Chương 105: 104. Someone Who Can Keep Up

"The wise only need decades to decipher the truth, while the foolish need centuries. The wise need centuries to decipher love, but the foolish have understood it from the start." — Aka Akasaka A month after the victory over Stone River, winter begins to loosen its grip on Coiling Dragon Mountain. Snow still clings to the shaded slopes, the northern sides of old walls, and the curled corners of roofs where servants cannot easily reach with brooms.

The first stubborn green shoots push through the earth as though they have been waiting beneath the cold with considerable impatience. Ling'er leaves the sect before most of the disciples wake. Her mission is simple.

'Gather Thunderclap Leaves.' It appears only briefly each year, during the narrow turn between winter and spring, and even then only in places where lightning has repeatedly struck spiritually rich ground. The storm from the previous night had been harsh enough to rattle old windows across the sect. That made today suitable. She descends the mountain quickly. Greenstone Town falls behind her without requiring much attention.

Its roads are worse than usual after the thaw, and several carts have become trapped in mud near the northern path, but none of that concerns her. The Thunderclap Leaf is not something to delay for. Once matured, it holds its potency for only a few days before the lightning-aspected qi disperses into the surrounding air and soil. Properly refined, Thunderclap Leaf served as the principal ingredient in one of the better body-tempering baths available at the Qi Condensation realm.

Ling'er feels quiet satisfaction at the thought. Before entering the village near the lower forest, Ling'er stops beside the road and removes a plain cloth from her sleeve. She ties it over the lower half of her face, making certain it sits securely. Master has repeated this instruction several times.

'Avoid unnecessary recognition.' Ling'er still does not fully understand why the cloth matters. Anyone strong enough to be a meaningful threat will not be deceived by fabric. Anyone weak enough to be deceived by fabric is not a meaningful threat. The arrangement therefore appears useful only against people who are neither strong enough to matter nor weak enough to ignore, which seems like a troublesome category to design behavior around.

However, Master was clear that recognition creates problems even when the person recognizing her is not dangerous. Questions lead to rumors. Rumors lead to attention. Attention leads to people deciding they should involve themselves. So she obeys. The village is small enough that one main road passes through most of it. Several houses lean around a central well. Smoke rises from low chimneys. Chickens move freely near the road with the confidence of creatures that have never considered how fragile their necks are.

Ling'er walks through. Her spiritual sense stays restrained. Her eyes move over the stalls without lingering long enough to invite conversation. A man sells bundles of dried firewood with mold beginning beneath the bark. A girl no older than ten arranges winter radishes by size. An old woman sits beneath a patched awning with a basket of dried plums.

"Hm… The plums are overpriced." She continues walking. The villagers are speaking about the forest; they talk in hushed whispers, but their words are clear as day to a Foundation Establishment cultivator's senses.

"It tore through thirty armed men," one man says near the well." Thirty. My cousin saw the bodies brought back."

"It has fangs like curved swords," a woman says from beside a vegetable stall.

"That is what I heard. Its mouth cannot even close." A child clinging to his mother's sleeve asks, "When will the sects come?" No one answers that part quickly. Someone eventually says, "Violet Sky might send people."

"Hah! When have they ever intervened in'mortal' affairs?" Ling'er keeps walking, adjusting her intended route only slightly. She still needs the Thunderclap Leaf. She will simply remain aware while searching. The forest receives her with the scent of wet bark, old snow, and earth beginning to wake beneath the thaw. Branches drip from the previous night's storm. Patches of mist gather where the ground remains cold enough to resist the morning light.

'The texts describing this region mention a tall species of tree that often survives lightning strikes without burning entirely.' Thunderclap Leaf favors the upper branches of such trees, especially when repeated strikes leave trace lightning-aspected qi in the trunk. Ling'er leaps. The ground falls away beneath her. She catches one branch, bends it beneath her weight, and releases before it can snap. The next tree carries her higher.

Within several breaths, she has reached the upper canopy, where the forest spreads beneath her in uneven waves of dark green, white snow, and brown branches still waiting for leaves. She looks for trees standing several times taller than those around them. There are many. Some are old but spiritually dull. Some have been struck by lightning once, leaving scars without saturation. Others hold qi of the wrong quality or too much ordinary fire from an old burn. Ling'er moves between them in long, silent leaps.

