new speaker, incredulity written over his face, as did Prince Fuhai, Duchess Minhua, Mu Long, Long Tianteng and the young woman.

“—One single use anchored greater teleport scroll attuned to twenty-first century Aerth,” a dry male voice cut in from a few balconies down from Mu Long.

“Ahem… such an item is illegal, even here,” the auction beauty cut in quickly, as various figures turned somewhat mechanically to look at the new speaker.

“I am aware,” the speaker chuckled seemingly unfazed by the attention his words had drawn, “But I think an offer of that, and fifteen Luminary Talismans will be acceptable? After all, that cursed scroll and one of the proscribed, so-called Divine volumes are not exactly light items either…”

The auction lady stared into space, then shook her head. “The seller regrets that that object, now openly displayed, is a little too much, even for them. Are there any further bids?”

There was silence from the rest of the hall.

“—In that case, the seller has indicated they will accept the volume of ‘Identify, Manipulate, Eliminate’,” the beauty declared, clapping her hands thrice again. “Now, we will… Ah—

The Auction lady trailed off as a youth in officials robes for the auction house trotted over to her and whispered something in her ear.

“—Okay, it seems that we will have two additional items added to the roster,” she declared after listening for a minute. “First, however, the third, show-piece item of the day, a very rare spirit herb found in a certain secret realm. Its efficacy is lacking for those at the Venerate Step or above, but I hope you will all still give it your consideration, after all, it could provide a transformative opportunity to a promising junior.”

“So, it is that,” Fang Bai Weng grinned, not able to hide the relief in his voice.

“Hopefully that means these seniors won’t bid crazily on it,” Xiao mused, giving them a sideways look.

“—Well, if they accept bartering, I think we can be confident, given that rumour about who is putting it up,” he cut in, trying to reassure them all.

“Ah, that is true,” Long Bai Xiao conceded. “I have one or two items that might be suitable as well…”

“Uh-huh, the contest over it was apparently very… spicy,” Fang Bai Weng, who with his connections in the Fang clan, had investigated that for him, murmured.

While they were conferring, the blindfolded girl had brought forward another jade tray with a mid-sized wooden box engraved with elegant, flowing patterns.

Under the watchful eye of two inscrutable, staff-wielding masked guards for the auction house, the girl opened the box to reveal a palm-sized lotus flower with almost translucent petals, floating in a bowl of misty liquid.

“The bidding for this Nine Numinous Lotus with God Bewitching and Celestial Yang characteristics will begin at five hundred Dao Jade!” the dark-haired beauty announced, stepping back as the space around the flower bent slightly, again giving him the impression that he was only looking at it from a few paces away.

Up close, it was even more spectacular than he had expected. Each of its nine groups of petals were flawless and alluring, and the overall vibe the flower gave off was so fresh and calming that it was impossible to not want to just luxuriate in its presence.

“Bartering is also acceptable,” the beauty continued, as the whole hall sighed audibly in admiration over it. “—So long as the item offered provides a similar grade of opportunity.”

“Five…” Bai Weng sucked in his breath, his previous elation gone in an instant.

“They do know how to price things,” Xiurong remarked with a glower.

The others looked at him with uneasy expressions, but at the end of the day, there wasn’t much that could be said.

“Let’s see who else bids first, before playing our hand,” he suggested. It really was quite a bit more than he had expected.

That strange talisman was another of the treasures that he had found in the lost abode, along with the invite to this auction. The mysterious owner of that space hidden in the Huang Feng family’s ancestral land, had treasured it beyond everything else they had possessed, seemingly, and been very concerned that someone else might seek them out for it. It was somewhat ironic, he had to reflect, that they appeared to have died trying to cross the tribulation to advance from Dao Ascendant to Dao Venerate, rather than any seeming hostile action, in the end.

“Five hundred and ten Dao Jade,” a youth standing beside Commandery Prince declared.

“One Celestial Jade,” the young woman who had raised the bidding previously added, a grin just about visible on her shadowed visage.

“Miss, there is such a thing as knowing when to advance and retreat,” Commandery Prince Qin frowned. “My junior here has an interest in this.”

“Uggh, now the Qin Commandery has expressed an interest, this will be annoying,” Bai Weng grimaced, eyeing Qin Shuang nervously.

“One ingot of Star-cast yin-yang Iron,” the woman who had previously offered the Solar Jade spoke up.

“A set of three matching myriad elements jade blades,” a youth from the ground floor called out after a further short pause.

“One Talisman Schematic of Heavenly Fortune,” a youth called out from another alcove to their right.

“Oh-ho… that’s not bad,” Long Tianteng, who had not retreated back into anonymity, observed, stroking his beard as he leant on the balcony. “I have a junior approaching the relevant threshold, how about you and I chat about this schematic later?”

“Senior overpraises,” the youth coughed, glancing at the auctioneer, who just rolled her eyes and gave Long Tianteng a sideways look.

“What a shameless old bastard,” Xiao sneered.

“—I’ll trade one entrance talisman for the Golden Secret Realm for it,” Qin Shuang cut in with a sigh as the youth beside him cast a derisive look around the auction arena.

“Ohhh…” the intake of breath around the hall was palpable.

“I guess we can only hope that it is enough,” he grimaced, pulling out the token, which was a simple white jade disc, carved with a golden bell on one side and a strange, hard to decipher symbol on the other.

Again, he tried to see if the old expert’s presence in his necklace was recovered enough from their last chat to talk, but he got nothing.

-Could it actually be this place? he frowned, wondering why he had not thought of that before.

-In the end, I have to hope that you are right, that that jade talisman really is worth what you claim, he sighed, letting go of the necklace.

Frustratingly, the Huang Feng’s own records had only had one reference to it, suggesting that tokens in that style had been given as a reward from an ancient trial and that they could provide the person who amassed all the different talismans some kind of additional inheritance.

“I’ll trade this for it!” he called out, holding up the talisman and notifying the auction manager via his invitation talisman of the bid.

“…”

Various eyes turned towards their alcove, and for a moment, he suspected he had made a terrible mistake, because even if their identities were hidden, the blank expressions on many of those experts was… disconcerting.

“Uh, is that the seventh Trial token?” Commandery Prince Fuhai asked at last, looking somewhat shocked.

“Truly, you see all sorts at this auction,” a shadowy young woman leaning on another balcony to their right sighed wistfully as she looked in their direction.

“It really is worthy of being called the Millennial Jewel of Golden Splendour,” her companion agreed.

Qin Shuang stared at the token in his own hand, an oddly complex look on his face, then sighed and to his shock actually shook his head slightly conceding defeat without any bluster at all.

“Any further bids?” the auctioneer asked, after a long pause of her own. “If not, that item is acceptable to the seller—”

“I’ll offer an entrance token to the Four Courts Trial,” the first woman who had spoken said slowly.

His elation evaporated, like mist under summer sun.

“W-what?” Bai Weng stared in horror at the young woman, his face paling. Xiao and Xiurong were both shocked speechless as well.

“Who is she?” Xiurong managed to ask at last, before adding, almost tearfully. “She isn’t my hero any more! Anyway! H-how d-dare she take big sister Wenqing’s future for some stupid Four Courts Token!”

“The Four Courts…?”

“Is she from one of the Great Gates?”

“She must be a Saintess, to be so willing to stand forth and contest with Prince Qin!”

“How amazing, first that token, now a Saintess?”

Frenzied speculation hissed around the lower floor, and even some upper balconies, various shadowy figures leaning out to stare in their direction with interest and shock. Even Long Tianteng looked a bit stunned.

Even if the old expert in his necklace was confident in the allure of the white jade talisman, he was sure it had nothing on a guaranteed entry token for the Four Courts Trial.

As far as ‘great events’ went, the ‘Four Courts Trial, organized once a generation by the Four Cardinal Courts was the undisputed opportunity. To excel in it, was to catch the eyes of the Luminary experts not simply of starfields but the entire Martial Axial. Their Sovereigns offered pointers as prizes and sometimes even raised up new Saintesses from the ranks of the competitors. Even the Queen Mothers themselves had been known to attend. In person. The Heavenly clans lauded the Heavenly Hundred competition, but even as a core scion of one of that competition’s founder clans, he had to admit, that by reputation, it was just a gaudy upstart in comparison.

“The seller would prefer the seventh Trial token,” the auctioneer declared after a moment.

“…”

“Eh?” his thoughts crumbled for a second time in as many moments, to the point where he wondered if he was just in denial, hearing what he wanted to hear.

“We got, it?” Shirong gawked, staring around at the noisy auditorium.

“J-just like that?” Bai Weng grasped his arm, hands shaking.

For a disorientating moment, it was almost as if he could see Wenqing in her brother, though he had always been the outward and emotive sibling, matched to her cool, aloofness, and yet, in this moment he realised they had the same eyes, now shining like midnight moons—

“We… did it?” the moment vanished, kind of weirdly, as Bai Weng slumped down in a chair, his hands shaking. Xiao and Xiurong were both frozen like statues, staring between the shadowy woman and the auction hostess.

“I-In that case… we have a deal,” he agreed, eyeing the shimmering Nine Numinous Lotus and barely stammering as he replied.

“Please wait in your room, an official will come and complete the transaction shortly,” He was still in a bit of a mental daze wondering what he would say to Wenqing when they next met, when a woman’s voice echoed in his mind, transmitted through the invitation talisman.

“Now, as previously stated, there are two further items that have been submitted,” the auction beauty clapped her hands politely, silencing the chatter of the auditorium once more. “Both are slightly unique… one you have heard mentioned and the other is… interesting.”

“It must be one of the items being offered for barter earlier,” his junior sister suggested.

“That Aphrodisiac volume also sounded really sketchy,” Bai Weng joked, “maybe it’s that.”

“I’ll bet,” Xiao shot Bai Weng a rather arch sideways look that his friend chose to ignore, before turning back to him. “I wonder what that ‘Cursed Scroll Painting of Moon Choob’ is though… and that teleport scroll, I would not have thought that a simple scroll would be called out outright as being illegal, here of all places.”

“—First up, a sealing star jade pot holding a sexagenary unit of primordially pure grandmist qi,” the auction beauty declared, as a dark-haired youth placed a dark-coloured sprit wood box on the crystalline plinth used to hold some of the artefacts that had been auctioned.

“One Sexagenary?” Xiurong frowned, disappointed. “That isn’t much at all.”

“Do you not read things, little sister,” Xiao sighed superciliously, pulling Xiurong’s cheeks. “a single spirit stone’s worth of that qi would poison any of us dead, even with the laws we have comprehended. A whole pot of pure primordial qi is a treasure trove of potential comprehensions.”

