Chương 38: Chapter 37

But hold on.

"And who may you be, young man?" asked Wu Zetian, turning to the other kid. He looked vaguely batrachian. Like a frog. Or maybe she was being unfair. He couldn't have been bigger than Wu Lin. But… Large cheeks, big eyes, large feet and a thick neck. The resemblance was all there. For a moment. Wu Zetian noticed second the fearful, earnest look in his expression, the ill-fitting robes over a stocky frame and the almost desperate "please, don't hurt me, I help" vibe he radiated with. Like a puppy was a person.

She was instantly taken.

"He's Zhao!" Wu Lin swept in before the boy could reply. She pulled him into a hug.

"He's my henchman," she said, conspiratorially. Zhao grinned weakly, giving off a mix between "save me" and "I am very happy". Wu Zetian's eyes flicked between the radiant grin of the girl and the embarrassed expression of the boy. Well, something is definitely happening here.

"And so you went and made yourself a friend." Wu Zetian caressed her hair, making her laugh. Through her Night, she scanned the boy. Early Foundation Establishment. No Bloodline. No particular quality. No Body Nature. Average Roots, two elements. Unremarkable, except that being at that Realm at his age was all shades of remarkable, and he had a ridiculously powerful Foundation already. His Meridians and Dantians were robust, and the quality of his Night Qi was dense and heavy.

A perfect candidate for the Path of Blades. How interesting. Yet again, he was no noble. She had memorized every member of the Clans, and no child with his description chimed in. An educated guess? A foundling from one of the Clans that had been exterminated or left. Sable Lotus Palace was massive: one child could easily disappear in its depths. Wu Zetian sent a shred of consciousness through the network of perceptions that entwined the Palace.

Sure enough, Zhao's signature was all over a few of the most dilapidated halls. Her clones found five different grubby little nests, packed with food, drink and, in one instance, an abused cultivation manual. Yet, what interested her the most was the area. Yufeng Clan. A faithful minor clan exterminated during the Siege. They were the last few to hold on to the Steelskin martial arts. Those had been their training halls and smithies, once. Wu Zetian nodded slowly.

The timeline held, the type of Qi and constitution Zhao wielded did the same. The tragedy… did not. But she had always been skilled at squashing her emotions. It was all done in the moment between one heartbeat and the next. In the normal flow of time, Wu Zetian was arching an eyebrow, her expression betraying nothing of what transpired.

"And what does your nurse have to say about it? In fact, where is she?" That froze her on the spot.

"Mmh." Wu Lin turned away, tapping her forefingers together. Wu Zetian was instantly exasperated.

"Wu Lin." Wu Lin jumped.

"Just a few drops of Nightbloom in her tea!" She said, as if that was an excuse.

"She needs some sleep anyway. I just do it when she isn't looking. Zhao helped with the ingredients." The grin she threw the poor kid's way was pure mischief and had him almost jump out of his skin. Wu Zetian didn't sigh. She fixed them both with a calm look until they got the message and turned into two little soldiers on parade.

"No more sleeping tea," she sentenced, conjuring the same finality she would hand out an execution order with.

"Yes, Founder."

"Yes, Grandma."

'Twas the answers, gloomy and watchful from the boy, and with a smart salute from the girl and a totally-not lying grin.

"Lin, I can feel you crossing your fingers behind your back."

"Shoot!" Wu Zetian huffed, amused despite everything, and signalled for them to lead the way. Lin, unstoppable like always, grabbed a startled Zhao's hand and rushed forward.

"Come on, Grandma!"

"Go slow," Wu Zetian chided.

"This old lady can't run." Truth be told, she was playing her games. She had no idea what they were supposed to do, so she was just lying as though she was letting her granddaughter lead the way. Yet again, she had dignity: the little scamp needed to adjust her pace to hers, not the other way around. Or maybe she was just being childish. Didn't matter. As they walked, Wu Lin chattering no-stop about how much better the Palace had gotten lately, Wu Zetian kept a sliver of attention on Zhao.

A lonely Lin exploring the reopened sections of the Palace was bound to find the foundling, and then to attract him into her orbit. Better than the alternative: that poor child killed like a rat by the guards during a pantry raid. Should she separate them? Zhao looked honestly happy with Wu Lin's overwhelming attention, the child smiling tentatively every time the girl pulled him into her discussion or a hug. But nobody would have survived as long as he did without intelligence and a survivor's instinct.

He must have known that attaching himself to Wu Lin was a path forward. Maybe… maybe she should separate them. She could easily manufacture a justification. But they looked so happy together, Wu Lin especially. Sequestered as she was in the Palace all the time, a friend her age was exactly what she needed. With a sigh, Wu Zetian let some of the Night cluster on the folds of Zhao's clothes. Here, so close to the center of her power, very little could escape her.

Unless Zhao was a Heavenly Immortal in disguise who had somehow managed to sneak in, there was no need to fret. She could just keep an eye on both and would leave them to their games. It was… for the best. Huff. Being responsible for a kid was stressful. She pushed the thought aside. It was her and her granddaughter's first outing in a long while. There would be no place for anything but serenity.

