Chương 77: Chapter 76: BACK AND BLACK

It'd have been comical if it weren't for how serious the situation was.

"Qingshi is what?"

"An Orangesoul," Jieyuan repeated dutifully.

"And the new sovereign protector of the Gleaming Stone Sect." He was back in the safe house, back in the living room, sitting around the table with Meiyao and Daojue in the dark. Meiyao was across from Jieyuan, Daojue to the side. Jieyuan had arrived just a short while ago to find the two cultivating in seclusion in separate bedrooms, so he'd called both of them over to the living room to go over everything he'd found in the Golden Chalice.

Xiaohu was draped across Jieyuan's shoulders; the little beast had jumped on top of him the moment Meiyao had taken her seat. Even though all the windows remained closed, the air was significantly less stale (though still far from fresh), and gone was the thick layer of dust over the floor, walls, and furniture. Meiyao must've given the place some much-needed cleaning with her cleanser ring; he doubted Daojue would've bothered with it. Jieyuan had decided to start with the worst offender of the bunch: Qingshi.

Meiyao had taken it as well as he'd expected. She was the one who'd known Qingshi the longest, from the day the man had entered the Gleaming Stone Sect. She'd be the one most surprised by what Jieyuan had learned.

"I… Qingshi… Orangesoul? Sovereign protector?" Meiyao pushed off her seat, only to freeze midway, like she wasn't sure if she should be standing or sitting for this. Half-standing, she gripped the table with her hands. She shook her head, disbelieving. Jieyuan gave her a warning look and jerked his head toward the closed windows. Quiet. Meiyao frowned, pausing, then gave him a curt nod before settling back down. She still looked awfully tense.

"How… How did he do it?" Meiyao asked, her voice a bit lower now.

"How did he break through to Orangerealm?"

"That, I think," Jieyuan said, "is one of the things we have to find out." He glanced to the side, at Daojue. There was a slight furrow to his brow, but that was the extent of Daojue's reaction. He sat upright in his seat, his posture perfect, as still as any statue. Daojue had Gleaming End resting on his lap, both ends of the spear extending past the table. Daojue was never far from Gleaming End, and now Jieyuan had an idea why. He reached down and gave the shafts of the Shifting Sisters a comforting squeeze.

He'd started feeling anxious on his way back home. He'd thought it was because he was out in the open, and it'd been a dim, faint thing. But the anxiety had kept growing, and he'd realized it wasn't his own. Rather, it'd been coming through his bond with the Shifting Sisters. By the time he was back in the safe house, though, it'd grown almost to a cry for help, and he'd hurriedly taken the Shifting Sisters out.

As soon as they'd been back in his hands, all the negativity had faded like a dream, replaced by a warm, happy thrill: joy, elation, reunion. And he'd realized the issue at hand: the Shifting Sisters didn't like being away from him. The same, he reckoned, went for Gleaming End with Daojue.

"All right," Meiyao said, bringing his attention back to her; her tone and expression, Jieyuan noted, weren't remotely close to all right.

"Forget about Qingshi for now. What else did you find out? What about my family?"

"Well, I'm afraid we'll have to remember Qingshi"—Meiyao gave him a confused look, but Jieyuan was undaunted—"because, apparently, he's… Well, he's protecting them. The Liangshibai." He hadn't thought it possible, but Meiyao managed to pack even more disbelief into her expression. Her eyes were as wide as he'd ever seen them, emerald pinpricks in the dark.

"Qingshi's doing what?"

"From what I've heard," Jieyuan said slowly as he bore the full brunt of Meiyao's wide-eyed stare, "the Gleaming Nobles want them killed, but Qingshi's stopping them."

"That doesn't— That doesn't make sense," Meiyao said.

"Why would Qingshi side with the Gleaming Nobles in the revolution only to protect the Liangshibai later?"

"That's something I thought about on my way over," Jieyuan said. He hadn't managed to come up with an answer, but he'd recalled a few relevant things.

"Do you remember what Qingshi said when he ambushed us in front of the Gleaming Stone Palace? What he said to Elder Yiming, specifically?" Meiyao's eyebrows pinched together. He saw it in her face as recollection struck.

"He— Qingshi called him father. He called Uncle Yiming his father."