Rolling her eyes, she shifted back to look at him, her expression becoming earnest again. “Brother Weng, if possible, try to barter for it, you need very pure qi for the lotus, right?”

He had to agree with her there. The next issue to overcome was how to nurture the lotus, or if that wasn’t possible, at least nourish some of its seeds.

Bai Weng’s sister would need to plant it in the Lost Training Grounds within the Mysterious Lost Valley of Ten Thousand Springs of Tragic Fate, which was apparently somewhere in the Bayankala Mountain Range of Qing Hai Great World, a forbidden land second only in reputation to the mysterious Yin Eclipse, in the Azure Astral Starfield.

“The seller is only interested in bartering items for it,” the beauty added—

“I, Su Bu Bao bid one Attuned Good Fortune Celestial Jade!” a robust youth from the lower floor yelled out, almost immediately. “Our Bao Fan Pagoda wants this!”

“Screw you, Fatty Bao!” a youth from the upper story called out. “Six Attuned Good Fortune Celestial Jades and a Heavenly Grade Dao Step Sword Pattern!”

“A matching set of thirty-three elementally attuned yin-yang Dao Jades!” A young woman leaning on Duchess Minhua’s balcony called out.

“As I said, its valuable,” Xiao repeated to Bai Weng, who sighed and nodded in agreement.

Looking through his storage ring, he pondered quickly, what items he had that might match up to those being offered by others.

The necklace was obviously out of the question, he had promised the old expert in it to help them acquire a new foundation so they could start their cultivation journey over.

The stockpile of resources left behind by his Feng family’s ancestor, while high quality, were mostly items relating to advancing from Dao Eternal to Dao Ascendant—useful in the future, but not exceptional to the point that they would reliably tempt for this kind of bidding. The arts, similarly, were esoteric, but he suspected he could get better returns trading them to the Huang Clan’s Core Library and redeeming the corresponding contribution points at the clan’s internal auction if it came down to it.

That left the oddments and personal effects of that expert. The issue was that none of them seemed especially simple.

Thanks to ‘Eyes of the Supreme King’ he knew that the rather gaudy jade and gold bracelet was actually a spatial movement device. Its range was even comparable to a standard greater teleport formation. Unfortunately however, it ate spirit stones like a black hole. There was a thin-bladed sword, seemingly crafted from a material akin to arborundum, that he really hoped he could find a way to wield, however nothing he had tried allowed it to be bound, so currently, he could only use it as a weapon of last resort. The remaining items were all opaque, however.

The two books were in a language he had no idea regarding and which hurt his eyes if he stared at it for too long. All he had discerned was that they had numerals on the spine suggesting they were volumes in a series of works. Similarly, a blue jade slate holding a hideously complicated formation symbol of some kind, that had been given pride of place in that expert’s living room, seemed entirely inert. A simple woven mat with a similar design was also frustratingly inert, no matter what he did to it.

“I suppose I can see if anyone wants the treasure teacher gave me…?” Shirong’s comment drew him back from his frustrated contemplation of what was in his storage ring.

“Treasure?” he blinked, looking at the jade compass she held in her hands.

“Is that a…” Xiurong gawked slightly at the beautiful divination compass, a proper Dao Guiding Compass of Peerless Felicity.

“Yep,” Shirong confirmed. “She said it would allow me to divine a peerless opportunity with it, but if it’s for big sister Wenqing…”

“In that case…” he eyed the various cultivation resources—

“Here, take these—” Xiao resolutely produced a matching set of fifteen of the highest quality Heavenly Tribulation Thunder Ling he had ever seen. “With a compass of that quality to match them, it should be enough?”

“Sister… those ling are…” Xiurong bit her lip as they all stared at the dark gold crystals, bleeding black light from their facets.

Combined with his junior sister’s compass, it was basically a free pass for any grade of tribulation below the venerate step.

“It’s fine, I am sure Brother Shi will reimburse me,” Xiao chuckled, though he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pressure in the way her eyes lingered on him. “Anyway, if it can help Sister Wenqing overcome this obstacle, it will be worth it."

“Any other bids?” the auction beauty called out.

“I offer this compass, and this set of fifteen Heavenly Tribulation Thunder Ling!” he called out, quickly taking both sets of items and holding both up.

“Ohh, that’s a nice compass,” Long Tianteng mused, stroking his beard as he looked over in their direction.

“I hope your disciples all get deviations,” Xiao muttered, stepping back a little into the shadow of their room.

“…”

“Any further bids?” the auction beauty asked, looking around the auditorium.

The others who had been calling out various rare materials all fell silent, a few shooting nasty looks his direction, though given their small measures of ability, unlike those in the upper gallery, he could only apologize on their behalf for their powerlessness.

“In that case, that is the winning bid,” she declared, clapping her hands three times.

It was impossible not to feel a little light-headed as she did so. After all the issues to get to this point, they had actually achieved both the things they set out to. Wenqing would have all the resources she needed to clear the terrible obstacle fate had put in her path of cultivation…

“Someone will be along to transfer the goods once the auction has completed its formalities,” the same female voice notified him dispassionately, as the auction hostess started to introduce the final item—a palm-sized key carved of blue jade and gilded in a golden metal that formed a pair of ornate wings. Apparently, it could lead whoever gained its acknowledgement to one of the lost alchemical cauldron workshops of the renowned, quasi-mythical Goddess of Alchemy, Meng Jiang.

“Isn’t that item a complete troll?” Xiurong muttered, eyeing the key as the bidding started at twenty-five attuned Dao Jades.

“Probably why the starting price is so low,” Shirong, who had recovered her composure, replied with a wry laugh.

“Not to mention, hunting it out will probably draw the attention of the Meng clan,” Xiao added rolling her eyes.

“—Also, there has been an inquirer interested in purchasing information off of you, regarding the circumstances through which you acquired that token,” the female voice added. “Normally we do not facilitate such trades, but they are a VIP member.”

“Can I refuse?” he asked, trying not to frown.

His intuition was that nothing good would come of him revealing that one of the Huang Feng’s old ancestors, or someone of sufficient closeness to them to gain such access into their ancestral secret land had been in possession of it. The Feng family’s position was already quite precarious, despite his best efforts.

“Of course,” the female voice demurred. “Do you wish to?”

“I am afraid I must refuse, politely,” he replied, after a moment’s careful consideration. “I appreciate their interest, but the token was simply found by chance, I cannot imagine any information on it will be of interest in that regard.”

“Very well,” the female voice replied, “I shall relay your reply.”

Sighing, he sat back in his chair and stared into space, thinking over their options as the bidding for the key continued, with the serious bidders now pitching various treasures rather than wealth, once more.

“Is there a problem?” Bai Weng asked him.

“Just thinking about what we are going to do once the auction is finished,” he replied, with a further sigh.

“Go to a teahouse and watch life go by?” Bai Weng suggested with an eye roll.

“Really?” Shirong gave Bai Weng a sideways look. “I know that golden-haired girl said our anonymity is assured, but this city is still little better than the Qin family’s back yard.”

“—Actually, I am being perfectly serious,” Bai Weng replied more earnestly. “We should just behave normally. Anyway, I am not suggesting we go far. *This* teahouse must have some contingencies if they act as a gateway for this kind of auction, so I think we should just wait here.”

“When you put it like that,” Xiao nodded, grasping what Bai Weng was getting at. “Also, with a bastard like Long Tianteng around the less notice we attract the better.”

“Exactly,” Bai Weng continued. “I will contact Elder Kana, her family has a branch influence here, and it’s even affiliated with an absolute monster of an influence in the Ming Territory.”

“Oh?” Shirong asked.

“The Zheng clan’s Golden Swallow Gate.”

“As in… the influence Commandery Princess Divine Golden Swallow founded?” Xiurong gasped.

“Uh-huh,” Bai Weng nodded with a broad grin. “The Qin family may be influential here, but Golden Swallow Gate is on another level entirely.”

~ Second Item — Mysterious Song of the Muse ~

Huang Feng Shi crashed to the ground, demolishing a market stall in the square outside the front of the Pon Zi teahouse, coughing up blood and cursing inarticulately.

“Ohhh… Eee survived, wat a little lordling, eh?”

Ignoring the derisive observation, he rolled to his feet and tried to use his movement art—

The space around him froze, his attacker appearing above him in a blur of distorting space, their spear already sweeping down—

Pushing himself to his feet, amidst the ruin of the upper floor of Pon Zi teahouse, Huang Feng Shi groaned as the clone that had ‘taken’ the initial ambush for him perished without even managing to properly see its ‘attacker’.

Looking around, he found that where they had been seated, overlooking the inner courtyard—to the front of the teahouse, was basically gone. A gaping chasm of collapsed flooring, tumbled furniture and chaotic qi. Something was also blocking any means he had to use his immortal senses.

“—Aye, you think we are stupid?”

He froze as a dark-haired, boy-ish young woman appeared like a ghost, crouching on the half-overturned table near him.

“Yeah, that’s right, you afraid,” she chuckled, hopping off the table and stalking towards him. “You very afraid, aintcha, sect boy?”

“Why… are you targeting us?” he gasped, to buy some time as he tried to move. Her words were clearly intended to intimidate him, but fortunately, the mysterious expert’s necklace was an excellent protective charm against that sort of thing.

“Why?” she grinned. “You was spotted, sneekin into ol’ Pon Zi’s at first light, like we dunno they has some stuff on today?”

“They—” Xiao, who it turned out had been thrown into the wall nearby, tried to speak, only for the youth to absently wave a hand, dragging her up off the floor and over to them.

“Shssssssh, little girlie,” the young woman chided her. “Can’t you see us lads is speaking?”

He stared blankly at her, realizing at least that ‘she’ was actually a feminine looking man.

“—Anyway, ol’ Jingfa behind the bar ain’t gonna move for you. Hongwu is Wu family territory, and we pays our dues to the right sort.”

“The… Qin family?” he asked, fishing for information, while wondering where Bai Weng, Xiurong and Shirong were.

“Haha… you think I was—” the youth stopped speaking suddenly, his expression serious.

“YOU DARE!” a furious woman’s voice howled from outside.

A brilliant flash of golden qi, accompanied by a resonant chime of qi-forged metal on metal clashing bled through the walls around them, then the entire front of the teahouse disintegrated outwards in incense-stick sized splinters.

