Chương 82: Chapter 81: REUNITE

CHAPTER 81 REUNITE —∞— It was in stunned, breathless silence that Jieyuan watched Daojue lower Gleaming End. The speared-through Orangesoul slid off the shaft and fell about two dozen feet to the ground, limply hitting the grass with a dull, heavy thump. Daojue—red-haired, red-eyed, glowing red lines all over—floated slowly back to the ground. He alighted softly, steadily, right in front of Huifen's corpse. And there Daojue stood, staring down at the corpse by his feet with his blood-red eyes.

Gleaming End held at his side, its spirit-shroud red and slick with blood. The red ring on Daojue's right hand glowed ominously. Someone else might have missed it, with everything else going on with Daojue, but not Jieyuan. He knew better. It was the ring he focused on, in fact. The silence lingered, stretching, growing taut. The shock was wearing off. Jieyuan recalled just where they were and what they'd done earlier. Chances were nobody had seen those Radiant Light Blasts Meiyao had used during their descent.

They were far enough from the city that if nobody had been looking in their direction, that little light show would've gone unnoticed. But that still didn't mean they should dally. There was another issue, too. Meiyao was standing next to him. She hadn't dropped her transformation. Her glowing, feral green eyes were fixed on Daojue. Her expression was tense, wary. Measuring. Like a predator eyeing another, weighing the odds of a fight breaking out, weighing their odds of winning said fight.

Standing at attention on Meiyao's shoulders, Xiaohu looked as tense as her master. They were wary of Daojue. Jieyuan was, too. He took a step forward. Then another. He'd just taken a third step when Daojue underwent another transformation. A reversion. The glowing red lines went away first, receding. Jieyuan tracked their progress as they shrank out of sight, and he realized they weren't randomly spread throughout Daojue's body, but rather extending from the red ring.

Down his sleeve, down to his hand, shrinking until all the lines came to an end upon contact with the glowing ring. The red hair went next; the color crawled up from the tips all the way to the roots, leaving behind smooth, glossy black. The eyes changed last: the red receded, shrinking inward toward the pupil. Violet reclaimed lost ground. Throughout all of this, the glow of the ring dimmed, and the moment Daojue's eyes were fully violet again, the red radiance went out.

Jieyuan resumed his approach, keeping his steps long but measured. He hadn't retracted his cloudcraft after they'd landed on the ground; now, he had it drift along behind him. He kept the Shifting Sisters out, unsheathed. Ready for anything. Daojue was looking normal again, but that might be only physically. Jieyuan didn't know if that transformation had also done something to his head. Jiandaozhi Juechen's words about the fate of his future self echoed grimly in Jieyuan's head. I guess you could say I went mad.

Insane. And, even more damning: I'd grown so powerful that one man's madness was the entire world's problem. Daojue's transformation just now had Jieyuan thinking of another transformation. Of when Jiandaozhi Juechen had stabbed himself through the heart, and transformed into Tianzijun Juechen. After turning into his older self, Juechen had retained his black hair. Glowing red lines hadn't sprouted all over his skin, either. But his eyes. They'd been exactly like Daojue's just now. Blood-red.

Meiyao followed at his side, wordless. She had her saber out. She looked not just wary but also tense; Daojue dropping his transformation hadn't made her relax. Jieyuan wasn't surprised; Meiyao had never warmed up to Daojue. Not really. She might consider him an ally, but that was about the extent of their relationship. Jieyuan and Meiyao drew closer. Daojue stayed in place, staring down at Huifen's corpse. He looked as unreadable as Jieyuan had ever seen him. Less than sixty feet away now.

Jieyuan caught Daojue with his soulsenses. He found a tenth-shade red outline in his place. A relief, that. Jieyuan didn't really think that Daojue would suddenly turn hostile. But if the coins ended up spilling that way, it was good to have confirmation it was a Redrealm Daojue he and Meiyao would be up against. Jieyuan came to a stop just a few feet away, Huifen's corpse between them, Meiyao to his right, his cloudcraft behind him. He cleared his throat.