"He did," Jieyuan said. With everything else that had happened on the day (the revolution itself, the burning of Radiant Gold City, their grim future in the Dome), Jieyuan hadn't given that particular revelation much thought. Now, though, this little fact about Qingshi's parentage seemed awfully relevant.

"I remember your uncle looking rather surprised about it, himself," Jieyuan said.

"I don't think he had any idea about it. Clearly, there's a lot more to Qingshi that we don't know."

"I… That…" Meiyao slumped in her seat. She looked dazed.

"That completely escaped my mind. Liangshibai. Qingshi's a Liangshibai. Uncle Yiming's son." She fell silent for a moment.

"So the Liangshibai are safe for now? Because of Qingshi?" She still sounded like she couldn't believe it. Jieyuan was still wrapping his head around it himself, and he'd had a lot more time to process it. He could see the gleam of hope in Meiyao's eyes, though; she wanted to believe it. Qingshi might be their enemy, but he knew that her priority was her family's safety.

Daojue, for his part, was still silently observing them; his frown had already faded, and he was back to wearing his usual, neutral expression, violet eyes utterly unreadable.

"That's about right," Jieyuan said.

"Qingshi's got them under house arrest, it seems like. I didn't see any Liangshibai in the city, so that adds up." Assuming that the Liangshibai aren't all dead, of course, and that this whole house arrest business isn't a cover-up, Jieyuan thought, but he didn't voice it. He also didn't reckon the Liangshibai being dead was likely; he couldn't think of any reason Qingshi might have for running that particular ruse.

Meiyao didn't look exactly convinced or comforted—just tentatively hopeful—but she nodded all the same.

"Did you find out anything else?"

"A few other things. For one, the Gleaming Stone Sect has taken over the district; it's the Gleaming Stone District now." For once, Meiyao didn't seem surprised; if anything, she looked like she'd expected it.

"If Qingshi's an Orangesoul, that's only natural."

"Right. Well, Qingshi hasn't seized the city from the Radiant Gold Sect, but it's only a matter of time before this place's Gleaming Stone City. And nobody can do anything about it—because, well, like you said, Qingshi's an Orangesoul." For most cultivators, fighting someone above their realm wasn't just hard; it was outright impossible. Even for the three of them, the only reason why they would even consider it (and why they'd managed to take down Orangerealm beasts before) was their Orangerealm weapons.

If it weren't for Gleaming End—and now Shifting Edge and Meiyao's Orangerealm saber—they would've been as helpless as any other Redsoul.

"No, wait," Meiyao said, frowning again, looking alert.

"What about the Howling Lightning Sect? If Qingshi's an Orangesoul, he's got to have an Orangerealm coalescence hymn. If he shares it with others… the Gleaming Stone Sect will become an Orangerealm sect. I can't see the Howling Lightning Sect just letting that happen."

"I was getting to that," Jieyuan said.

"That's another thing. The Howling Lightning Sect… Well, it doesn't exist anymore." Meiyao blinked at him, uncomprehending.

"It was taken over by this Restless Flame Sect," Jieyuan elaborated. If Meiyao's expression was anything to go by, the additional information hadn't helped much.

"It was what?"

"I'm not clear on the details," Jieyuan said. That was, in fact, one of the things Maeva had helped him with; there'd been a conversation on the other side of the room that discussed that particular event in greater depth.

"But it looks like it happened around the same time as the revolution over here. The Restless Flame Sect attacked the Howling Lightning Sect, either captured or killed off the leadership, and got the remaining members to surrender. The Howling Lightning Sect's no more; everything it owned now belongs to the Restless Flame Sect."

"That… That's…" Meiyao seemed as stunned by this as she'd been by Qingshi's true realm, if not more.

"And there's something else," Jieyuan said.

"I'm also fairly sure the Restless Flame Sect played a part in Qingshi's revolution. Remember that blue fire, the one that spread over the city?" Meiyao nodded, still looking at a loss for words.

"Restless Flame Sect," Jieyuan said. He didn't need to elaborate. Meiyao took a moment to gather herself. She seemed to give the matter some thought before she said, "I've heard about the Restless Flame Sect. It's neighbors with the Howling Lightning Sect. But as far as I was aware, they were supposed to be on good terms." She fell silent, looking thoughtful again.

"About the revolution here… Do you think the Restless Flame Sect is backing Qingshi? That his Orangerealm hymn came from them?"

