Chương 89: Book 2 Chapter 3: Little things

"How does anyone live here?" Bai Ning exclaimed, her head whipping from side to side as she tried and failed to take in everything at once.

"We've been walking for an hour, and I don't think we've made it off this one street." Mo Jian could only stare alongside her, his neck craning like every other country bumpkin who had ever set foot in the capital for the first time. Apparently, midnight meant nothing here. The streets churned with crowds, shoulder to shoulder, a living river that showed no sign of thinning. Above them, the sky was no less trafficked.

Flying carriages drifted between rooftops like slow-moving lanterns, lone cultivators streaked overhead in flashes of light, and great cloud ships glided lazily through the night as though the air were simply another road to be traveled. Every inch of the city blazed. Qi lanterns hung from every beam, archway, and street post, their radiance painting the night in warm gold and jade-green.

The storefronts competed viciously for attention, with glowing talismans, spirit lamps, shimmering signs stacked three deep above every threshold. They had passed shops selling pills, talismans, weapons, spirit food and liquor, formation plates, puppets, robes, books, furniture, spirit pets, and a dozen other things Mo Jian had no name for. Somehow the street kept repeating itself, stall after stall, shop after shop, as though the entire district existed solely to drain cultivators of their spirit stones.

Most establishments posted attendants outside whose only apparent task was to shout.

"Top-grade vitality pills! Guaranteed to strengthen your meridians!"

"Spirit talismans drawn by a genuine refinement master. Don't waste your money on those frauds next door!" One particularly red-faced man had gone so far as to bellow that the neighboring shop was "a hovel barely fit for pigs." The insult had immediately earned him a fist to the face. Within moments the two shopkeepers were grappling in the street, overturning a rack of talismans in the process. No one stopped.

The crowd parted around them like water around stones, pedestrians stepping over scattered charms without slowing, and before long the pair vanished behind the moving tide, their shouting swallowed by the noise. To everyone else, it seemed, this was a perfectly ordinary sight.

"We'll never find a place this way," Mo Jian said finally, conceding defeat. He had hoped they might stumble upon somewhere suitable near the examination hall. That idea now seemed optimistic to the point of foolishness. There was no shortage of cultivators' inns or traveler's lodgings, but-"One mid-grade spirit stone," Bai Ning repeated slowly, staring at the innkeeper as though he had suggested they purchase the street itself.

"For a single room."

"For one night," the man added helpfully. Bai Ning blinked.

"You're joking." The man, Sun Erlou, he'd called himself, materializing at their elbows the moment he'd identified them as lost newcomers, pressed a hand to his chest.

"This humble one would not dare lie to a senior, Fairy. That is the standard rate in this district." He had leaned closer then, lowering his voice as though sharing a secret.

"If you don't believe me, ask anyone. You'll hear the same answer." They had asked. Three separate inns, three identical prices. Which was why they had abandoned Sun Erlou and returned to the street, still half-stunned.

"Should we find another guide?" Bai Ning asked, shoving past a slow-moving pedestrian. The way she said the word made it sound suspiciously close to an insult. Mo Jian hurried after her before the crowd swallowed her completely. After years in the Thousand Shattered Islands, where even the largest cities felt spacious and unhurried, the capital was a different beast entirely. People jostled him from all sides. Someone stepped on his foot, twice.

An elbow caught him in the ribs as a pair of cultivators pushed past, arguing loudly about pill prices. And that was another thing: the noise never stopped. Hawkers shouted, customers haggled, and carriages rattled endlessly over the stone streets. The sounds blended together into an omnipresent hum that stabbed at his ears like a dull, rusty knife.

"Let's," he agreed, thoroughly sick of wandering the city. On any other evening he might have loved the chance to explore properly. Tonight he felt only tired and irritated. Part of it was the exam; the hours hunched over a desk had drained him more than he'd anticipated. The other part was simpler: the capital was overwhelming in a way he hadn't expected, and their dwindling finances weren't helping.

He still had raw herbs and spirit beast cores in his storage pouch, enough to refine pills and recover some ground, but with another examination tomorrow he had neither the time nor the energy. Better to find somewhere cheap to sleep, even if the price made his teeth ache. He was still working through this grim arithmetic when a voice piped up from behind them.

