Kai worked swiftly at the knots binding Gin to the bed, his fingers moving with practiced efficiency. The leather straps were tougher than they looked, but he’d dealt with worse. Behind him, the troublesome trio watched with varying degrees of amusement.

  Zi, the illusion cat, lounged atop the dresser, tail flicking lazily as she observed Kai’s struggle. Soma, the dream rabbit, perched on the nightstand, her silver eyes blinking with innocent curiosity. And lurking in the shadows beneath the bed, YinYIng, the shadow fox, peered out with glowing violet eyes, her muzzle curled in what might have been a smirk.

  "You could help, you know," Kai muttered, finally loosening enough of the restraints for Gin to wrench one arm free.

  "How do you want me to help? I could barely move!" Gin grumbled, rubbing his raw wrists.

  "I was talking to the beastkin, not you," Kai corrected absently, stepping back as Gin took over undoing the last of the bindings. His attention was already shifting, scanning the room with narrowed eyes. Something about this whole situation felt off.

  The woman—whoever she was—had been too prepared. Too precise. And she’d known things about Gin she shouldn’t have.

  Kai then moved slowly along the perimeter of the room, running his fingers along the walls, the furniture, searching for anything out of place.

  Then he saw it.

  Paper Talismans.

  Dozens of them, placed against the wooden walls, each one inscribed with delicate, looping characters. They clung to the walls like pale moths, their faint glow pulsing in time with some unseen rhythm.

  Kai peeled one free, turning it over in his hands. The script was simple but effective—a basic sound-suppression charm.

  "We’ve been silenced," he said, voice low.

  Gin paused mid-struggle, one ankle still tangled in the last strap. "What?"

  "These talismans." Kai gestured at the walls. "They’re part of a formation. A well made one, too. No matter how much noise we made—screaming, fighting, you being annoying—none of it would’ve reached outside this room."

  Gin’s face darkened. "So no one heard me yelling for help?"

  "Not a soul."

  "Fantastic." Gin finally kicked free of the last binding, rolling off the bed with a groan. "So what now?“

  "First," Kai said, crossing his arms as he fixed Gin with a look that could freeze magma, "is there something you want to tell me?"

  Gin blinked owlishly, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and offense. "Huh? Um... no?" He rolled off the bed with considerably less grace than usual, rubbing at the red marks still visible on his wrists.

  Kai's eyes narrowed. "I'm not playing this game again—not like when we first met. I want honesty." He stepped closer, voice dropping to a dangerous murmur. "She knew you. Intimately. Knew about your Drunken Master physiology—something only high realm cultivators would be able to recognize at a glance. And here's the thing..."

  He held up a finger. "If she were some high-realm expert, Soma wouldn't have knocked her out so easily." A second finger joined the first. "And if she were just some random rogue cultivator, she wouldn't have known how to restrain you so effectively." His hand clenched into a fist. "So explain to me, Gin—what's the connection?"

  As he spoke, Kai hauled the unconscious woman off the floor with surprising care, depositing her onto the rumpled bed. Then, with grim efficiency, he began looping the same leather straps that had bound Gin around her wrists and ankles, pulling each knot tight with vindictive satisfaction.

  Gin threw up his hands. "Kai, I swear on my mother's grave—"

  "Your mother isn't dead."

  "—on my favorite bottle of firewine, then!”

  “You told me you hated alcohol.”

  “Look! I promise you I don't know her!" Gin’s voice cracked with genuine frustration. "She didn't get to the 'why' part before your fluffy little assassin put her down!" He gestured wildly at Soma, who sat primly on the nightstand, her silver eyes gleaming with unmistakable pride. The dream rabbit gave a soft, self-satisfied squee and began washing her paws again.

  "Then we have no choice but to wake her and find out what she knows." Kai's voice dropped to a dangerous murmur as he finished reinforcing the woman's bindings with a pulse of qi. "And for your sake, Gin, you'd better hope you weren't lying to me."

  Gin raised his hands defensively. "I'm not! And how exactly are you planning to wake her? Last I checked, you said the only way to break a dream rabbit's sleep was with high-grade medicinal—"

  "I never said that was the only way," Kai interrupted, his eyes glinting with grim determination.

