Chương 16: Chapter 15: IN THE SECT

CHAPTER 15 IN THE SECT —∞— It was at much lower speeds (but still far faster than Jieyuan could hope to run, at least at his step) that Elder Taishou flew the cloudcraft through what Jieyuan assumed to be the inner court. From this high above, he couldn't really tell—everything the same color looked to be also the same in shape and form—and there weren't any landmarks he could use to situate himself.

Elder Taishou seemed to be steering the cloud toward a particular group of mountains: three tightly packed peaks that could, depending on how you looked at it, be considered a single mountain rather than three. And built into the middle of them was a flat-topped, tower-like structure made of a pristine white stone.

It rose slightly above the peaks of the mountains around it—though slightly, in this case, meant something along the lines of several hundred feet—and as they drew closer, Jieyuan realized that it touched the insides of the three peaks surrounding it, like the tower was cradled between the three mountains. As they approached, the structure seemed to grow bigger, and Jieyuan was struck by the sheer size of it. It was, quite aptly, mountainous. Like a fourth mountain, a man-made one, built from marble.

Elder Taishou flew them directly toward the top of it, and as he did, Jieyuan saw that the tower didn't fully occupy the hollow formed by the three peaks. There were significant gaps on all three sides, but they weren't fully unoccupied either. Built onto the face of the three surrounding peaks were more structures, and they were connected to the tower through hanging marble walkways and bridges. The tower itself wasn't a straight cylinder, either.

Jutting out from it were balcony-like platforms that looked big enough to hold entire houses. On them were gardens or other buildings. Jieyuan took it all in, but he was no architect, nor did he have a particular interest in buildings. Rather, what struck him was how a structure like this couldn't have been built by human hands—at least by mundane ones.

Up to this point the Gleaming Stone Sect, at least in terms of its buildings and facilities, hadn't looked all that different from what he would see around Radiant Gold City. A building of dimensions like this tower, though, was a different story. Cultivators had built it. Not for the first time, Jieyuan was struck by the power of the Gleaming Stone Sect. Right afterward, though, he once again wondered what higher-realm sects would be like, when a Redrealm sect was already like this.

Is all of this the Justice Hall? Jieyuan wondered. Or does the tower serve other purposes? The top of the tower was expansive, and it was divided into several courtyards. Dozens of little walled square yards, maybe more than a hundred of them. Some were unoccupied, but most of them showed at least some level of activity, be it people walking through them or even other cloudcrafts arriving. Elder Taishou lowered their cloudcraft onto a courtyard near the center of the tower's top.

It was one of the biggest courtyards from what Jieyuan had seen—possibly the biggest one—with a large, square lawn at its center. Directly ahead, connected to the courtyard, was a large, two-story building, made from the same sleek white stone as the rest of the tower. All around it were other buildings, but just like with the courtyard connected to it, it seemed to be the tallest, largest building on the top of the tower.

A pair of men in the topaz robes of inner elders stood at attention at the edge of the courtyard, and they approached as soon as the cloud made contact with the ground. Elder Taishou was the first to alight, grabbing the still-immobilized, barrier-covered Qingshi by the waist and stepping off the cloud. The pair of elders stopped right in front of him; wordlessly, Elder Taishou handed Qingshi over to them.

One of the elders took Qingshi by the feet, the other by the shoulders, and together they carried him away as if he were a statue, into the left wing of the building and out of sight. Jieyuan's gaze lingered on the doorway the inner elders disappeared into. Logic dictated they'd taken Qingshi to a holding cell or something to that effect. This could be the end of the whole Qingshi situation, the resolution leading to Qingshi being tried, judged, and finally executed, or however it was the Justice Hall operated.

That was, at least, the impression Elder Taishou had given him. He'd just met the man, though, so he wasn't quite sure how accurate that was. Meiyao seemed to trust the elder well enough, but Meiyao was close friends with Yunzhu. Evidently she wasn't the best judge of people. Once they were all on the ground, Elder Taishou collected his part of the cloudcraft into his sleeves, leaving only Yunzhu's half of it, before turning to his daughter.

