“—so I kicked her in the pussy,” Xiuying finishes her story with a casual shrug, drawing an expression of sck-jawed horror from me.

  “By the way, tell your manager she’s not fooling anybody,” she adds.

  I blink at the non sequitur, then look down at Meng Yi as my mind processes Xiuying’s words.

  Meng Yi’s head is still on my p, and I only notice now that the once peaceful expression on her face has turned into one of deep, barely restrained embarrassment, even as she keeps her eyes tightly shut in a near desperate attempt to feign sleep.

  I hold back a smile and pat her consolingly on the head.

  “Hey. Are you feeling better?” I ask.

  It seems like her head has cleared from the effects of whatever her qi sensitivity did to her, but it doesn’t hurt to ask the question.

  Meng Yi seems to seriously consider continuing to fake sleep for a few moments, but finally, she opens her eyes and sits up, cheeks fming red and gaze diligently avoiding mine.

  “I feel fine, Young Master,” she says. “Good morning.”

  “Pretty sure it’s at least midday by now,” Xiuying says, a wicked glint in her eyes. “We spent the morning waiting for this funny woman who was drunk on Qigang’s qi to wake up.”

  Meng Yi looks like she very much wishes the sofa would melt and swallow her whole.

  “Come on, Xiuying, don’t be mean,” I say.

  The other woman rolls her eyes, but she relents.

  “You’re really okay though, right?” I ask Meng Yi. “You’re not still feeling… overwhelmed by my qi or anything, right?”

  Meng Yi closes her eyes and takes a slow, arming breath, before turning to me head held high. “I’m fine, Young Master Xian. I’m sorry for any trouble I cau—”

  “You were no trouble,” I cut her off gently. “I’m just gd you’re alright.”

  Meng Yi smiles at me, and she looks like she’s about to say something when her expression suddenly sckens, and her eyes go bnk.

  My blood runs cold.

  “Meng Yi,” I call, reaching for her.

  “Don’t,” Xiuying warns. “She’s fine. It’s just a cultivation vision.”

  I stare in bewilderment from Xiuying to Meng Yi’s bnk, unblinking face.

  “Seriously?”

  Xiuying nods.

  “Wait, is that how I looked when I had them?” I ask.

  “Of course, how do you think you looked?” she asks back, looking amused.

  Meng Yi blinks, and the tiny bit of motion draws my focus, like a ser pointer with a cat.

  “Are you okay?” I begin to ask, only for the question to peter out, unfinished, at the expression on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Meng Yi takes several seconds to reply, almost like she can’t quite figure out how to voice what she wants to say without sounding crazy.

  “Yi, what happened?” Xiuying asks, starting to look a little worried herself.

  Deciding to bite the bullet, Meng Yi looks at me and says, “You were in my vision.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “There was a web,” Meng Yi says. “It was me, and I was lit up by the morning sun. You were the sun.

  “This shouldn’t be possible,” she adds, turning to Xiuying in a non-verbal bid for confirmation.

  “Yeah, it shouldn’t be,” the other woman agrees.

  Meng Yi’s gaze returns to me. “Young Master Xian,” she asks, “what did you do?”

  Before I can answer the question, Meng Yi’s eyes go bnk again.

  Another vision so soon? I wonder.

  Unlike a minute ago though, this time she seems more to be lost in a memory than on the weird standby mode thing the vision caused, and when her eyes clear, she looks at me and says, “You wove your qi into my cultivation.”

  I open my mouth to respond, realize I don’t really know what to say, then close it and simply nod.

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” Meng Yi says, again turning to Xiuying for confirmation.

  “Based on everything I know, chunks of you should be scattered across the room at best,” Xiuying says, and my heart seizes.

  What I did was that dangerous? That’s terrifying. Especially since I hadn’t even intended to do it. I’d simply gotten lost watching Meng Yi’s cultivation form, and I’d followed an instinct I hadn’t understood.

  Hell, I still don’t understand it.

  Lost in thought, Meng Yi holds up a hand, and a crystalline string, sorry, web, forms over it, one end attached to her palm.

  “That’s why I can do this,” she says softly.

  “No,” Xiuying says. “You can do that because Qigang gave you a technique manual. Heart of The Web. It’s peasant rank.”

  Meng Yi looks at her, and an entire conversation passes between the two women even though they don’t say a word.

  Finally, my manager nods and turns to me. She bows down to her knees, head pressed to the ground. “Thank you for the manuals, Young Master Xian. I shall cherish this gift for as long as I live.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “I’m gd I can help.” And I’m sorry I keep coming up with heavy secrets you need to keep, I think but don’t say.

  Meng Yi rises.

  “Have you had breakfast?” she asks, and I shake my head.

  “I’ll have the kitchen prepare your meal while I run you a bath,” she says, focus drifting out the window at the end of her sentence.

  “What?” I ask, rising to look too.

  I don’t notice anything strange.

  “The garden is a mess,” Meng Yi says.

  “Yeah, what’s that about?” Xiuying asks, rising to look too. “Who ripped up all your trees?”

  “I did,” I say. “Didn’t like the look. I want to go for something more natural. Remember, Meng Yi? That’s why the garden is the way it is.”

  Did my interfering in her cultivation affect her memory? I wonder with some worry.

  “I remember,” Meng Yi says. “But, it’s past noon. Dai Lim should be here by now.”