"Daojue." Daojue looked up from the corpse. Violet eyes bored into Jieyuan.

"We need to go," Jieyuan said. He moved the cloudcraft to the front, setting it down between them on the grass, next to Huifen's corpse. Daojue's eyes flicked back down to the dead Orangesoul. Then he said, quietly,"Yes." He stepped away from the corpse and moved over. That's that, then. Jieyuan finally let himself relax a little. He glanced down at the corpse. Blood had pooled beneath it in the grass. He considered it for a brief moment. They did need to get a move on. That much was true.

But Jieyuan's mercantile sensibilities reared up at the sight of the dead Orangerealm. He allowed himself a brief instant to weigh the odds of Huifen having anything that might prove useful further down the line. Not looting Heiyingmi Jiahao had been one thing; the Orangesoul might really have been from a Yellowrealm sect, and Jieyuan had no idea what kind of tracking devices he might have had on his person. Huifen and Zhuoji, on the other hand, hadn't had any such illustrious backing.

Jieyuan did a brief scan of the horizon, turning full circle. Nothing in sight.

"Meiyao," Jieyuan said, "can you go over there and see if you can get anything from that one?" He gestured in the direction of the other corpse, the one that had been reduced to little more than a waist and a pair of legs. Zhuoji's body, or what remained of it. The Orangerealm cloudcraft that had been beside it was nowhere to be seen, but Jieyuan wasn't concerned. It must've reverted into bracelet form at some point and been swallowed by the grass.

Meiyao frowned; she was an expressive person by nature, and resonating with Xiaohu, she was even more so, her brow furrowing deeply above her glowing green eyes. She looked from Jieyuan to Daojue. A pause. Then she nodded and made her way over to the other corpse. For his part, Jieyuan bent down and turned Huifen's corpse over. He kept his eyes on Daojue as he did it, making sure that messing with Huifen's corpse wouldn't set Daojue off. Daojue was looking right back at him, but he wore no expression.

Safe, then, Jieyuan decided, before finally shifting his focus to the corpse at his feet. The face caught his eye first. He hadn't even meant to pay any attention to Huifen himself—he'd only wanted to get his things and be done with it—but the face took him aback. It looked wrong. Before, when he'd been floating in the air, staring down at them, Jieyuan would've placed Huifen in his early forties. The dead man on the ground was well over eighty.

The age was an odd thing; when a cultivator died, their soul left their body and their mantle with it. And with the mantle gone, the body started showing its real age. A forty-year-old-looking Orangesoul would've been in the ballpark of a hundred and twenty. The corpse didn't look old enough; it should have been a shriveled husk. That wasn't all, either. Huifen's face was wrong. The age lines were warped, the texture of the face uncanny. It clicked in Jieyuan's head the next moment. Makeup.

Jieyuan didn't know the first thing about applying it, but he'd had a couple of lessons in recognizing the signs of it when he was younger; assassins loved using it for infiltrations, and when you were heir to the biggest merchant family around, you received training on spotting them from an early age. Huifen had put on makeup to make himself look older. Mundane makeup. It was clashing with the real lines and signs of old age, which must have only sprouted at the moment of his death.

Jieyuan put it together quickly. Huifen had been an Orangesoul, but he'd been pretending to be a Redsoul. As a Redsoul, he'd probably looked just like Jieyuan had seen him earlier, when he'd been hovering over them with Zhuoji at his side: in his forties. After breaking through to Orangesoul, he'd have been rejuvenated, so he'd used makeup to keep others from finding out. Again, even though the point was already moot, Jieyuan wondered if Zhuoji had known that Huifen was an Orangesoul. Jieyuan doubted it.

He'd bet that Huifen had plans. That Huifen had meant to stab his partner, Zhuoji, in the back. Jieyuan had even had the idea to work that angle and see if he could pit the two Orangesouls against each other. He just hadn't gotten to put it into practice because Daojue had gone and transformed and murdered Zhuoji without breaking a sweat. And any and all plans of everyone involved had ceased to matter altogether. There was a reminder in there of his own mortality, Jieyuan felt.