"Seniors, are you looking for a guide?" He turned. His spiritual sense had already told him what he would find. A girl, nine years old, perhaps ten, stood watching them with hopeful eyes. Her shift was threadbare and poorly patched, her face smeared with dirt, her feet bare against the cold stone. She had the look of someone who had lived on the streets long enough to stop noticing it. Yet her qi told a different story: a cultivator in the second stage of Qi Condensation.

Her fingers twisted painfully in the hem of her shift. Mo Jian's lingering irritation evaporated. He didn't know what to say. It was one thing to understand, in the abstract, that the world was full of small tragedies. It was another to have one standing three feet in front of him. Bai Ning moved first, crouching down so she was level with the girl's eyes.

"It's late to be wandering around alone. Where are your parents?" Not a single person on the street looked concerned. Around them the crowd simply flowed past, a few shooting them poisonous glances for daring to stand still in the middle of the road. The girl's knuckles went white around her hem.

"Seniors, please don't worry. Xiao Hua might be small, but she is very smart." She added quickly, as if afraid the window would close: "I know this entire district, every street within a dozen roads. I can take you anywhere you want to go. Just… ten spirit stones. No. Five. I'll be an excellent guide." She looked up at them. Mo Jian could see every rib beneath the thin fabric of her shift. He and Bai Ning exchanged a glance. An entire conversation passed between them in an instant.

Bai Ning smiled kindly at the girl, her voice bright with a touch of exaggerated cheer.

"Then how about you lead this older sister and her grumpy friend to a place with lots of good food, hmm? I'm quite hungry, so I could do with a meal. And afterward, maybe we can look for somewhere nearby to sleep so that my friend stops being so grumpy."

"I am not grumpy," Mo Jian protested hotly and automatically. A moment later his brain caught up with his mouth, and he glanced at the little girl, Xiao Hua, with concern, worried she might take the exchange the wrong way. However, his concern was unnecessary. Xiao Hua giggled, a startled sound, quickly smothered behind her palm, as though she wasn't sure the seniors would permit it. Bai Ning rolled her eyes at him. He offered the girl an awkward smile.

"Follow me, seniors," Xiao Hua said, grabbing the edge of Bai Ning's long trailing sleeve and tugging her forward.

"I know just the place." They exchanged a second look over her head; you lead, she likes you and of course she likes me, I don't have a grumpy face, and that is slander, and followed. Xiao Hua proved true to her word. She knew the street like the back of her hand.

"Not just the street, Senior," the little girl said, puffing out her chest proudly, though it only made her look even more pitiable somehow.

"I know the whole district. I can point you to any place within a dozen streets." She proved it methodically, and with surprising ruthlessness. Neither Mo Jian nor Bai Ning were truly hungry. As Core Formation cultivators, food was more a comfort than a necessity. Bai Ning had only suggested it as an excuse to get the girl a proper meal. However, when they passed the first eatery on the street – a warm, decent-looking place with a promising smell – and Mo Jian suggested going in, Xiao Hua firmly shook her head.

"Not that one. Mean Old Xu runs it. He reheats yesterday's buns and passes them off as fresh. Everyone knows." The next one, tucked between two tall pavilions with an aroma drifting through its open doors, received the same scathing treatment.

"Not that one either. The woman who works there, Meifeng, she pickpockets. She only gets away with it because one of the city guards is a friend of hers." And so they went. The street bustled around them like a living river. Lanterns of painted glass hung from curved wooden poles, bathing the cobblestones in warm shades of gold and crimson.

The smell of roasting meat, sweet pastries, and spiced wine drifted through the air in overlapping waves, punctuated by the sharp scent of incense from shrines tucked between storefronts. Merchants shouted their wares from open stalls, calling out jade hairpins, spirit talismans, and shimmering bolts of silk, while laughter and drunken singing spilled from teahouses and wine halls.

Somewhere farther down the road, a flute was playing, its notes wandering bright and loose through the noise like a spirit with nowhere particular to be. Amid all this life, Bai Ning chatted gently with the girl.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Purple," Xiao Hua answered instantly.

"Aren't you sleepy?"

"No," she replied, a little defensively, as if the question was a trap.

"How old are you?"

"Ten!" The girl thrust out both hands proudly, fingers splayed wide.

"And what happened to your family?" Xiao Hua shrugged, the motion small and oddly practiced.

"Don't know. I don't remember." Mo Jian walked beside them in silence, his brows slowly knitting together. The girl looked as though she hadn't eaten properly in months. Her thin wrists could almost have been snapped between two fingers. He wondered if he should simply put his foot down and choose the next place they came across. Thankfully, before that became necessary, Xiao Hua suddenly stopped.