"That's my best guess, yes," Jieyuan said.

"Apparently, they're having a hard time maintaining order after absorbing the Howling Lightning Sect. A lot of them surrendered, but there were a couple that escaped, and they're trying to take their sect back. I reckon the Restless Flame Sect predicted the fallout and wants Qingshi to raise Orangerealm forces to help them out."

"No. That can't be it," Meiyao said, the certainty in her voice taking Jieyuan aback.

"If they annexed the Howling Lightning Sect, that means that the Radiant Gold District—the Gleaming Stone District —is part of their territory now. They wouldn't let one of their new vassals rise to Orangerealm and break away, not when the whole point was to increase their territory by taking another sect's."

"I thought about that," Jieyuan said.

"But, I mean, there's still a net territory gain. They'd lose the Radiant Gold District, sure, but they'd still gain all the other Redrealm districts under the Howling Lightning Sect—""No." Again, there was no trace of doubt in Meiyao's tone or expression.

"That's not how this works. That's not how cultivators think. They'd still see it as losing the Radiant Gold District and giving themselves competition further down the line. There must be another reason." Jieyuan wanted to argue, but he stopped himself. It could be that he was still thinking about it from a mundane's mindset. What he considered long term was a few decades; what cultivators considered long term was centuries, if not millennia.

"That's something else we need to figure out, then," Jieyuan said, letting the matter lie for now.

"Just one last thing, then. The Viridian Death Cult and the Xiyunfeng Clan." Jieyuan caught Meiyao tensing up at the mention of the Xiyunfeng. Her fingers balled into fists, and her gaze darkened. Clearly, she had neither forgotten nor forgiven their role in the revolution.

"The Xiyunfeng Clan's laying low, apparently," Jieyuan said.

"I don't know what kind of deal they had with Qingshi, but it doesn't look like they got that much out of the revolution. As for the Viridian Death Cult… They've closed their borders and called every member back. It's total silence from them." That was one thing that left Jieyuan particularly confused: the Viridian Death Cult's stance on the whole situation.

With everything else that had happened, he doubted that others cared much about his, Meiyao's, and Daojue's fates; they were promising talents, sure, but that was it. The Viridian Death Cult, though—they'd have cared about Meiyao's disappearance, Jieyuan was sure. In fact, he was surprised they hadn't outright declared war on the Xiyunfeng Clan and the Gleaming Nobles over what happened to Meiyao. At the very least, the Viridian Death Cult would have known she'd gotten caught up in the fight.

Chances were they even knew she'd been forced to take refuge in the Viridian Dome: a death sentence (or at least it should have been). But just as he thought so, he recalled something else: the Viridian Eye Houliao and the Prophet Tangqiao, and what they had said to Meiyao back during the tournament in the Radiant Gold Palace. Their words about her seeking the Viridian… Had they known, somehow, that Meiyao would enter the Dome? He voiced his doubts to Meiyao; she frowned, thoughtful.

"The Viridian Eye's supposed to be a prophet of sorts," Meiyao said.

"My mom always said it was made-up nonsense, just another lunacy of the cult, but…"

"It does look like there's an ingot of truth to it," Jieyuan said.

"Hmmm. Another thing to look into, then. We might have an ally in them." Like his old man had liked to say, before you went after your enemies, it always paid to go shopping for allies first. He leaned over the table, the chair creaking softly, looking between Meiyao and Daojue.

"Anyway, that's all I have, bad news and good news both. Qingshi's an Orangerealm, and we'll have to deal with him, and he may or may not have a whole Orangerealm sect backing him. On the other hand, your family seems to be doing fine. Now, for our next step—""We need to make sure my family's safe," Meiyao cut in.

"I believe you, but overheard conversations… That's not enough for me. I need to be sure. To see it for myself."

"Hmmm. That's fair," Jieyuan said.

"But we can't just infiltrate the Gleaming Stone Sect. I know you know of secret ways in"—Meiyao had even told him of one months ago, which he'd used to take a short trip to the Fatebloom Woods—"but I imagine so does Qingshi, and he'd have them secured." Meiyao narrowed her eyes at him.

"What's your idea, then?"

"If we're infiltrating the Gleaming Stone Sect, we need to do it while prepared to face Qingshi," Jieyuan said.

