Chương 5: Chapter 4: IN THE GAZE

Daojue stared down back at her. Neither of them moved. Both looked impassive. They were on Daojue's doorstep. Meiyao had finished giving Daojue the same explanation she'd given Jieyuan earlier before half-asking, half-demanding to come inside so they could further discuss the matter. Daojue had yet to comply. Jieyuan stood to the side, quietly minding his own business. If Meiyao wanted to be the one to deal with Daojue, all the power to her.

Heavens knew she'd need it. Just as he was starting to think they'd be there all day, Meiyao and Daojue locked in this bizarre staring contest of theirs, Daojue moved away from the doorway, making way for them. With a triumphant snort, Meiyao strode inside. Jieyuan was just a step behind her. There wasn't much to see in Daojue's living room. Much like Jieyuan, Daojue clearly hadn't bothered with decorating after being assigned his residence.

There was a table in the center of it with four chairs around it, and that was it. The blinds were fully open, leaving the room well-lit. Daojue closed the door, then strode over to the table and took a seat. Meiyao didn't need to be told to do the same, sitting down opposite Daojue. Jieyuan picked the chair beside hers. Both Daojue and Meiyao sat ramrod straight. Clan-born etiquette. Be it sitting or standing, you did it proud and tall. Slouching? Perish the thought.

For himself, Jieyuan was happy to lean back against the backrest. As the son of the city's wealthiest merchant, he'd had his fair share of etiquette lessons, and he could go to the table with the best of them, but he didn't care to put on a show for these two. Definitely not for Daojue, at least. A glance at Meiyao, though, had him straightening a little.

"First of all," Meiyao said, looking between Jieyuan and Daojue, "how close are you two to third-step?" About a month away, Jieyuan thought. He was about to say as much when Meiyao followed up with an answer to her own question.

"I'm expecting to advance in two weeks, on the fifth of Yellowfull." Or maybe not. Jieyuan held his tongue and decided to wait for Daojue's answer before saying anything himself.

"Twelve days," Daojue said. They turned to Jieyuan. He drummed his fingers on the table, buying himself a little time.

"I'll need… twenty days." Left unsaid was that he'd have to use up just about all the prisms he had saved up if he wanted to keep his chroma reserves—his soulprism—topped up for the Hunt.

"So on the eleventh for me." He could do it even faster, but he wanted to get some practice in with Absolute Will Command. He could stomach falling behind Meiyao and Daojue by a couple of days in exchange. Meiyao look satisfied.

"So we're all advancing only after the Hunt starts. Good. Here's what I have in mind. The Gleamstone Valley is separated into the Outer Valley and the Inner Valley. So is the Gleamstone Hunt: the Outer Hunt, in the Outer Valley, for the outer disciples, and the Inner Hunt, in the Inner Valley, for the higher echelons." She paused meaningfully, and Jieyuan knew she was getting to the mother lode now.

"There isn't, however, any rule that says that we outer disciples can't hunt in the Inner Valley," she said.

"I had it confirmed this morning. It's just that it's not advisable." Jieyuan snorted. Not advisable was a bit of an understatement, and given how Meiyao had said it, she was well aware of it. He hadn't had the time to look into the Gleamstone Valley properly yet, but he'd heard the basics and what to expect from it. Outer disciples trying their luck in the Inner Valley wasn't that far off from suicide. And it'd make for a rather gruesome way to go, too.

The weakest beasts in the Inner Valley were at third-step Redrealm, and outer disciples were only second-step Redsouls at most. Faced with a third-step beast, your average second-step Redsoul would be dead in the blink of an eye. It didn't just have to do with the difference in steps; even faced with a same-step beast, most outer disciples wouldn't stand a chance. The chromal beasts of the Gleamstone Valley—gleam beasts, they were called—were also said to be particularly hardy and dangerous.

"There's something else I had confirmed," Meiyao said.

"If we advance to third-step Redrealm inside the Gleamstone Valley, we'll still be considered outer disciples. And that means we'll still be part of the Outer Hunt." She leaned forward, over the table.

"Except we'll be hunting third-step and above gleam beasts, and they're worth far more than first-step and second-step ones. We'd be able to guarantee first place after only a few days of hunting. That'd get us a prize of three thousand prisms." Three thousand prisms. That kicked all other thoughts right out of Jieyuan's head. That many split three ways meant a thousand prisms for each of them.