"Here!" she announced. The establishment she had chosen towered three stories above the street. Unlike the cramped eateries they'd passed, this one seemed almost like a palace that had decided, out of modesty, to call itself a restaurant. There were no walls, only rows of polished wooden pillars rising toward a sweeping roof of dark lacquered tile.

Inside, tiered balconies and raised dining platforms were connected by elegant bridges, the tables arranged in alcoves behind living curtains of ivy and flowering vine – crimson, gold, and soft violet – their fragrance mingling with the deep, layered scent of roasted duck, sizzling fish, and freshly baked bread. Lotus-shaped lanterns drifted gently in the air, their soft light reflecting off lacquered tables and jade-inlaid railings. Somewhere inside, a guqin and flute played something slow and unhurried.

Small spirit-puppets scurried between tables, each no taller than a child's knee. Crafted from polished wood and painted with cheerful expressions, they balanced trays of steaming dishes and ceramic jugs of wine with uncanny precision. Every so often one would bow politely to a guest before hurrying away again, its tiny feet pattering softly against the polished floor. The entire place buzzed with warm conversation and the clink of cups, yet somehow managed to feel relaxed rather than chaotic.

Xiao Hua puffed out her chest proudly, pointing toward the entrance.

"This is the best place in the district." Mo Jian raised an eyebrow, glancing up at the sweeping balconies and polished pillars. The place looked expensive enough that even wealthy cultivators might think twice before walking in, but to him, it did not scream good taste. When it came to finding good food, he considered himself something of an expert, and establishments like this usually charged more for appearances than for what actually ended up on the plate.

"You're certain about that?" he asked mildly.

"Of course!" Xiao Hua said immediately. Then, after a brief pause, she added a little less confidently, "Well… everyone says so." Bai Ning hid a smile behind her sleeve.

"Well then," she said brightly, "if everyone says so, it must be true. Let's go." Xiao Hua hesitated. The girl's bare toes curled slightly against the stone pavement as she looked toward the entrance, where richly dressed patrons drifted in and out beneath hanging lanterns. Then she straightened her back and marched forward with all the determination a ten-year-old could muster.

"Follow me, Seniors." They stepped inside. The warmth of the restaurant wrapped around them immediately. The air was thick with the mouthwatering scent of sizzling meats, fragrant broth, toasted sesame oil, and sweet rice wine. Voices blended together in a low, lively murmur; merchants discussing deals, travelers exchanging stories, a pair of cultivators arguing about the merits of different pill refinement methods with the particular passion of people who had been arguing about this for hours.

A spirit-puppet scurried past them carrying a tray piled high with steaming dumplings. Another floated by on a small hovering disc, carefully balancing a tall ceramic jug of amber liquor. No one paid them much attention. Xiao Hua confidently led them along a polished wooden walkway between the vine-draped booths. She stopped at a small booth partially hidden behind a curtain of flowering vines. The blossoms were a soft shade of lavender, their sweet scent drifting gently through the air.

"This one is good," she said, pulling the curtain aside. The table inside was low and polished to a mirror sheen, with thick cushions arranged around it. From this angle they could see most of the dining hall without being directly in the flow of traffic. Bai Ning sat down first, graceful as a falling petal. Mo Jian followed. Xiao Hua, however, remained standing. Her hands were clasped behind her back now, fingers twisting together again.

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"So… Seniors…" she said, trying to sound professional.

"What would you like to eat?" Mo Jian looked at her. Up close, the signs were impossible to ignore: the hollow cheeks, the faint tremble in her thin arms, the way her gaze kept drifting toward nearby tables whenever food passed by. He leaned back slightly and glanced at Bai Ning. Another silent conversation passed between them. Bai Ning turned back to the girl with a bright smile.

"Why don't you sit down and help us choose? You're the expert guide, after all." For a single, unguarded moment, hope crossed Xiao Hua's face so quickly it almost hurt to see. Then she composed herself and nodded with great solemnity.

"Yes," she said.

"I know many good dishes." A puppet waddled up to their table just then. It was painted a clean white, with a cute rabbit drawn across its round face in delicate ink. The little construct bowed politely before presenting three menus. They were not paper, but thin sheets of hammered copper. The characters were etched deep into the metal, the strokes raised and polished until they gleamed in the lantern light. Every inch of the sheet was densely packed with neatly ordered dishes and their corresponding prices.

