"I can't give you Soma," Kai said carefully, shifting the dream rabbit protectively in his arms. "But if you travel with us, Soma can—"

  "Yes." Lulu cut him off so fast Kai nearly stumbled backward. Her bloodshot eyes burned with desperate intensity. "The answer is yes. Whatever your terms, I accept."

  Kai blinked. "Don't you want to hear the conditions first?"

  Lulu waved a trembling hand slightly in the bindings, her chipped nail polish catching the light. "Unless you're asking me to violate my pacifist vows or harm innocents, I'll follow you to the Nine Hells and back. I'll scrub your boots with my hairbrush, carry your luggage, even listen to that drunkards ramblings. You can take everything. It's yours. I’ll do whatever you want if you free me from these nightmares."

  "Oh. Um. Okay then," Kai stammered, thrown by her fervor. "I guess we're—"

  "WAIT!" Gin's shout made Soma jump.The drunkard wobbled to his feet, nearly tripping over them. "She's gotta make a Heaven Binding Oath! Swear on her cultivation base!"

  An awkward silence fell. Lulu's lips twitched. Then she burst into laughter. Kai groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose hard enough to leave marks.

  "Oh sweet summer child," Lulu wheezed, tears forming in her eyes. "You can't be serious. The Heaven Binding Oath doesn't activate until Soul Formation realm!" She struck a dramatic pose, raising her right hand as much as her bindings would allow. "I, Lulu of Nowhere Special, do solemnly swear on my mediocre Qi Gathering cultivation to obey this man's every whim—"

  "That's not necessary," Kai interrupted, face burning.

  "—so long as he doesn't ask me to kill anyone or eat shellfish, because shellfish are disgusting little ocean bugs—"

  "We get it!"

  Gin's jaw hung open. "Wait... that's not how it works?"

  Kai stared at his companion like he'd grown a second head. "When you made that 'Heaven Binding Oath' when we met... you thought that was real?"

  "Of course!" Gin puffed out his chest. "Every cultivator knows—swear on your cultivation base, break the oath, lose your powers! That's basic cultivation law!"

  Lulu snorted. "That's tavern tales and bedtime stories. The actual Heaven Binding Oath requires—"

  "Gin," Kai interrupted, voice thick with disbelief, "I'm constantly amazed by you. You clearly know lots of things about the cultivation world, but at the same time you don’t."

  "Hey!" Gin crossed his arms. "Not all of us got to join a sect properly to learn about these things!"

  Kai massaged his temples. "Just... put the gourd down and listen. Real binding oaths require—"

  "Nope!" Lulu popped the 'p' loudly. "Less lecturing, more rabbit-soothing. When do we leave? Can we leave now? I'd like to sleep before I collapse and die." She paused, eyeing Gin suspiciously. "Does he always talk this much?"

  "Yes, he does talk a lot," Kai said, giving Gin a flat stare that spoke volumes about enduring his drunken ramblings. Gin opened his mouth to protest, but Kai simply turned his palm upward in a 'case in point' gesture before the drunkard could form words.

  "Then just put me to sleep right now and wake me when we leave!" she demanded, her voice cracking with desperation. Dark circles beneath her eyes looked like bruises in the dim light.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  Kai arched an eyebrow, unimpressed by her dramatics, but glanced down at the warm bundle in his arms. "Soma?" he asked softly. "Can you help her?"

  The dream rabbit's silver eyes glimmered with understanding. With a graceful hop onto Kai's shoulder, she turned toward Lulu and began emitting a high-pitched, melodic hum that seemed to vibrate through the very air. The sound carried an otherworldly quality—like wind chimes made of moonlight, or a lullaby half-remembered from childhood.

  Lulu's tense shoulders sagged immediately. Her eyelids fluttered like moth wings against candlelight as she mumbled, "Peace... at last..." she said, before going limp on Gin’s bed.

  "Good job," Kai murmured, scratching behind Soma's ears. The rabbit preened under his praise, nuzzling into his cheek with a contented wiggle of her nose.