So Wu Zetian made the mental equivalent of slapping her cheeks, flattened any wrinkles from stress, put up a mild, amused smile and started to listen and watch. Admittedly, there was much for both. The first time she had walked its corridors, Sable Lotus Palace had been a gloomy, dark place, filled with shadows and heavy with fatigue. A tomb recently opened instead of a place where people lived and hoped. Now… it couldn't be more different.

"We greet the Founder!"

"The Ancestor honors our work with her gaze!" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Put that down, idiot! The Founder is coming!"

"We greet the honored Ancestor!" Maids, servants, soldiers, clerks; they crowded the place, cleaning, fixing, rushing, arguing and working. An officer directed three smartly saluting soldiers while a floating cart awaited close by, Shadow Beasts sitting asleep on it in iron cages. A furious maid rushed after a panicked shadow-thing with a broom. Stonemancers held up constructions of shadow atop which workers clung, attacking the encrustations of Night Qi that had taken root in the corners.

The torches had been replaced and re-lit, and now they cast cheerful shadows over walls and people. Wu Zetian tilted her head and flicked her fingers as respectful bows and awed expressions turned her way, the servants stopping whatever they were doing to greet their benefactor. Couldn't be different indeed. Somewhere, one of the great dancing halls had been reopened, and maids cleaned the great marble floor, humming tunes never forgotten.

A clerk had surrendered to the temptation, and, using the chance nobody was looking, was plucking notes from an antique guzheng. Fireplaces had been lit with cold flame again, and food sizzled on pots and pans. The air was filled with the smells of spice, dust and was that sweat? Wu Zetian flicked fingers to an elder clerk, repressing the impulse to roll her eyes in amusement. Not so elegant, but it does the job. People – people. People. People. Not numbers – smiled.

With cheeks smudged and stained, with faces reddened and sweaty and dusty robes. But they smiled. Where there had been only despair, now there was hope, and an eagerness for tomorrow. And it's thanks to you, said a little voice in the back of her head. A strange mix of unease, embarrassment, and flattery wafted through her. This… was so strange. Pleasing, immensely so, and yet, and yet…

"Come on, Grandma!" Wu Lin's reproachful expression poked from beneath a cart. The small battalion of soldiers guarding it winced as the manticore sleeping in the single cage stirred, but they didn't dare to try and grab the rascal, not with the Founder on sight. Wu Zetian had no idea how to deal with that strange mix of emotions, so she retreated to what she knew best.

"I am coming, dear," she said, letting her cool gaze roam. She strode, her long robe making it appear as if she was floating calmly. The small house-sized manticore stirred again, whining this time, and the soldiers stood straighter as she moved before them, gaze flicking. The voice would spread: the Young Lady was dear to the Founder. Protect the Child and hope to gain Her favor. Threaten the Child and risk Her wrath. This wouldn't be necessary if you weren't determined on going soft, said her father's voice.

This is not what I've taught you. Affection is a weakness. What if they aim at her to strike at you? It wouldn't leave her alone. Then I'll squeeze the life out of their souls until the rest learn. No reply from that side of hers. Only stubborn silence. Wu Zetian huffed softly, and followed. Sable Lotus Palace was structured like a self-contained city. While only hundreds made their living in its elegant corridors, the structure had been built to be able to host thousands in perfect comfort.

There were streets and roads, alleys and neighborhoods, all provided with all the facilities you'd find in a small city, from stores to kitchens, from parlours to staterooms to barracks to pantries to training and cultivation rooms. The only thing missing was money, and the need to buy things: all who lived in the Palace's bounds did so at the sufferance of the Ancestor, and so were provided with everything they needed, no questions asked.

Her previous self had despised having to leave her Blossom and her cultivation. The Palace was the closest she had managed to bring herself to concede the other possibility. That it was a self-contained universe was among the bare necessities. Sighing in fond exasperation for herself, Wu Zetian emerged into one of the thoroughfares that crisscrossed the Palace. Eight of them in total, they formed a channel for Night Qi to billow through and be channelled in the monstrosity that was the Grand Silent Formation.

Yes, it took the whole, gigantic palace for the thing to work. Wu Zetian felt a flutter of delight at the thought. Left-Flow Road ran north-south with unerring precision. Statues of Sect Elders and Deputy Masters watched with grim solemnity, their expression frozen in black stone. Three whole floors opened to the Road, balconies and promenades in the elegant style of the Godless Night leading the way deeper in.

Great floating carts, the few the Sect could still operate, moved unceasingly, loading the Shadow Beasts that had been pacified, or the clutter that had been discarded, or returning to get more. Those already loaded left with a soft hum, pulled by teams of sweating Disciples. Which put Wu Zetian in all shades of annoyance, but she would make a concession for now: spirit beasts good for the job were still in the process of being reared up.

The air was filled with the ruckus of no-nonsense work, and Wu Zetian, who had no mind for a disturbance at the moment, wrapped herself in Night, hiding her presence. Lin waited for her by an open door. The little girl was practically vibrating with excitement as she spoke with a bored-looking officer.

"I am telling you," Wu Zetian heard her, voice bright.