Of how sudden it could all be over, regardless of what he might have planned for the future. Which got him thinking about Sovereign Aoxin and Dayang again. Jieyuan caught himself. Frowning, he gathered all these useless thoughts and pushed them away into a distant corner of his head. Then he pried his eyes off Huifen's aged, warped face and began his search. The killing blow Daojue had landed helped him out; the bloody tear in the robes gave Jieyuan quick and easy access to the different layers of clothing.

Out of all the artifacts he came across, he only picked up the two Redrealm holder pouches. He didn't bother with the other artifacts on the man; he could sense they were all Redrealm, and he'd reached the point where Redrealm artifacts didn't really interest him anymore. He'd only gone for the pouches because he suspected at least one would contain Orangerealm artifacts. The real prizes were the two skillseeds he fished out from under Jiahao's robes. One red, the other orange.

That was four skillseeds they'd gotten in a single day. Two from Jiahao earlier, and now another two from Huifen. Zhuoji had probably had some, too, but the beam from Gleaming End had probably destroyed his. Jieyuan stood up. Meiyao was already back, waiting. She was standing on the other side of him, opposite Daojue. Intentionally, Jieyuan suspected.

"Here," she said, tossing a holder pouch over to him. An Orangerealm one. Jieyuan gave her a nod in thanks. The three of them got on his cloudcraft, and he took them into the skies again. He had them shoot upward until they were swimming in the clouds again, before resuming their flight to the Viridian Death Cult. They made the rest of their journey in silence. Jieyuan had questions for Daojue, many of them, but now—among the clouds, in the wake of all that had just happened—was not the right time for that.

Timing was always important, even more so when dealing with someone as complex as Daojue. Jieyuan sneaked a glance at his friend, seeing only his hazy silhouette in the moist white of the clouds. Daojue might be acting normal again, but Jieyuan wanted to play it safe. Give him some more time to cool off, even if it didn't look like he needed it. Especially since Jieyuan reckoned that if anything could upset Daojue, it'd be the questions he needed to ask.

—∞— They were about a mile from the cult when Meiyao had Jieyuan dip them out of the clouds for a quick peek at the landscape. She scanned the rolling slopes of grass that bordered the Viridian Forest for over a minute before pointing out a small hill that to Jieyuan seemed no different from the others around it. He didn't question it, though, and landed them right beside it. Hopping off the cloudcraft onto the bright green grass, Meiyao wordlessly began walking around the hill.

She stalked, purposeful, animal grace bleeding into her movements. Her feral, glowing green eyes searched the grassy slope. Her temporary second pair of ears, furred and pointed, stood at attention on top of her head. Xiaohu hopped off her shoulders onto the grass, trailing her master from the side, beady little eyes fixed on the hill, also searching.

"What are we looking for?" Jieyuan asked. He was right behind Meiyao, keeping pace with her. His soulsenses couldn't pick up on anything on the hill.

"A mark of some sort," Meiyao said. She sounded distant, not paying him much attention.

"It's on this hill. I'm sure of it. Mother was clear about the position. Fifteenth down from the cult, three between it and the forest, four closer ones stacked opposite it."

"Hmmm." Jieyuan summoned up to his mind a glimpse of the area they were in, seen from just above the clouds. He found that the hill did match the description.

"Is the entrance mundane?"

"It is," Meiyao confirmed.

"There should be some sort of mark… Don't worry, I'll find it." Jieyuan nodded. He meant to help with the search anyway, but something else drew his attention. The Viridian Death Cult. This close, Jieyuan could finally appreciate the dome that hid the cult from sight. He'd heard it described before as hundreds of thousands of massive chromal trees warped into tangles to form a dome. Jieyuan had seen the Viridian Death Palace in Radiant Gold City, and it was said to be a much smaller version of the cult's seat.

