She met me once more in the garden, but now, with the sounds of horns and panic in the streets below, and the lights of the high estates like watching eyes. I stood beside her, looking at the tangled stone flowers. There was no trace of our wild night, all the damage erased, though things were different.

  “You tricked me,” I said. “I want to know why.”

  “I wondered what might bring you here on such a night. In truth, I didn’t think I would see you again.”

  She spoke lightly, and her words hurt me, though they shouldn’t have. None of my memories were new to loss or lust, and yet my body was new. Even the face I turned to her had not existed at the start of the day.

  “You said that the 50000 silver was a trap.”

  “It was.”

  “You told me I couldn’t carry it, but then you showed the same amount in a storage ring.”

  Her eyes glowed with soft mischief.

  “Blaming me for your misunderstanding? The City Lord was a hunter before he was a politician, and he would have hunted you down no matter what your actions. I suppose that’s why you killed him.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  “He’s dead?”

  She blinked in surprise.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Why would I?”

  She peered forward.

  “Is this another one of your ‘I am an assassin’ tricks?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm, are you trying to seduce me?”

  The moonlight glowed on the stone flowers, and her blue dress shimmered, the petals shifting as she strode closer, taking my hands in hers and leading me in a dance to the sound of the baleful horns.

  I was utterly bewildered.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked. “Was it just to accuse me?”

  I thought that was why, but now I wasn’t sure.

  “Why did you sleep with me?”

  “You didn’t sleep that night.”

  My mouth fell open, but I had nothing to say. I did my best to follow her dance, swept up in her movements, and with her next step, we lifted up into the air like moths towards the moon on the wings of her Core Formation.

  “I’ve been lonely for a long time,” she said. “You made me laugh, and you reminded me of what it felt like to be young and stupid and… I wondered how someone as old as you could retain that spark…”

  “I think you act younger than I do,” I said as I thought of the mischievous light in her eyes.

  She laughed softly and leaned her head against my shoulder.

  “The Plum Blossoms won’t hunt you forever. You can hide with me until it all blows over.”

  “And then what?”

  “With the Shen and Ran preoccupied with the expedition, I’ll be able to seize the City Lord’s position for myself. It’s about time Mountain Root City had a cultivator in charge.”

  We floated a hundred feet above her rooftop garden, gazing down at the city lights, with the mountain above us. Small dark shapes flitted between rooftops; guards, assassins, thieves, I couldn’t tell.

  “Thank you for the offer…”

  “I knew you would refuse, but I had to ask. After all, you’ve done so much for me already.”

  I looked at her and tried to pierce those soft, glowing eyes and her ageless face.

  “Did you… Did you know all this would happen?”

  She laughed as we spun higher.

  “You weren’t good enough in bed to get all my secrets.”

  “I was good?”

  A mischievous light filled her eyes.

  “Good enough. Now, I’d bring you with me to the City Lord’s estate, but you already declined. So, I’ll just drop you off before I go.”

  “Wait… you don’t mean —”

  I fell through the air.

  This wasn’t my first time doing so. My abdomen split of its own accord, and my guts unravelled. Blood manipulation kept me from staining my new clothes, and a conscious use of flesh manipulation gave me far greater response and control.

  A look of horrified curiosity crossed Xui Ruixue’s face as a lasso of my own intestines slithered through the air towards her, but she floated a dozen feet higher before I could loop around her foot.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I plummeted with my guts stretched out around me. Despite the wind rushing through my ears, her voice came to me on a tremor of qi.

  “That’s what I like about you,” she said with a warm whisper as though she stood right beside me. “Always so full of surprises.”

  Her smirk rapidly dwindled, her two glowing eyes becoming like stars in the night before she turned and flew away towards the City Lord’s estate at the center of the city’s chaos. I had a brief moment to wonder just how much she had used me, and whether I even objected, before I smashed into the rooftop garden.

  My body was the strongest it had ever been, but two hundred feet is still a long fall to a hard landing. My skull cracked, my spine shattered, my organs ruptured, and blood leaked from my open mouth as I gazed up at the stars.

  “How nice of you to drop in,” Cabbagy said drily from where he sat on a small table beside some lapis veined ferns. “They say that pride goeth before the fall.”

  It took a moment for my brain to reform, and then for my jaw to reconnect. Cabbagy didn’t spare me.

  “I’ve heard of people falling for women, but this is ridiculous!”

  I groaned.

  “Come on, kid, are you just going to lie in bed all day?”

  “?”

  “A bed of flowers!”

  He chuckled to himself so hard he almost rolled off the table. I stood, brushing dirt from my new clothes, and gave him a disapproving glower. He ignored me.

  “It’s nice to have a captive audience,” he said. “You should try it sometime.”

  “I think I’m better than that.”

  “Hard to take you seriously with your long pink thing hanging from your robes.”

  I blushed and glanced down, but he was only talking about my intestine. With an effort of willpower, I slurped it back up like a noodle. It whipped through the air and made a small farting sound before returning to my body.

  “Hee hee hee! You farted!”

  “You laugh like Cabbajoe now.”

  “You shut your fucking mouth! I’m nothing like that dumb ass!”

  “I don’t know…” I said as I squinted at him like a silver-pinching jeweler. “You look an awful lot like him.”

  “We should get going, kid. There isn’t time to waste joking around.”

