Mei Shan was correct. She always was. That was why she had been the leader of the group. Her judgment was sound and her eyes were clear.

  She’d been thrown off for a bit. She’d met many beings, some far stronger than even Mister Bill. She’d seen sixteenth ranks of the Divine Beast Emporium. Gods among gods, and yet still the man called Bill was different.

  It was as if a mortal’s perspective had somehow overpowered an immortal’s somehow. After months of thought, that was the conclusion she had arrived at.

  But she was here, and she needed to care of her own. So she started gathering the girls and looking after them. Her sisters, her responsibilities. The servant mothers had been strict and they had accepted it to survive. That was a servant’s duty, to be molded and shaped and empty of any identity aside from what your master needed you to be.

  That was impossible for most people. One would have to become an immortal servant, which was a rare thing even among the God Imperiums.

  But Mei Shan did her best, pleasing every customer she had and taking care of any mistakes she or her sisters had made. She was their protector, their older sister, and that was what older sisters did.

  But things had changed. Back within the Divine Beast Emporium, if you had asked Mei Shan about her dreams, she would have said nothing because servants don’t get to dream. "But she did have hopes. She hoped for a nice life as a servant mother. She hoped for old age and retirement. She hoped to live her sunset years on some planet with her sisters have served her time and usefulness.

  That was the only time servants like her were granted peace, and if she had worked for a few more millennia, she would have gotten that hope, that dream.

  But instead, Kin Jey had chosen her and her sisters as universal trackers. He could have used objects or beasts, but those could be discarded and refused.

  “No one throws away women,” he used to say.

  He would then track down whoever he had given them to and kill them with his horde of guards.

  He was the direct descendant of a God Imperium. He didn’t need to kill or steal. He just hunted people down for the fun of it.

  It was sport for him, as it was to all of Tai Jey’s descendants. They were bestial that way and even though they believed themselves to be superior to beasts, in Mei Shan’s eyes they were no better than them.

  She would have never thought that within the Divine Beast Emporium. Her aura might fluctuate and reflect her emotions. There were techniques to manage such a thing but they all involved a calm mental mind, and when she thought about the people who owned her, well how could she keep calm then?

  But anger would have done her no good back then.

  And that was how Mei thought, practically.

  She was reasonable and measured. She couldn’t afford to be otherwise.

  Well, that was all until now. Now she was just…lost.

  She was free, well she was freer than she had ever been. She had never propositioned Mister Bill to leave the desert or the realm, but she knew he would say no if she did. But even that was both for her safety and Bill’s. And even with that rule, she was more free than she had ever been. She could choose to work or to lazy around. Her sisters were safe and so was she. Rin Wi had even become an immortal, little Rin Wi.

  She should have been happy. This was her dream after all, to find a place to relax and grow old with her sisters. She should have been content.

  But instead, she was just sad.

  Mei didn’t miss servitude. At least she didn’t miss most of it. But some days when there was no call for her name, no demand for her presence. Some days she couldn’t help but feel empty.

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  She was happy that her sisters were free, she truly was. Even though she had bashed Rin Wi on picking up a dao like that for no reason, she delighted in her victory.

  But she was simply unneeded as of now. Her sisters were all safe. And any minor mistakes they made always went unnoticed, even major ones were excused entirely.

  For the first month of so, Mei Shan had believed this place to be a trick, a cruel prank played by Kin Jey. Maybe they should have all killed themselves or attacked Mister Bill in the name of Kin Jey. She had thought about it.

  The possibility that this was an evil test, a tiny glimpse at freedom made more sense to her than all of this being real.

  But Kin was never this patient. If it were a test, they would have already failed and Kin Jey would have been torturing them in some sick twisted way.

  Mei Shan had often been the one to take up the fault of her sisters in that day. If the mistakes were bad enough, she’d be beaten with a whip woven from an immortal steed's hair. Her back would bleed and the qi would traverse her meridians, tearing them up and making her nearly mortal.

  She’d be healed to perfection of course. They didn’t like damaged products within the Divine Beast Emporium.

  And there were far worse punishments than that. If you rebelled or tried to run away, which was always futile.

  You’d be fed to the beasts, brought back to life, then fed again.

  That was the way Gods played with mortals.

  Your flesh was remakeable, your soul could be grabbed, and these beings could put you in your own personal hell if they wanted to.

  She had gone through that a couple of times, and the fourth time it happened was when they had broken her. It was when she accepted her place, her nature. She was nothing but a tool and would never be anything more than a tool.

  She didn’t miss that part of the Divine Beast Emporium. No, that whole place could burn brightly in the void and be sieged upon by the Hells for all she cared.

  But now that it was all gone, she found herself wondering what use did she have?

  What was her purpose? Sure she was free, as free as she could be in her situation, but now the practical-minded person who had grown to bear untold hardships was useless here.

  She leaned back, part of her mind still stretched out across the vast desert scape. It was her personal technique. She’d made it back when she was in the Emporium, something to help her watch over her sisters and guide them before they could make the wrong choices.

  Mister Bill had seen it and improved it, giving her an observation technique that would still be useful at the twelfth rank. She pushed qi into it, circulating through her own senses, treating them like limbs and creating temporary false meridian pathways through them.

  It was an advanced, something that was far beyond what she was worth. And it was also the moment Mei had believed this new reality to be permanent. She really was here. She really was free.

  And she really was useless. Joy, happiness, shock, relief, she’d gone through all of those already, and now she sat at the latest feeling, and now unmoored.

  She saw a cultivator about to cut down someone in the distance, and she pressed down her aura hard upon him. He screamed and ran.

  That was what she did to busy herself. She watched over the mortals, these tiny, pitiful weak people. She made sure none of them died or killed each other unduly. She settled disputes between mortals and whatever weaklings passed for cultivators over here.

  It was something. It was duty, but it wasn’t necessary.

  She wasn’t needed. The world could function without her and without that sense of urgency and consequence, everything just felt meaningless.