  As he watched Lulu's peaceful expression, memories surfaced of his own experiences with Soma's abilities. Back at the Ember Sword Sect, her abilities had been more curse than blessing—countless mornings waking to find entire days lost to enchanted slumber, senior disciples pounding on his door while he blinked sleep from his eyes. Yet even then, the dreams had been... remarkable. Vivid and pleasant.

  And now, watching Lulu's smile deepen as she dreamed, Kai wondered what visions Soma had woven for her. Freedom from memories? A reunion with lost parents? Simple, uncomplicated darkness? Whatever it was, the transformation was profound—the hard lines of suffering smoothed away, leaving behind something soft and hopeful.

  A thunderous snore ripped through the room, startling Kai from his thoughts. He whirled around to find Gin sprawled across the wooden floor like a discarded ragdoll, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath him, a thin line of drool already pooling near his open mouth. The drunkard's chest rose and fell with the deep, rhythmic breaths of someone thoroughly enchanted by Soma's lullaby.

  "Oh, damn it all," Kai muttered, slapping his forehead. In his concern for Lulu, he'd completely forgotten—while he'd developed a resistance to Soma's sleep song after years of accidental naps at the Ember Sword Sect, ordinary cultivators had no such immunity. And Gin, barely entering the Qi Gathering stage, might as well have been hit by a tranquilizer dart.

  With a sigh, he grabbed Gin by the ankles and dragged him unceremoniously toward the wall. The drunkard's head lolled like a broken puppet's, bouncing slightly as it cleared a floorboard ridge. Kai paused just long enough to ensure he hadn't accidentally given the man a concussion before tossing a threadbare blanket over him like one might cover particularly unappealing furniture.

  "Consider this payback for your nonsense," Kai muttered, though Gin was far beyond hearing. A small, petty part of him enjoyed leaving the man in such an undignified position.

  With the immediate crisis handled, Kai motioned to his spirit companions. Yinying materialized from the shadows like living smoke, her form shifting to envelop Soma in a protective haze. Zi also used her abilities to disappear in purple smoke. The dream rabbit, still glowing faintly from her efforts, nestled comfortably on Kai's shoulders as they slipped quietly from the room.

  The inn's hallway stretched before them, its worn floorboards creaking underfoot. Kai's stomach growled loudly, reminding him that between the wine theft, the confrontation, and now adopting a sleep-deprived cultivator, he'd completely missed dinner.

  "Right," he said, scratching Soma between her velvety ears. "First we check if our room includes meals. Then we tell Lu Bu about our new... situation."

  As they moved through the dim corridor, Kai couldn't help but marvel at the absurdity of his life. Here he was—a former sect disciple turned rogue cultivator, now responsible for: one drunken idiot, one traumatized insomniac, a boy with heaven defying talent, and a host of spirit beasts.

  The creaking wooden stairs announced Kai's descent into the tavern's bustling common room. Golden lantern light spilled across worn oak tables, illuminating the evening crowd that had begun to gather—local craftsmen still dusted with sawdust from their workshops, farmers with dirt-stained hanfu’s rolled up to their elbows, and merchants debating the day's trades over steaming bowls of stir fried lamb. The air hung thick with the scent of roasted meats, spilled ale, and the underlying musk of hardworking bodies.

  Kai's boots scuffed against the sawdust-strewn floorboards as he surveyed the room. His gaze first caught on a cluster of town guardsmen gathered around a corner table. Among them sat young Pei—the same guard who had led Kai’s group to this inn—now laughing uproariously at some joke. The boy looked barely old enough to grow proper stubble, yet he held his ale mug with the practiced ease of a seasoned drinker.

  As Kai's gaze swept the room, a familiar figure rose from a corner table like a crane taking flight. Chen Gong's slender frame cut an elegant contrast to the tavern's rough-hewn patrons, his scholar's robes only slightly rumpled from travel. He waved Kai over with a gesture that managed to be both welcoming and imperious, the long sleeves of his hanfu fluttering like parchment in a breeze.

  "Just who I hoped to see," Chen Gong called, his voice carrying over the ambience without seeming to raise it. "Come, share my table." He nudged an already half-empty bottle toward an empty stool with his foot, the movement oddly graceful for a man who'd spent the day traveling on foot with Kai.

  Patreon! You can read chapters early by becoming a patron.