The Viridian Death Palace had fit the description: a dense array of trees warped into a dome. That also proved accurate enough for the dome around the seat of the cult, but it had left out the sprawling, thick tangle of roots and flowers and plants of all sorts that coated the bulwark of trees. It wasn't as ominous as the Viridian Dome itself, with its mind-warping viridian mist. But it wasn't that much better, either. It reminded him of Viridian Death City and the awful plantlife it was made up of.

"Found it," Meiyao called. He couldn't see her; she was on the other side. He walked over, Daojue tagging along. There was a doorway on the side of the hill; the "door" was to the side, what looked like stone coated with a coating of grass. The hinges and metal. The grass had perfectly masked all signs of it when closed. Jieyuan's gaze flicked to the hinges. The doorway led into a dark tunnel. Jieyuan could see clearly enough inside it, though: packed stone lined the walls and ceilings.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"You're sure only the Linzushen know about it?" Jieyuan asked. He didn't keep the doubt from his voice.

"The hinges are oiled. The stone's dusted, too." Meiyao followed his gaze to where the hidden door connected to the hill. She frowned.

"It's what my mother told me, but I wasn't even seven back then. Maybe some of our retainers know about it, too, so they can maintain it? Now that I think about it, I can't imagine the Liangshibai doing manual labor like this."

"Well, they've certainly kept it in a good state," Jieyuan said.

"You're sure this is safe?"

"Definitely," Meiyao said.

"I can't overstate how much the cult worships the Linzushen." Now, Meiyao had been wrong about such things before. Jieyuan wasn't about to forget their trip to Viridian Death City any time soon. But a quick check with Huaxin revealed no imminent danger in the future. Granted, Huaxin had also been wrong before. But Jieyuan was satisfied. One thing was to be careful; another was to be fearful.

"Then lead the way," Jieyuan said. They walked inside. There was a handle on the inside of the door, and Meiyao used it to close it behind them. Iron latches, mechanical, held the door fastened after it was closed. So it wouldn't open by accident, Jieyuan reckoned. First, the one-way windows in the Mysterious Night Hall, then the makeup Jiahao had worn, and now these mechanical latches.

Jieyuan had always carried the impression that cultivators disdained mundane technology, but he was coming to understand they could be rather practical about using it. They went inside. Meiyao led the way. The passageway was long, seemingly without end, smooth, polished stone all around, submerged in darkness. Their footsteps, dull clinks of metal on stone, filled it. For an underground passage, it had a surprisingly fresh smell. They walked for a good while.

The tunnel never split off, but sometimes it'd twist and turn, lean up, or tilt down. Jieyuan did his best to keep track of their relative position to the ground, though. And by the time he caught sight of an entrance, he was sure they'd been walking under the Viridian Death Cult for a couple of minutes already. Meiyao didn't hesitate in pushing this last door open and stepping outside. Jieyuan was right behind.

He still had the Shifting Sisters unsheathed, and he assumed a half-ready stance as he scanned their new surroundings. The first thing that caught his attention was the sky. Or rather, the lack of it. Far, far above—hundreds of feet up—was a dense sea of green and brown. Trees and branches, so thickly intermingled that they didn't let through the faintest hint of sunshine.

But there was light—bright, glowing green plants hung down from the canopy like natural chandeliers, hanging lanterns, so bright and so numerous they did a good enough job providing lighting even from so high above. One thing Jieyuan didn't quite appreciate, though, was how this light was almost a perfect match for the eerie glow of the viridian mist. Their surroundings only added to that unsettling impression. They were in the middle of a copse. Trees surrounded them.

Tall, though only by mundane standards, maybe two dozen feet in length. Thick, brown trunks with sprawling crowns of green. They grew in an orderly, planned fashion, forming a circle around them. Right behind them was a small hill, the door leading to the tunnel above. And beside it, in the middle of the clearing, was a cabin. Cabins were normally made out of wood, but they weren't usually grown from wood. This one was: four rows of artfully placed trees, perpendicular to each other, forming a cube.