Her senses spread just enough to detect the faint seasonal pulse she is seeking. Lightning-aspected qi leaves a sharp impression, thin and bright, like the memory of a sound after it has already ended. Beneath that, she tracks the slower movement of spring qi rising through roots and softened earth. Several useful ingredients appear below.

Earthly Spirit Algae grows along the shaded side of a narrow stream, its dull green surface nearly indistinguishable from ordinary moss unless one notices the way qi gathers in its rounded edges. It is useful for stabilizing earth-aspected mixtures and reducing violent reactions in medicinal baths. Ling'er drops beside the stream. A snake hidden in the grass begins to shift toward her ankle. She looks at it and the snake stops moving.

After several moments, it decides that another patch of grass is more suitable and retreats beneath a wet stone. Ling'er collects the algae carefully, taking only the mature portions and leaving enough for the patch to recover. She stores it in a small container before returning to the trees. Farther along, Blood Coagulation Grass has survived the frost in several narrow clusters near the roots of an old cedar. The leaves are still young, their red lines faint rather than full. Harvesting now would be wasteful.

In two months, they will be useful for battlefield medicine. She records the location. A patch of White Vein Lichen grows beneath a fallen log, too immature. Three stalks of Bitter Smoke Reed stand in a marshy hollow, not valuable enough to delay for. A thin cluster of Bone-Warming Fern has begun to unfurl along a slope where deer often pass. Ling'er records each location in order. Some can be harvested later by ordinary disciples. That will be good for training.

They will learn to identify useful plants, avoid immature specimens, and understand that the forest is not only a place where beasts attempt to eat them. Eventually, she finds the tree. It stands above the rest of the forest like a watchtower, its trunk thick enough that several grown men linking arms would not fully surround it. Black scars twist along the bark where lightning struck more than once.

The ground at its base is dark and glassy in places, with small patches of fused soil half-buried beneath mud and roots. Ling'er lands beside the trunk. Faint spiritual charge threads through the air. She looks upward. The Thunderclap Leaf grows high above the ground, small enough that most people would miss it from below. Its shape is narrow and slightly curled, with purple-green veins that flicker when the wind passes over them. The qi inside is not abundant, but it is sharp, condensed, and properly mature.

'The leaf is ready to harvest.' Then she stops. Something moves behind her. The forest has gone quiet. Ling'er turns as a demonic tiger emerges from between the trees. It looks like a predator whose natural shape has been forced into grotesque limits. Its body is too large in uneven places, with swollen shoulders, a twisted spine, and ribs that shift beneath the hide as though something inside continues rearranging them. Blackened stripes pulse along its flanks.

Its fangs have overgrown until they curve past the lower jaw, preventing the mouth from closing fully. Saliva and dark blood drip steadily into the mud. Its breathing is wet, ragged, and wrong. Ling'er looks deeper. There is almost nothing recognizable left in its threads. No ordinary beast-mind arranged around survival, caution, and violence. Only pain, rage, and corruption binding every part together with ugly, tangled lines. The tiger attacks without warning. Ling'er shifts half a step.

Its claws pass through the space where her torso had been. The tree behind her is cut apart so cleanly that the upper half remains suspended for a heartbeat before sliding free and crashing into the clearing. Birds explode from the canopy. Several smaller trees bend beneath the falling weight, and wet snow drops from the branches in heavy clumps. Ling'er glances at the damage.

'Foundation Establishment Fourth Stage? Possibly higher in sheer strength, though the movements are inefficient.' It will damage the Thunderclap Leaf if allowed to continue. The tiger lunges again. Ling'er focuses on her dantian. There is the vast ocean of qi she keeps settled and quiet beneath the limits she presents to others. Deeper still, at the center, rests the clearer reservoir that is not quite liquid, not quite gas, and not quite any ordinary state described by any manual. She raises her wrist.