"And for that, we need to know what step he's at; we know he's an Orangesoul, but he could be anywhere between first- and tenth-step. We also need to know if he's got Orangerealm friends on his side. Those are our priorities. Everything else is secondary." Meiyao gestured for him to continue. She was listening, at least. So was Daojue.

"There's one place we can find out all of this: Mysterious Night House," Jieyuan said. Meiyao sat up straighter, realization flashing across her face; Daojue didn't have much of a reaction.

"If anyone knows what's going on with Qingshi and the Gleaming Stone Sect, it's them. They might even be able to confirm the situation with the Liangshibai." He'd known about the Mysterious Night House even before becoming a cultivator; it was one of the most important establishments in the city and of particular commercial interest. It was the biggest chromal trade house around, and it supposedly could be found in several other cities, too. Rumor had it that they were backed by an Orangerealm sect.

The Mysterious Night Houses were most well known for their auctions, held at the start of every month, but Jieyuan also knew they sold something else: information.

"It'll be expensive," Meiyao said. Her eyes weren't on him; her attention was turned inward, toward her own thoughts.

"That's Orangerealm information we're after, and for that, they only accept Orangerealm payment." She frowned. One of her hands disappeared below the table—toward her Orangerealm saber, he was sure.

"We have orange prisms, don't we? There were some in the holder pouches from the jackal's cave." This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Less than three hundred," Jieyuan said.

"I stopped by the Mysterious Night House on my way to get an idea of their rates. I reckon we'll need at least a thousand for what we want to know. I don't fancy selling our three holder pouches or your saber, but there's something else we can sell: the three glyph-sealer rings we found." Something else he'd found out was that the Mysterious Night House reserved part of their auction to sell off unopened Orangerealm glyph-sealer rings.

They had an artifact that could tell when the ring was last used, whether it was still bonded, and how many artifacts were inside it. Cultivators chancing upon old legacies and inheritances was common enough, apparently, for the Mysterious Night House to have a specific system for that kind of thing. And there'd be buyers; they weren't in an Orangerealm district, but it was common for passing Orangerealm cultivators to participate. Jieyuan was about to explain all of that, but Meiyao beat him to it.

"You mean ring gambling," she said, nodding.

"I saw it happen a few times; my mother often took me with her to the auctions. The sealer rings themselves are worth several hundred orange prisms. Selling just one might be enough for the information we need."

"Yes, that's the idea," Jieyuan said. Glyph-sealer rings were precious, sure, but he wasn't too bothered about parting with theirs. Sealer rings put up for ring gambling tended to sell for at least thrice the worth of the ring itself; they should make more than enough prisms to buy plenty more sealer rings once they made it to Orangerealm. Besides, he knew they didn't contain anything precious.

None of the exploration parties that'd gone into the Viridian Dome had expected to make it out; they would have left anything really important behind.

"There's just one problem," Jieyuan said.

"We have to participate in the auction to sell anything in it. And chances are that there'll be people we know—people who know us —there." That particular policy hadn't made sense to him; why would you need to participate in the auction just to sell something off? But where there was a rule, there was a reason for it: he'd found out there had been conflicts in the past when, in the middle of an auction, another participant claimed ownership of something being sold.

It was because of this that they required the presence of the owner of whatever was being auctioned off; should any ownership troubles come up, they could be resolved on the spot.

"You're right," Meiyao said.

"Can't we sell the rings directly, then?"

"Yes and no," Jieyuan said.

"I asked about that. The local House isn't authorized to buy and sell Orangerealm artifacts directly, not even sealer rings. Not at short notice, that is. They need to call over an Orangesoul artifact appraiser for that, and there's a waiting list; it can take upwards of a month. While the auction's just four days from now. Are you willing to wait?" He already knew the answer, of course.

"No," Meiyao said firmly.

"I'm not." Sure enough.

"Daojue?" Jieyuan asked, turning to him.

"That's all right with you?"

"Yes," Daojue said. Meiyao blinked, shooting Daojue a surprised look; that was the kind of question, Jieyuan knew, that Daojue would've just stared at you in response before.

"Then that's that," Jieyuan said, leaning back in his chair.

"We sell off all three rings—to be safe—in the auction four days from now." Unfortunately, they weren't quite done yet. There was something else to be discusse. Jieyuan braced himself; he knew just how well this would go.

