Shen Wanjun sat in a teahouse overlooking the Stone Forest Pavilion. She wore civilian clothes rather than her recognizable stone wood armor and quietly drank her tea in a tucked-away booth. After spending three days following the city’s latest celebrity, she wasn’t sure what to think. She’d taken a step back from her regular duties to track his movements. He spent a night and a day drunk with his companion, Chen Ai; he trained in an unfamiliar style in the presence of the cabbage he always carried around, and today he had been wandering around the merchant district arranging provisions for an expedition to the Howling Blossoms Valley.
Now he had entered the Stone Forest Pavilion, where the matriarch lorded, and she dared not enter for fear of being recognized.
She saw nothing that indicated he was the type of cultivator to fight over honor, or to use such a vicious attack as had left the Celebration Flame Sect cultivator in that ruined state. He seemed like a friendly, if simple, person. She almost wouldn’t suspect him of being a cultivator if it weren’t for how everyone was treating him.
What truly confused her was how he avoided sleep so easily. Even Qi Condensing cultivators needed sleep, and he had to be in that stage if he was planning on entering Howling Blossom Valley, but he had remained as awake and alert as her for as long as she’d been watching, and she was an entire realm above him!
There had even been points where she felt like he was looking at her while she followed in a crowd, even though his face was turned away…
But that creepy sensation might just be her own paranoia looking for something unsettling about her target.
Of course, there was always the possibility that he didn’t use a demonic technique and actually ate the sect cultivator after killing him. As unlikely as it seemed, she needed to consider all possibilities.
After all, she’d received recent reports of a demonic creature having escaped a Hidden Lotus facility to the south, and its whereabouts were as yet unconfirmed. This information wasn’t well-known in the city; otherwise, people would be panicking instead of walking around with smiles.
First, the auctions, and now the expedition, for the people of Mountain Root City, this was the greatest period of excitement in centuries. Shen Wanjun hoped there wasn’t a parasite lurking inside her city, but after spending three days collecting information, it was time for her to report.
From a small pouch at her waist, she produced a slip of paper no larger than her fingerprint. She placed it into her teacup, and the talisman melted away like mist in the sun. After draining the cup, her qi shuddered as a foreign influence hijacked her power.
Dizziness grew, and she blinked groggily.
After three blinks, the dizziness faded, and she no longer sat alone.
A man with a wide-brimmed bamboo hat sat across from her in the booth. Everything from his clothes to his fingers and face was covered by paper talismans. His form appeared ethereal to her eyes, as though he were composed of quietly flickering blue flames.
She dipped her head subtly in greeting, and he returned the gesture. Even in the 2nd Stage of Foundation Establishment, she could feel her qi rapidly draining, so she commenced with her report.
“I’ve been watching for any signs, but I’ve found nothing except a cultivator’s skeleton that was certainly chewed. There’s a chance it was a technique.”
Her contact nodded.
“The Shining Mountain Sect found the stripped bones of several humanoid spirit beasts in Twisted Pine Valley. Have you located who killed the cultivator?”
“I’ve been tailing them for three days.”
“You didn’t approach them?”
“I was waiting for confirmation.”
“Good. Has this cultivator shown any signs of deformation or ravenous behavior?”
“I’ve seen no signs of demonic qi or demonic behavior. He appears human, perhaps eccentric, but no more than any other young master or wandering cultivator. Do you want me to keep tailing him?”
Her contact considered this information, taking his time as her qi drained into the long-distance communication talisman.
“There is another factor we must consider.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She was about to be entrusted with more knowledge, and she truly felt honored. Her contact was the Talisman Master of the Shining Mountain Sect, but nobody else knew that the two of them served the Heavenly Phoenix Empire in this clandestine matter. What greater honor could a righteous cultivator have than to uproot the last remaining traces of the Hidden Lotus from the shadows they tried to lurk in?
She did her best to act professionally and suppress her excitement.
“What information?”
“A rogue cultivator is running around pursuing demonic facilities. I’m concerned that this cultivator has already contained or harvested the escaped monster. I don’t know what this rogue agent is attempting, but it cannot be good. Do you have any reason to suspect that this cultivator you’ve been following could be this rogue cultivator?”
Sheng Wanjun was truly shocked. This was no longer just reconnaissance for a search and destroy mission; this was her first taste of fighting an enemy agent. She needed to keep her wits about her at all times.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I can’t say for sure,” she said after a moment. “This cultivator hasn’t kept a low profile. All of Mountain Root City is talking about the expedition he’s planning.”
“What expedition?”
“To Howling Blossom Valley.”
She delivered the news like a large reveal, but her talisman-covered contact didn’t react in the way she expected.
“I wonder how he could know about that…”
“Know about what?”
He paused and assessed her with his hidden gaze.
“How prepared are you to serve the Empire?”
“I would die for the Empire,” she said without hesitation.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said with wry inflection, one of the rare moments of actual emotion coloring his words. “Your clan will have placed members in the expedition. Ensure they both know to report to you. Be careful in how you word their instructions; they cannot know they are looking for the Hidden Lotus, or they will give it away, and our target will flee. This cultivator may be a false lead, but we cannot afford to lose tabs.”
“What if they do something while in the city?”
“If this is the rogue cultivator I’ve been tracking, then they’re too powerful for you to handle.”
She fought to keep her stung pride from showing.