Bai Ning lowered her menu until it was level with Xiao Hua's eyes.

"Well, what do you recommend?" The girl leaned forward at once, one small finger darting across the copper.

"This one, and this one – oh, and that one! And the soup is famous. Everyone comes for the soup." Mo Jian, meanwhile, had reached the prices. He nearly choked. One mid-grade spirit stone for broth. Two for a main. Five for what appeared to be an ordinary fish. Was this food prepared by Nascent Soul cultivators or something? He said as much aloud just as the rabbit-faced puppet collected their menus with another polite bow and scurried away.

Bai Ning shot him a sharp look for bringing up money in front of what was very likely a destitute street child, and Mo Jian immediately bit his tongue. Right, he really should know better. Thankfully, Xiao Hua was made of sterner stuff. Instead of looking embarrassed or worried, she simply nodded knowingly.

"It's because of the Palace, Seniors," she said matter-of-factly. Mo Jian raised an eyebrow, and even Bai Ning tilted her head slightly, so Xiao Hua continued without needing to be prompted.

"Gambler Chun explained it to me," she said.

"The palace has endless spirit stones and treasures inside. They release it into the city sometimes, depending on calculations from the treasury and things like that. So there are always more spirit stones here than anywhere else." She leaned in closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

"That's why everything is so expensive. At least, that's what he said. He's from outside the city, so he knows." Mo Jian blinked. Huh, he hadn't expected to hear an explanation of basic economics from a ten-year-old street guide. Still… it did make a certain amount of sense. If money wasn't scarce, prices would naturally rise. Markets still followed demand and supply, after all.

If the Imperial Court controlled the flow of spirit stones, they could theoretically regulate prices across the city, releasing more stones to stimulate trade, or restricting them to curb inflation and slow excess consumption. Maybe. Even after taking the civil official examination, Mo Jian wouldn't dare claim he understood how entire nations were run, let alone a city the size of a small country.

Everything here was probably decentralized to an absurd degree, with Imperial authority functioning more as a banner than a reality in the far-flung districts. Who knew how this place was actually governed? Before they could discuss it any further, and risk being educated even more thoroughly by a ten-year-old, the food arrived. The spirit-puppets returned in a small procession, carefully balancing trays as they set the dishes down one by one. Steam curled into the air as lids were lifted.

There was a bowl of spicy noodles swimming in a rich, crimson broth, thick strands coiling beneath the surface alongside bright green leeks and slices of delicate fishcake. The scent alone was enough to make Mo Jian's stomach stir despite himself. Next came a bamboo basket overflowing with dumplings, their thin skins glossy with steam. Three small bowls of dipping sauce accompanied them, one glinting a dangerous red, another a bright herbal green, and the last pale and creamy, thick as milk.

Then came the centerpiece. A whole duck, seared to a deep golden brown, its skin crisp and glistening with butter and fragrant oil. It rested atop a bed of cream and roasted vegetables, juices pooling across the porcelain plate. And finally, a platter of small wobbling jellies, translucent and lovely, delicate snowflake patterns shimmering inside each one, faint traces of icy qi drifting from their surfaces like mist. It all looked utterly scrumptious.

Bai Ning very casually pulled a plate toward herself and piled it high with a little bit of everything. Noodles, dumplings, slices of duck; she stacked them together in a slightly precarious tower of food. Then she placed the plate directly in front of Xiao Hua. Without comment, she reached for another plate for herself. Mo Jian followed her lead, and the two of them began eating as though this were the most ordinary meal in the world. Xiao Hua stared at the plate for nearly a full minute.

Then she picked up her chopsticks and ate. The hesitation lasted three bites. After that it was gone entirely. The girl began devouring the food like a small whirlwind. Noodles disappeared in long, enthusiastic slurps, dumplings vanished in two quick bites, and the duck was stripped down with surprising efficiency. Mo Jian almost smiled. Well, that was money well spent. Still, watching her inhale those noodles, he grew faintly concerned she might choke.

How to slow her down without making it seem like he was trying to stop her from eating…? Mo Jian cast about for a topic of conversation, and fortunately one came to mind. He had been curious about it ever since Cai Jian, the guide who had first brought them into the city, mentioned that flying required paying a tax. Might as well ask.

"Hey, kid," he began. Xiao Hua slurped up a particularly long strand of noodles with great enthusiasm, splattering sauce across half her face. Mo Jian pretended not to notice.

