The sun in my soul burns with a heat so intense it damn near steals my breath away.

  I’ve never felt it like this before, so hot it borders on uncomfortable.

  This is, without doubt, the work of the Ginde Pepper, and I find myself wondering, ‘if a peasant rank one can cause such a change, then what would a noble rank one, or even divine rank, be like?’

  Setting the thought aside like the immaterial product of a spell of curiosity that it is, I rise to my feet, idly noting that my snapped femur has fused into a solid whole again.

  My trouser leg where the dog monstrosity had gnawed on me is ruined, but the gaping holes in the material reveal scarred flesh like from an old wound.

  I guess that’s the best that could be done.

  I test out the leg, putting weight on it and waiting for pain.

  A few, negligible twinges come.

  Acceptable.

  I check my right forearm next, finding it in even better condition.

  Perfect.

  Self-examination complete, my attention moves to my surroundings.

  Fire so intensely hot it burns a blinding white surrounds me, but it doesn’t impede my senses. In fact, if anything, it strengthens it.

  The dog monstrosity that had used my leg as a chew toy is dead, burnt beyond recognition but for the unmistakeable tang of corruption clinging to its corpse.

  That’s where the good news end though, because Scum Qigang and Grodd’s roided up cousin are still very much alive, and both of them still have Meng Yi in their clutches.

  The asshole with my face reaches a hand up to Meng Yi’s one visible eye, the other hidden under a massive purple bruise.

  He presses his finger and thumb in. “One,” he says, threat clear.

  I see Meng Yi’s fear. Her sheer terror. But she screams, “Qigang, run! Leave! Come back with The Imperial Army and kill this motherless goat!”

  The goril holding her in a bearhug squeezes. I hear bones break.

  Meng Yi clenches her teeth, weathering the pain and torture silently.

  Xian Qigang tuts at her, then looks back to me, eyes twinkling with amusement.

  Somehow, even through the fmes of qi surrounding me, he meets my eyes easily.

  “You know she never screams?” he asks conversationally, like we’re suburbian neighbours and he’s merely remarking upon the weather. “No matter how much I hurt her, she takes it silently.”

  His eyes return to Meng Yi then, gaze almost wistful.

  “She used to scream,” he says, and I feel the words spark a burning rage in my chest.

  “I liked hearing her scream,” he continues. “Sometimes, I would even go a little harder than necessary just to hear it, you know?”

  He looks at me. Like he expects me to understand.

  I seethe with hate.

  “Even when she didn’t scream, she would whimper in this way that got my blood pumping,” Xian Qigang continues. “Like a defenceless little bird.

  “Of course, looking back on it now, it’s clear as day to me that it was a calcuted move on her part to manipute me, but even so… I would so very much like to hear it again.”

  He takes her chin in his hand. The action looks gentle, but I can’t miss how his fingerprints remain on her skin after he pulls away.

  “But, as, she won’t whimper for me now. Little Yi has found her spine, I suppose.” His little smile fails entirely to hide the depths of his fury at that fact.

  “It’s your fault, you know. Filling her head with hope and all that trash. Well, I wouldn’t be a very good Young Master if I didn’t correct her shortcomings, would I?

  “So, here’s what we’re going to do, you thieving worm. You will surrender. If you do, I will kill you slowly and painfully and her quickly… and painfully. If you don’t…”

  Casually, he reaches for Meng Yi’s hand, grabs one of her broken fingers, and rips it right off.

  Then he sticks it into his mouth, strips off the flesh with his teeth, and proceeds to suck the blood off the bone.

  The rage that had fred in me at his casual mutition of Meng Yi morphs almost entirely into horror at his actions.

  “I’ve come to learn recently that one can keep a person alive for quite some time if one eats them in small enough bites,” he says as he flings the bone over his shoulder.

  My eyes follow it, and it takes Meng Yi’s voice to pull me back.

  “Qigang, run. Go! Leave me! For Heaven’s sake, run!” Meng Yi screams once more. Every word digging into my heart like a knife.

  “Save your breath,” Xian Qigang says. “He won’t leave you. The idiot loves you. And, worst of all, he has hope. Even now, in my realm, with both your deaths a foregone conclusion, there is still that little part of his brain that tells him that somehow, if he holds out long enough, things will work out. He will discover some weakness of mine, distract me in some way, save you.”

  He ughs like it’s the most hirious thing in the world, then he grabs another of Meng Yi’s fingers.

  “Stop,” I scream. “Stop. Please, stop.”

  The fire surrounding me winks out, and I raise my arms in surrender.

  I can’t watch that again. I just can’t.

  “See?” he asks Meng Yi, shaking his head like a disappointed father. “So predictable.”

  And that’s when something that none of us predicted happens: Xiuying stumbles into the hidden realm.

  Several things happen all at once.

  First, everyone turns to stare at her in surprise and confusion, as she does the same to us, then, with the sharp mind of a warrior, or perhaps a predator, she takes in the situation faster than I, or Qigang, can wonder how she’s come to be here.

  Her eyes fsh from my evil doppelganger to me then to Meng Yi, then she moves and physics breaks.