"I'll be going to the auction on my own—""Absolutely not," Meiyao said. Daojue also fixed him with a glare. Jieyuan sighed. It'd be their discussion from earlier today all over again.

"Come on. We've already gone over this. You two draw attention; it's better if I'm by myself."

"No," Meiyao repeated, steel in her voice.

"It's one thing to go out into the city. Attending the auction is another matter. It'll be packed with local cultivators. The chances of you being recognized are much higher—"" Exactly," Jieyuan said.

"And the odds of you and Daojue being recognized are even higher. Especially you, Meiyao. There are quite a lot of people here, I reckon, who have your song memorized. And I'm fairly sure there's no way of masking your song. Is there?"

"There isn't," Meiyao said.

"But—""And is there a way of hiding it?" Jieyuan pressed.

"Some artifact?"

"No," Meiyao said, clipped, like she'd had to drag the word out of her throat. He glanced at Daojue, but Daojue said nothing, just stared at him impassively. Also no, then. Jieyuan wasn't surprised; he'd have heard of it already otherwise, and infiltration and subterfuge would've been much more common among cultivators if masking or hiding your song was possible. Maybe higher-realm sects had a way of doing it, but if such a means existed, it was out of a Redsoul's reach.

"Then I'm going alone," Jieyuan said firmly.

"Matter settled." He pushed off his chair, rising—"You are not," Meiyao said, just as firmly. She glared at him until he sat back down. He sighed.

"Meiyao, for the third time, we've already—""I don't care," Meiyao said.

"You took part in the Radiant Gold Tournament, and you drew a lot of attention there, making it to the last round; there were many there who must have taken the time to memorize your song. You are right that the probability of others recognizing me is higher, but it's not that much higher. And if someone recognizes us, it's better if we're all there to fight our way out." Jieyuan leaned back in his chair, the wood groaning a little but holding. He gave it some more thought.

It was a matter of weighing precaution (going alone to minimize the odds of recognition) against insurance (going with Meiyao and Daojue to maximize survival should they be recognized). He wasn't a stranger to this kind of calculation, but back when he was helping his old man run the family, he'd had hard numbers to work with. Here, it was mostly guesswork. There was another factor he had to weigh, too: his odds of convincing Meiyao and Daojue.

He'd thought he had a chance, considering he'd won the earlier argument over him going out into the city by himself. But looking between the two of them now, taking in Meiyao's determined expression and Daojue's hard violet eyes, Jieyuan realized he'd been wrong. He wasn't convincing them, not this time.

"All right," Jieyuan said.

"We'll go together." —∞— Jieyuan's old man had been someone who appreciated the finer things in life. The living room in the safe house hadn't been anything much, but the master bedroom was a different story. Jieyuan had gotten a glimpse of it before; it was the room Meiyao had picked for herself (obviously) while he'd been out, and he'd looked inside it briefly after he returned and called her back to the living room so they could discuss his findings.

Only now that he was inside it did he appreciate it properly, though. It was a large room, enough for a bed that could've fit four, framed by two nightstands, and a seating area to the side featuring a low, round desk and a pair of comfortable armchairs. Every piece of furniture was the finest Radiant Gold City had to offer. Jieyuan and Meiyao sat in those armchairs, facing each other.

They'd just had an exchange of sorts; Jieyuan had gone over what the Absolute Sword Trials had been like, and Meiyao told him about her experiences in Muyeshen's trial. Meiyao had asked questions throughout. Lots of them. About everything, but particularly about his Lawgifts (those had actually left Meiyao speechless for a little while) and the Linzushen he'd faced in Pain's challenge. And Anren.

Meiyao had asked a lot of questions about Anren—about this woman he'd supposedly spent weeks together with—but Jieyuan was fairly sure he'd managed to make it clear nothing untoward had happened on that front. For her part, Meiyao had ended up providing fewer details about her own trial; Muyeshen's trial wasn't as easy to explain, it turned out, and all Meiyao had really gotten out of it was supposedly the unlocking of her bloodline and heavenly affinity.

But now they were done talking; they'd both said their piece. A silence had settled over them. Not an uncomfortable sort of silence. But a loaded one. Jieyuan shifted in his chair. His eyes flicked from Meiyao—lounging comfortably in the armchair across from him, Xiaohu coiled around her neck like a furry scarf—to the large bed on the other side of the room. The bed, he couldn't help but notice, looked perfectly free of dust. Meiyao must've cleaned it while he'd been out.