  I rolled my eyes, but didn’t disagree. Slipping Cabbagy into my robes, I heaved the iron club over my shoulder and made my way to the room between rooms.

  Xui Yaoni stood waiting for me.

  I couldn’t tell by her expression if she’d heard or seen anything that happened between me and the Matriarch. She led me into the room between rooms.

  “Did you hear or see anything that happened between Xue Ruixue?” I asked her.

  She raised an eyebrow as she worked the complicated buttons and levers.

  “I’m sure that is none of my affair.”

  The room between rooms lurched and descended, but after falling through the air, this felt like nothing.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I asked her.

  She raised an eyebrow as though to say, ‘you just did’. I could feel Cabbagy’s stifled laughter against my chest. Inwardly, I sighed.

  “Is she alright?”

  “The Matriarch?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe she has everything she could want, and constantly acquires more. Though Mountain Root City is a humble home for one such as her, she is one of the richest women in all of the Black Tiger Kingdom.”

  “She told me she was lonely.”

  Xui Yaoni's eyes widened.

  “I… I see.”

  I shrugged as the doors opened on the ground floor.

  “I don’t think it’s my place, but please look after her.”

  Shifting the weight of the club, I stepped out into the hall.

  “Thank you for your assistance,” I said, with blood raging through my muscles so I could politely bow while carrying the ridiculously heavy club.

  “Wait!”

  I raised my eyebrow as I awkwardly straightened.

  “Yes?”

  “Please, step back inside, honored guest. I can assist you.”

  Curious about what she meant, I obliged.

  Once back inside the room between rooms, she fiddled with the controls, the ground lurched beneath us, and we continued to sink. Since she offered no explanation, I asked no questions.

  The doors opened into an underground tunnel that stretched away into the shadowy distance.

  “People think the Great Northern Tree’s roots only shape the city,” she said. “But the roots run below the surface, and they run deep. Follow this tunnel, and you will safely escape the city.”

  She quickly gave me some instructions to follow, and I thanked her with another strenuous bow.

  “Good luck,” she said as the door slid closed.

  The tunnel walls had a strange texture as though they were woven from countless stone hairs. I couldn’t tell if the walls were made of roots or if I wandered through an ancient root hollowed by time.

  Small glowing fungs lit the way enough for me to follow Xui Yaoni’s instructions.

  “I feel a strange sense of homecoming,” Cabbagy said with more reverence than I’d ever heard before.

  “You came from underground.”

  “So did you, kid. So did you.”

  I nodded, and we fell silent as I moved through the tunnel. It took a while, since the route was not naturally straight, but eventually the tunnel ended in a door. It opened easily from inside, and I stepped out onto the side of a hill. Plants of stone, wood, and hybrid forms surrounded me in a thick forest, but I could see the distant moonlight gleam of Mountain Root City’s walls. The horns didn’t carry this far, and the city seemed at peace.

  Turning in a circle and surveying the land, I recognised the route to the start of the Stone Cicada Trail. The door to the tunnel had already closed, and, from this side, I couldn’t even see the entrance. Once more, I gave a silent thank you to Xue Yaoni and all the other people who had helped me thus far, before hiking downhill and into the eerie forest.

  The trails were thin, and it was easy to get lost in the trees, but Cabbagy helped guide me. Before I made my way to the expedition rendezvous point, I needed to find Chen Ai. We had agreed on a spot where she would cultivate, and she should be finished absorbing her elixirs by now.

  I was eager to check on her progress.

  ###

  The Dreaming Blade’s breathing came heavily, but he forced his body not to shake. Sweat stung his eyes, and blood soaked his shirt from the myriad small cuts made by daggers and swords. His core ached, the cracks ragged and weeping, but he remained standing. He kept his grip on his jian steady and peered into the darkness.

  His spiritual senses had shrunk with his available qi, and the trees were thick with shadow. Though some stone branches and leaves glowed softly in the moonlight, they did little more than make the shadows darker by comparison.

  Assassins lurked in those shadows.

  He hoped he hadn’t led them here, for that would be a great shame, but such hopes were for another time. Now, he simply hoped he was strong enough.

  No.

  He knew he was strong enough.

  He had to be.

  A boulder stood at his back, blocking the entrance to a cave. Chen Ai cultivated inside. Her particular grass qi led him here, but his diminished spiritual sense could no longer feel her presence.

  No matter.

  He flicked blood from his jian and gazed into the darkness.

  The darkness gazed back with hidden eyes.

  He parried, and a dagger bounced off his blade, but it had been a distraction. Two more daggers struck his side, embedding in his shoulder and thigh. Only his qi-strengthened body that had attained — even briefly — Core Formation prevented the loss of function of those limbs. Pain flared as he stepped to avoid the next dagger. Sparks flew as the blade clattered off the boulder.

  Another tense moment came.

  He couldn’t tell if the assassins were testing or toying with him, but it didn’t matter. Such a question never matters to the prey.

  He briefly considered running into the forest.

  The assassins were after him, since he’d killed the City Lord, but if he ran… who would defend Chen Ai? Master would never forgive him if something happened to her because of him, and… the Dreaming Blade also wished her to be safe.

  Such an emotion was unfamiliar, and it did not add strength or speed or qi, but it bolstered his determination. With his back straight and his jian ready, the Dreaming Blade prepared to die for another.