More than enough to tide Jieyuan over until the Radiant Gold Summit, and that was with using a prism every single chroma-harvesting session. If that was what he had to look forward to, he could put to rest any issues he had with burning through his current stash to speed things along. But he was also a merchant's son, and you didn't sign a deal without putting all your options on the balance first. You only committed to something once you knew all the relevant weights.

"And what sort of prize would we be looking at if we managed to make it into the Inner Hunt?"

"Not even a third of that." Meiyao waved her hand dismissively.

"Many of the core disciples participating will be sixth-step Redsouls, and there'll be dozens of fourth- and fifth-steps between the inner disciples. We'd be hard-pressed to rank above fifty, and that low in the Inner Hunt, the reward isn't even half a thousand prisms. But. Hmmm." She frowned, seemingly giving the matter some more thought.

"There is one advantage of making it into the Inner Hunt. It ends after just two weeks. That's half a month earlier than the Outer Hunt, to give the higher-echelon disciples time to rest and prepare for the Radiant Gold Summit." One of her hands was on the table, fingers tapping away. Jieyuan couldn't help but notice how slender they were. Tapered. Heavens, even her fingers are beautiful. Jieyuan pried his eyes off her hand—only for his gaze to land on Daojue's.

Daojue had both his hands on the table, clasped together. He had long fingers much like Meiyao, though his hands were much bigger. It wasn't Daojue's fingers that drew Jieyuan attention, though, but rather the ring adorning one of them. A red ring, on the forefinger of Daojue's right hand. A blood-red band. Matte, not metallic. Embossed on it was a simple design: a seven-pointed star. It looked like it might be some kind of emblem, but it wasn't any Jieyuan knew.

This wasn't Jieyuan's first time noticing Daojue's ring. He'd wondered about it before. But because it didn't register to his soulsenses, he'd just assumed it was just some mundane ring and forgotten about it. But now… Didn't Jieyuan have a similar ring of his own inside his holder pouch, one that also appeared mundane to his soulsenses even though it was anything but? Rongkai's golden wooden ring. Jieyuan felt he was onto something here.

There was also this morning's revelations, where he'd realized there was far more to Daojue than met the eye. Now that he thought on it, it also struck him as unlikely that Daojue—practical as he was—would bother wearing a mundane ring.

"But as I said earlier, we'd only need to hunt a couple of days in the Inner Valley to guarantee first place," Meiyao was saying.

"We can head on to the Inner Valley once we've all advanced—on the eleventh, or even earlier if you can manage it—and after that we'd only need to hunt for a handful of days or so to get a safe enough score. Afterward, we can focus on cultivation in preparation for the Summit, still in the forest."

"Color me convinced, then," Jieyuan said, bringing his attention back to her, setting the matter of Daojue's ring aside for now. His eyes caught Meiyao's, then Daojue's. He had his own contribution to make.

"But I don't think we need to wait until we're at third-step to make for the Inner Valley," Jieyuan said.

"We should do it as soon as the Hunt begins. Between the three of us, even as second-step Redsouls, we should be able to take on a third-step Redrealm beast. And after we break through, we can look into hunting fourth-step, fifth-step ones." If there was a team of second-step Redsouls that could take on third-step beasts, it was theirs. And if they could pull it off, then once they broke through to third-step, he reckoned they could go as far as two steps higher.

The higher the step, the smaller the gap in power between them; the difference between the fifth and third steps of a realm was only slightly bigger than that between the third and second steps. Go big or go bigger still, Jieyuan's old man used to say, and in that much at least they had managed to agree on. Would always agree on. Meiyao gave him a brief, measuring look, then said, "That's fine by me." She'd been thrown off by his suggestion. Hadn't expected it. Had he impressed her? Maybe. Probably.

Jieyuan caught sweet, swimming satisfaction swelling inside him, and he was quick to stifle it. No, he told himself. You are not going there. He couldn't afford any distractions. He had his priorities set ruler-straight. Ruler-straight. He turned to Daojue.

"What about you? Agreed?" Daojue gazed back at him evenly—almost placidly, but placid wasn't a word you could really use to describe Daojue. There was an intensity to his stillness that killed any notion of tranquility. Jieyuan wasn't sure what exactly sat behind Daojue's light violet eyes, but whatever it was, he had a feeling that it was only barely contained. This time, what Jieyuan found himself stifling was a shiver. At last, Daojue deigned to dignify his question with a reply: "Agreed."