"Wait for me at home." On their way over, Yunzhu had taken a break from her new game of staring silently and creepily at Qingshi to resume her usual game of staring silently and creepily at Daojue. Daojue, to his credit, met her disturbing gaze with an unsettling glare of his own, one that wasn't quite as eerie as Yunzhu's but just as intense. Unsettled, Jieyuan edged away from what was, in his opinion, possibly the most disturbing, disconcerting stare-off he'd ever had the rotten luck to witness.

Jieyuan traded glances with Meiyao. She'd also stepped away from Yunzhu; there was a frown on her face, like she wasn't sure what to make of this situation. I'd give gold to know what's in Yunzhu's and Daojue's heads right now. More than ever, Jieyuan found himself wondering just what they were thinking, just what made them behave the way they did. He suspected, though, that if his wish were to be granted, he might end up offering even more gold to forget whatever he saw in their heads.

"Yunzhu," Elder Taishou repeated, his voice still soft but firmer than before. Jieyuan studied the elder's face. He had a wry sort of look on his face, like that of a parent watching their child do something silly, like catching bugs in the garden." Yunzhu." At Elder Taishou's second, much firmer call, Yunzhu turned around to face her father, blinking.

"Yes, Father?" She looked genuinely curious.

"I told you to wait for me at home." Yunzhu's eyes widened.

"But—" Elder Taishou leveled her a steely look—one that was, praise the Heavens, just a normal, admonishing look a parent would give a misbehaving child, and not a variation of the Yunzhu stare—and Yunzhu snapped her mouth shut, wilting on the spot, shoulders slumping.

"All right," Yunzhu said, sounding just as tragically despondent as she looked.

"We'll be talking later, Meiyao. And it was nice seeing you again, Jieyuan." Jieyuan was fairly sure that was the first time she'd so much as looked his way today, having been too busy earlier drilling her eyes into either Daojue or Qingshi. Yunzhu then turned to Daojue.

"And Daojue…" Her gaze deepened. Before Yunzhu could fully fall into another daze, though, Elder Taishou spoke up again, stern.

"Yunzhu." Yunzhu snapped out of it and glanced at her father.

"I'm going," Yunzhu said, petulantly, almost like a whine. But as she turned around, her gaze lingered for just a little on Daojue—on the wound on Daojue's shoulder, which had somehow already stopped bleeding but was still surrounded by bloodied cloth. This time she managed to keep herself in check, though, and pried her eyes off Daojue before turning around.

With a wave of her hand, she pulled her cloudcraft into her sleeves before stomping off into one of the corridors enclosing the courtyard, opposite to the one the inner elders had taken Qingshi into. Jieyuan couldn't help but notice how, after Qingshi was taken away, Yunzhu seemed to have forgotten about the inner disciple altogether. He wasn't sure how much he could read into that, though, considering it involved Yunzhu, and he couldn't begin to guess what went on in her head.

Elder Taishou followed his daughter with his gaze until she was gone, then addressed them, "Follow me." The elder made for the corridor directly across from them, the one leading to the large two-story building. Following Elder Taishou inside, flanked by Daojue and Meiyao, Jieyuan found himself in an expansive entryway open at the side to two other courtyards.

These courtyards were smaller, though, and in them were exotic gardens similar to the one Jieyuan had seen at Meiyao's residence, with curious-looking plants (many of which were glowing, and more than a couple of them crystalline) that were definitely chromal in nature. But while Meiyao's garden seemed makeshift and practical, even if very well tended to, these ones were very much so provisionally maintained and arranged, with sculpted pots deliberately arrayed.

It looked like the kind of garden you'd normally have servants caring for, but it had chromal plants on them. Did elders have cultivators for servants? Jieyuan doubted it. If nothing else, a servant would need to be taught the craft of nurturing to be able to tend to chromal plants like this, and that didn't seem to be worth the trouble. Was Elder Taishou a nurturer himself, then? Maybe even a nurturer and refiner, like Meiyao.

They followed Elder Taishou straight down the open-sided hallway, which led to the entrance of the two-story building proper. Inside was a large, spacious hallway, lit by glowing gemstones on the ceiling and with doors on either side after every few steps. At the end of it was a large set of doors, and Elder Taishou walked straight toward them. As they neared, the doors opened inward on their own, and Elder Taishou strode inside without pausing.