Their branches joined above to form a slanted roof of sorts. Both the edge of the copse and the cabin were within range of his soulsenses, and they registered as tenth-step Redrealm. The more naturally shaped trees circling them kept him from telling much else about their surroundings, but he could see the curvature of the massive trees forming the dome in the distance, about equidistant in all directions. They should be near the very center of the Viridian Death Cult. It was silent here.

Jieyuan could catch vague chirping in the distance, but little else besides. The fresh, green scent he'd caught in the passageway was stronger now. The pleasant smell of nature. In this sense, at least, this place was unlike the Viridian Dome. The Dome also smelled of nature inside it, but it'd been a different kind of nature, one that was in no way pleasant. The air in the Dome had been thick with the sickening sweetness of rotting life. Meiyao was looking around.

Her animal ears were swiveling, too, on top of her head. She had a wandering look in her eyes; Jieyuan had only seen her look this way once: when they'd been walking around Viridian Death City. But then her head snapped in a direction, toward the trees of the copse, her gaze growing sharp as she assumed a ready stance.

"Redsouls are coming over." Jieyuan and Daojue also got into ready stances. It was just a few moments later that Jieyuan's soulsenses caught it: approaching from among the trees were the outlines of three Redrealm cultivators. One at seventh-step Redrealm, another at the eighth, and a last one at the tenth. Then the Redsouls stepped out of the trees, and Jieyuan recognized all three of them. Two he'd only met briefly. In the Radiant Gold Palace, during the tournament. High Priest Tangqiao and Viridian Eye Houliao.

Both members of the only other clan he knew besides the Liangshibai that belonged to the Viridian Death Cult, the Baisenzhou Clan. High Priest Tangqiao looked old, face wrinkled and hair silvery white. His robes were elegantly cut and of a deep, vibrant shade of green. Houliao, by his side, vaguely resembled the man—the same broad forehead, the same deep eyes—but looked decades younger, of an age with Jieyuan and the others. He wore similar robes to the man, but they were a lighter shade of green.

The tenth-step was Tangqiao; the seventh-step was Houliao. But it was the third Redrealm—the eighth-step—that really drew Jieyuan's attention. The third Redsoul was a man in simple gray robes, like those a rogue cultivator might wear to keep incognito. His hair was black and long. His eyes were black too, and they looked wrong in his face: a face with razor-sharp, angular lines. The man was missing the yellow, faceted eyes that Jieyuan was used to seeing in his face. But there was no mistaking who he was.

Meiyao's breath hitched. It was Yongyi who stood before them. Meiyao's half-brother. The last Jieyuan had seen him had been on the day of the coup; before he and Meiyao and Daojue had made their escape, they had seen him being stabbed through the chest. They had had no choice but to leave him behind. For a long time, he and Meiyao had been sure Yongyi was dead; after their conversation with Sovereign Aoxin and her nephew Dayang, they'd learned Yongyi was assumed missing, rather than known to be dead.

And now here he was. In the Viridian Death Cult, in front of them. Clearly alive. Healthy, even. All three of the newcomers were staring at Meiyao with wide eyes. Tangqiao and Houliao looked just short of awed. Yongyi, though—he looked stricken and hopeful.

"Meiyao," Yongyi murmured, like it was a prayer. Meiyao lunged, dropping her saber; Yongyi surged forward, arms open wide. The half-siblings slammed into each other in a crushing hug. Jieyuan hung back, giving them space. Daojue also stayed beside him; the two Viridian Death cultists didn't move, either. Jieyuan caught a white-green streak out of the corner of his eye, and then a weight settled on his shoulders. Xiaohu. He stroked the little beast's fur. Xiaohu's movements caught Tangqiao and Houliao's attention.

The two cultists tore their eyes away from Meiyao, looking over at him. Jieyuan caught the way they tensed, eyes narrowing, as they took in their beast. They were close enough to be able to sense Xiaohu with their soulsenses, and realizing that they couldn't must've set off all sorts of alarms in their heads. That reaction to Xiaohu helped put Jieyuan at ease. Not just because it meant they were threatened, but also because it was a reaction he could understand; he'd felt that way in the Dome many times before.