"So we have our plan," Jieyuan said. Remembering something else, he turned to Meiyao.

"What about Qingshi? If he was really behind Rongkai's attempt on Daojue's life, it seems to me like the Hunt would be the perfect place to give it another go and see if it sticks this time. He might even try to do it himself. And Qingshi's no Rongkai." And wasn't that another understatement. Qingshi most definitely wasn't Rongkai, wasn't some small-time, insignificant inner disciple (Violetrealm bondskill notwithstanding).

Rather, Qingshi was the strongest inner disciple in the sect: a fifth-step Redsoul who'd beaten a seventh -step Redsoul core disciple just a couple of months ago in a duel. And Qingshi's aptitude for martial arts took on an almost mythical quality when you considered his unique circumstances. Even if all three of them advanced to third-step Redrealm, Jieyuan wasn't all that sure of their odds against the inner disciple.

And if Qingshi did come for them, there was no guarantee he'd be alone when he did, and that wouldn't help their odds any. No matter what, Jieyuan would still be taking part in the Gleamstone Hunt. He wasn't about to let what-ifs cower him, and if Qingshi did pay them a visit… Well, he'd figure something out, when and then. But he'd rather not be caught off-guard if he could help it. His words got a derisive scoff from Meiyao.

"I wouldn't worry about that. Qingshi would have to be an idiot to try anything during the Hunt." More quietly, she added, "We're not supposed to know this, but the sect will have elders watching over high-value disciples. That includes all the core disciples, obviously, but also a few special inner and outer disciples—those guaranteed to get scouted in the Summit, like us. I think we'll be assigned at least an inner elder as our watcher, if not a protector."

And I'm sure you being the chief elder's daughter had nothing to do with it, Jieyuan almost said. No matter how strained Meiyao's relationship with her father was, he doubted that hadn't been taken into consideration by the upper echelons. Still, now that Meiyao had put things that way, in that perspective, he could tell they'd have been assigned protection regardless of her parentage. As far as the sect was concerned, the three of them were investments, and you didn't risk your investments if you could help it.

No, you kept them safe until it was time to collect the profits.

"And Qingshi will have an elder watching over his team, as well," Meiyao said.

"To get to us, he'd have both our watcher and his to deal with. So it's as I said earlier. Unless Qingshi takes leave of his wits, he'll stay put. And if he does try something, if he somehow manages to get past the two watchers?" Meiyao smiled, and there was a feral, teeth-baring quality to it, almost like a snarl.

"He will not find us easy prey." Jieyuan stared at her for a moment, frozen, before looking away and swallowing dryly. Heavens. Sweet, radiant Heavens. Meiyao sure wasn't making this easy on him, was she? He'd never seen her smile like that before. She had no business smiling like that. None at all. He swallowed again and cleared his now oddly thick throat.

"I guess that matter's settled." He glanced at Daojue—the whole deal with Qingshi came down to him, after all, and Jieyuan was better off not looking at Meiyao right now—but Daojue remained impassive as ever, the perfect stoic Metalsoul. He was paying attention, his violet eyes on them, clear and intent, but going by the indifferent look he wore, you wouldn't have been able to tell he had any personal stakes in the matter. A consummate bystander, that was who Daojue was.

"Well, then I believe we're done here." Meiyao stood up. Jieyuan stared up at her, surprised at the abruptness of the announcement.

"I'll see the two of you on the—""Actually," Jieyuan cut in as he hurriedly got to his feet. Meiyao might be in a hurry to go for some reason, but that wasn't stopping him.

"There's something I wanted to ask you. I sprouted Rongkai's skillseed. I need someone to practice the bondskill on."

"You did?" Meiyao blinked. Then, perhaps for the first time since Jieyuan had met her, he saw hesitation flicker across her face.

"I believe… I believe I can spare some time, yes." And then she was back to looking as she usually did. Confident, composed.

"Great," Jieyuan said. He tried not to dwell on Meiyao's reaction and what it could mean. All that mattered was that he'd gotten someone to help him practice Absolute Will Command. He looked to Daojue.