The square outside had not been very full anyway, but now the few who had remained were frantically fleeing. The masked youth who had killed his clone was stumbling backwards, his spear shaking, having barely succeeded in blocking a blow from a grey-robed beauty wielding a two-handed sword.

“You dare to attack the young master of our Fang Bai family?” she growled, advancing coldly towards the spear-wielder, while two youths in white robes emblazoned with the emblem of the Zheng clan hauled the stunned Bai Weng to his feet. Xiurong, wiping blood from her mouth was being helped by a third youth.

“Bah, it would be a Martial Eternal,” the dark-haired youth sighed, sounding annoyed. “You two, go help.”

He blinked as a trio of ‘beautiful’ youths, dressed in stylish and fashionable clothes, somehow appeared next to them. The pair on their right sporting eye-catching golden-white hair, were almost identical looking. Their compatriot, who was idly waving a fan was almost dressed like a girl, their dark hair done up ornately in a currently popular style.

“Yes Boss!”

“On it!”

The twins saluted, and drawing their swords flitted out of the ruined tea house towards the woman advancing across the square.

“Is it done?” the dark-haired youth asked, without looking at the fan wielding ‘beauty’.

“It is,” the fan wielding… woman, in fact, based on her voice, confirmed. “The connections are completely severed on this side, nobody can come…”

Her words vanished amidst the echoing chimes of metal clashing on metal. A moment later, ghostly ripples rolled over the square, revealing the afterimages of the two youths, both darting backwards—

In the same instant, the grey-robed beauty appeared in front of the spear wielder, her blade cutting upwards—

His vision warped as the left and right of the plaza seemed to slide in different directions for a heartbeat, focused on the spear wielder then snap back together. The spear wielder screamed, his qi turning chaotic, then exploded into a haze of gore, before reforming around the misty form of a Dao Soul—

{Eight Jade Demon’s—

This time, it was the space around the woman which warped inauspiciously as eight afterimages of the sword-wielding youths encircled her, their blades stabbing inwards—

—Profound Execu—

The sword formation being enacted scattered chaotically as a golden sword light crashed into one of the afterimages, originating from the youth who had helped Xiurong.

“Jade Faced Twins!” the youth yelled, advancing on the pair. “How dare you set yourselves against our Zheng clan!”

“Is the Zheng clan all that?” one of them giggled, appearing beside the youth, forcing him to evade—

“Idiot, look out!” the pair protecting Bai Weng suddenly yelled, as the other twin arrived before Xiurong.

“Don’t blame me miss, it’s just that a Long clan daughter with known pedigree is worth a lot in certain quarters!” the youth declared, as a shimmering barrier appeared around Xiurong—

The barrier shattered as the grey-robed woman appeared inside it, already slashing at Xiurong’s attacker.

“She has some capability,” the fan-wielding woman observed as the twins retreated smoothly. “A Martial Eternal like her is a bit of a stretch for them, do you want me to?”

“Nah, they can handle it,” the dark-haired youth shook his head calmly. “Rather, did anyone else from the auction…”

Another chime of clashing blades distorted their surroundings, leaving him with a disturbing ringing in his ears as the Fang clan’s elder again repelled the twins joint attack.

“…bidding was… not something most were able to make an impact on,” the fan-wielding woman continued without even seeming to break sweat over the disruption.

“I see… well, at least this brat has our item,” the youth waved at him.

“…”

The fan-wielding woman focused on him, and suddenly, his awareness of his own body seemed to turn inside out.

“Tcch, it’s also a clone?” was the last thing he heard as his consciousness faded away.

Huang Feng Shi gritted his teeth as he felt the second, much more involved ‘clone’ collapse. It was hard to get used to using that particular treasure, because every clone it spawned was… unaware of their own nature. The lingering shock and pain of the demise was not something he felt he would ever get used to experiencing, as he slunk, silently through the chaotic lower floor of the teahouse—

“Huh, you are a sneaky one…”

He groaned as he found himself face to face with the tea-house manager, the old man ‘Jingfa’, who had initially shown them through and one of the servers, a gap-toothed youth with messy hair, holding a broomstick for a weapon.

“He is, indeed…” the fan-wielding woman agreed, appearing like a ghost behind him, before he could even react. “A special constitution, and quite the array of treasures…”

“Fuckin silkies!” the gap-toothed youth sneered “If they ain’t got something good on em, who will?”

Before he could move, the gap-toothed youth had appeared before him and stabbed him in the chest with the broom stick. Two protective barriers collapsed without so much as a flicker of resistance.

{Reverse Jab the—

He threw himself aside and kicked the stick, using the force of the blow to fly through the wall behind him. Rolling to his feet, he instantly made to flee—

—Jab the Dog’s Ass}

“Idiot…” the gap-toothed youth’s voice sneered, to his right, somehow having followed him…

The blow didn’t, in fact, hit him in that place, but in his lower back—

Huang Feng Shi grimaced, eyeing the six carved jade ‘eyes’ on the necklace that also held the old expert, as that clone also died.

-Three already… he grimaced, glancing warily both ways down the corridor.

“Fuck me!”

“It’s a good thing these formations the old ancestor set up are good…”

“Oh, come on!” he scowled as four blade-wielding youths, all with cultivations in or around the Martial Sovereign realm rounded the corner ahead of him and somehow, immediately spotted him.

-Are Dao Sovereigns cabbages all of a sudden!?!

Defeating them wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but time wasn’t exactly on his side right now. Backing up, his first instinct in that light was to teleport, but both spatial treasures he had, and even the bracelet on his wrist, failed to so much as register his intent.

Grinding his teeth, he abruptly stopped his retreat and struck out at the nearest of the four. If they wanted to force an encounter, he had no reason to be polite about things.

“You wanna—?” the youth cut at him… grinning derisively, clearly confident in his strength and speed… right until the arborundum sword appeared in his hand, shattering the incoming blade like it was glass.

The other three flinched, as with a lazy flick of the sword he decapitated his attacker and let the necklace absorb his Dao Soul, providing him a new ‘clone’.

Slipping between their mistimed strikes, he only had to spin in a half circle, bisecting the second, before reversing the blade to catch the third’s blade.

“—Motherless!” the remaining youth’s expression turned white as the other two also had their souls reaped away by the necklace.

“That is a nasty treasure you got there, son—” the old man, Jingfa, his cultivation now thoroughly inscrutable, appeared before him, catching the wrist of his sword-arm—

Before he could get disarmed, he transferred the sword into his storage, then his left hand—

Somehow, the old man just twisted his body sideways, evading the sword even as it appeared where it should have run him through.

“If you wanna regret?” the old man chuckled. “That isn’t my problem,” he added, reaching out for the necklace. “Who told you to get involved with them—?”

A greenish-gold winged symbol that translated itself into ‘Lianshu’ swirled out of it, colliding with the man’s hand. With a wretched scream the old man’s arm caught fire, greenish-gold flames rapidly eating up his flesh—

The fan-wielding woman appeared beside him, severing the old man’s arm with a flick of her wrist.

“Huang clan, huh,” was all she mused, watching him with narrowed eyes as he scrambled to his feet, mind racing as he tried to work out what to do—

The whole teahouse shook, cracks spidering along the walls of the corridor they were in. He tasted blood in his mouth—

“This one is also a clone, Nameless— it’s been a while since I…” the dark-haired youth’s voice echoed in his ears as his vision darkened, a piercing cold pain spreading out through his upper body.

“Get him!”

“Bastard!”

This time, he didn’t fight, he just tossed out a formidable barrier and sprinted in the direction of the square as fast as he could, ignoring the gap-toothed youth and another scruffy, staff-wielding teenager who had just raced out of a door behind him—

“Darker than black…”

Of all people, the golden-haired beauty who had led them into the auction was suddenly in the corridor ahead of him, pointing at him, a strange and profoundly unnerving law manifestation he had never before seen focused about her outstretched hand.

“—return all before me to ashes and dust—!”

“Motherless—!” before she could finish speaking, he threw himself through the doorway immediately to his right—

Groaning, he found himself lying once more in the ruins of the lower floor of the tea house’s common room. Every bone in his body hurt. That clone had died, instantly, though thanks to the sacrifice of the three Dao Sovereigns a moment before, the necklace still had half its ‘lives’ left.

“—Junior Brother!”

Rolling over, he found Lian Shirong, her disciple’s robes torn, blood streaking her face, scrambling across the ruined room towards him.

“Quick!” she gasped, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet. “Come with…”

Her words were drowned out by a series of otherworldly musical chords, the strains of a celestial’s harp or some kind of mystical zither or qin. They reverberated through their surroundings bringing with them half-heard words that called to him, promising something wonderful… if he could but hear clearly what was being sung.

“—to Elder Kana?” Shirong’s voice faded back into focus as he realised she was pulling him with remarkable ease for her realm in the direction of the plaza.

“What about elder Kana?” he snapped, his frustration with not being able to hear those words creeping out.

“Did you take a knock to the head?” she grunted, giving him a very strange look that left him suddenly feeling a bit disorientated.

“I… uh,” he tried to reply, to explain, but for whatever reason, the song from before just didn’t seem important. What mattered was that he helps his junior sister… “Sorry, what about Elder Kana?” he repeated, as they scrambled out into the plaza itself—

They both stopped, because the scene outside… was not what he expected. Almost two hundred heavily armoured garrison soldiers were massed around the square. Two impressive, circular-shaped flying battle platforms floated above them in support, their formations trained ominously on their side of the square, though they had not yet been activated.

Bai Weng, Xiurong, the trio from the Zheng clan and the grey-robed woman he now realised was Elder Kana, were glaring grimly at a group of figures standing in the middle of these new arrivals. Those they had been fighting had retreated a little, back towards the teahouse. One of the twins had a nasty cut across their face, and the spear-wielder was missing an arm, chaotic qi bleeding from their wounds.

“In the name of Magistrate Qin Wu Guozhi, everyone is to cease their hostilities… IMMEDIATELY!” a thin-faced, bearded Dao Sovereign dressed in the traditional blue of an official, brocaded with red and white cranes yelled.

“CEASE HOSTILITIES!” the two-hundred odd soldiers echoed as one, slamming their halberds on the ground.

“For fates sake…” his junior sister bit her lip, looking around with concern.

Indeed, he was personally unsure whether to laugh or cry, that such a force would have already arrived. A Magistrate of a town like this would almost certainly be a Dao Ascendant realm cultivator, and the Qin clan was the major local power. Qin Shuang’s junior had also shown an interest in their lotus as well.

“Lord Guozhi…” the dark-haired youth appeared like a ghost in the courtyard, accompanied by the still one-armed Jingfa, bowing respectfully to the amassed force. “Senior Official Wu.”