It was a distinctly human and reasonable reaction, and it meant the Viridian Death cultists might not be as helplessly insane as they seemed to be. Meiyao and Yongyi let go of each other after a while. Meiyao had her back to him, but he could see Yongyi's face clearly; his eyes were misty. And yellow again. Yellow and faceted and gleaming, like a pair of gemstones seen from above. Those yellow eyes settled on Jieyuan, who stepped forward, hand outstretched.

"I'm glad to see you well, Yongyi." Yongyi stared at him, eyes still moist, then stepped forward, ignoring Jieyuan's proffered hand and instead wrapping his arms around him too. Hugging him tight. A brother's hug, not unlike the one he'd given Meiyao.

"Thank you," Yongyi whispered, beside his ear, "for keeping her safe." Jieyuan got over his surprise quickly.

"Being honest with you, most of the time she was the one doing the protecting." Yongyi gave a thick chuckle before stepping back. Meiyao, Jieyuan noticed, was looking at Jieyuan and her brother with an approving look on her face. Yongyi turned to the last member of their group. He hesitated, then gave Daojue a nod. Daojue just stared back at him, expressionless. The lack of reaction didn't seem to bother Yongyi; he just turned back to his sister and Jieyuan.

Yongyi's gaze lingered on the pair of ears on top of Meiyao's head, and the way Yongyi blinked in clear surprise told Jieyuan he'd only really noticed them now. But then Meiyao's brother shook his head, like he was clearing his thoughts, and said, "We've got much to discuss." —∞— They went inside the nearby cabin. It turned out to be some sort of sacred location in the cult; Tangqiao and Houliao had asked for a bemused Meiyao's express blessing before stepping inside it.

The place was deceptively big on the inside, so much so that Jieyuan was sure it had inscripts on the walls similar to the ones on holder pouches. The living room, where they gathered, was expansive, and Jieyuan wasn't surprised in the least to see that all the furniture in it was organically but unnaturally grown rather than carpentered. Not everything was wood, either. The back and seat of the chairs were actually from reinforced green stems; they were surprisingly springy and molded to accommodate the seater.

Every single piece of furniture was at tenth-step Redrealm, too. His soulsenses felt a little clustered. Jieyuan would've been surprised at this level of extravagance if it hadn't been for his trip to Viridian Death City. They were all sitting around the main table, a long and elegant flowing piece of wood. Meiyao took the head of it, Jieyuan at her side, Yongyi on the other. Daojue beside Jieyuan, the two Viridian Death cultists further back. Meiyao was straight-backed, stone-faced.

She'd stopped resonating with Xiaohu, looking properly human again. She'd quickly recomposed herself after reuniting with Yongyi. She'd gone further than just getting her bearings, though. She wore a cold, stony mask now. Normally, Meiyao held herself with an unthinking, effortless sort of grace. Now it looked intentional. Imperious, even. Radiating a cold, sharp sort of dignity. The only times he'd seen her behave this way had been in the presence of Viridian Death cultists. It was a show she put up for them.

There was clear deference in the two cultists' faces as they regarded Meiyao. A bit of apprehension, too. Xiaohu had jumped back onto Meiyao's shoulders when they entered the cabin. Yongyi had also taken notice of the viridian prowler, and the way he'd stumbled back in shock had Jieyuan making an effort not to chuckle. Meiyao hadn't bothered hiding her snicker, though she'd gone back to statue-cold quickly enough. Nobody said anything. Everyone seemed to have all sorts of things on their minds.

For once, Jieyuan decided to stay out of it and only observe for now.

"First—" Yongyi began, breaking the silence. But Meiyao spoke over him.

"How did you survive?" she asked.

"The last time I saw you, you were stabbed in the chest." Yongyi paused. Something curious happened to his expression. He seemed almost uncomfortable. Just like that, Jieyuan realized something wasn't right.

"I guess we can start with that," Yongyi said.