Neither Meiyao nor Daojue hesitated to follow, and Jieyuan followed their example as he stepped through the doorway with them. Jieyuan's first impression of the room was that it was red. There was a large, deep red rug on the floor, there were a pair of burgundy couches in the middle surrounding a short, reddish-brown mahogany table, with all the other furniture in the room—shelves on the walls, the desk at the other end, and the chairs around it—being made of that same wood.

But then his eyes were drawn to the crystals. The room was large, square, and on the mahogany shelves taking up the left and right walls, many of them in the form of stand-alone little cubicles, there were varying crystals on display—or, more specifically, pieces of gleamstone, of different shapes and colors and ranging from thumb-sized to the size of a human heart to even larger. It took Jieyuan a moment to realize they were gleam cores.

His soulsenses extended far enough that he could perceive a couple of them, and they were all at tenth-step Redrealm. He cast his gaze around wonderingly. Were these like the cultivator equivalent of hunting trophies? Or at least the Gleaming Stone Sect equivalent of it. Any of those cores was probably worth more than everything he had on him, even taking into account everything he'd gotten from Weiming.

Behind the desk at the end of the room was a large window that took up most of the wall beside it, showing off another garden, one even grander and more elaborate than the ones Jieyuan had passed through, except all the plants on it were gleam plants. Jieyuan felt like he was looking at a miniature replica of the Gleamstone Valley, like someone had cut off a slice of it and transported it into that garden.

Elder Taishou crossed the room in a few large strides and settled down on the large, high-backed chair behind the desk. He motioned toward the couple of smaller, but similar-looking chairs facing it on the opposite side.

"Please, sit." Meiyao picked the chair directly opposite Elder Taishou. Daojue silently sat on the one to her left, and Jieyuan on the remaining one, to her right. Gleaming End could not be split, and though Daojue could've strapped it on his back or put it away in his pouch, he'd kept it in his hands the entire time. Now, sitting down, Daojue had the spear angled against his body.

Were Daojue another person, he might have given the impression of hugging the weapon, but somehow Daojue—perfectly postured, borderline immobile—made it look like the shrouded spear was merely resting against a very convincing statue. Jieyuan scanned the desk in front of him. On it were several shelves filled with jadebooks, as well as a number of scrolls and sheets of paper. Everything looked meticulously organized.

"Now, then," Elder Taishou said, leaning forward, elbows over the desk, fingers steepled in front of his face.

"As I mentioned earlier, Yunzhu and I followed Qingshi throughout his time in the forest, so I already have a fairly clear idea of what transpired. I do require a proper accounting from you three, but I understand you might not be exactly in the right condition for such tedious matters…" The inner elder's eyes flitted to Daojue's shoulder.

"So I'll only ask you three to fill in some blanks. Any questions before we begin?" To the surprise of nobody, Daojue had none. Meiyao also stayed quiet. Jieyuan had no such reservations.

"I do, actually, Elder. How… How exactly did you and Yunzhu end up following Qingshi into the forest?" Addressing Elder Taishou respectfully like this was odd. Jieyuan hadn't had much contact with elders of the Gleaming Stone Sect, and most of the ones he'd seen, even with a Redsoul's lifespan, had looked distinctly older than he was.

Elder Taishou, on the other hand, looked like he could've easily been a peer, a fellow disciple, even more so than his wife, Wanxin, whom back during the entrance trials Jieyuan had already found oddly young-looking. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

If it hadn't been for the habit his father had taught him—of always referring to someone in your head by their position, so you never forgot about it—he could easily forget just what kind of rank Taishou held in the sect. Jieyuan's eyes dipped down to the bond band Elder Taishou wore around his neck, completely covering it. It was just like Wanxin's, an elaborate piece filled with gemstones and diamonds. It didn't suit him in the least." Ah." Elder Taishou leaned back in his chair.