The moment she determines water saw, the technique exists. It leaves through her palm without wasted motion. The arc passes through the tiger at an exact angle, avoiding the great tree, the glassy soil around its roots, and the smaller plants worth preserving nearby. The beast continues forward for several steps, then the two halves separate and collapse into the mud. Several trees fall behind it. For a moment, the fight appears finished. Ling'er watches the threads, but… they do not vanish.

The separate halves of the tiger stretch where they have been cut, not like flesh, but like wet cords pulled from a rotting net. Worm-like tendrils push from muscle and bone, reaching across the severed space to draw the body together.

"ROAAAGGGHHH!" This time, the sound shakes the ground. Ling'er looks once toward the Thunderclap Leaf. An extended fight will damage it. The corruption may also spread into the soil if the creature is allowed to struggle too long. Ordinary killing is insufficient. Whatever binds the tiger must be destroyed throughout the body at once. She raises her hand again. This time, she draws more deeply from the reservoir and the clearing becomes fire. The soil glows. The air flashes white-orange.

The tendrils trying to stitch the tiger together ignite from within, and the corrupted qi catches before the flesh does. Its defenses become irrelevant because the flame is already present in the spaces between hide, blood, meridians, bone, and corruption. The tiger struggles for several breaths. Ling'er feels the corruption resist. It tries to regenerate, to reassert the shape of the beast, to force the severed halves back into the pattern of a living thing.

The beyond-liquid flame burns through that resistance without needing to overpower the body layer by layer. The roar thins; for a moment, it almost sounds relieved. Then the tendrils crumble, the threads collapse, and the thing that had been forcing the tiger to remain alive finally loses its grip. When the flame vanishes, the clearing is scorched but controlled. The Thunderclap Leaf remains untouched within a small pocket of undisturbed air and earth. Ling'er inspects the tiger's remains carefully.

The meat is unusable. The bones are contaminated. The fangs are saturated with corrupted qi. The core, when she finds it, is worse. It pulses faintly with something that tries to reach outward even after the body has died. She destroys it completely. The core is crushed, burned, and burned again until the pulse disappears. She scatters the ash and purifies the soil immediately around the corpse as thoroughly as she can without damaging the nearby spiritual charge. Only then does she return to the tree.

She leaps from branch to branch, and harvests several leaves with a precise cut. Ling'er places it into a jade box lined with damp moss and a thin stabilizing formation, then seals the lid. The mission is complete. She begins the return journey immediately. The forest blurs beneath her feet. Branches bend after she has already passed. Snowmelt trembles in footprints that are empty before the water settles.

'The villagers likely heard the roar.' If they later discover that the beast is gone, that is enough. Ling'er has no interest in being thanked, questioned, or remembered. Gratitude often produces conversation, and conversation often produces recognition, which Master has already explained is troublesome. The sun is lowering by the time Coiling Dragon Mountain comes back into view, turning the sky a gentle orange behind the ridge. As Ling'er draws closer, the pace of her steps slows.

Coiling Dragon Mountain is not quiet anymore. The change is visible before she reaches the main gate. Half-finished buildings stand beside old halls with repaired roofs and mismatched beams, while timber piles sit near the training yard. Disciples haul stone in pairs. Servants shout at one another over supplies.

Someone has left muddy footprints across a path that was clearly swept not long ago, and two younger workers are arguing over whether it is better to clean it now or wait until everyone has stopped walking through the same mud. The sect's threads are brighter than they were before Stone River. Ling'er stands for a moment at the entrance and watches them shift. They run between buildings, people, tools, promises, debts, hopes, and worries. Some are thin and new. Some are beginning to thicken from repeated contact.

Some connect people who do not yet understand that they have been connected.

"Senior Ling'er." She turns. Bao Ming stands near the entrance with a broom in one hand and an armful of leaves in the other. He is a broad man, much taller than her, with shoulders large enough that the broom looks like a training stick built for a child. His movements are careful and slow, as though he worries the world may break if handled too quickly. He bows. From outside the sect, Ling'er thinks the sight must appear strange. A man bowing deferentially to a girl less than a quarter his size.

She returns the nod.

"Did grass-hunting go well today?"

"It was leaf-hunting." Bao Ming considers this correction with great seriousness.

"Of course. Leaf-hunting." He raises the armful of leaves he has collected from the path.