"It's… It's as good a place as any." He looked strangely uncertain, though. Meiyao also caught on that something was off.

"Yongyi? What exactly happened?" Yongyi took a deep breath.

"It was Yunzhu." If Jieyuan hadn't been alarmed before, he sure was now. Anything that involved that damned woman was trouble, as far as he was concerned. Daojue, beside him, also visibly tensed. If there was someone who could put Daojue on guard, it was Liangshibai Yunzhu. It was testament to how much of an impression the woman had left on Daojue that just the mention of her name could get a reaction out of him.

"Yunzhu… saved you?" Meiyao asked. Even she sounded doubtful, and she was Yunzhu's biggest advocate.

"She did," Yongyi said.

"After I was stabbed, I lost consciousness. I'm still not sure how. I later woke up in a room. A safe house of sorts, near the sect. Not a Liangshibai one. Yunzhu was there. She explained to me that she saved me from the fight. And she warned me not to return to the sect, that it would be dangerous. Then she left. I never saw her again." Meiyao's confusion was clear on her face, and it only seemed to grow with every word Yongyi spoke.

"Brother, start making sense." Yongyi shot Meiyao a rueful smile.

"I was confused, too, at first. But I always knew something was wrong with her, and she'd seemed serious. Not to mention, I was perfectly healed when I woke up, without a scar, even though I'm fairly sure I had one lung run through. No Redrealm pill should have been capable of that. Clearly, something was going on." Meiyao nodded, gesturing for him to go on.

"I returned to Radiant Gold City first. Spent some time there, lying low, to better understand the situation. Cultivating, too. A while later, I heard the Liangshibai were put under house arrest. I also found out about Qingshi and how he was an Orangerealm and took over. You three have already heard about that, right?" Meiyao's expression darkened at the mention of Qingshi. Yongyi noticed, and something flashed across his face too fast for Jieyuan to catch.

"Oh, we have," Meiyao said darkly. Yongyi nodded, then said, "I couldn't do anything about it, but the Liangshibai seemed to be safe, so I focused on my cultivation. I considered leaving, even. Maybe seeing if I could join another sect, an Orangerealm one. And then the Incandescent Serenity Sect, later. Reach Yellowrealm. But then I heard the rumors that the Liangshibai were disappearing. I was about to sneak back into the sect to see if I could do something about it when… someone reached out to me."

"Who?" Meiyao asked.

"You'll meet him shortly," Yongyi said. He sounded dismissive, but Jieyuan could tell it was faked, had caught the sudden, unwitting spike of tension in Yongyi's face.

"He's on his way. Anyway, this person… He's on our side. He wants to protect the Liangshibai and do something about the disappearances. He had me reach out to the Viridian Death Cult a few months ago, see if they could help us in some way. We were grasping at straws, at the time." Yongyi nodded to Tangqiao and Houliao.

"I came to the Viridian Death Cult. The High Priest and the Viridian Eye received me. They'd been waiting for me. Knew I'd come. And one of the first things they told me—it was that you were alive, and that you would be back. That's how we found you three, just now. We knew you'd be back today. Knew it to the time of the day, even."

"We saw it, Your Sacredness," Houliao said quietly, eyes fixed on Meiyao.

"We saw your glorious return, bearing the seed of the Viridian in your bosom, Your Sacredness. We knew you would seek the Viridian, Your Sacredness, and that in its heart you would receive your destiny." Meiyao leveled Houliao with a steady gaze. There was a crack in her mask, though; a tightening around her eyes. She was disturbed; Jieyuan could tell. Or maybe he was projecting, because he sure was rather put off himself.

"We also knew that upon your return, Your Sacredness," Houliao continued, "you would see fit to rid the Children of Crystal of the vile fiend that plagues them. We stand with you, Your Sacredness, now and forever. We are your tools to wield. Instruments of your will." Something in the spiel stood out to Jieyuan. The vile fiend? Yongyi cleared his throat, looking between Meiyao and Houliao. He seemed rather unsettled, too.