"I'd have gotten to this matter eventually, but… Well, this also works. As I assume you're aware, the Inner Hunt ended on the fifteenth, two weeks ago. Qingshi returned together with all the other participants. My apprentice lives with my daughter and me, you see, and upon his return he claimed he'd spend the following days training in seclusion in preparation for the Radiant Gold Summit." Elder Taishou looked off to the side, frowning, as if he was recalling something.

"Earlier this morning, however, I happened to see him leaving our compound in secret. I followed him from a distance, all the way to the Gleamstone Valley. My daughter was with me when I saw Qingshi, and she… insisted on coming along." The elder sighed deeply as he leaned forward again over the table.

"Now, I do believe an apology is in order. I am partially at fault for all this, Qingshi being my disciple, and I refrained from intervening in your fight with Qingshi and his helpers until the very end, as I'd wanted to see what else my apprentice was hiding from me." Daojue said nothing. Meiyao gave a slow nod, and so did Jieyuan, even as he mulled over Elder Taishou's little tale. Elder Taishou and Yunzhu's presence in the forest was among the most suspicious things about this situation.

Now Elder Taishou had provided an explanation for it, but it didn't quite put Jieyuan at ease. Could it be the truth? Jieyuan supposed so. But it was also awfully convenient. As he saw it, anything that involved an "I just happened to do something" warranted at least a little bit of suspicion. Admittedly, there'd been plenty of situations ever since their ill-fated mission in the Fatebloom Woods that Jieyuan could tack "I happened" onto.

When he considered all the things that he'd gotten up to these last few weeks, suspicious wouldn't even begin to describe what he'd have felt had all of it happened to someone else and they'd relayed it to him. He didn't even need an outsider's perspective to be suspicious about his recent circumstances. An insider's perspective was enough.

"Good," Elder Taishou said.

"Now, then, I only need to know about your encounter with Geshihan Weiming, as I wasn't there for it. Daojue, how about you…" Daojue stared at Elder Taishou. Elder Taishou blinked, and just like the man had taken his daughter's unusual, disturbing behavior in stride, he seemed to afford Daojue's own brand of strange the same treatment. Lips quirking up briefly in a wry smile, Elder Taishou looked past Daojue to Meiyao.

"Or perhaps Meiyao," he said, diplomatically.

"Would you mind telling me what exactly happened?" Meiyao was a rather expressive person. For the most part, she wore her emotions on her face, and she didn't strike Jieyuan as a particularly adept liar. And now, faced with Elder Taishou's question, she glanced over at Daojue and Gleaming End, eyes narrowed, and then shot another brief look Jieyuan's way. Jieyuan affected a neutral expression. The alternative was to groan.

If it had been Meiyao's idea to make herself—and the rest of them, by extension—seem suspicious, Jieyuan would say she'd succeeded spectacularly at it. He wondered, briefly, whether it'd be a good idea to try to just take over the explanation, but Meiyao had already done her damage, and he also wasn't sure what he'd say in her place. He wanted to keep Gleaming End a secret, but he couldn't really think of a scenario in which they could've killed Elder Weiming without it.

Elder Taishou had also hinted he already knew what the weapon was. Meiyao didn't begin immediately. Elder Taishou seemed perfectly content to wait for her to gather her thoughts, a pleasant smile on his face.

"Weiming ambushed us," Meiyao eventually said.

"She tried to kill Jieyuan with her saber, but Daojue pulled him out of the way in time. I then used a Radiant Light Haven talisman on her, and we made a run for it." She paused.

"We found the cave—""Protector Yuanzhi's cave, that is, right?" Elder Taishou cut in. His expression hadn't changed much, but his words sounded more intense.

"How, exactly, did you find it?" Meiyao pursed her lips.

"Daojue found it." Jieyuan bit back a groan, forcing himself not to react. He should've known that Meiyao wouldn't cover for Daojue, not when she seemed to take his secrecy as a personal offense. I should've taken over the explanation, he realized. If needed, he could have said they'd stumbled onto the cave while climbing the Flaw, improbable as that was, and would have only doubled down on it when pressed. But it was too late for that now.

"Oh? Is that so, Daojue?" Elder Taishou asked Daojue.