"Do you know how the flying tax works?" he asked.

"I heard cultivators have to pay to fly openly, regardless of their realm." Xiao Hua nodded, glancing up from her food.

"That's true, Senior. It's to make sure the skies don't get too crowded. It happened once a very long time ago, so I've only heard stories, but there were so many people flying at once that no one could get anywhere properly." She gestured vaguely upward with her chopsticks.

"So now the city limits it by making cultivators pay. Businesses like cloudships and flying carriages can get permits, though, so they can carry passengers." Mo Jian turned it over in his mind. That was… weird. Weird was honestly the best word he could find for it. Would limiting flying like that actually work? And even if it did, would it really help with… what, an aerial traffic jam? Maybe it was his rural upbringing speaking, but the entire idea sounded faintly absurd. Still, he had more practical concerns.

"What's the rate?" he asked.

"If you know." Xiao Hua took advantage of the pause while he was thinking and stuffed an entire dumpling into her mouth. Bai Ning, ever helpful, immediately added a generous second serving to the girl's plate, plucking extra dumplings from the basket and building another small pile. Mo Jian watched in muted concern. Hopefully the girl wouldn't choke, or worse, throw everything up later. Though as a cultivator, even a young one, she should have the resilience to handle a little overeating.

Xiao Hua swallowed with visible effort, her eyes watering slightly from the effort.

"Twenty mid-grade spirit stones for a month," she said once she could speak again.

"That's what I heard last time." Then she happily went back to attacking a slice of duck. Mo Jian and Bai Ning reacted at the exact same moment. He froze in stunned silence, while she nearly choked on her tea.

"Twenty mid-grade spirit stones for a month?" Bai Ning repeated, spluttering in disbelief. Mo Jian felt a small pang in his chest. When he had left the Thousand Shattered Islands, he had considered himself a reasonably wealthy man. Between his own savings, gifts from friends and juniors, and the entire contents of Old Devil Fu's looted storage pouch, he had been carrying more than a hundred mid-grade spirit stones.

True, that pile had shrunk significantly in the eight months since then, but he had still assumed it was enough to live comfortably in the capital for a month or two. Now that assumption was looking… optimistic. What in the heavens were the cultivators of this city even doing with so many spirit stones? Eating them with every meal? A single mid-grade spirit stone was worth a thousand ordinary ones. Back home, earning twenty or thirty in an entire year was considered quite respectable.

Here, apparently, it barely covered the privilege of flying around for a month. Mo Jian was just about ready to declare the tax the work of demonic cultivators and forbid anyone from mentioning it in his presence again, an entirely reasonable stance, in his opinion, when Xiao Hua suddenly spoke up again, a little hesitantly.

"Um… Seniors?" They both looked at her.

"You said you were also looking for a place to spend the night, right?"

"Yes," Mo Jian said slowly, drawing the word out.

"Why? Do you know of a cheap place that could work?" Xiao Hua nodded eagerly, her eyes bright.

"Yes, Senior. It's just… I recommend paying the flying tax. The areas nearby are all expensive, and any place within walking distance charges a lot. But if you can fly, there are several neighborhoods a little farther away that are much more reasonable. Even with the tax added, it will be cheaper overall. It's just… they might not be suited for grand folks like you…" She trailed off, clearly worried about giving offense. Bai Ning, however, nodded decisively.

"Sounds good," she said.

"Then after this, let's go and see these neighborhoods you mentioned." She paused for a moment, regarding Xiao Hua with a softer expression.

"Are you also from one of them?" The girl nodded.

"Yes, Senior. It takes three days of running to get there from here, so it's a bit troublesome… but for someone who can fly, it should be an easy trip." Three days of running. Mo Jian looked at the little girl again, and a swell of respect rose in him. For a child, especially one at such an early stage of cultivation, that journey could not have been easy. Yet here she was, likely making it regularly to earn a living as a guide.

The tragedy of her circumstances aside, her resilience and spirit were impossible not to admire. They ate the rest of the food in relative silence, chatting only briefly about trivial things. Twice, Bai Ning prodded Xiao Hua to take more, and though the girl tried valiantly, managing to shove down another pastry each time, by her fourth helping, she finally had to concede defeat. When the puppet waiters came to collect the plates, she stared as if they were taking away her greatest treasure.