“Daoist Jade Soul,” Official Wu frowned, eyeing the youth, then the blond twins and the injured spear-wielder. “This is not an auspicious day to cause a disruption.”

“Our apologies, many apologies,” the dark-haired youth replied, earnestly. “Unfortunately, as you can see, we have had some small conflict with these ‘heroic’ young scions here. A disagreement over an item bought at auction. You know how these foreign young masters are.”

“I see,” Official Wu’s gaze slid towards Elder Kana and the Zheng group.

“Despicable!” the youth who had disrupted the sword formation earlier spat. “These Jade-faced bastards are a blight on this town and you are just going to let them spout this and that?”

“Might I remind you, Young Hero He-Heng, that your record here is not… exemplary,” the Official frowned.

“—My junior is hot-headed, Official Wu,” the slightly older-looking Sword Sovereign beside He-Heng cut in hurriedly.

“Quick-bladed, too,” a more junior official standing a bit behind Official Wu added, just loud enough to be heard. He-Heng flushed, his expression turning thunderous.

“Oh great…” his junior sister groaned under her breath, echoing his own thoughts there.

“—Well, the matter of your part in the damage of property here will be dealt with momentarily,” Official Wu continued, turning to Jingfa. “As the owner of the aforementioned teahouse, what do you have to say here?”

“It is as Daoist Jade Soul has said,” Jingfa scowled. “While it is true that his group has something of a reputation, his people only look out for us locals.”

-So, this is what he meant before by having paid the right people, he grimaced, glancing behind them, wondering suddenly if it was possible to just duck back into the teahouse and not get spotted—

“The youth, Huang Feng Shi over there is the perpetrator,” Jingfa suddenly pointed directly at him, with a baleful glower.

Immediately, the space around them constricted somewhat uncomfortably as Official Wu’s gaze fell on them.

“It is thanks to his assault that I lost my arm, and his party is responsible for the demolition of the front of my teahouse, especially this Martial expert here—” Jingfa jerked his head at Elder Kana, whose expression darkened.

“Did you do… that?” Official Wu eyed the ruined frontage and the torn-up square.

“It was a clash between me and him,” Elder Kana replied shortly. “And then—”

“A clash between a Martial Eternal and a Dao Sovereign, and you are telling me you couldn’t control your strength to this degree?” an armoured youth standing nearby with a golden deer and the Qin clan’s insignia clearly visible on his armour cut in disbelievingly.

“I was protecting my charge,” Elder Kana scowled. “And while I did a bit of damage, much of it was—”

“MAGISTRATE GUOZHI ARRIVES!” a voice yelled from the rear of the crowd, cutting her off.

“SEEING LORD GUOZHI!”

“SEEING YOUNG MASTER QIN!”

The twin salutes echoed through the square as the soldiers cleared the way for two large floating palanquins, bearing the magistrate’s flag for the Hongwu City and the regalia of the Qin family.

“Lord Magistrate,” Official Wu bowed formally to the middle-aged, severe-looking, bearded man seated on the first platform.

“Young Master He, we meet again, so soon…” the Magistrate frowned, immediately homing in on the still scowling youth by Elder Kana.

“Oh come on…” his junior sister muttered under her breath.

“So, what is it… Assault, causing a disturbance that might endanger the peace… multiple counts of damage to private buildings…” the Magistrate mused, looking around.

“—Alleged theft of items at an auction,” Official Wu added blandly.

“What do you think, young master Qin?” the Magistrate turned to the group on the second platform, at which point his heart truly sank.

The ‘young master Qin’ was, as expected someone he recognised. Ming Qin Hua, one of the rising stars of the Heavenly Ming clan in recent years. Worse, the white-robed pair beside him—Huang Wen and Huang Chao—were both drinking buddies of Huang Teng, while off to the side was one of his own Feng family’s ancestors, Feng Honghui, and his wretched cousin, Feng Fan.

“Isn’t that your cousin?” his junior sister hissed, spotting Feng Fan as well.

“Unfortunately,” he replied, grimacing, glancing into the ruin of the building behind them. His teleport treasures were still not working… not that he seriously expected them to have started now, not with so many soldiers and officials around.

“If it is a disagreement over goods, both parties should be invited to discuss it politely over tea at the magistrates, while the civil authority investigates… the rest of this,” Ming Qin Hua suggested, his gaze sweeping across the whole square, before lingering for the briefest moment on the two of them.

“—Someone should also send an envoy to Lord Tianteng, given some of his clan’s juniors are caught up in this…” Ming Qin Hua added, focusing on Xiurong and Bai Weng.

“I will see to it,” Official Wu replied respectfully, before Xiurong could open her mouth to say anything.

“That scheming bastard!” Long Xiao, who had somehow managed to exit the teahouse as well, to arrive beside them, hissed. “I’ll—”

Before she could speak further, a powerful force grasped the three of them and dragged them out into the open of the courtyard.

“How… disappointing,” his cousin’s remark as they were dragged forward, had such a ring of falsity to it he almost imagined he tasted blood in his mouth.

“Isn’t that your cousin?” Huang Chao asked Feng Fan, raising an eyebrow as he took in the three of them.

“Advisably,” Feng Fan sneered. “He could have lived an easy life as the second son, yet he just keeps trying to push and push, and now he has even gotten involved in this matter of the Nine Numinous Lotus Brother Teng intends to gift to Fairy Wenqing.”

Before he could find words to reply, or reassure Shirong and Xiao, the containment field on his spatial ring ruptured and the sealed jade box carved with flowing clouds holding the lotus, appeared in the air before them.

“Y-you!” his junior sister’s face flushed with righteous anger—

She trailed off as a disturbingly creepy sensation of impending crisis suddenly loomed at his back. Before he could so much as produce a talisman, the space around them, and in fact the whole square, froze. A moment later, the blonde-haired girl who had served them before, and who had also killed his clone a few minutes earlier, appeared like a ghost a few paces away from them. Now, he couldn’t help but notice she sported a conical, broad-brimmed hat that matched the colours of her dress. Almost incongruously, she also held the broken upper torso of the gap-toothed youth in one hand, like he was a dog she had just caught.

“Bru—” the gap-toothed youth tried to speak, but all that came out was a ragged gasp.

“Who…” Official Wu turned, like he was trying to push through thick mud, even as the golden-haired young woman strolled over to Jingfa.

“Really, you just make things so troublesome,” she sighed, grasping the old man by his hair and pulling him backwards.

“Young lady! Show some decorum before Lord Guozhi and Young Lord Qin!” the Marshal shouted, drawing his blade, as he pushed back against the oppression.

“A Magistrate and a young brat? Even if Qin Shuang himself was here I would be unimpressed,” the golden-haired girl chuckled, leaving those there momentarily speechless as she continued speaking. “Crimson-black sacrifice—”

“Wa…w-w-wait!” the old man’s face turned pale as a sheet as he tried to claw at the hand she was holding him in place with. The black-haired youth was also pale and sweating now, trying to back away from her.

Prodigious and profound martial intent suddenly shrouded the Marshal and another old man beside Ming Qin. In a blur, both had shaken off some the smothering oppression and covered over half the distance to her in the blink of an eye, but it was still too late—

“—let the collapse of thine origin manifest,” the golden-haired girl continued, paying them no heed at all, as that creepily inauspicious law he had never seen before, swirled around her hand. “—in accordance to the principles of all creation…

“—Explosion.”

Jingfa’s pleading turned to a soundless scream, then his body… turned into a white shadow against the square. Chaotic qi twisted around the old man, then his body vanished, coating the surroundings, except for the golden-haired girl in a cloud of bone and gore. She had, however, now gained a stylish cut-down ‘over-robe’ with similar designs to her hat.

“Y—y-you…” the Marshal’s face turned white as he abruptly checked his charge towards her.

“No!” The old elder with Ming Qin Hua gasped in horror, stopping as well. “Who are you?! To have—”

Before they could finish speaking, the distortion around where Jingfa had died had rapidly spread through the rest of the square. Both men spat blood and staggered back, as did many of the guards. The barriers around the magistrate and Ming Qin Hua’s group fluctuated, then, shockingly, dispersed as well, the palanquins dropping to the ground heavily.

“What…” Official Wu’s face turned from shock to fury—

“it’s a bit late to regret now,” the girl giggled, nastily, as a pagoda overlooking the square shuddered, qi bleeding off it like an iridescent rainbow, before two thirds of the supports on it simply imploded as the formation associated with it catastrophically failed.

“Explosion law…” the elder gasped, pointing at her furiously. “You have mastered that forbidden law! Criminal of Order!”

“According to whom, you?” the mysterious girl rolled her eyes, even as buildings continued to slowly collapse, formations failing catastrophically in every direction around them. “Aren’t you just jealous, untalented old thing?”

~ Third Item — Picture Scroll of Demi-gods and Semi-devils ~

“—Duchess Minhua would like to invite you, Young Lady Li, to…”

The scholarly-looking ‘auction manager’ stopped speaking as Li Rin held up a hand.

“I was not aware that my presence here was… known,” she murmured, sipping her spirit-leaf tea, half-listening as the ‘Miss Fanqing’, the Auction Hostess closed up proceeding.

Her two female companions in the room, Yang Hsu and Li Ko Shurei, were both frowning slightly at his words as well, now.

“We were… assured—” Yang Hsu started to ask.

“—Ah, Young Lady Yang misunderstands,” the official put on what he had to feel was his best ‘but of course...’ smile at their questions while also presuming to feign some polite embarrassment on her behalf. “Duchess Teng Minhua as an eminent Heavenly Lady of status and repute throughout myriad starfields… is also a trusted elder of our esteemed association.”

The way he said it, was in the manner of letting them in on some great secret, as if she could probably not have worked that out by the fact that a fairly senior organizer of the auction was here, soliciting her in person, at the behest of said Duchess and also without hiding her name.

“An… elder of ‘the society’?” she repeated anyway, feigning polite disbelief, at the ‘revelation’ rather enjoying this now.

If her goal in flashing the ‘Four Court’s Token’ earlier had not been to get some notice just to bait out an ‘invite’ like this, she would already have declined the official, politely.

It was not often that she got to ‘play’ as the slightly starry eyed ‘young miss out to see the world’ after all.

“Of course,” the official continued, clearly taking a bit of confidence in her reply. “If I might be presumptuous—” she waved a hand to allow that he ‘might’. “As Young Lady Li is a first-time attendee at our esteemed event, you might not be aware, that this gathering is… something an… opportunity.”

