“So… what’s got your attention so fixed? That cat of yours?” He sighed before Suzhong even finished speaking. At least it wasn’t Instructor Bao— who’d been placed behind him and was no-doubt glaring daggers at both of them for speaking out of turn— but still… he did not very much like the combat instructor. Suzhong was just… cruel. How very cultivator-like of him… “it’s the cat, isn’t it? You’re the best entertainment to happen to this place since I joined, you know? It’s great.”

  He raised an eyebrow, still not looking from where his two best students were slowly making their way out of the auditorium. “Entertainment?”

  “Yeah. You brought the cat, you make Guxi damn near lose her mind every time you’re in the same room as she is, you’ve got Outer Disciples interested in you… and the formations, too, can’t forget the formations.” He leaned against him in a slouched, almost slovenly manner that Mingtian could only describe as unprofessional, grinning broadly. “You’ve got this touch to you. Or, well, to call it a touch would do it a disservice. You’re like a tungsten cube dropped into a point— fish either get out of the way or get crushed.”

  “…is that supposed to be a compliment?” Suzhong just laughed.

  Nevertheless… he had touched uncomfortably close to the heart of the matter. Subterfuge was… not his strong point, to say the least. It had never been his strong suit— though he’d learnt enough over the endless ages to do at least this much. Still, that had always been more Baixue’s thing…

  He sighed, shoving that particular thought out of mind. Here he was, an Immortal Sovereign literally whole realms away from her, and his thoughts still wandered back to her? Pathetic. He’d wanted to escape that…

  So, he watched in silence as the last of the proceedings ended, and the students slipped out to their first classes, and the sun rose, over the empty auditorium, far off and still so blazingly, blindingly bright in the sky above them. Cold. It’s light didn’t really give off all that much warmth at all, its radiance weak yet still so ever-present that his domain almost could not but feel all of it.

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  Thankfully, Suzhong seemed to sense that he wasn’t in the mood for anything more, leaving him alone for the rest of things. It was only when the last few students slipped out of the auditorium that Yuxan stepped down from the podium, smiling broadly as he cast his gaze across all of them. “Good job. Another great start for another great semester, no?” It was blatantly and obviously a lie, but everyone ate it up. There was a reason that the man was principal… “we’re going to have to discuss what’s coming next further in this week’s meeting—” kill him now— “but just remember to put our best foot forward. If the teachers don’t slack, then the students won’t slack. Alright, off with you all! You’ve classes to run, don’t you?” They scattered— but a light touch on his shoulder prevented Mingtian from leaving with them. “Not you.”

  Sighing, Mingtian turned around to face Yuxan. “What can I help you with?”

  “Walk with me, would you?”

  He really didn’t have a choice. “Sure.” He was, after all, merely a mortal… even if they both knew that between the two of them and his formation skills, he was far more of a cultivator that Yuxan ever could be. “I’m glad to have you here at the academy, you know? Your teaching has been utterly invaluable— and I do not mean that lightly. I don’t think even Old Saffron has a single instructor of your caliber. I’d ask where you got those skills, but I know you well enough to know you’d not answer.”

  “I got them from where I got them.”

  Yuxan laughed as they stepped down from the podium, onto the snowed-in field, eyes twinkling with mirth— a rich, full-bodied thing that echoed warmly out despite the bitter chill. It was obviously fake. “You’re a riot, friend. I understand, though— you walk the path of cultivation, do you not?”

  “I don’t.”

  “No, no, you walk the path of cultivation. Not the mere gathering of qi— anyone can do that. You walk the spirit of it. I still don’t understand why you’d want to be a librarian, but I can respect that. It must stifle you though, to be so… lacking? Don’t you seek ascension?”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Really now.” Mingtian paused in the center of the field waving a hand out all encompassing— the snow, the chill, the vast heavens above and the seats that sloped up in their silvery sheen bowl-shaped, the unlit floodlights above and the school, yet invisible beyond it. “This doesn’t seem like an isolated cave in the wilderness to me, where you can seek the mysteries of the great course. Nor does it seem like a sect. You’re a mortal, bound to mortal things.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “No…” Mingtian smiled— for the irony of it, though he was sure that Yuxan no-doubt misinterpreted it— “I merely recognize it. The mortal is the realm of mortals. The immortal is something else entirely.”

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