"Yes, well—that. Anyway, we've been making plans, all this time, to deal with the situation with the Liangshibai. Myself, the Viridian Death Cult, and my… helper." Meiyao fell quiet. Thoughtful. Considering not just Yongyi's words but probably also Houliao's. She let the silence fully settle before disturbing it: "How are the Liangshibai disappearing? And what exactly is happening to them?"

"We have an idea of what's happening," Yongyi said, "but it's better if my helper explains it to you. I can tell you this, however: those who disappeared are almost definitely dead." Meiyao didn't seem happy about the half-answer, but she accepted it.

"Who has disappeared so far?" Here, Yongyi's expression darkened.

"Up until recently, only Liangshibai from the branch families. Three days ago, however, Grandfather was taken." Grandfather. That'd be Yongyi's grandfather on his mother's side. Liangshibai Zhaoyong, the former sovereign protector of the sect. Yongyi's and Meiyao's father, Junjie, was mundane-born. Meiyao's expression flickered. Her cool mask slipped, and Jieyuan caught the hurt in her eyes.

Sovereign Zhaoyong wasn't her grandfather by blood, and Jieyuan knew they'd been on bad terms—the man was supposedly at least partly to blame for her engagement with Dayang—but he knew she'd loved him as her real grandfather. The fact they had parted on such bad terms probably didn't help, either.

"Mother and Aunt Wanxin are all right," Yongyi continued.

"So is Father, but he isn't a Liangshibai by blood, so he's not at any risk, anyway. Even if he is in house arrest with everyone else." It was probably unintentional on Yongyi's part, but he had just confirmed one thing. Not a Liangshibai by blood. That could mean the Liangshibai were being taken because of their bloodline. Moreover, if the abductions had been for some other reason—information, maybe—then Meiyao and Yongyi's father, as the former chief elder, would have been a prime target. Meiyao nodded.

She had gotten herself back under control; Jieyuan had a hard time telling what she was thinking.

"What about Yunzhu?" Meiyao pressed.

"And… That girl of yours, your cousin, Feiyuan?" Yongyi's expression became strange at the mention of Yunzhu, and fell altogether at Feiyuan. He closed his eyes.

"Feiyuan was taken early on. Months ago. She was wounded during the coup. Almost killed. I heard she was getting better, however, and she was on her way to a full recovery. But then, one day, she… She was gone. Taken." Meiyao reached over, taking Yongyi's hand and squeezing it. She dropped the act this time, uncaring for the presence of the Viridian Death cultists, compassion clear in her eyes.

"I'm… I'm so sorry, Brother." Yongyi opened his eyes again. He took a long, shuddering breath, then shot Meiyao a slight, sad smile before saying, "As for Yunzhu… I'm not sure. She never returned to the sect. But… No, it's better if he tells you." The words had barely left Yongyi's lips when Xiaohu suddenly stood up on Meiyao's shoulders, head whirling toward the door behind them. The little beast let out a low, warning bark. Meiyao jumped off her chair, drawing her saber even as she twisted to face the door.

Jieyuan and Daojue followed suit on honed instinct more than anything else, taking position beside her, weapons drawn.

"Orangesoul," Meiyao whispered at them, glaring at the door.

"Tenth-step." Jieyuan had expected Orangesoul based on her reaction. But tenth-step? His stomach dropped into a cold pit. This would make it their fourth Orangerealm today. The fourth. And a tenth-step one at that. Heavens, this is absurd. The three of them weren't the only ones to shoot to their feet, though. So did Yongyi and the Viridian Death cultists. Except they didn't draw their weapons. Yongyi, rather, reached for Meiyao, grabbing her shoulder.

"Don't do anything—" The door opened. A man stood on the other side, hand on the doorknob, framed by the trees behind him. Tall, wearing white robes with a white coat over them. Jieyuan recognized this outfit; it was the robes Protector Wanxin had worn: the robes of a heavenly protector. What really caught Jieyuan's eyes, though, was the white blindfold on the man's face. Qingshi.