  Realization dawned on Gin's face. "Oh! Right - you mentioned some spirit beast could do it. So we need to leave the city to find your beastkin?"

  Kai's lips curled into a humorless smile as he pointed to the shadow fox now perched on the bedframe, its inky fur bristling with anticipation. "No need to go anywhere. The spirit beast I mentioned is right here."

  Gin's eyes darted between the small fox and Kai. "Wait... that fox can counter a dream rabbit's power?"

  Kai nodded, watching as Yinying sniffed curiously at the unconscious woman. "A shadow fox's connection to the yin element lets them induce nightmares powerful enough to shatter even Soma's deepest sleeps." His fingers unconsciously tightened around his sleeve as memories surfaced. "Though... the experience isn't pleasant."

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  A phantom chill ran down Kai's spine as he recalled his first encounter with Yinying's abilities - waking in a cold sweat, throat raw from screaming, the remnants of some unspeakable horror still clinging to his consciousness. Even now, after years of building resistance to both Soma's sleep and Yinying's nightmares, the memory could still make his hands tremble.

  "She'll wake her," Kai confirmed, shaking off the recollection. "But be ready - she’ll probably start screaming once woken." He gave the leather restraints one final tug, reinforcing them with one last surge of qi. The bindings now glowed faintly - strong enough to hold a Qi Gathering cultivator, at least temporarily. If their captive was Foundation Establishment or higher... Kai pushed the thought away. They'd cross that bridge if they came to it.

  Kai turned to the shadow fox, whose glowing violet eyes watched him expectantly. "Yinying," he said softly, "wake her up. Please."

  The fox's three tails began swaying in an unnatural rhythm, as if caught in some unfelt wind. A dark mist coalesced around her small form, thick with the cloying energy of pure yin. The temperature in the room plummeted, their breath visible in sudden frosty puffs.

  Gin instinctively stepped back as the shadowy aura detached from Yinying, forming into wispy tendrils that snaked toward the unconscious woman. "That's... unsettling," he muttered, rubbing his arms against the sudden chill.

  The darkness seeped into the woman's nostrils, her ears, the corners of her closed eyes. For a moment, nothing happened. Then—

  The woman stirred with languid grace, her eyelashes fluttering like the wings of a drowsy butterfly. A soft, contented sigh escaped her lips as she stretched against her restraints with feline flexibility.

  "Mmmph... why did you have to wake me?" she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. "I was dreaming of warm beaches and bottomless wine..."

  Kai's eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline. He shot a bewildered glance at Yinying, whose three tails had frozen mid-swish. The shadow fox's violet eyes were also wide with disbelief, her muzzle twitching in confusion.

  "You... you should be screaming right now," Kai stated bluntly, unable to mask his surprise. "Terrified. Possibly sobbing."

  The woman turned her head with deliberate slowness, her dark eyes traveling from Kai's face down to the sulking shadow fox. Recognition flickered across her features, followed by her lips curling into a smirk.

  "Oh, sweetheart," she cooed at Yinying, her voice laced with condescending pity, "the nightmares you weave are like children's bedtime stories compared to what I've endured." She yawned dramatically. "Honestly, your little shadow play just... annoyed me awake."

  The effect was instantaneous. Yinying's ears flattened against her skull, her entire body seeming to shrink. The inky wisps of yin energy that danced around her dissipated like smoke in the wind. With a heartbroken squeak, the fox slunk to the farthest corner of the room, curling into a miserable ball of black fur and self pity.

  Kai felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for the usually mischievous spirit beast. Clearing his throat, he refocused on their captive. "Right... well, that's... concerning." His fingers twitched toward his sword hilt. If this woman could shrug off a shadow fox's nightmares so easily, what else was she capable of?

  Steeling himself, Kai leaned forward, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. "Let's try this again. Who. Are. You?"

  The women let out a long sigh.

  "My name is Lulu," the woman said with an airy wave of her bound hands. "Just a wandering rogue cultivator down on her luck."

  Kai’s grip on his sword tightened. "So you’re not with any organization. Then how do you know Gin?"