"You were the one who found the cave?" Elder Taishou didn't seem particularly surprised; he didn't seem like anything, really, his expression now inscrutable. His gaze was even more intense, though, and entirely concentrated on Daojue. It had already occurred to Jieyuan that Elder Taishou was Yunzhu's father and the possible implications of that. He'd met Yunzhu's mother before, Protector Wanxin, his protector for the sect's entrance trials, and she'd seemed plenty normal.

So if Yunzhu had gotten her disorder (whatever it was) from one of her parents… Jieyuan shifted uneasily in his seat. Up to this point, Elder Taishou had seemed fairly normal. But now, though the way the man looked at Daojue wasn't quite as unsettling as the way his daughter did, it wasn't that far off from it, either. Yunzhu could also act normal enough. She only really acted up where Daojue was concerned.

Jieyuan hoped that he was reading the elder wrong and that Yunzhu's obsession with Daojue wasn't something that ran in their family.

"Yes," Daojue said. Elder Taishou kept on staring at him, right into Daojue's violet eyes. Daojue met the tenth-step Redrealm's gaze evenly. On Daojue's other side, Meiyao was starting to look uncomfortable.

"I see," Elder Taishou finally said.

"Very well. We all have our secrets, so I won't press you for yours. I cannot guarantee that others will be as understanding, however. So should anyone else ask, I suggest you claim that you simply happened to stumble upon the cave by chance. Regardless, I believe I can guess what happened next." Elder Taishou then nodded at the shrouded spear on Daojue's lap.

"You found Gleaming End and used it to kill Weiming, taking her by surprise. Am I correct?" Daojue said nothing. Meiyao was also quiet now.

"Yes, that's about right," Jieyuan said. Little point in trying to hide that now.

"Though we still don't know how she managed to track us to the cave. Or how Qingshi managed to find us later, either." Jieyuan looked at the elder expectantly, hoping he might have the answer.

"Hmmm? Yes, that is curious. I'll be sure to look into it," Elder Taishou said dismissively, his eyes still fixed on Gleaming End. The elder held out his hand over the desk.

"May I?" Daojue stared at Elder Taishou's extended hand. For a long while, Daojue didn't otherwise react, but Elder Taishou seemed not to mind. He just kept his hand out, and Jieyuan would've called the man patient if it weren't for the intensity in his gaze as he stared at Daojue. With bated breath, Jieyuan then watched on as, wordlessly, Daojue held out Gleaming End toward Elder Taishou. Jieyuan's breath stayed bated as Elder Taishou took hold of the weapon and brought it closer to him.

Setting one end of it against the ground, he reached for the spearhead and pulled at the spirit-shroud covering it. The tip of the spear was revealed, and Elder Taishou went very still. No doubt, Jieyuan realized, because he'd just realized that what he was holding was not a Redrealm weapon. Jieyuan could think of a couple of different ways this situation could play out. It wasn't the possibility of them—or rather, Daojue—being forced to give up Gleaming End that troubled him. Jieyuan was the son of a merchant.

He liked to think he knew greed better than most. The issue here was the distinct possibility that Elder Taishou could decide to keep Gleaming End for himself and ensure their silence on the matter through a little helping of murder and bloodshed. And should the tenth-step Redsoul decide to dance the death tango with them, while he could easily do so unarmed, Daojue had just handed him the ideal murder weapon, one that could make light work of Meiyao's Radiant Light Haven talisman.

Jieyuan gritted his teeth; he felt a familiar bitterness well up inside him, biting and blazing. This. It was this feeling of utter powerlessness that had driven him to become a cultivator. He reckoned he'd have chosen to become a cultivator anyway, but the overpowering, maddening impotence that had plagued him ever since he understood just how far cultivators were above mundanes had driven him just as much as his ambition.

All three of them were now utterly at Elder Taishou's mercy, and just as much as the current situation ate at him, just as bad was the fact that from the moment Elder Taishou appeared, there was nothing they could've done (save for Meiyao using her talisman before they left the Gleamstone Valley) that could've led to a better result than this. This lack of agency—this inevitability—was just as inflaming.