Mo Jian hid another smile. He upended a purse of spirit stones into the hand of a waiting puppet, this one clearly special, painted bright blue, with the visage of a tortoise on its face. The loss of so much money on a single fancy dinner made the budding smile on his face vanish. He couldn't complain, of course he couldn't, but… Just wait, he thought, a small, petty warmth in his chest. When I am powerful and influential, I'll come back and audit your books.

It was a trivial and mean thought, and he knew that by next week he would have forgotten the entire dinner, but it made him feel better. The food itself hadn't been exceptional enough to linger in memory. The three of them departed as quietly and unnoticed as they had entered. That was another thing about the capital: despite having far more people than the islands, most were uninterested in each other's business. People avoided one another, preferring to keep their noses out of everyone else's affairs.

Mo Jian approved in general, but still, some concern for street children wouldn't hurt. They stepped out into the street, leaving behind the warmth of the restaurant. A vast shadow suddenly passed overhead, momentarily casting the street in darkness. All three looked up. An enormous flying wooden ship drifted slowly above them, cultivators standing along its rails and pointing down at the shops below. Mo Jian watched for a moment before clapping his hands sharply.

"All right, enough gawking. Let's go take care of that tax thing, and then you can show us the place you mentioned." Xiao Hua, still staring upward, nodded solemnly. The gesture was slightly ruined by the smudges of sauce on her face (Bai Ning subtly cast the Shed Mortal Dust spell on her) and by her slightly rounded belly from the meal. With that, they set off, following the little girl down the street.

Mo Jian had been expecting a long, drawn-out ordeal to actually get a flying permit; the mere mention of a tax had implied as much, but the process was startlingly easy. They found one of the civil offices, one of many scattered throughout the district precisely for this sort of situation. Inside, a bored cultivator sat behind a desk, not even bothering to look up from his scroll or scan them with spiritual sense.

"Name?" he asked lazily.

"Mo Jian."

"Are you a native?" Mo Jian felt a flicker of surprise at the question, but answered truthfully.

"No."

"Twenty mid-grade spirit stones," the man said, holding out his hand, still not glancing up. Mo Jian gritted his teeth and counted out forty mid-grade stones.

"Here. I need two passes, one for me, and one for my companion, Bai Ning." The cultivator finally looked up, eyebrows raising briefly at the sight of three people in front of him, Mo Jian, Bai Ning, and the little girl, before giving a perfunctory nod. He tossed the spirit stones into a drawer, then pulled out two rings with small blue stones set in them and passed them across the desk.

"These rings are valid for a month. After that, the same fee applies to renew them. Wear or keep them on your person at all times, as they serve as your permit. If you want permanent rings, they last forever, but that will cost a hundred high-grade spirit stones." Mo Jian froze for a heartbeat, rings in hand. A hundred high-grade spirit stones. That was… a hundred thousand mid-grade spirit stones. The capital was terrifying. Did these people have no sense of money?

Outside, the city spread before them, a chaotic tapestry of soaring towers, crowded streets, and floating lanterns that drifted and twinkled in the night air. Mo Jian tossed one of the rings to Bai Ning, slipped the other into his storage pouch, and then retrieved his flying boat. It was an old tool, one that had seen its fair share of use years ago, back when Bai Ning had been young enough that he had flown them everywhere. It wasn't the most sophisticated flying tool in existence, but it was reliable.

He climbed aboard, Bai Ning following behind him, and glanced at Xiao Hua.

"Come on, get in. A few minutes of flying without a ring shouldn't get you into any trouble." That, after all, was the reason he had bothered with the boat. Both he and Bai Ning were perfectly capable of levitating on their own. Xiao Hua froze for a moment, then her face broke into a wide, thrilled grin.

"Really, Senior? Then I won't hesitate!" She clambered onto the boat, Bai Ning steadying her by gently looping her hands around her shoulders. Mo Jian guided the craft upward. The city opened beneath them. A clean breeze swept in from the east, sweet and cool after the press of the crowded streets. The stars overhead were brilliant, scattered like spilled salt across deep black, but the city below refused to shrink.

Towers stretched upward, some connected by arched bridges, others crowned with floating platforms and colored lanterns. Cloudships drifted between districts, their crews leaning over the rails to observe the streets below. And the walls; the enormous, unbroken walls that ringed the capital on every side, remained as imposing as ever from above, curving away into the dark until they vanished beyond the range of even his enhanced sight. Mo Jian had half-expected to feel trapped.