Jieyuan glanced back at Meiyao, just in time to catch her gaze flicking from the bed and then back to him. Their eyes met. Then Meiyao smiled softly. She stood up, without a word, and extended a hand to him. Jieyuan swallowed thickly and got to his feet. He took her hand. Meiyao turned away from him and gently pulled him along toward the bed. Jieyuan's heart raced in his chest. He'd realized, of course, that this was the first time since he'd gotten together with Meiyao that they had a room to themselves.

That they had privacy, Daojue being in another room. That they had a bed. They reached the bed. Meiyao stopped in front of it, facing him. Jieyuan didn't rush her, just stared into her bright green eyes. Jieyuan wasn't new to this sort of thing, even if his previous times had been more transactional (in more ways than one) than anything else; his father hadn't wanted him to fall for honey traps, so he'd arranged for Jieyuan to gain experience. This would be Meiyao's first time, though.

She'd revealed to him as much before; not that he'd been surprised; her upbringing hadn't really allowed for that sort of thing; and as far as he knew, Meiyao hadn't really shown interest in someone else this way before. Normally, he would've taken the lead in this kind of situation, but he felt it'd be better to let her set the pace, at least in the beginning. Let her feel in control.

They hadn't gone all the way before, but they'd been intimate enough in the Viridian Dome that he'd gotten a feel for the best approach to take with her. Xiaohu gave a little yip, then jumped down from Meiyao's shoulders and onto the bed. In a blur of green and white, the little beast climbed up the headboard, settling herself on top of it. Jieyuan blinked at it, then turned back to Meiyao, who'd also turned to look at her bonded beast. Then he chuckled. Meiyao chuckled too, and it was like the tension was broken.

"Smart girl, isn't she?" Jieyuan said.

"The smartest," Meiyao said. Then, abruptly: "There's something I want to show you."

"What…" Jieyuan started to ask but caught himself as Meiyao turned her back to him. Meiyao's hands disappeared in front of her; her green outer robes shifted a little before she raised a hand to the side, the sash previously holding her robes together at the waist in her grip. She let it drop to the floor. Meiyao then extended both her arms backward and pulled her outer robes off.

The voluminous green robes slid off her arms and back, falling to the floor around her feet, revealing the clothes she wore underneath: white inner robes, tucked into a pair of plain white trousers. Still silent, Meiyao began working on her inner robes; she first pulled them out of her trousers, letting the hems hang down near her legs; then, much like she'd done with her outer robes, she brought her arms backward and let her inner robes slide off her.

And this time, as the bundle of white cloth pooled around her, over the green robes, what was revealed was Meiyao's bare back. Fair, rosy skin. Muscles faintly outlined. Proud, sloping shoulders leading to a narrow, tapering waist. And a tattoo. Jieyuan stared at it, transfixed. It started just above Meiyao's tailbone, on the small of her back, where the waistband of her trousers rested. And it extended all the way to her shoulder blades. A flower. Ten rings of petals around it.

The same color as Meiyao's eyes, a deep, vibrant green.

"The Linzushen Lotus," Meiyao said. There was an odd, loaded note to her voice.

"Do you remember what I told you before, how chromal bloodlines had both reflections and expressions? And how the Linzushen Bloodline had another reflection, besides the green eyes? One that, unlike the eyes, reflected the order of our bloodline?"

"Yes," Jieyuan said quietly. Of every conversation he'd ever had, there was no way he'd forget that one. It was both when he'd found out about chromal bloodlines and when Meiyao had truly opened up to him for the first time. His eyes were still fixed on the design on her back. The flower was flush against her skin. It couldn't be just a tattoo, he realized now; it was too smooth, too perfect.

"I told you, back then, that you might get to see it one day," Meiyao said.

"Well, this is it."

"I see," Jieyuan said. He swallowed thickly.

"It's called a talent-crest. Mine used to have only four rings of petals before," Meiyao continued. There was a forced quality to her voice, as if she were trying for casual and failing.

"One per bloodline order."