  Lulu blinked, then let out a bright, mocking laugh. "Ohhh, that’s what you’re worried about?" She tilted her head toward Gin, her smirk widening. "Isn’t it obvious? The bounty posters, of course."

  Silence.

  A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the room.

  Kai turned his head toward Gin with deliberate slowness. His eyes burned with a quiet, simmering fury. Gin stood frozen, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. He didn’t dare meet Kai’s gaze.

  "Bounty?" Kai said, letting the word hang in the air like a blade poised to fall. "You never mentioned a bounty."

  Gin swallowed hard. "I-I thought it was implied when I told you about my… past?" His voice cracked as sweat now poured down his face in earnest.

  "Nooooo, Gin." Kai drew the word out, each syllable dripping with venomous calm. His fingers tighten around his sword's hilt, the leather-wrapped grip creaking under his grasp. "That. Was not. Implied." The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as his qi unconsciously leaked out, causing the nearby candle flames to gutter violently. "How. Much?"

  Gin's throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, his usual bravado crumbling like wet parchment. "Oh, you know... n-not much really, just—"

  Kai's blade cleared its sheath with a metallic hiss, the tip coming to rest a hair's breadth from Gin's throat before he could finish lying. Without breaking eye contact, Kai growled at Lulu, "How much is his bounty?"

  The bound woman's lips curled into a delighted smirk. "Oh my, such tension!" She wriggled against her restraints with theatrical enjoyment. "Two thousand spirit stones. Alive only, if you're wondering."

  The number hung in the air like an executioner's axe.

  Gin watched in horror as Kai's knuckles turned white around his sword hilt. The blade began vibrating with barely restrained energy, sending tiny cracks spiderwebbing through the wooden floorboards beneath their feet.

  Two thousand spirit stones.

  The amount was staggering—enough to make anyone under golden core realm salivate. In this world where cultivation resources meant power, spirit stones were everything. They pulsed with the very essence of heaven and earth, capable of: fueling breakthrough attempts, forging spiritual weapons that could cleave through normal steel like paper, powering the massive formation cores that kept entire floating ships aloft, creating rare medicinal pills that could regrow severed limbs, and so much more.

  Kai's mind reeled with calculations. During his years with the Ember Sword Sect, before he became the stable master, he'd broken his back on night hunts and border patrols. Twelve months of dawn-to-dusk labor, surviving on rationed gruel, had earned him exactly two low-grade spirit stones—and those had immediately gone toward healing a wound that would have crippled him.

  The arithmetic was brutal: Gin's bounty equaled a thousand years of Kai's former life. A thousand years of blood, sweat, and near-death experiences. All concentrated into one infuriating, lying, sake-swirling—

  "Wait! I can explain!" Gin backpedaled until his shoulders hit the wall, hands raised in surrender. Sweat poured down his temples as Kai's sword hovered inches from his throat, its tip trembling with restrained killing intent.

  Kai's voice came out in a low, dangerous growl. "You had plenty of time to explain. Countless nights around campfires." The blade edge flashed as it caught the flickering lamplight. "But now? Now you want to talk?"

  Gin's eyes darted between the sword and Kai's stormy expression. "I didn't mention it because I thought you might—" He swallowed hard. "—you know... try to collect it?"

  The silence that followed was more damning than any outburst. Even Lulu stopped smirking, watching with fascinated horror as Kai's face went through several expressions at once before settling on something terrifyingly calm.

  "Gin." Kai spoke slowly, as if to a particularly stupid child. "I'm a rogue cultivator. I can’t collect your bounty. The Righteous Alliance would skin me alive before processing any bounty claim."

  Gin blinked. "Oh. Right. Yeah, that... makes sense." He offered a weak chuckle. "Guess I didn't think that through?"

  Kai's sword arm trembled with the effort of not decapitating him on the spot. The pounding in his temples intensified until his vision blurred at the edges. Of all the reckless, idiotic, suicidal secrets to keep—

  He turned to Lulu, whose eyebrows shot up in surprise as he continued, "If you want to collect his bounty, be my guest. Just do it somewhere else."