“—An opportunity?” Yang Hsu raised an eyebrow. Rather understandably, actually, as Four Court’s tokens were not exactly cabbages.

“Mmmm,” the official nodded condescendingly to Yang Hsu and Li Shurei, before turning back to her.

“Her Eminence, Lady Minhua, and her friends are… people of remarkable influence. For an up-and-coming young lady such as yourself travelling to see the stars… to catch their eyes might be as big an opportunity as any we have seen today?”

“I see…” she replied, before taking another sip of her tea.

“Four out of ten,” Yang Hsu’s voice echoed privately in her ears in judged once it was clear that that was the entirety of the pitch being levelled at them.

“Indeed, could blag harder…” Li Shurei agreed drily. “I didn’t think Duchess Minhua had minions this…”

“—Unskilled?” Yang Hsu suggested, her mocking tone totally at odds with the neutral expression she was currently levelling at the official awaiting her reply.

“It is what it is,” she replied with a mental shrug. “We came here seeking information, we can only take what is in front of us in that regard.”

“What of my friends?” she asked, making sure to stress that a little.

“They are of course, invited as well,” the scholar murmured, after a momentary pause. “To travel with a Young Lady such as yourself, your companions cannot be anyone ordinary.”

“Very well,” she confirmed, setting aside her cup and standing up. “Please lead the way…"

The scholarly official gave them all a further bow and stepped to the side, gesturing to the sliding doors at the rear of the room respectfully.

Without any preamble, she led the other two through it, finding the connection now led to a well attired reception hall overlooking the idyllic ocean vista beyond Ming Tian city. Twenty-odd young ‘appearing’ women in finery of various styles were standing or sitting in small groups, chatting away as they entered.

“Young Lady Li Rin, and her companions Young Lady Yang Hsu and Young Lady Li Shurei,” the official declared formally as the paused at the threshold for a moment to take stock.

The hostess of the meeting, Duchess Teng Minhua, was seated in the middle of the room, attended to by three young women all clearly eager to impress her. However, as she considered who else was here, she found that Teng Minhua was not, in fact, the most ‘important’ High Lady in attendance. That honour would have to be accorded to a demure, dark-haired young woman in an azure blue phoenix robe adorned with a pair of silvery dancing Kirins, sitting across from the duchess, talking over a cup of spirit-tea to a brunette young woman in a more martial-styled gown.

“Is that the Princess Huamei?” Li Shurei murmured to her as their arrival was met with what she could only call predatory ‘disinterest’ by a large swathe of the room. “—and Zheng Mei?”

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed softly, as the woman’s gaze flitted over the three of them before returning to her conversation with the great-grand-niece of the founder of the Golden Swallow Gate.

Ming Cheng Huamei, while young, at only a few centuries old, was not only the wife of the Minister of the Left, the third most important official in the entire Ming Heavenly Empire, making her a first-ranked princess by marriage, but a Dao Venerate in her own right. In truth, Zheng Mei was no slouch either, not being far behind Cheng Huamei in either talent or demeanour.

Outside of that pair, the other notable experts in the room included a granddaughter of one of the Kong Dukes, two Saintess candidates of the Ju Heavenly clan and Teng Minhua’s own niece, Teng Changqing, sitting primly next to her aunt, trying not to appear overtly overawed by the presence of Ming Cheng Huamei. The rest were predominantly up-and-coming ‘young ladies’ from the Teng and Ming territories.

The scholarly official gave them just long enough to be noticed by the room, before escorting them straight over to Teng Minhua.

“…regrets to inform you, your eminence, that they discovered the item by chance,” a dark-haired young woman was saying to the duchess as they arrived before her.

“By Chance?” Teng Changqing sniffed. “Do they think my aunt was born yesterday?”

“It is as you say, Changqing,” the young woman beside her, the younger of the Ju clan pair, nodded in earnest agreement. “Since when do those trial tokens ever appear ‘by chance?’

“—if it appeared by design, this will be more bothersome,” Cheng Huamei observed, between sips of her tea.

“Indeed, Huamei,” the Duchess sighed, giving the princess a friendly smile of acknowledgement and waving for the young woman who had delivered that news to them to go back to leave, before focusing on the three of them.

“What do you think, Young Lady Rin,” the Duchess mused, turning to her with a pleasant, welcoming smile and gesturing for all three of them to sit on the vacant couch that had just appeared behind them. “I may call you Rin, yes?”

“Of course,” she murmured, giving the duchess an appropriate bow and taking her seat. “May I ask what it is I’m thinking of?” she added, pretending she had not just overheard the conversation.

These kinds of meetings were a sort of nightmare in their own way. Everything was a loaded question, and all those asking were as savage and ruthless in their skills of inquiry as any fabled martial expert was with a blade.

“Why, that seventh of those trial talismans,” the Duchess laughed lightly at her question, “—that your own eye-catching bid lost out to!”

“I must confess, my knowledge of those tokens is quite superficial,” she replied doing her best impression of a slightly overawed—yet trying not to show it—young lady. “I once attended a Dao Discussion hosted by Vast Obscurity Grove’s Seven Severing Saintess, Princess Li—"

The other girl next to Teng Changqing gasped, and even Changqing herself looked begrudgingly impressed.

“You didn’t tell me you went to that!” Yang Hsu murmured behind her, doing her best to sound accusing.

“—And I believe she spoke of them,” she continued, slowly. “I would not dare to quote her, but her words were something to the effect of— ‘I think nothing good has ever come from poking too much at those talismans…”

“—If memory serves, she said, ‘they come and go, like the winds and rains, leaving only fortune and devastation…” Cheng Huamei agreed, giving her a slight smile as she cut in. “—and we, like poor farmers, eking out a living from the Dao…”

“—can only adapt in turn,” she echoed as Cheng Huamei finished the quote.

“Auntie, you met with her, didn’t you?” Teng Changqing added, her eyes practically shining.

“I did indeed attend that grand banquet the Heaven Breaking Empress hosted,” Duchess Minhua conceded, though the sideways look she shot her niece was a bit pointed. “My father sat to her right and gave one of the toasts in her honour.”

“To have met such an esteemed figure,” one of the other young women sighed in admiration.

“Ahh… if only there was another such event, Crown Prince Ji would surely excel,” one of the others listening in, sighed.

“You mean the one who hid in his mother’s wardrobe from that Tai girl?” the girl beside Teng Changqing snickered, half turning to the speaker.

“Hid in?” she half glanced at Yang Hsu, who was really the one of them who actually kept up to speed with the day-to-day insanity of the younger generation.

“You recall Tai Qiuyue?” Yang Hsu sighed, mentally. “Her protégé is a girl named Tai Yanmei. She actually came all the way here to the Eastern Heaven Palace to challenge the Crown Prince and well, it was a bit embarrassing by all accounts.”

“Xingjuan, didn’t your precious Teng Yingjie fake a cultivation deviation to avoid her challenge?” the first girl sniffed archly.

“Do I want to know?” she asked Yang Hsu, as the pair started a back and forth about the merits and feats of the pair.

“Depends,” Yang Hsu deadpanned back. “How much faith do you have in the current generation of juniors?”

“That bad,” she chuckled.

“Long Longwei drew with her,” another young woman cut in haughtily.

“—Yes, by cheating out of—” Teng Changqing’s friend, Ju Xingjuan, started to retort—

*Ahem*, Teng Changqing coughed and poked Xingjuan in the arm before things could get more heated.

“It is probably not possible to compare eras like that,” Zheng Mei observed with a wry chuckle of her own. “Back then, there apparently were fewer constraints protecting such precious seedlings.”

“Quite.” Duchess Minhua agreed, a faint shadow flitting over her face, the momentary shift in her demeanour making all the young women other than Ming Cheng Huamei flinch slightly.

“—What is clear is this generation's dancing phoenixes seem much more proactive than its rampant dragons,” Ming Cheng Huamei observed with a wry chuckle. “At least if Tai Yanmei wins out it will prevent either of those Huang brats from skulking off with the top spot in the Heavenly Hundred.”

“That I will drink to,” Duchess Minhua agreed, sipping her tea. “Even if it means that scheming vixen gaining some success.”

“Honestly, I think this generation’s contest isn’t especially stimulating,” Zheng Mei sighed. “Those greedy old fellows have taken their pieces home in a huff, at the first sign of cloudy weather, rather than risk them getting a bit wet.”

Her words drew some huffs from the younger women who had clear favourites in that competition, but mostly amused chuckles and nods of agreement.

“Speaking of dancing phoenixes,” Ming Cheng Huamei murmured, her gaze shifting back to her. “To be able to produce a Four Court’s token, I wonder if Young Lady Li will soon be a force to be reckoned with on that grand stage? Should we expect to see a new Saintess crowned at the next competition?”

“Ahaha,” she laughed lightly. “I must confess, the token is actually not that useful to me, that is why I sought to trade it for that Lotus, on behalf of a friend.”

“It seems the Young Lady Fang has dear friends everywhere one looks,” Teng Changqing murmured, a tad theatrically. “Huang Teng says he will shelter her, Long Longwei is enamoured with her as well, by all accounts, as is Prince Meng…”

“Prince Meng?” she blinked.

“—Meng Tuotian recently purchased a painting of her for some price,” Ju Xingjuan replied with an eye roll.

“—And now even you are standing up for her,” Teng Changqing continued drily.

“It is hard not to feel sorry for the girl,” another of the slightly older women from a Ming influence sighed. “To have such talent yet be born under such an unlucky star.”

“That Huang pair are just the worst,” the other girl beside Teng Changqing sniffed. “There cannot—”

A dull rumble, accompanied by a markedly inauspicious shift in the ambient qi made the girl stop speaking, and indeed, cut short all the conversation in the room.

“Uh…” Teng Changqing turned to her aunt, who was frowning faintly, looking uncertain.

Ming Cheng Huamei’s expression was rather neutral, but Zheng Mei was looking slightly shocked and slightly unfocused all of a sudden, as if seeing something—

“Um… Rin…” a faintly embarrassed voice echoed in the back of her mind, followed by a flicker of connecting imagery as the third member of her ‘group’, Li Maschenny, contacted her.

At the same time, a shimmering screen appeared in the middle of the room, conjured by Ming Cheng Huamei, depicting what could only be described as a scene of expanding devastation.

Everywhere her eyes travelled, buildings were crumbling, pagoda towers tumbling as formations and barriers collapsed or destabilized, taking out buildings in vast swathes as they did so.