Elder Taishou went on to unravel the rest of the shroud around the spear's blade until the crystalline spearhead was entirely bared. Eyes narrowed, Elder Taishou shifted the spear around in his hand, looking at the crystal blade from different angles. He seemed entranced. Slowly, gently, the man reached up with his right hand and trailed his fingers down the length of the blade.

Hearing an odd, grinding sound, Jieyuan glanced to the side and saw Daojue staring at Elder Taishou, his jaw tightly clenched, his violet eyes bright, like they were ablaze. This was, to date, the strongest reaction he'd ever seen from Daojue. Elder Taishou looked up, and seeing Daojue's expression, the elder narrowed his eyes, then glanced back down at the spear. He moved his hand away from the blade and tilted his head to the side. He looked thoughtful.

"You've bonded the weapon?"

"Yes," Daojue said, tightly. Elder Taishou hummed. It was a soft, whimsical sound.

"How… curious. You can sense its spirit, then? What realm is it?"

"Orangerealm," Daojue said.

"Orangerealm…" Elder Taishou murmured. He stared at Daojue for a while longer.

"I see." Then, quietly, he began wrapping the shroud back around the blade. He was slow about it, deliberate. Once the weapon was fully covered again, he held it up and extended it out over the table. Daojue looked from the elder to Gleaming End, before he took back the weapon. Daojue's expression eased, but there was still a sharp, wary glint in his eye as he regarded Elder Taishou.

"You know," Elder Taishou said, "I don't believe you've ever told me your background." Daojue said nothing. Elder Taishou hummed again.

"I see." He settled back in his chair, and looked away at them, past them, distant. Then, as if he'd come to some conclusion, he nodded firmly.

"Besides myself, the only individuals that might know of your possession of Gleaming End are my daughter and apprentice. Yunzhu will remain silent on this matter, and Qingshi won't have the opportunity to share it with others. Should anyone ask, you'll tell them that prior to the Hunt, I had Yunzhu hand Meiyao a Radiant Light Blast talisman, and that you used it to kill Weiming. You also won't tell anyone of the cave or of Protector Yuanzhi's corpse."

"You… You don't mean… You're letting Daojue keep it?" Meiyao asked, looking and sounding incredulous. She gave voice to exactly what Jieyuan was thinking.

"Daojue seems fated with the spear." Elder Taishou wore a strange smile.

"And the Liangshibai Clan has gone for over a century without the spear. It won't hurt them to spend a few more years. Presently, there appears to be a conspiracy from the sect's two noble clans targeting you, and should they strike at you again, Gleaming End will serve you well." The elder nodded at Daojue.

"All I ask is that you return Gleaming End to the sect once you have outgrown it. Given you're bound to eventually reach Yellowrealm, if not Greenrealm, it's only a matter of time before you'll no longer have use for it." Out of all the possible outcomes of this conversation, Daojue getting to keep his shiny new toy just like that was not the one Jieyuan was expecting. On the surface, this seemed to be the best outcome they could've asked for.

Still, a shiver crawled down his spine, and Jieyuan did his best not to look directly at Elder Taishou. Because this outcome was too good. He knew all about not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but he also knew that a beggar given gold ought to beware. This move didn't benefit Elder Taishou in any way. In fact, it only held risks for the elder. There was no way the man didn't have an angle.

Cultivators weren't known for their generosity, and he hardly expected a mundane-born who'd risen to one of the most prestigious positions in the sect—head of the Justice Hall—to be the exception. Jieyuan wasn't sure what sect politics were like, but given his experience so far, if he had to make a guess, he'd go for cutthroat.

"I do believe that's about everything I needed to know," Elder Taishou said.

"There is, however, one matter that still needs to be addressed. When a member of one of the sect's clans is killed, regardless of their circumstance, their belongings are reverted to the clan if they can be recovered." He glanced over meaningfully at Jieyuan's armor, and at Meiyao's sheath.

"Unless I'm mistaken, you've kept Weiming's belongings and split it among yourselves. Hmmm. How about this? Weiming was assigned to oversee the Hunt. I believe the Geshihan Clan pushed for it, in fact. I'll use that to have them formally transfer ownership of her belongings to the three of you. Even her skillseed. Consider it my apology for not intervening earlier in your fights." Elder Taishou gave them a searching look.