"What about…" He trailed off. Daojue was still sitting, coolly regarding them. His expression remained unchanging, or at least it seemed to, but Jieyuan felt he could detect a shadow of impatience in it: a tenseness so minute it was impossible to pinpoint what exactly it was about Daojue's face that betrayed it. Jieyuan decided not to press his luck. He wasn't afraid of Daojue—Heavens forbid—but you didn't poke the grumpy deadly lion if you didn't need to. That was just a healthy dose of good sense.

"Right," Jieyuan said dryly.

"Never mind that. I think we're done—" In one fluid, graceful motion, Daojue stood up. Wordlessly, he walked past them, to the entrance, and opened the door without preamble. For a moment, Jieyuan thought that was Daojue's not-so-subtle way of telling them to leave without actually saying the word—Jieyuan certainly wouldn't have put it past him—but then he noticed someone approaching the doorway from the outside. Daojue must've sensed her through the proximity ward here.

Jieyuan stepped to the side to get a better look. It was a woman. A very tall woman, even taller than Meiyao. Beautiful, too. She didn't quite measure up to Meiyao—Jieyuan doubted anyone could, didn't think it was possible—but she was the one who'd come the closest so far, even if the two of them couldn't have looked any more different. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The woman by the doorway had cold, pale skin (where Meiyao's was borderline rosy with vitality) and straight black hair that framed her face like an inky curtain, nothing at all like Meiyao's cascade of brown curls. The lines of the woman's face were angular, reminding him of the Liangshibai, but her eyes were black, mundane. And even though she was draped in jewelry—blood rubies and diamonds—like the Liangshibai always were, she lacked the willowy, slender figure her family was known for.

Rather, the woman was closer to Meiyao in that regard, with her robes outlining her curves. Her green robes, Jieyuan noted. Or, more precisely, her emerald robes. The robes worn by members of the core court: core disciples and protectors. The lack of an elder's coat over her robes indicated she was the former rather then the latter. By the woman's waist was a sheathed sword. There were little rubies embedded on both the sheathe and the exposed hilt.

"Yunzhu," Meiyao said. Catching an odd note in his teammate's voice, Jieyuan glanced over at her. For the second time both that day and since he'd known her, he caught a flicker of hesitation cross her face. But it was gone in an instant, leaving Meiyao only looking mildly confused as she strode over to the door.

"What are you doing here?" Meiyao asked. Yunzhu. Jieyuan recognized the name. He'd called it to his mind just earlier that morning, when he'd been trying to puzzle out Qingshi's motivations for going after Daojue. Yunzhu, the daughter of Elder Taishou, head of the Justice Hall and Qingshi's master. The woman whom he'd heard that Qingshi was in a relationship with. Jieyuan knew about her. In fact, he'd come across her name long before he'd heard Qingshi's, despite there being far fewer rumors about her.

Back in his first week as an outer disciple, Jieyuan had looked into who exactly was Wanxin, his sapphire-eyed, white-robed proctor for the last stage of the entrance trials. And when he started asking around about Wanxin, Yunzhu's name had come up almost immediately. Because Wanxin's husband was Elder Taishou, Qingshi's master. And Yunzhu was their daughter. In the process, Jieyuan had also learned just what Wanxin's sapphire eyes meant, and the significance of the white robes she wore.

Meiyao being the daughter of the chief elder gave her a special status in the sect, but Yunzhu being Wanxin's daughter made Meiyao's parentage seem almost unremarkable. Liangshibai Wanxin, Jieyuan had learned, was the single most important person in the Gleaming Stone Sect. Jieyuan followed Meiyao to the door, but remained a step behind her, so as not to intrude. He got just close enough to catch Yunzhu's soul and mantle in the edge of his soulsenses, her presence registering as that of a fifth-step Redrealm.

He studied Yunzhu, who was still staring up at Daojue. He could see some resemblance to her mother, and they certainly had the same love for gemstones, but now that he knew who she was, it was her black eyes that he focused on. The lofty status of Yunzhu's parents wasn't the only special thing about her.

In the entire history of the Liangshibai Clan, Yunzhu was also said to be the only true-blood Liangshibai (one that could trace their lineage to the founder of the clan) to lack the gemstone eyes they were so well-known for. He'd heard that the Liangshibai could make their eyes look mundane on command, but Yunzhu was supposedly born with black eyes and was unable to make them change any which way. Looking at Yunzhu's eyes, though, Jieyuan couldn't help but feel that something was off about them.