“Where is this?” Teng Changqing asked, examining the still distorting imagery of the ruined town, its citizens fleeing in terror through choked streets rapidly descending into chaos.

“Hongwu city,” Zheng Mei replied with a faint grimace. “Well, it’s called a city, but that’s just living in its past glories.”

“Very past now,” a young woman behind them observed wryly as a large, forty-story pagoda collapsed into ruin in the middle distance.

“Who did this?” Ju Xingjuan asked, her eyes wide. “That’s… a whole town, they have defensive formations, right?”

“—And isn’t Hongwu, like one of the oldest cities on Golden Splendour?” the other Saintess candidate chimed in. “from, like, when the Meng clan still ruled this starfield?”

“Uh-huh,” Teng Changqing nodded a bit woodenly.

“Um… you can actually see it,” another young woman gasped, pointing out the veranda.

Indeed, far out across the choppy ocean, a dull haze was billowing upwards and outwards, on a shockwave of exceptionally chaotic qi, centred on where Hongwu city would have been.

“Why did you level the whole city?” she asked Maschenny.

“Ummm, well, in my…. defence, I don’t…. have much choice,” Maschenny replied apologetically, still sounding rather disjointed. “Let me—”

Before she could seek further clarification, her vision split slightly and she was both sitting in the teahouse, watching the others exclaim in shock and ask what was going on, and also standing in the middle of the chaos, beside Maschenny, who was shrouded by an ominously familiar ‘manifest ephemera’ comprised of a broad-brimmed pointy hat, robe and wooden staff.

“Is that…. Maschenny?” Li Shurei asked her weakly as the image displayed before them focused in abruptly on the same square she was also seeing from beside Maschenny, showing her blonde-haired ward in her ephemera armaments, along with all the others there.

“That’s Ming Qin Hua isn’t it?” one of the others in the room asked, pointing at the youth by a pale-faced magistrate.

“—And someone from the Huang clan?” Ju Xingjuan added.

“Ah, that’s Huang Wen!” someone else cut in, pointing at the white-robed youth to Ming Qin Hua’s right. “Huang Teng’s drinking crony, the one who caused the chaos in Star Dragon Teahouse!”

“Huang Feng Shi as well… and Ah! Fang Bai Weng?”

“Wait… is that the Nine Numinous Lotus between them!”

“Don’t tell me this is a fight over Bai Wenqing!”

“Long Bai Xiao is there as well!”

At that point, all the other young women clustering around started to exclaim one after another.

“It seems Huang Feng Shi has been accused of stealing the Nine Numinous Lotus from the auction,” Zheng Mei frowned, her gaze falling on the box that was floating in the air before the luckless youth.

“Stealing from the beggar's auction is only something a Huang scion would try,” the girl who had expressed support for Long Longwei observed with a derisive sneer.

“Oh, how innocent they are when they are young,” Li Shurei murmured in her ear, as she surveyed the square from street level, agreeing with Shurei’s assessment there.

Given how this seemed to be playing out, her guess would be that someone in the Qin family wanted Huang Teng, or someone backing him to owe them a favour for the cheap price of one group of unlucky juniors.

“Explosion law…” the elder gasped, pointing at Maschenny furiously. “You have mastered that forbidden law! Criminal of Order!”

“According to whom, you?” Maschenny retorted, rolling her eyes at the old man’s words. “Aren’t you just jealous, untalented old thing?”

“What happened?” she asked Maschenny, because even for her, this was a little excessive given the context of their trip here.

“I… got cursed,” Maschenny sighed, even as she continued to face down the assembled force around them. “Actually, you should check with old Gong, did you hear any strange music… odd chanting earlier?”

Thinking back, she found she did not, but…

Her vision bifurcated again, and now she was also lying on a bed, in her quarters, aboard her personal yacht.

“—This is why you don’t shop for treasures here,” Yang Hsu observed to Li Shurei beside her, rolling her eyes.

“What kind of curse?” she asked, as her ‘actual’ body got up off the bed and with about as much grace as a hung-over drunk, stumbled to the door.

“Mysterious Song of the Muse,” Maschenny sighed. “Given that that unfilial bastard’s Wu family has been managing this place for this long, I should have expected something like that, but they triggered it quite decisively.”

“Ah, is that the one…” she cast her mind back, because this auction was the source of a lot of very strange items over the years—

“The Muses only sing songs about heroes that lose,” Maschenny beat her to it, with a sour grimace.

“Oh, of course,” she sighed, understanding pretty much everything now.

It had a few other names. ‘Young Heroes Lament’ was a common one. ‘The Clan Killer’, another. A destiny twisting nightmare of a curse that made perfect sense, only if you knew something about the powers associated with its origin, and their views on the way the world worked. When not caught immediately, it was… almost as bad as the ‘Cursed Scroll Painting of most Serene Moon Choob’ that one of those old villains had waved enticingly about earlier. In a culture where a certain kind of antagonistic, narcissistic proclivity towards being the centre of your own story was a prized social trait, getting touched by a curse like that was… not fun.

“Still, if we play this right, this is going to blow up in their faces spectacularly,” Maschenny, snickered nastily. “I already got rid of that unfilial brat Jingfa, who used it...”

“Hold that thought,” she murmured, eyeing the rapidly recovering forces around them, while also re-running the events of the auction itself in her head quickly.

On the face of it, she was hesitant to believe that the youth to her right, frozen in place by the combined oppression of the various experts here, had actually stolen the lotus. However, whoever had bought it had also produced that trial token…

“Is this a trap?” Li Shurei, who had by now, also managed to ‘connect’ with the scene Maschenny was sharing for their little group, asked, taking in their surroundings.

“—Are you okay, young lady?” her real body finally managed to open the door and found her bodyguard, Li Gong, who had been reading quietly in her reception room was already on his feet, looking concerned.

“It is, and done with our foundation,” Maschenny replied to Li Shurei. “This Huang Feng Shi was interested in the Lotus, on behalf of his friend over there by Fang Kana, and it seems that some element of the Ming—probably the Qin family—and those in the Huang supporting Huang Teng are colluding to screw him over.”

“—It’s just a bit of a strain,” she assuaged him, with a grimace, trying not to focus too much on the conversations in the background. “It was Feng… Jianguo who won the seventh Heaven-breaking token back then, right?”

“Hmmm,” Li Gong frowned, then nodded. “It should be? The name rings a bell—but that’s a long time ago and the Feng family has had a steep decline since those days…”

“—and is one of the ones that never resurfaced, isn’t it?” she continued.

“Third and seventh, yes,” Li Gong confirmed, looking at her with interest now. “—you don’t think?”

“That it has been hidden away in the Feng family all this time?” she chuckled, eyeing Huang Feng Shi. “That would be ironic.”

“Do you want me to come over?” Yang Hsu asked Maschenny.

“—No, it’s fine,” she cut in before those two could get funny ideas, then refocused momentarily on her conversation with Li Gong. “What about a Nine Numinous Lotus?” she asked, eyeing the box floating in the air, even as the various experts started to warily close in on Maschenny. “One with God Bewitching and… uh… Celestial Yang characteristics?”

“A Nine…” Li Gong gave her a very odd look, which was understandable.

When it was first announced she had thought it was a fake as well. However, it wasn’t that easy to bamboozle the beggar’s auction, which handled many weird and unusual items, many of them badly cursed or with strange and treacherous hidden quirks. Thus, she had concluded earlier that the name was given by someone with no idea in regard to any standard conventions—or drawing from some record associated with the item itself.

Abruptly, she felt a wave of discomfort, as the space around Maschenny distorted. The Ming clan Marshal tried to restrict Maschenny only for her to block it easily with the staff, forcing quite a few of the Dao-step soldiers to scatter as she did.

Before she could capitalize on that opening, though, Huang Wen vanished from beside Ming Qin Hua and appeared before Maschenny, cutting out with a shimmering crystal sword that twisted the natural laws inauspiciously. Seven other hooded figures who had been loitering with the supporting soldiers also moved in the same instant, executing a Dao-step martial suppression formation in support Huang Wen.

“Ohh, Huang Wen has actually taken action!” one of the girls beside her in the meeting room exclaimed.

“Those hooded idiots, aren’t they the so-called ‘Seven Sovereign Swords, uh… Saints… no… um—?” Li Shurei asked Yang Hsu.

“Those seven Dao Sovereigns, aren’t they the Seven Sovereign Stars of Huang?!” Ju Xingjuan frowned, also asking the same question Li Shurei had.

“—Stars,” Li Shurei sighed mentally.

“I’d have to take your word for it,” Teng Changqing replied to Ju Xingjuan, rolling her eyes. “It’s hard to keep track with a power as inwardly dysfunctional as the Huang currently are.”

“—Gu jar of rabid cats, more like,” Yang Hsu sneered.

“—Gu Jar of rabid cats… that is so good, I am stealing that!” Maschenny giggled. Indeed, she had to agree Yang Hsu had a way with words.

“It’s easy to remember, coz they are ripping off the Seven Sacred Heroes of Meng,” the other Ju clan Saintess snickered.

“And yes, it is them,” Yang Hsu agreed. “They are that kid Huang Teng’s brute squad.”

“—Young Lord Huang, get back!” the Magistrate, who was not an idiot, barked, even as Maschenny took half a step backwards to evade the rather naive strike—

“That qualifies as a ‘brute squad’?” she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she took in the group.

All of them were Dao Sovereigns, but unless Huang Teng was sending them to shake down random mortal world ascenders for loose change, they barely qualified as competent borrowed blades in her view for something like this. Then again, from what she knew of Huang Teng’s position and the current politics of the Huang clan’s younger generation, a bunch of clay-pot Dao Sovereigns was probably the best any of them could attract anyway. Anyone better would be disinclined to do more than smile and humour him at the moment.

“Heup!” Maschenny smoothly swept her staff upwards and the crystal sword in Huang Wen’s hand smashed like it was made of glass, as her explosion-law infused intent annihilated the formations within it.

Before Huang Wen could so much as react, she was already stabbing the staff forwards at his face—

The Ming clan Marshal barely reached the fortunate youth first, skilfully deflecting the blow upwards, while also shouldering Huang Wen out of the way.

“—Nah, it’s the four talentless failures who come with, who are the brute squad,” Maschenny added to her, even as she took the opportunity to move to cover Huang Feng Shi a bit more usefully while the shockwaves of Explosion-Law infused qi assailed their surroundings.

At the same time, her awareness in the moment was directed towards a middle-aged man wearing nondescript robes and a hat standing on the crumbling remnants of a nearby roof ridge, two more non-descript, scholarly old men watching from amongst the soldiers near Ming Qin Hua and a further one moving silently through the recovering soldiers to their right.