"Now, I won't be holding you three much longer. Is there anything else you three believe I should know about your history with Qingshi that I might not already be aware of?"

"I don't think so, no," Jieyuan said, before Meiyao or—improbably but not impossibly, Daojue—could tell the man about the matter with Rongkai in the Fatebloom Woods. He would rather not give Elder Taishou any motive to look into that matter further; he didn't want to risk the man somehow finding out about Rongkai's connection to the Fatebloom Woods. If Elder Taishou interrogated Qingshi later and found out about it, Jieyuan could just claim he didn't know Qingshi had been behind it.

Meiyao glanced at him but said nothing. Daojue didn't glance at him and similarly remained silent.

"Then we're done here, as far as my apprentice's matter is concerned," Elder Taishou said.

"I'll arrange it so that later today an elder will visit you three in your residences to collect your spoils from the Hunt. You should also get a visit from an elder from the Management Hall today to have you inducted into the inner court, now that you three are third-steps." The elder paused, looking thoughtful.

"Then again, you might not be assigned a new residence there, given that the day after tomorrow, you three will be heading out to the Radiant Gold Summit as part of the sect's delegation. That's also something the Management Hall elder will be informing you about, but I suspect you three already knew that you'd be given your heavenly affinities." There was an appraising quality to Elder Taishou's gaze now.

"Given what I've seen of your performance earlier, however, I believe you three might have made it in even if it weren't for your heavenly affinities, despite your low steps. Although I won't be part of the sect's delegation myself, I expect great things from all three of you." Elder Taishou paused for a moment, like he was concentrating on something else, then continued, "I've arranged for an elder to take you three back to the outer court. She'll be waiting for you three in the courtyard we arrived in.

I trust you three remember the way." He then looked to the side, picking up a sheet of paper from his desk, in clear dismissal. Daojue was the first to stand up. Meiyao and Jieyuan followed right afterward. Within just a couple of strides, Daojue was out of the room, and already on his way down the corridor. Meiyao, though, paused near the doorway, and Jieyuan, noticing, stopped too.

"Qingshi will be executed, then?" Meiyao asked. The elder looked up to her, and answered readily, "Yes, he will. After he's interrogated." Elder Taishou looked rather distracted, and he didn't give Jieyuan the impression he was all that concerned about his apprentice's fate.

"And will you tell us the results of the interrogation?" Meiyao asked.

"Well, I suppose, depending on what he reveals. However, considering you three will be leaving for the Summit the day after tomorrow, whatever it is that the noble clans are up to shouldn't concern you much longer." He gave them a searching look.

"Or do you intend to return to the sect afterward? It was my impression that you—all three of you, in fact—would be accepting the recruitment offer you'll doubtlessly be given by the Howling Lightning envoy."

"I…" For a moment, Meiyao looked unsure. But then she steeled her expression.

"No, I'm not coming back." She said it almost like a challenge.

"I see," Elder Taishou said. He went silent for a long moment, looking deeply at Meiyao, before nodding.

"Well, on a related note, my wife will be accompanying the delegation. So will your stepmother, Meiyao." Now his expression turned earnest." Please try to make some time for them, dear girl. Those two have been in a sour mood lately because you refuse to have anything to do with them, and I dread to think of what they'll be like if you leave for the Howling Lightning Sect without talking to them at least once. I'd also appreciate it if you'd reconnect with my daughter. Yunzhu also misses you dearly."

Meiyao frowned; hesitation flickered across her face. But then she shook her head and, jaw mutinously set, strode past Jieyuan and down the corridor.

Daojue was already long gone. Jieyuan was about to follow when he noticed Elder Taishou's expression lighten; he rolled his eyes at Meiyao's back, then shot Jieyuan a knowing wink and a nod. Uncertain, Jieyuan nodded back at the man, before turning around and setting down the corridor after his teammates. He felt Elder Taishou's gaze on his back as he made his way down the corridor. The feeling only went away when he heard the sound of doors closing softly behind him.