  Surefooted Steps of The Keen Tiger

  The only thing I can liken it to is what moving within my soul had been like. When, instead of me moving through the world, the world had moved around me, taking me where I wanted to be.

  It isn’t quite the same for Xiuying, but I ck the words to expin it better. As though what I’m witnessing is so far beyond my mind that I have no hope of comprehending it even if I meditate on it for a thousand years.

  What is either a single step, or a thousand taken at once, carries Xiuying from where she stumbled into the hidden realm right to the back of the goril holding Meng Yi hostage, leg poised to deliver a devastating kick.

  Xiuying covers the distance faster than I could, mostly because she doesn’t actually traverse the intervening space due to qi fuckery, but, for all her speed, Xian Qigang is fast, and he has the advantage of being right beside Meng Yi.

  Which is where I come in.

  Weight of The Emperor’s Will

  It is an odd thing to realise in this moment, but I’ve always held back.

  Even when I was still weaker than Xiuying and we had those hellish spars of hers, I’d held back.

  I just don’t like hurting people.

  Maybe it’s because I watched Qigang do it for years and hated every second of it, or perhaps it’s because one of the vestiges I moulded into myself was a pacifist; whatever the reason, I dislike hurting people.

  Hence, I’ve always held back.

  I don’t hold back with Xian Qigang.

  A crown of sor fire blooms over his head, and the gaze of The Sun Emperor settles on him, judging.

  Xian Qigang is found wanting.

  ‘Heavy is the Crown,’ The Sun Emperor decres. ‘Now feel it’s Weight.’

  The pressure sms onto Xian Qigang so hard that the ground he stands on sinks eight feet.

  Meanwhile, Xiuying’s kick connects with the overgrown monkey’s head so hard that it literally rips off, shooting away like a cannon bolt.

  Xian Qigang comes bursting from the ground as bck smoke, his strange ethereal form negating the power of my technique.

  It doesn’t matter though, cause I’m already there.

  Glory of The Sun

  Turning into smoke might help him avoid the weight of my crown, but not even smoke can escape the fire of the sun.

  My fme-coated fist sms into Xian Qigang, forcing him back into a physical state and sending his body ragdolling away.

  Behind me, Xiuying frees Meng Yi from the embrace of the headless goril corpse.

  I take both women in, one heavily wounded and the other breathing heavily, likely from the use of her sage rank technique.

  Following the same instinct that guides almost everything cultivation reted that I do, fire pours from my body to them.

  Their qi networks soak it up, though Meng Yi’s much more readily than Xiuying’s, and a distracted part of my mind wonders if it’s because of her cultivation level, her injuries, or the fact that I altered her cultivation with my own, making a part of me part of her.

  That’s irrelevant though. All that matters to me is the relief I feel as her injuries undergo days, if not weeks, of healing in seconds, and as her abysmal qi reserves climb back up.

  Meng Yi sighs and stands straighter, looking at me with gratitude and… something else.

  There’s a long conversation with her waiting in my near future, I think with some apprehension.

  “Are we going to talk about your evil twin over there?” Xiuying asks.

  “Later,” I reply. “For now, get Meng Yi out of here.”

  Meng Yi begins to speak, then she stops and frowns in concentration for a bit.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “We can’t leave,” she says. “I can’t sense the gateway anymore. He must be in control of the hidden realm somehow.”

  I reach out my senses too, grimacing at the icky feeling of Wild Qi rubbing against it.

  Meng Yi’s right, the gateway is gone. Qigang must be in control of it. Which means that he left it open this entire time simply to give us false hope.

  That bastard!

  “So, you’re saying the only way out is to kill him?” Xiuying asks, pointing.

  We look where she’s pointing to see Xian Qigang rising from the dust.

  His fancy blue outfit hangs from his shoulders a little weirdly, like he’s suddenly lost fifty pounds and grown four inches.

  Around us, monsters begin to form from the ashy dirt. Dogs, gorils, frogs, birds, all of them nightmarish in size, form and function.

  Xian Qigang stands fully, and when he lifts his head, I see that his face has changed. Its longer, gaunt, teeth ending in needle points, yellow eyes sunken.

  Straight dark hair frames his face like a veil of shadows.

  “Xiuying?” I don’t need to say the words.

  “I’ve got her,” Xiuying promises.

  “Good.”

  “Qigang,” Meng Yi calls and I look at her without turning fully away from the abomination wearing a mockery of my face.

  Meng Yi looks like she wants to say a thousand words, but we both know that this is neither the time nor the pce. So, finally, she settles for two simple, loaded words.

  “Be careful.”

  I nod, then say, “When we get back home, let’s work on the garden together. Maybe we can even bring your sisters, and pnt some trees that Bingbing will like. What do you think?”

  Meng Yi smiles. It doesn’t fully mask the maelstrom of other emotions she tries to suppress. “I would love that,” she says.

  I smile back. “Good.”

  Xian Qigang opens his mouth to speak then, and my fme-coated fist sms into his ugly face.

  “Shut up and die,” I say, as the world around me devolves into chaos.