“I recognise them from when I had to break the idiot on the roof’s arm after he tried to intervene in the Star Dragon Teahouse Incident.”

“Small worlds,” she chuckled, shaking her head, observing the four ‘guardian elders’.

They were indeed just about qualified to act in a world like this. Maschenny was only calling them talentless because their prospects beyond this point were so minimal that they could likely only afford to sell themselves to a rising ‘star’ of the moment like Huang Teng and hope to extort benefits using his reputation for their own ends, or those of their clans in the process.

“Young Miss don’t make life harder than it already is!” the magistrate’s chief official yelled angrily at Maschenny.

“Should have thought about that earl—!” Maschenny’s words vanished as a reverberating dragon’s roar—which she was even able to hear where she was with Duchess Minhua—shook the whole city, attempting to induce a degree of ‘order’ over the chaos.

“Ah, and here come the Long clan,” Cheng Huamei murmured, as the ‘view’ there refocused on a trio who had just rushed into the square.

The leader was a silver-haired, jovial youth wearing a combined ‘Strength’ and ‘Good Fortune’ symbol on a slightly rumpled blue-purple robe. his companions were a pair of energetic, red-haired young women wearing fashionable, if revealing dresses. All three held potent sealing talismans that were already fully triggered.

“Even Long Tianfang is here!” the other Ju Saintess candidate gasped.

“—And Long Tianhu and Long Tian Mei,” another girl beside her observed.

“Brother Tianfang,” Ming Qin Hua gave the trio a polite nod of greeting as they stopped beside the other juniors ‘spectating’.

“Brother Hua,” Long Tianfang returned the nod, before fixing his gaze on Long Xiurong, then Xiao. “Fairy Xiao, Fairy Xiurong, it seems we are fated to meet again…”

His greeting outwardly jovial, but the predatory glint in his eyes and the disdain in the two girls with him was impossible for her to miss.

“This ass…” the girl beside Huang Feng Shi, Long Xiao sneered under her breath as she helped the winded Huang youth to his feet, now they could move again. “We need to get out of here… all three of them are affiliated with that old villain Long Tianteng.”

“—It seems you have encountered some bother, Little Sister,” Long Tianfang added, his gaze flitting to Huang Feng Shi and his junior sister. “If you had told us you were visiting, we would have accompanied you…”

“Y-you…” Xiao bared her teeth.

“The Tian family and the Bai family have a long running feud,” Yang Hsu informed her helpfully.

Huang Feng Shi’s face was pallid as he took in the three groups now thoroughly encircling them.

For all that the various groups here were addressing his compatriots ‘politely’, their manner had all the intent of a crocodile circling a flailing goat at this point.

“Ah, don’t do it…” Maschenny, who was working to repel the influence of the dragon talismans, sighed, as the Feng Shi’s intent focused hurriedly on a rather shabby-looking bracelet on his left wrist.

A moment before Huang Feng Shi nearly delivered himself straight into the spatial cage the four venerates were stealthily re-establishing around the plaza, despite Maschenny’s efforts, his junior sister Shirong—who was by no means as simple as she was presenting herself—grasped that hand and, face pale, distracted him.

In the process, the girl’s disguise slipped just a fraction, revealing her cultivation was actually that of a powerful Dao Venerate. All the Venerate and Ascension realm experts circling the square froze, their expressions turning serious. Especially the old man who had called Maschenny a criminal, and the two hanging quietly back by Huang Teng’s companion.

“Huh, even sister Shu Shirong came out of her stupor…” Li Shurei blinked, recognising the ‘junior sister’ as well. “What does this boy have that is going to make her move?”

“That’s a good question,” she mused, noting out of the corner of her eye that Princess Huamin and Duchess Minhua both appeared to have marked the girl as well. It wasn’t that surprising though, Shu Shirong was someone from the same generation as Li Shurei, Mo Xiao and Ju Shan, and while she had been rather quiet in recent times, she was…well, “—Say, Little Shirong, why are you making a mess here?” she asked the girl.

“—Heooook!” Shirong almost screamed, flinching in shock as she sent a thread of her own perception into the moment, engaging with it properly at last.

“S-s-senior?!” Shirong stammered, out loud, in fact, making all the others momentarily focus on her.

“Well?” she focused on Shirong, ignoring the others.

“Uh… its um… well, Teacher told me to get it back, no matter what,” Shirong muttered, nervously eyeing the box hanging in the air. “All he said was that it was too dangerous…”

From her perspective, she could tell the girl was not lying, the question, though, was whether she was referring to the lotus or the seventh trial talisman. Unfortunately, here wasn’t a good place to press for answers either—

The space around them suddenly cracked… and then snapped back together as Maschenny directly repelled an attempt at interference from one of the Ming clan’s old experts—a quasi-celestial venerate—watching over everything from the great pagoda in Ming Tian City near as she could tell from the momentary shift in travelling intent between her two locations.

“So, it is you,” the old man’s expression turned frosty, as she found a pair of old, greedy eyes trying to intrude on Maschenny—

“—What are you doing, Young Lady Li?”

Li Gong’s shadowy form appeared beside her, supporting both her and Maschenny, instantly stabilizing the connection between all of them and repelling the old man’s interference.

“I… huh,” Li Gong focused suddenly on the box, his eyes narrowing.

“What is it?” she asked.

“That box reeks of otherworldly power,” Li Gong replied, his frown deepening. “Whatever is in it, didn’t come from the Martial Axial Region. It is also faintly inauspicious.”

“…”

“Can you get them out of here?” she asked, her thoughts spinning rapidly.

Even as she asked it, she felt bad. It was a lot to ask, even of a powerful expert like Li Gong, and not without its risks. Golden Splendour was an important world for the Ming, and those who oversaw it were genuine powerhouses. Some of them even exceeded the venerate step.

“You ask a lot,” Li Gong chuckled, giving her a sideways look. “Yes, I can manage—”

The frozen space around them warped. The two similar but not moments collided and the bracelet on Huang Feng Shi’s wrist shattered like it was made of flawed glass. At the same time, a faint, otherworldly dissonance bled through the surrounds, before fading away. The ruined plaza, with its stunned occupants vanished, leaving only Huang Feng Shi, Shu Shirong and…

“She was holding onto him,” Li Gong, who was now standing in the reception room of her quarters on the yacht with the box and the trio, sighed apologetically as a terrified trio slumped to the floor, their eyes wide.

“Hwa-wu…w-where?” Long Bai Xiao stammered.

“W-what…” Huang Feng Shi stared blankly around at his new surroundings, Maschenny, Li Gong and her.

“S-s-senior,” Shu Shirong, who being a Dao Venerate of some years, even if she was a very ‘junior’ one in many senses, practically threw herself to the floor and grabbed her slippered feet. “This junior didn’t know senior was involved!”

“W-what just happened?” Teng Changqing asked in the room where everyone else was staring at the projected screens with various expressions of confusion, shock, and in the case of Princess Huamei and Duchess Minhua, who knew quite a few more things than most of the other juniors, a well disguised flush of fear.

“The bracelet on his wrist… what kind of artefact?” Mei Zheng muttered, biting her lip.

Before she could move herself, Li Gong took her by the arm and gently guided her to sit down on a handy couch, before picking up the box from where it had fallen and placing it on the table.

“Can you open that?” she asked, eyeing it pensively, partially tuning out the shocked chatter from Duchess Minhua’s gathering.

“Of course,” Li Gong nodded.

“Is she also cursed?” Maschenny asked Li Gong as she deposited her staff on the table next to the box.

“Huh, been a while since I’ve seen that one,” Li Gong sweeping a critical eye over Maschenny, then the others with a faint frown.

“C-cursed?” Shu Shirong asked, pale-faced.

“The fancy harp music and the chanting, you heard it?” Maschenny asked with glower.

“Oh, um…” Shu Shirong nodded uneasily.

“Y-you… You’re the one who bid the F-four Courts token!” Long Bai Xiao blurted out, staring at her.

“Anonymity, what is it good for,” Maschenny chuckled, pouring her a cup of wine and passing it over.

“I take it there is no abnormality with the moment?” she asked Li Gong, rather than answer that question directly. That was the main issue with snatching things like this, from under well-trained eyes. It wasn’t as easy as Li Gong had made it seem, not by half.

“I… expect I will get some careful inquiries from Divine Golden Swallow and the office of the Minister of the Left. Maybe Commandery Lady Mua Xi as well, but I am sure they will give you face on this matter,” Li Gong replied blandly.

Not looking at the slightly dilated pupils of Princess Huamei, she didn’t doubt that one bit, to be honest.

This whole debacle was likely to have some interesting ramifications for the already rather complex politics of Golden Splendour. The Zheng had recently been appointed to govern the strategically important supreme world, despite it traditionally being an important part of the Qin family’s economy. Hongwu city was also one of the oldest settlements still standing up until today.

The Qin family colluding with elements within the Huang to cause a mess when a lot of focus was on the world anyway, nevermind the auction they had just attended, and Maschenny’s devastation of such a historic city, would no doubt lead many to question whether the Zheng were doing a good job here, and the Zheng were a major backer of the Minister of the Left.

“Um… S-senior?” Huang Feng Shi was staring at her with palpable unease, likely because all of his remaining divination charms had quietly bounced. “I didn’t realise this transmission artefact was associated with a fairy like senior…”

“Li,” she replied absently. “You may call me ‘Young Lady Li’.”

“Y-young Lady Li…” Shu Shirong, who also probably knew some things, gave her a very weird look, which she chose to ignore.

“Maschenny, Sir Gong, please take them to the other guest room and… see that they are okay,” she instructed the pair.

That kind of momentary shift, akin to an unshielded Greater Teleport, was no small thing to endure. While all of them were at the Dao step, their foundations were not that stable, and it would be embarrassing to save them, only for them to suffer a cultivation deviation after the fact.

“Of course,” Li Gong saluted her respectfully and ushered the stunned trio out, Maschenny following after.

“Oh!” she held up a hand, stopping the pair.

“What is it?” Li Gong asked, turning back to her.

“Make a note to remind me to send Yang Hsu to have a chat with someone senior in the Huang clan once we are done here. It’s long past time those brats under Huang Teng were convinced to change their name.”

“Of course, Young Lady,” Li Gong replied with an earnest nod.

“Good Fates above… never a boring day,” she sighed, once they had left and closed the door.