They were clearly just black, perfectly mundane, but the look of them sat wrong with him. There was an intensity to them that reminded him of Daojue's violet eyes, as if Yunzhu's black eyes were also hiding something—like something lurked behind them, something she was only barely holding back. And the more he looked at them, the stronger that impression became. Yunzhu said something he didn't pick up on, and her face broke out into a dazzling smile.

What Jieyuan did pick up on was that even as Yunzhu smiled, enchanting as a blood orchid, her eyes remained unchanging, intense and fathomless. Something else he picked up on was that not even once did Yunzhu's gaze leave Daojue, even though Jieyuan could hear Meiyao talking to her. If Jieyuan had been unnerved by Daojue's stare earlier, now he was outright disturbed, and Yunzhu didn't even have her eyes on him. He looked away. Heavens knew he'd just about had his fill of eerie eyes.

—∞—"I came to check up on Daojue," Yunzhu was saying.

"Father told me what happened on the mission." Yunzhu sounded normal enough, Jieyuan would give her that much. Lively, almost cheery.

"Well, as you can see, we're perfectly fine," Meiyao said, a touch exasperated. She was standing by the doorway, closer to Yunzhu than Daojue, who hadn't seemed to have moved (or done anything at all, really) since opening the door. Jieyuan had a feeling that Daojue wasn't in the mood to entertain guests. He doubted that Daojue was ever in such a mood, but earlier Daojue had definitely been impatient—or the Daojue equivalent of it—for him and Meiyao to leave.

"I can see that, yes," Yunzhu said, still smiling brightly. It didn't seem like such a smile would fit her—she had the kind of dark, alluring looks more given to smoldering smiles and sultry smirks—but it somehow did, and her face lit up like the midday sun. As long as you ignored her eyes and the way she wouldn't look away from Daojue, everything seemed, as Meiyao had put it, perfectly fine.

"Say, do you mind if I come in for a bit?" Yunzhu said. She was already walking inside.

"It's been a while since we last talked. I think we should catch up and—""No," Daojue said, and he stepped to the side—not away from the door but toward it, putting himself directly in Yunzhu's way, immovable as a mountain.

"Leave." Jieyuan winced. He'd thought that Daojue was bad enough when he was silent. Turned out he was worse with his mouth open. Glancing to the side, he saw Meiyao cringe too.

"Oh." Yunzhu wilted on the spot, her smile breaking, her eyes growing doe-large. But a beat later, she recovered and was back to smiling.

"Right! I get it. After what happened, I can see you'd want some time to yourself. Well, don't worry. I can always come back later." In what was the greatest show of emotion Jieyuan had yet to see from Daojue, the man frowned. Just a smidgen, but there it was—a crease between Daojue's eyebrows. Given the flash of impatience Jieyuan had caught earlier, he'd thought that Daojue just wanted everyone out of his house, but now he wasn't so sure.

It was probably true that Daojue did want to be left alone, but if that frown was any indication, Daojue wanted Yunzhu gone in particular. Meiyao glanced at Daojue, then back at Yunzhu. It was her turn to frown, but hers seemed to be more out of concern.

"Yunzhu… I don't think—" But Yunzhu wasn't listening. She offered Daojue another wide, cheery smile, and then, for the first time, took her eyes off him to look at Meiyao.

"And you! You haven't visited at all lately. Mother, Father, and I miss you dearly. You must be sure to visit later." Meiyao seemed to be at a loss for words.

"I— I guess I can—""Great! We'll be waiting!" Yunzhu said, cheerful in a way Jieyuan had never seen anyone else be. She looked past Meiyao, her eyes finding Jieyuan's. To his confusion, now that he was looking straight into them, Yunzhu's eyes seemed perfectly ordinary. She smiled winningly.

"And you—Jieyuan, right? Mother couldn't stop talking about you, you know? You really left an impression on her! I'm so glad to finally meet you."

"Likewise?" Jieyuan said, a little uncertain.

"Great!" Yunzhu shot him another wide, beaming smile.