Instead the city felt boundless, as if it was too large to be contained by anything, even its own walls. Beside him, Xiao Hua let out a whoop of pure, uncomplicated joy. Bai Ning laughed. Mo Jian guided the boat forward at a steady pace, following the girl's directions. Within minutes they had crossed into what Xiao Hua called the quieter neighborhoods, and the name fit. They were quiet.

Compared to the bustling streets nearer the center, the district seemed almost asleep, as if its residents truly rested instead of wandering at all hours. The houses, bazaars, parks, and other buildings were far less grand than those near the main streets. It had the feel of leaving the heart of the city behind and drifting into the suburbs. Mo Jian blinked, and then realized that, incongruous as it seemed, the thought made perfect sense. There was another reason the place was quiet.

A single pass of his spiritual sense revealed it immediately: most of the residents were weak. Mortals predominated, and even the cultivators were largely at different stages of Qi Condensation. A few scattered Foundation Establishment cultivators resided in the fancier houses, but overall, this felt like a hidden corner of the city. Mo Jian understood why Xiao Hua had been hesitant to mention it at first; another Core Formation cultivator might have taken offense.

Was the entire capital structured this way, segregated by cultivation level? Mo Jian doubted it. Perhaps it was simply a consequence of people of similar ranks drifting together over time. The idea felt odd to him, but he swallowed the thought. Who cared? As long as it was cheaper, Mo Jian had no complaints.

"Where do you live?" Bai Ning asked, breaking the quiet as they hovered above the neighborhood. Xiao Hua, still wide-eyed with fascination at the view from above, pointed toward a cluster of modest buildings near the park.

"There. The matron takes in all the children who don't have homes, so I live there too." Mo Jian exhaled in relief. He had feared that she might be truly homeless, but it seemed she at least had a safe place to stay.

"All right, let's drop you home, then," he said, guiding the boat closer to the buildings she had indicated.

"Senior?" Xiao Hua's voice faltered slightly, her smile dimming.

"Don't you still need my help finding a place?" Bai Ning, who had been silent, leaned forward and gently brushed the girl's hair back from her face, her smile warm.

"It's getting late, and you should be in bed. Now that we're here, we can manage the rest ourselves. Don't worry." The little girl nodded, glancing down at her toes. They brought the flying boat down onto a narrow street next to the building, and Xiao Hua clambered off. The reluctance in her movements was plain, given the way she lingered a half-step too long, straightening her shift, looking at her feet. She bowed stiffly, hiding her face, and said, "Seniors, thank you for seeing me home.

Please remember me if you ever need a guide again." Mo Jian hid a small smile.

"Sure," he said easily.

"We will. Oh, and here you go, your payment for being an excellent guide." He tossed a pouch of spirit stones over to her. Before she could even fully open it, Mo Jian poured his qi into the flying boat, and it shot upward with a rush of wind. Xiao Hua, still peeking into the pouch, shouted, but her words were swept away by the roar of the air.

"Honestly," Bai Ning said as they rose higher, leaving the warm glow of the streetlights behind, "you could've been more delicate, Master. She's a child." Mo Jian snorted.

"If we'd stayed, she would've tried to give it back. This way, she can't. And we can check in on her later. I quite like her. She reminds me of me when I was young." He nodded firmly, feeling quite good about himself. Bai Ning huffed, crossing her arms.

"As if. She was more like me when I was young: brilliant, smart, strong in body and spirit. Don't steal her accomplishments and add them to yours." Mo Jian rolled his eyes, not bothering to answer. As if. His mind moved ahead to the immediate problem: he had just given away fifty mid-grade spirit stones to Xia Hua, almost everything he had on hand, and what remained were ordinary stones, a couple thousand at most.

He could only hope the neighborhoods below were as cheap as Xiao Hua had promised, or he and Bai Ning would be forced to camp out in the Heaven-Enshrouding Ding or in some similarly absurd fashion. But he didn't regret it. He leaned back and let the wind take the thought. The city spread out beneath them in every direction, lights burning in their thousands against the dark, vast and churning and entirely indifferent to any one person's finances.

Somewhere down in that brightness was a room they still needed to find, and tomorrow was the second part of the Imperial Examination, and they were almost certainly going to have to be very careful with money for the foreseeable future. For now, though, the air was clean and cool, and the night was wide open above them, and somewhere in a modest building near a small park, a ten-year-old cultivator was opening a pouch and finding out she couldn't give it back.

Mo Jian allowed himself a small, private smile, and guided the boat on.