  I frown, realising that she’s right. Dai Lim should be here by now.

  Last night, we’d agreed that he’d be here at the crack of dawn with men to cut and transport the uprooted trees to town for whoever wants firewood. But the trees haven’t been cut, in fact, they y untouched in the pile I left them in st night.

  “Maybe he’s just te?” Xiuying asks.

  “By half a day?” Meng Yi asks back.

  “I don’t see Yahui either,” I say, referring to Dai Lim’s apprentice.

  Okay, this is weird.

  “We should ask the other servants,” Xiuying says. “See if anyone knows their whereabouts.”

  Meng Yi and I agree, so we do that, and find the same confusion.

  Everyone says the same thing, Dai Lim and Yahui should be here by now, but they aren’t. And no one knows why, or where they are.

  Worry growing, I suggest that we write their families, and Meng Yi does so.

  The messenger parrot is sent out within two minutes, and in less than ten, it returns with two replies.

  From Yahui’s family, we learn that, just like he’s done every morning since he started working under Dai Lim, Yahui got up before dawn and went to his master’s house.

  While from Dai Lim’s family, we learn that, just like every other morning, Yahui showed up before dawn and the two left for the manor, only today they took a few men along. The men who were supposed to have cut and moved the wood.

  Everyone assumes the men are at the manor.

  “How dangerous is the journey up here?” I ask both women.

  They stare at each other.

  “It shouldn’t be,” Meng Yi says.

  “Shouldn’t be? Or isn’t?” I ask.

  They’re both quiet for a moment.

  “Sometimes, qi beasts can wander from farther out in the mountains,” Xiuying says carefully.

  I sigh, feeling my heart wrench uncomfortably.

  “Who do we contact about missing people?” I ask.

  “Young Master Xian, isn’t this a bit hasty?” Meng Yi asks, looking like she doesn’t want to believe the possibility I’m suggesting.

  “People are missing, Meng Yi,” I say. “One of them a boy. Better to be hasty and look foolish if nothing’s wrong, than to sit back and risk lives if they do need help.”

  Meng Yi nods in understanding.

  “Qigang,” Xiuying says. “If this is a qi beast, then these people are long past helping. You know that, right?”

  An image of Yahui’s smiling face comes to mind, and I take a long, slow breath before setting it aside. “We don’t know that,” I say. “And even if they are, then we owe it to their families to return their bodies at the very least. So, who do we contact about missing people?”

  “The Constabury,” Xiuying says. “I know the Captain.”

  Xiuying writes the Captain, and it’s only as we wait for her reply that Meng Yi seems to remember something that sounds awfully relevant to the matter at hand.

  “Liu Li and his bookends are missing too,” she says.

  I stare at her. “Who?” I ask, having zero idea who she’s talking about.

  “Ratface,” she says.

  To my shame, this actually reminds me of the man in question.

  “Oh,” I say, then: “Wait, he is? Since when?”

  “I’m not certain,” she says. “But I heard a few days ago.”

  “Drunk Shu is missing too,” Xiuying says.

  “Who?”

  “A drunk and troublemaker in the second yer of Ignition,” Meng Yi expins, then to Xiuying asks, “For how long?”

  “Don’t know either,” she says. “A week. Maybe more.”

  “So that’s four cultivators and at least as many mortals that have gone missing recently. That we know about,” I say.

  Both share a troubled gnce.

  “Yes,” Meng Yi says. “I suppose it is.”

  I sigh again, a bad feeling growing in my chest.

  “Summon the staff,” I say.

  Asking the staff if they know of any other missing individuals reveals that there are at least two more disappearances.

  Both are mortals. Wannabe thugs joined at the hip. And they haven’t been seen in days.

  “How have all these people gone missing in short order and no one cared enough to notice?” I wonder aloud.

  Xiuying shrugs. “They aren’t exactly the kind of people whose absences are missed,” she says. “People probably only noticed they weren’t there because there was no one causing trouble.”

  “Well, that’s worrying,” I say.

  “Why?” Xiuying asks.

  “Because if these are the ones whose absences would be noticed even if not missed, then how many are there who have also been taken without anyone noticing?” I ask.

  “Taken?” Meng Yi doesn’t miss my word choice.

  I hesitate for a moment, then decide to come clean with my suspicion.

  “I’m guessing qi beasts generally leave bodies,” I say. “Or blood, or some other trace of their presence at the very least.”

  “They do,” Xiuying says, expression changing as she catches my drift.

  I continue anyway. Honestly, I don’t think I could stop now.

  “If this many people have gone missing without a trace, then this isn’t the work of qi beasts. Not normal ones anyway.”

  The messenger parrot returns with the Captain’s reply promptly, and, maybe it’s because of Xiuying’s authority, because they know each other, or because, contrary to my expectations, she is a cultivator who takes the lives of mere mortals seriously, but whatever the reason, she assures us that she’ll get a search team together immediately.

  But that’s not good enough for me.

  This isn’t an isoted incident.

  Someone, or something, has been going around for at least a week, snatching up people. The kind of people that it expects society not to care about.

  And maybe society doesn’t care, but I do. And that’s enough.

  “Write the Captain,” I say to Meng Yi. “Tell her to wait for us.”

  If someone out there thinks they can go around kidnapping people, then they’ve got another thing coming.

  Jackpot-kun