"Well, I'll be on my way, then!" Yunzhu spun on the ball of her feet, and from one of the sleeves of her robes flowed out a billowing, ruby-red substance. Not chroma; rather, it seemed halfway between smoke and string. It slowly gathered in front of Yunzhu, taking the form of a cloud that looked just big enough for four to sit on. A cloudcraft, just like that of the elder who'd flown them back to the sect earlier that day. Yunzhu's was a deep, vibrant red, whereas the elder's had been orange.

Yunzhu jumped on top of her cloudcraft, turned back and gave them a jaunty little wave. Then the cloudcraft shot up into the air. Jieyuan stared as Yunzhu vanished into the distance, caught up in the abruptness of it all, but also in how perfectly mundane she'd seemed at the end, when she'd looked at him. He'd felt not even a shadow of that dark, dangerous impression he'd gotten earlier. He couldn't make sense of it.

But he didn't know enough to start making sense of it, either, so he pushed it out of his mind for now.

"Yunzhu… can come across as a little intense," Meiyao eventually said, sounding a touch uncertain. Shaking her head, Meiyao stepped outside, through the doorway. To Daojue, she said, "I knew you'd met Taishou a couple of times, but I was unaware you also knew Yunzhu. Or that you two were close to the point she'd come visit you." That didn't sound all that accurate to Jieyuan. Yunzhu had been close to Daojue, that much was more than true, but he wouldn't say that their relationship was at all reciprocal.

Still, he said nothing as he stepped outside beside Meiyao. Daojue wasn't frowning anymore, but he still had his gaze set on the direction Yunzhu had disappeared into. Then, without a word, he shut the door on them. Meiyao glared at the door, and for a moment Jieyuan thought she'd start banging on it. But in the end, she sighed and turned to face him.

"You said you wanted to practice your bondskill."

"That's right."

"How does now sound?" He smirked.

"Like a yes." Meiyao didn't smile back, not outright, but he caught the corner of her lips rising.

"We'll do it at my place, then. I need to check on my garden." Garden? She headed off down the pathway, and Jieyuan trailed behind her. But as he watched her ruby-robed form lead the way, he found his eyes invariably drawn to her outline. And he started thinking that spending any more time around Meiyao than necessary might not be that good of an idea. Jieyuan forced himself to look away, past Meiyao. He could afford no distractions, he reminded himself.

He was already struggling to keep up with her and Daojue as it was. Those words rang chant-like in his head, and he had an inkling this wasn't the last time he'd have to repeat them to himself today. But if that was what it took to keep his priorities straight, that was what he'd do. —∞— Stepping inside Meiyao's living room, Jieyuan found her house was a mirror of his and Daojue's; inside it was only the skeleton furniture that had come with it.

Meiyao wordlessly crossed the room to the small hallway tucked into the corner of it. Jieyuan followed her past the door to her bedroom. Meiyao slid the door to her backyard open and stepped outside. Jieyuan didn't; he stayed standing at the entrance, taking in Meiyao's backyard and realizing what exactly she'd meant when she mentioned her garden earlier. Back at his place, Jieyuan's backyard was just as he'd received it: a small, walled lawn with nothing on it besides grass.

Even the length of the grass was the same as it'd been when he'd been assigned his house; once a week, one of the sect's many servants would drop by to give it a trim. All he used his backyard for was as a place to swing his spear and train his body. Meiyao had put hers to much better use. There was a garden in hers, and not some simple, shoddy display of plants. There had been a garden, back in the Haoyujin compounds, where Jieyuan had grown up.

A big, sprawling carefully maintained landscape tended to by over a dozen servants. It'd been his favorite place to train. Compared to the garden back at the Haoyujin compounds, Meiyao's was smaller by several orders of magnitude, but no less elaborate; she'd more than made do with the little space she had. The middle of the lawn was left empty, just neatly trimmed grass, but on the ground surrounding it, as well as hanging on the walls enclosing it, were a motley of potted plants.

Their pots, Jieyuan couldn't help but notice, were golden and metallic. Gold? His soulsenses told him the ones nearest him were all chromal plants, and he suspected that was true for the rest. Most of the plants he could sense were at first-step Redrealm, but there were two small flowerpots hanging from the well beside with small blue-violet flowers in them that registered as second-step. The pots had spirits too—and theirs were tenth-shade red, making them tenth-step Redrealm artifacts.