"I see," Jieyuan repeated, his voice rough. A pause. And then Meiyao turned around. And Jieyuan stopped thinking. —∞— It was the day before the auction. Jieyuan was in the room he and Meiyao had taken for themselves, lying in bed, reclining against the headboard. Xiaohu lay on the headboard, above him. Jieyuan's eyes were on Meiyao's bare back, admiring it. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, cross-legged. She was naked; the only thing covering her was the sheet bunched around her legs.

It was a sight he didn't think he'd ever grow tired of. Meiyao's touch still hung over him like a blanket, blooming all over his body in fading spots of tender warmth, the scent of her still thick in his lungs. There was pain, too, faint and heady: long, shallow cuts in his back where her nails had torn into him and sore throbbing bruises around his neck and shoulders where she'd sunk her teeth to muffle screams. Meiyao had her own fair share of marks, too.

Just thinking about it sent a warm, delicious wave through him, even though he'd had Meiyao on him—under him, above him, and in a couple of other ways—just minutes ago. It wasn't just a matter of how beautiful Meiyao was (though, by the Heavens, if she could take your breath away with clothes, then she could very well stop your heart without them). More than that, she'd taken to the act so well that halfway through their first time she'd taken the lead from him and started setting the pace.

They'd fought over control, of course, twisting and turning against each other; there hadn't been a clear winner. The fight had resumed the next day when they went at it again, and again yesterday. Every time, control was given, stolen, ceded, seized, and wrestled over. If Jieyuan had his way, they'd be fighting over it forever. They hadn't spent all their time enjoying each other's bodies, though.

Rather, Jieyuan had been spending most of his time cultivating; he'd wanted to make it to ninth-step Redrealm before the auction. Their indulging in each other had also had an unintended consequence; by accident more than anything else, he'd found out what Binding Blood Resonance actually did.

Things had been getting rather heated with Meiyao in bed, and one thing had led to another (namely, after one too many bites, he'd decided to turn it around on Meiyao), and he'd ended up with some of her blood in his mouth—and suddenly he'd been able to sense her. Sense her emotions, sense the movements of her body. He'd gotten a surprising amount of practice with the Lawgift since that discovery; the combat applications of the Lawgift were obvious, but he also found it served him well in bed.

It made it easier to tell what… worked and what didn't, which enhanced the experience in all sorts of ways. Meiyao had only been too glad to go along with it. Even now, he still had a tangy, metallic taste in his mouth from their last session. Sex and blood and cultivation. Those had been his last couple of days, and what glorious days they had been.

Meiyao, on the other hand, couldn't cultivate further (she was stuck at tenth-step Redrealm until she got her hands on an Orangerealm coalescence hymn), and her chroma reserves were already topped up. But she'd found something else to do. Bloodline meditation. It was what she was doing right this moment; he wasn't sure what exactly that entailed, and she hadn't been able to explain, either, only that it might allow her to discover more bloodgifts. Jieyuan's mind drifted, recalling the previous day's events.

Yesterday, he'd finally broken through to ninth-step Redrealm, and after confirming everything was in order (his soul was only slightly dark now, and the Fatebloom Heart had also advanced its step accordingly though it still retained its silvery sheen), he and Meiyao had taken some time off to celebrate. He'd also gotten some practice in with the ninth-step Redtalent: Sensorial Augmentation, using your mantle to augment your mundane senses, improving their sensitivity and range many times over.

Jieyuan couldn't help but wince as he recalled his experiments with his newest Redtalent. He hadn't had an easy time of it. He'd tried augmenting each of his senses, and there wasn't one that hadn't overwhelmed him. It was a good thing it was an active augmentation, something you had to actively make your mantle do; he'd have been in trouble, otherwise.

Despite how useful Sensorial Augmentation could be (especially being able to see clearly as long as there was a light source, no matter how dim), it'd be a good while before he could put his newest Redtalent to proper use. Thankfully, Sensorial Augmentation was also like Mental Augmentation; it did not increase with realm or step, so at least he'd only need to get used to it once. Jieyuan sat up straighter, pulling away from the headboard.

Meiyao glanced back at him, half-turning, and Jieyuan made an effort to keep his attention on her face. No distractions. Right now, he should be prioritizing harvesting and attuning chroma to fill up his reserves again. Before that, though, he figured he could do with a little bit of the First Pain to clear his head. And it was something he very much needed, with Meiyao so close, looking like that. Cold showers were good; soul-rending pain was better.