“Are you sure about that? I recently reached the 2nd Stage of Foundation Establishment.”
“The powerful move through this world like iron through glass. If he does anything, report immediately.”
The apparition vanished in a flicker of blue flame.
“I obey,” she whispered to the empty air.
She leaned back in the booth with the exhaustion of severely drained qi reserves. It would take hours to restore her qi, but there was no rest for the righteous. Leaving a tip on the table, she left to carry out her orders. Which, of course, she would carry out to the letter. However, deep inside her heart, thoughts of glory stirred.
###
After collecting the elixirs from an unusually polite Alchemist Ran Jun, I was summoned to the Matriarch’s Private Floor. I left Cabbagy in his alchemy lab and went to meet her.
“Do you know the name of the World Tree at the top of the mountain?” she asked me as we strode through her painted garden.
“I’ve heard people in the city call it the Great Northern Tree.”
“The true name is the Myriad Tree, because depending on how you approach, you will find a different outcome. You will be approaching from an eastern entrance, and so the tree you will find in the center of Howling Blossom Valley is the home of the Butcher Bird.”
“What is the Butcher Bird?”
She stopped to sniff a rose painted in bands of gold. Did it even have a smell?
“The Butcher Bird is the one who gave me the injury you saw.”
“Oh,” I said as I leaned down to smell the golden rose. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, I was foolish and --”
“Do you want me to kill the Butcher Bird?”
She stopped and stared at me.
“You always say the most unexpected things.”
“I haven’t heard much about the Butcher Bird,” I said with a shrug. “But I am not afraid.”
“You should be.”
I smiled.
“Perhaps.”
She smiled back at me, but there was a sadness in her eyes, as though she were trying to remember her face.
“I won’t ask you to do something like that,” she said. “But I will ask one thing.”
“Of course, your help has been invaluable in preparing for this expedition.”
“You are only going on this expedition because I insisted.”
“I haven’t complained.”
She smiled. Some of the stone plants remained broken from our tryst the other night.
“Will you tell me your name?”
Now it was my turn to wear a sadder expression. I didn’t try and find it in my memories; down that road lay only pain.
“I cannot.”
“Cannot or will not?
I hesitated, despite the kindness she had shown me; I knew she was someone with immense power both in terms of cultivation and currency. She existed as an independent entity in a city torn by political factions.
Should I tell her the truth? Or even a portion of it?
“My name is lost to me,” I said, deciding to trust her with this much. “No name since has stuck.”
“That suits you somehow,” she said as she gazed up at the tree at the top of the mountain. “There is a different view from different angles… Come inside, I have something to show you.”
I followed her into the room that served as her office. The stone flowers continued, growing up the wall as though brick and mortar had come alive with the spirit of the warm spring wind. There was no smell. She directed me to a single piece of paper on the desk.
“This is what you asked for,” she said. “A list of the Northern Merchant Companies we have traded with over the last hundred years. It was a very curious request.”
“I’ve been told that I’m a curious person,” I said absently.
“Now you’re just bragging.”
I smiled quietly as I studied the list, hoping that one of the names would leap out to me as the name of my father’s company. There were only twenty names, and though I studied the characters until they swam before my eyes, none of them meant anything to me.
Just like the name of the girl I sought the Midnight Orchid for… my father’s name, and the name of his company, were gone from my mind.
She studied me as I passed the paper back to her.
“Did you get what you needed?” she asked.
“I won’t know for a while, but thank you all the same.”
We sat for a moment in the office, our minds occupied by our own thoughts, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. The Matriarch broke it first.
“If I can’t have your name, can I ask another request?”
“What would you have me do?”
“Tell the City Lord that you don’t want his money.”
My eyebrows raised.
“You seem like the kind of person to suggest I try to get the money and complete the expedition.”
“Do I seem that way? I must work on my mystique… Tell me, have you ever seen 50000 silver?”
I searched my merchant memories, but they simply shrugged.
“No…”
She smiled and held up her pinky finger. A ring glinted in the afternoon light.
“Come outside.”
I followed her outside, where she twisted the ring with a flourish. Silver coins poured out in a deluge. The clanging sound of metal on metal filled my ears, and I had to step back from the flood that swept across the garden floor.
“Tell me,” she said with her rich voice clearly audible over the din. “How will you travel with this much money?”
I hadn’t thought about it.
“A horse and carriage,” I said. “We’ll have more than enough to hire a few carriages.”
“All the easier for an assassin to find you.”
I sighed.
“The money is a trap, isn’t it?”
Her eyes sparkled as the last coin fell. A sea of silver glowed with the afternoon sun.
“Anything worth having is a trap. I suggest you leave the city quietly and have your expedition members join you beyond the walls. If you are discreet, you can avoid the City Lord.”
“Can’t you protect me from the City Lord?”
“I already am,” she said with a laugh.
She twisted the ring on her pinky, and the silver coins vanished as though they were never there.
I bowed to her.
“You’ve given me much to think about.”
“Of course I have.”
“Three days until your fateful expedition,” she said. “Spend these last few nights well.”
“There will be many more nights to come.”
“I certainly hope so.”
With a smile, she turned away and walked back through her garden. There was a loneliness to her posture, but I sensed the dismissal and left. She had truly given me much to discuss with Chen Ai and my disciple, but, more importantly, I had a ritual to perform.