It'd mean they were actually made of gold, too; gold was the best material for making inscribed artifacts out of, the one that took best to inscripts. What in the world? Jieyuan watched, eyes widening, as Meiyao knelt in front of the plant nearest the entrance, closed her eyes, and touched its pot with her hand. Jieyuan saw with his soulsenses as chroma flowed out of Meiyao's soul, traveling through her body into the spirit of the plant, where it vanished.

She kept it up for a short while before shuffling over to the plant beside it. Is she … Is she nurturing the plants? Tending to chromal plants was one of the three chromal crafts cultivators could specialize in. Chromal Nurturing, covering the care of both chromal plants and beasts. Up to this point, Jieyuan had been working under the assumption that like him, Meiyao and Daojue had been wholly dedicating themselves to cultivation and the martial arts, with no time to spare for anything else.

Evidently, he'd been wrong about at least one of his teammates. This is ridiculous. He had thought about taking up a chromal craft at one point, but he'd decided against it after he learned how much of a time investment they'd require before he could get anywhere with it.

When it came to nurturing, specifically, he recalled how a nurturer had to spend months, sometimes years if not decades, to get the hang of performing the nurturing ritual: to manage to get the exact chroma channeling rate, sometimes down to a millionth of a prismful—the amount of chroma contained in a prism—per second, for chromal plants of each race.

As if that wasn't enough, Jieyuan had also heard that the channeling rate was influenced by the exact maturation point the plant was in; depending on the plant, it could vary by the day. Meiyao was already on her third plant, her chroma vanishing as it made contact with its spirit instead of dissipating into the air. Meaning she was performing the nurturing ritual successfully. But that can't be right. Everything else aside, Meiyao was just a second-step Redrealm.

How was she manipulating her own chroma, drawing it out of her soul? But then he noticed something else. Meiyao was touching the pots, not the plants; her chroma was flowing over the spirit of the pots before making contact with that of the plants.

"The pots are drawing your chroma?" Jieyuan asked. He hadn't heard about an artifact like that. Meiyao looked back at him just as she was about to move on to the next plant.

"Hmmm? Yeah, they are. I had them made after I became a cultivator." Jieyuan walked over, interested. He was also glad for something to talk about. He stopped next to Meiyao, eyes on her as she tended to another plant.

"How do they work? They're fitted for each plant, drawing chroma at the exact rate needed?" If so, that would make Meiyao's garden much less impressive than he'd assumed. He didn't comment on how absurd it was for an outer disciple to have artifact pots, let alone ones at tenth-step Redrealm.

"What? Of course not." Meiyao shot an offended look up at him. Jieyuan didn't know her well enough to tell if it was a mock one.

"Where would the fun in that be? They're intent-based." As if to prove her point, she returned her hand to the pot of the plant she'd been working on. Jieyuan caught a fast trickle of chroma flow out of her hand, pooling around the spirit of the plant, over the pot. Suddenly the flow slowed drastically before speeding up again. This chroma didn't disappear into the plant; instead (because the channeling rate was wrong, Jieyuan understood), it dissipated into the surrounding air.

"Oh." That'd explain why the pots were of such a high step; that seemed like it'd require quite the complex inscripts.

"Is that easier or harder than doing it directly?" Meiyao shrugged.

"Harder, supposedly. But I'll only really know after I reach third-step." She finished up with the current plant, channeling chroma into it at the right rate again, before moving on to the next. Jieyuan silently followed her as she made her way around the garden, nurturing each and every plant. She never made a mistake. Each and every time, the chroma she channeled disappeared as soon as it made contact with the plant spirit. Jieyuan did a quick count of all the different plant races in the garden.

It was nearly three dozen.

"Well, I'm done," Meiyao said, standing up from where she'd been kneeling beside the last flowerpot. A smirk tugged at her lips. She knew how impressive what she'd just done was. And she knew he knew. No doubt about it.

"Nice garden," Jieyuan finally said, a touch dry.

"I do what I can," Meiyao said offhandedly. Amusement played in her eyes. All that was missing was a little dismissive flick of the wrist. Suddenly, Jieyuan felt a surge of envy come over him and make itself at home. It wasn't Meiyao's clearly absurd talent for sustaining that he envied, not on its own. Rather, it was how she was managing to juggle her garden, cultivation, and martial arts and still come out on top of him at the last two. He didn't fight the envy. He let it burn inside him, bright and pure.