Lying back, she refocused all her attention on Duchess Minhua’s little party, which was now a frenzy of discussion as to what had just transpired.

~ Fourth Item — Scroll Painting of the Old Fisherman and the White Kun Peng ~

“What the…!?!”

“How did they run away!”

“Merciful Fates… start sweeping the city ruins, how far did they go!?”

“Second squad, start with the Ming Prosperity Boulevard!”

“Aiii… well, that was disappointing…”

Huang Chao glanced over at the ancestor from the Feng family, who had just spoken, and could only shake his head.

“What… do you think, brother Chao?” Feng Fan, who was standing between them asked, turning to him.

“That your cousin certainly has unexpectedly deep pockets,” he replied flatly, finding he had to work hard not to curse the idiot, and the competency of the Feng family in general, to his face.

It was indeed disappointing, that much he could agree with, but it was the Feng family’s failure to keep a rein on Huang Feng Shi that was most vexing, frankly. In all the information they had acquired about the upstart second son of that withered family who had dared to stick his neck out to confront brother Teng, no mention had been made of him possessing an escape artefact like whatever it was he had just used.

There was also the matter of who in the actual fates was Lian Shirong. He had been in close proximity to her quite a few times at various events within the wider Huang clan and never had she been anything other than a bookishly cute, if largely untalented, Dao Immortal who hung on Feng Shi’s every word. What her real realm was, he had not been able to discern, but she was certainly stronger than him, and he was absolutely one of the most talented Dao Eternal juniors in the entire Huang clan.

“—turn those two over to us?”

He was still dwelling on that, when the raised voices from the edge of the square finally drew his attention back there.

“Are you claiming my junior is also a thief?” the Martial Eternal from the Fang clan retorted, glaring at Huang Wen.

“A mere Dao Eternal from a diminishing power dares to bark at our Huang clan?” his senior brother, who was clearly a bit annoyed over the shocking loss of his Sovereign Star Embryo Blade, snapped back.

“Diminished—?” the woman sneered, folding her arms as she stood in front of the stunned Fang Bai Wen and Long Xiurong.

“Enough, sister Kana,” the Sword Sovereign youth beside her grimaced. “Senior Mei is already aware of matters.”

“Sure enough, the Zheng flit everywhere,” the youth standing beside Ming Qin Hua sniffed. “If you ask it, Brother Hua, it should be easy enough to—”

Ming Qin Hua just held up a hand, cutting the youth off.

“This matter is not simple,” Ming Qin Hua sighed. “That golden-haired girl even resisted the gate-keeping old ancestor, and there is no trace of them breaching Golden Splendour's Realm Wall.”

“There isn’t?” he asked, glancing at the two venerates who had come with them, who had both remained silent while brother Teng’s supporting elders moved.

“Apparently not,” Huang Fan, the more senior of the pair sighed, glancing at Feng Liu Wei, who just shrugged. “In any case, this can be left to the Qin family, we do not need to get involved now it has reached this point.”

“Xiurong being a bit of a headache, given Tianfang is now here, I can understand, but should we not try to secure Bai Weng?” he asked, eyeing the youth, who was still staring at where Huang Feng Shi had so bizarrely vanished, just a short while ago.

“The Zheng clan won’t let that pair out of their sight,” Huang Fan shrugged. “Not after they were party to the ruin that has been visited on this city. We can only wait for matters to play out between the various Ming Powers.”

“—Faugh! I will remember that bitch when I advance to Dao Venerate,” Huang Wen, who had stalked over to join them, at this point, sneered, casting a nasty look back at the Fang clan Martial Eternal, who just ignored him, or pretended to, at any rate.

“There will be plenty of time to teach her a lesson later,” he agreed.

Even if she was a bit of a beauty, he would not let her disrespect over this slide either. Her actions were no better than spitting in the face of the Huang clan as a whole, really.

“Anyway—we are to update brother Teng on matters,” Huang Wen added.

“Are you leaving already?” Long Tianfang called out.

“Regretfully, we have some matters to attend to,” Huang Wen replied flatly.

“Ah, a shame, I had hoped to share some wine with you, brother Wen,” the youth from the Long clan chuckled jovially.

“How about you, Brother Chou?” Long Tian Mei asked him, enticingly.

“No thanks,” he replied without any preamble, not buying the act any of them were selling.

“What a pity,” Long Tian Mei murmured, while her twin sister Tianhu sighed theatrically.

“Brother Qin, I regret we must return first,” Huang Wen said, turning to Ming Qin Hua and his group.

“Of course, please give my regards to brother Teng,” Ming Qin Hua replied earnestly. “I will send some soldiers with you to the city perimeter…”

“Of course,” Huang Wen agreed, returning the polite bow, before directly heading off down the street with Huang Fan, a dozen of the Qin family’s soldiers fanning out around them, leaving the rest of them to move quickly to catch up.

In the end, they had to go on foot all the way to the city perimeter before any kind of teleportation proved possible. It was an annoying, tedious trip, that even with the extra soldiers to clear the way occasionally, took far too long. It didn’t help either, that for all that the ‘Explosion Law’ the golden-haired girl had used was exotic, frustratingly it defied any and all of his efforts to investigate it along the way, and only interfered with their qi and intent as they ran.

…

Twisting space stabilized around them and they returned to the cool air of the Huang clan’s estate on the peak of one of the great pillars rising out of the ocean outside Ming Tian city.

On another day, he would have been more than happy to admire the glorious view, probably second only to those of Ming nobility inside the city perimeter. However, without even waiting for them to catch breath, Huang Wen was already stalking off, out of the cliff-side gardens where the teleport platform was towards the grand hall, where the estate’s communication formation was housed.

They were met by the elder who usually managed the formation as they reached the top of the steps that led to the hall’s entrance.

“Young Sovereign Teng is waiting,” the elder informed Huang Wen, bowing slightly to them.

Huang Wen spared the old man the briefest glance as the guards by the solid spirit wood doors swung them open, before leading them inside.

The hall itself was almost a thing of architectural excess, he had to admit. The floor was tiled with precious materials, and the two rows of columns that guided visitors to the space forward were fluted with arborundum and precious dao metals. The ceiling above was decorated like the heavens of the Martial Axial region, highlighting constellations with auspicious connections to the Huang clan’s aeons long heritage, its supreme worlds picked out in soul gold, as one advanced. The whole illuminated by rare heavenly flames caged in filigree lanterns suspended between the pillars by profound manipulations of the natural feng shui of the hall itself.

Brother Huang, dressed in a spotless white robe, emblazoned with the golden crest of the Huang clan, his waist-length black hair tied up with a golden scholar’s crown and a wreath of silvery chrysanthemum leaves, as befitting his status as Youth Sovereign Elect, was waiting for them on the central platform.

What was surprising though, was that he was not alone.

Eight inscrutable, halberd wielding experts, garbed in full plate armours of life-forged brilliant white arborundum, emblazoned with the sigil of the Huang Heavenly Pagoda stood at equidistant points around the dais. However, the figure who drew all their eyes was seated on a pitch-black stone throne at the heart of the dais.

“Seeing Dao Father Starless Heaven!”

His own voice melded with everyone else’s as they all knelt in formal salute to the hooded old man, wearing a robe so dark it was almost like a hole in the reality around them.

“You may… rise,” the old man whispered.

Almost as if he had been grasped by the words, he found himself drawn to his feet, a smothering aura enveloping him.

“I understand you have met a… complication,” the old man continued softly.

“Yes,” Huang Wen confirmed with an apologetic salute. “Brother Teng, Huang Feng Shi—”

The old man held up a hand, cutting off Huang Wen. In the same instant, he felt a pain like his head was being split open. The events of the last thirty minutes bled out of him, and everyone else, even the various venerates, like rivers of misty shadows, forming a fist sized orb in Dao Father Starless Heaven’s open palm.

The old man stared into the orb for a long moment, then sighed, softly, and just scattered the orb with a snap of his fingers.

“We…” Elder Huang Fan, who was the only one seemingly not oppressed, near as he could tell from his limited awareness, stepped forward, but Dao Father Starless Heaven forestalled him with barely a gesture.

“Devastation’s daughter,” the old man murmured. “An... unforeseen complication.”

“Yes…” Huang Fan agreed, shifting uneasily.

“And to think the seventh token was with the Feng family all along,” the old man continued, the oppressive aura enveloping them all increasing with every word he spoke. “Do you have an explanation for me?”

The old ancestor from the Feng family, who had been standing quietly at the rear of the group was dragged forward.

“I… s-swear I… knew… nothing of it…” Feng ancestor rasped fearfully.

“—And now it is in the hands of the Ming clan,” Dao Father Starless Heaven’s expression wasn’t visible beneath his hood, but his eyes were, and they were akin to smouldering fissures into the void.

“Those talismans have… never brought anything good,” Huang Fan pointed out carefully.

Dao Father Starless Heaven shifted his gaze to the Authority Elder for the briefest moment, and the old man stepped back as if slapped, then bowed deeply.

“It is what it is,” the old man sighed, suddenly. “Young Teng here has brought me up to date with everything else of consequence. Huang Wen, you will take those children behind you, and go to Eastern Azure Great World. Fan and Liu Wei will accompany you, to ensure there are no complications. You have nurtured some cards there, have you not, Liu?”

Huang Wen bowed deeply.

“I have, Revered Dao Father,” Liu Wen replied bowing deeply to the old man.

“Huang Chao—”

He flinched as the Dao Father focused on him, barely able to shift his body to bow at this point.

“The matter of the Fang girl I leave in your hands, the Feng family will support you fully in this matter.”

Huang Teng swept his eyes over all of them, briefly meeting his gaze with a slightly complicated look, before turning back to the Dao Father and bowing deeply in thanks, before his form vanished.

The Dao Father stared at them in silence for a long moment before finally speaking again, leaning forward slightly as he did so.

“Young Noble Teng is the future Heavens of our Huang clan,” the old man’s voice thrummed through the whole hall. “Those who stand by his side… cannot show any weakness—”

As the old man spoke, his gaze boring into them, flickering images of his own clan blurred through his mind’s eye—of his parents, of his fiancé, even of those who served him and his clan.

“—Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?”

Each word was like a spike driven into his mind, pain akin to the worst tribulation he had ever experienced.

“Y-yes, Dao Father Starless Heaven,” he managed to whisper—

The pain and the oppression vanished, like it had never been. It was all he could do not to collapse directly to the floor. Thankfully, the Dao Father and the eight guards were—

“I will remember your words,” the old man’s voice whispered directly in his mind. “Don’t disappoint me.”