She studied him for a brief moment, green eyes taking in his face and then dipping lower—he wasn't clothed, either, and she had even fewer reservations than he did about enjoying the view—before she smiled slyly and went back to her meditation. By the Heavens, she sure knew how to tempt him. But no. Fighting his urges, he closed his eyes and entered Communion, feeling the presence of the Heavens bloom in his head. He then sent his focus inward, visualizing his soul.

The red sphere in his chest was a thick, deep red; it was almost the right shade for his step, closer than it'd ever been, but still a touch darker. He hoped his breakthrough to tenth-step would fix that once and for all. He sent his focus deeper and saw inside his soul: a hollow filled up by a prism of ninth-shade red chroma. His chroma reserves. His soulprism. It wasn't as big as it could have been, but still more than three-quarters full." Ravenous," he chanted quietly.

His soulprism crumbled: the chroma composing it fell apart, spreading outward, toward the wall of his soul. It was a slow, gradual process; Jieyuan had already chanted his hymn twice before the first trickle of chroma made contact with the wall. He braced himself." Ravenous." What should have happened next was this: chroma should have penetrated the wall of his soul, imbuing it.

He'd have then started feeling the onset of the First Pain: pinpricks of pain all over his body, like needle stabs, representing each and every particle of chroma entering his soul shell. That did not happen. The chroma remained pressed against the wall of his soul, without penetrating it. What? Confused, Jieyuan kept chanting, but all it achieved was more of his attuned chroma gathering against the inner wall of his soul and going no further. Jieyuan kept it up for a whole minute, but the First Pain never came.

His mind raced. He stopped chanting, stopped Communing, and opened his eyes.

"Meiyao," he called. She turned toward him again. She must've caught something in his expression because she immediately frowned and turned fully toward him. This time, Jieyuan didn't even have to remind himself not to look at her body; he had much bigger concerns right now.

"What's wrong?" she asked, moving closer.

"Have you tried cultivating," Jieyuan said slowly, "after breaking through to tenth-step?" Her frown deepened.

"No? Why would I do that?"

"Can you try?" Jieyuan asked.

"I need to know what happens." Still frowning, unsaid questions in her expression, Meiyao gave him a nod, then seated herself beside him, crossing her legs. Jieyuan observed her face as she steadied her breathing. She began chanting her imbuing hymn. A minute passed. Two. Then she opened her eyes.

"So?" Jieyuan pressed, trying to keep his anxiety out of his voice.

"My soulprism came apart," Meiyao said, her gaze both worried and confused, "and gathered over the soul shell. What's going on, Jieyuan?"

"That was it?" Jieyuan asked.

"It just kept gathering there, without any of it imbuing your soul?"

"Well, yes, of course," Meiyao said.

"Because the soul shell's already full of chroma." Because the soul shell's already full.

"Jieyuan?" Meiyao asked, leaning over, bringing herself even closer. She put one hand on his shoulder and the other on his chin, forcing him to look at her. Her bright green eyes peered into his.

"What's happening?" Xiaohu jumped down from the headboard, landing on Meiyao's shoulders and fixing Jieyuan with her beady black eyes.

"Exactly what you said," Jieyuan said.

"My attuned chroma moved toward the soul shell but didn't imbue it." She blinked.

"That can't be it. You just advanced to ninth-step. You should still be able to imbue another prismful."

"Not," Jieyuan said, gathering his thoughts as he spoke, "if my soul shell's already full." Meiyao didn't seem to understand.

"But how?"

"Do you remember what I told you," Jieyuan said, "about how my soul looks darker to my soulsenses?" He'd told Meiyao about it back in the Dome; she hadn't known what to make of it. She'd also confirmed that, to her, it looked like the right shade for his step.

"Yes…?" Meiyao paused. Then her eyes widened, and Jieyuan knew the same realization had struck her.

"You don't… You don't think…"

"What if," Jieyuan said, putting into words the idea he knew was now in both their minds, "the darker color was because there was something already in it? Something dark. Black, in fact. A prismful of it. And the reason why my soul seemed less and less dark as I advanced was that it was being diluted with the red chroma."

"But— But the only thing that can imbue a soul is chroma," Meiyao said. Jieyuan swallowed hard.

"Meiyao, you wouldn't happen to know anything about black chroma, would you?"