It cleared his head, sharpened his thoughts. Right now, envy was just what he needed. He welcomed it and wished it a good, long stay. Envy was sister to ambition, after all. And Jieyuan was all ambition. As he came to a stop in front of Meiyao, he found that he was no longer distracted by the sight of her. He was still attracted to her (even more so now, if anything) and he acknowledged that with the helpless surety of a man who knows what he wants. But he could set that attraction aside fully now.

He wouldn't need to remind himself to focus on the things that mattered. Not anymore. Right now, he was as focused as could be, set straight by envy and inadequacy. The mirth faded from Meiyao's face, replaced by confusion. He wondered what she saw in his face. She looked at him searchingly, frowning, before taking on a more somber look herself.

"All right," she said.

"What exactly is your bondskill? What does it do?"

"Absolute Will Command," Jieyuan said.

"The first form's Absolute Mind Command. It—""Wait." Meiyao held up a hand.

"You're mundane-born, right?"

"Yes?"

"Then you might already be aware of this, but I'll tell you just in case. Bondskills are something best kept to yourself. I'm helping you practice using yours, so you'll need to share with me the basics of what yours does, you should keep the specifics to yourself. Only tell me exactly what I need to know." Jieyuan had known all of that. Bondskills were a cultivator's trump cards. The specifics of one—their exact limitations and mechanics—were something you'd only tell someone you already trusted with your life.

All the same, he appreciated the advice.

"Thank you," he said, meaning it.

"Well, keeping it simple, it lets me give the target a command. If the target resists, it comes down to a battle of wills."

"Hmmm. Given what happened with Rongkai, I suspected it'd be something like that," Meiyao said. She took a few steps away from him until they were standing on opposite ends of the yard.

"Whenever you're ready." Jieyuan noticed how one of her hands had moved a little closer to the sheathed saber by her hip. So she did trust him somewhat, but not enough to just take his word for everything. That was about the best he could hope for. That she didn't have her saber drawn was already a good sign. Then again, it might also be that she was just that confident in herself.

He focused on that little something he'd been able to feel inside himself ever since he'd assimilated the Absolute Will Command skillseed, that feeling reminiscent of another limb. Focusing on Meiyao, he flexed it. He thought of the command he was about to give but caught himself before he uttered it as information flowed into his mind. An instinctive idea of whether the command was feasible and how much it'd cost in terms of chroma. Interesting. That was definitely useful."

Jump," he commanded, loud enough for Meiyao to hear. Louder than he needed to. Some of the chroma inside his soul vanished. Immediately Jieyuan felt a connection form between him and Meiyao. A bridge between their minds. From his side, the command JUMP issued forward. At the same time, an instinctive NO came to meet it from the other side. The NO blasted at Jieyuan like a headache, but he'd been expecting something like this. He gritted his teeth and concentrated. JUMP. Across from him, Meiyao's eyes went wide.

JUMP gained in on NO, and Meiyao slowly lowered her body, slightly bending her legs into a half-crouch. Mid-movement, she started consciously resisting, strengthening the NO, and her body froze in place. Jieyuan scowled and put more of his will into JUMP. Meiyao crouched lower. Beads of sweat sprouted on her brow, and she was scowling right back at him in fierce concentration. Again she managed to match her NO to his JUMP and came to another stop.

Driven by instinct, Jieyuan mustered everything he'd left, all of his willpower, and threw it at her. His JUMP broke her NO. He watched, stunned, as Meiyao pushed her feet off the ground. It was a pathetic, half-aborted excuse of a jump. Her feet rose only half a dozen inches or so off the ground. But it was a jump. With the command fulfilled, the connection between them disappeared, and Jieyuan staggered back, suddenly able to move again.

Meiyao, pale and wide-eyed, swayed in place, but she managed to catch herself before she fell. Her breathing came loud and deep, almost like she was gasping for air. Digging his heels into the ground, Jieyuan steadied himself.

"Well," he said, "that was something." The words left his lips without much thought. He was too taken up with how the command had won out in the end. How Meiyao had jumped. Because what if he'd given her a different command? A less innocuous one. Drop your weapons. Don't move. Step to the side. Any of those could be deadly if timed right in a fight. But he could've gone even further. To take a page out of Rongkai's book… KILL YOURSELF.

And he could see it in Meiyao's face, in the sharp, wary glint in her eyes, that she was thinking along similar lines.