"Grandma is here! Told you I'd get her!" The officer was a young man in the colors of the Hand. Clean-shaved, straight-backed and handsome, he looked like the poster-boy of the Sect's new generations, who had grown during the Siege, were fanatically loyal to the cause and who hadn't been torn in half by decades of frontline fighting. The token denoting his place as a Palace Guard shone on his breastplate, and nothing about him was anything shy of immaculate.

The only concession he made to vanity was the thin whiskers. Well, the attempt at those. Watching them, Wu Zetian was reminded of the mark left by milk.

"I understand your enthusiasm, Young Miss," he said, with the exasperated weariness of someone who had faced this topic one thousand times already.

"But I truly doubt the honored Founder has the time to, eh, spend on such trifling topics." Wu Lin's scowl was something. She planted her fists on her sides, managing somehow to look down at the officer despite barely clearing his waist.

"You are being very rude," she sentenced. Wu Zetian decided it was a good moment to be playful. She snuck behind the officer, putting a finger to her lips. Wu Lin's lips quirked, but she kept her "Outraged Young Mistress" expression. The officer ignored her. He turned to scowl at Zhao, who had been hanging back.

"You again," the young man growled.

"How many times must I tell you not to hang around the Young Miss? A rat like you isn't welcome here." Zhao flinched as though he had been struck. Lowering his head, he stepped back, mumbling an apology. Wu Lin erupted.

"Hey! Don't talk to my henchman like that, you meanie!" The young officer rolled his eyes and sighed.

"You should learn to behave yourself as well, Young Miss. The honored Founder wouldn't like the main branch's blood to mingle with the rabble." That was it.

"You seem very informed about my thoughts, captain." She put an itty-bitty, tiny fragment of Shen in her voice, and it was enough for the young officer to freeze. He turned pale. Sweat covered his face. All the swagger drained away like water from a broken cup. Wu Zetian let the moment hang, just to give her grandchild the time for a wicked grin. Well, we're family after all. The officer gasped as she released her hold.

"F-F-Founder! My d-deepest apologies! This unworthy slave will take h-his life and…!" Wu Zetian hummed, exchanging an amused look with her child. Wu Lin grabbed a vaguely startled Zhao, grinning widely. As it turned out, the problem Wu Lin had, repeatedly, told the officer she would "get Grandma" to solve was a Rank 6 Spirit Beast.

The Godless Night disciples, respecting the name, didn't worship: the so-called Gods of Heaven – part of Wu Zetian balked at the idea – held no sway over the hearts and minds of Wu Plateau's people. Yet, not all things worthy of being worshipped were necessarily Gods: primordial forces like Destiny, the Primordial Night, the Dao, the Yin and Yang, the Moon, the Sky and the Earth were all worthy of prayers, if not in hope of receiving gifts, to find enlightenment, insight and Good Karma.

This Beast had squatted in one such Temple, one devoted to the Yin of Night and Cold, and had feasted well on the somberly holy Qi of millennia of accumulated prayers. A magnificent creature of metallic sheen and graceful motions, it would have required nothing less than a Core Formation expert's intervention to subdue. That is, if Wu Zetian weren't there.

"Take care of it," she said, while the beast struggled against her bonds. It was splendid. It resembled a peacock, except that its wheel was studded with stars that burned with cold flame and each of its feathers was a plate inscribed with prayers. Four eyes glimmered like diamonds above a delicate beak, and its feathers gave off the scent of cool, starlit pools. The young officer bowed repeatedly, while his underlings ran to pull the creature in a cage and Lin did her best Cheshire Cat impression.

Wu Zetian's lips quirked.

"The spirit beasts are being assembled outside the palace, in an improvised park." It wasn't a question. She had followed the train of caged beasts since its start.

"Yes, Founder," the officer somehow managed to go straighter.

"The protocol is suppression and harvest. The… the Hand is very keen on it." Wu Zetian didn't give him the look for telling her things she already knew. He was a good boy, just trying his best. Yet again, what a waste. It made sense, in a way: all the skilled beast handlers of the Sect had been killed or run off with the traitors. Nor the Sect was ever for beast-rearing. Anything above Rank 4 was generally sent to the butcher for parts.

The old Wu Zetian believed in managing the land just enough not to strip it bare. Things that required patience and understanding weren't for her, and so they hadn't been for the Sect. Case in point, how she had treated the previous Guardian Beast. She wanted to change that. More importantly, she had the means to.

"Speak to your superiors," she said.

"All protocols are overwritten. For now, the beasts shall be gathered and fed. This is the Founder's word." She glanced toward him, and the young man swallowed any protest and nodded quickly. Good. Which left her with another problem. Wu Lin was grinning widely, having Zhao praise her. Cute, but as it was her duty as an adult, she saw beyond it. She really wanted to help and be involved, didn't she? Well, it was high time she received something to do.

"Granddaughter." No word was less wasted. Wu Lin somehow managed to straighten up, salute, grin widely and have Zhao do the same, all at the same time. Wu Zetian smiled fondly.

"It has been some time since you focused on your cultivation. Come. I wish to see it firsthand. And Grandmother will provide both of you with pills that may help you." Would that count as giving candies to the kids? Well, she was the Founder. If she decided it was, it was.