"I went leaf-hunting too." Ling'er looks at the leaves. Most are dead. One still has a worm on it.

"Yes. Very important." He bows again and resumes sweeping, though the motion of his broom immediately scatters three leaves back across the path. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The training yard is active despite the mud. Mei Lin and Wei Chen stand near the far side, circling one another with wooden practice weapons. Mei Lin redirects one of his heavier attacks, guiding the wooden blade past her side instead of meeting it directly.

"Your stance opened again," she says. She steps in and strikes toward his exposed ribs. Wei Chen grins.

"I know." His foot shifts before her strike lands, and his practice blade turns at an awkward angle that forces her to pull back or take the counter across the wrist. Mei Lin's eyes narrow.

"Being predictable isn't a valid strategy."

"It worked, you're lecturing instead of attacking. Adapt to the enemy, remember?" Mei Lin attacks immediately. Wei Chen laughs and retreats. They notice Ling'er a few exchanges later. Wei Chen lowers his weapon first.

"Senior Sister! Did you find anything worth fighting?" Mei Lin gives him a sideways look before turning to Ling'er.

"Did you find the Thunderclap Leaf?" Ling'er answers both questions in order.

"Yes. And yes." Wei Chen's grin widens.

"I knew it. Was it strong?"

"You ask that every time she leaves the sect." They bicker again, but Ling'er's attention has already shifted.

'Their threads are different.' She has noticed them before, but today the shape is clearer. They do not connect from one to the other. They separate, curve through the air, return, and wind around each other with an awkwardness that has not yet learned its own name. Ling'er has seen this shape among married villagers. She has seen it among the Purple Crane disciples at the tournament.

She has seen it in Celestial Jade City, where couples walked together through crowded streets while their threads curled inward with a private rhythm that did not belong to anyone else around them. Mei Lin lowers her practice weapon.

"Senior Sister? Is something wrong?"

"No." Wei Chen glances between them.

"Is it my stance?"

"Yes," Mei Lin says at once. Ling'er nods.

"Also yes." Wei Chen looks dismayed. Ling'er continues toward the inner halls before he can object further. Lu Chen is in his quarters when she arrives. Several reports are spread across the low table in front of him. Master looks up when she enters.

"Ling'er. You're back earlier than I expected."

"Yes, Master." She places the jade box on the table and opens it. The Thunderclap Leaf rests on its bed of damp moss. Its purple-green veins flicker faintly in the room's light, and a thin spiritual charge lingers around it even through the stabilizing formation. His gaze lingers on the plant before brightening.

"You found it."

"It was mature enough to harvest."

"Can you refine it properly?"

"I will need several additional ingredients. We have some in storage, but not all. Earthly Spirit Algae will help stabilize the mixture. I collected some today. I can prepare a list for Shen Qiao."

"Good." Lu Chen closes the jade box carefully.

"Very good work."

"There was also a demonic tiger." His hand stops on the lid. The room becomes quieter, and Lu Chen looks up slowly.

"A demonic tiger. Hm. What stage?"

"Foundation Establishment Fourth Stage. It seemed its cultivation was unstable." His expression changes in the way it does when a problem moves from inconvenient to dangerous.

"Describe it." Ling'er does. She explains the uneven body and overgrown fangs. She describes the lack of ordinary beast-instinct in its threads, the pain and rage, the corruption binding the body together, and the regenerative tendrils that attempted to reconnect it after she cut the body in half. Lu Chen asks several more questions, and Ling'er answers to the best of her ability, indicating the location relative to the village, the stream, and the lightning-struck tree.

Lu Chen adds each point, then marks the likely routes from the village into the forest.

"Did the land itself feel contaminated?"

"Only around the body after it began regenerating. The corruption was concentrated in the beast. I purified the affected soil." Ling'er can see this in his face, his posture, and the threads around his thoughts as they turn from one possibility to another. While he thinks, Ling'er studies the thread between them. It is the deepest connection she knows. It is not like Mei Lin and Wei Chen's.

It does not curl inward in that private, mutual shape that seems to form when two people begin choosing each other in ways neither fully admits. The connection between Ling'er and Master is different. It runs through her life like a central meridian, branching through the sect, the disciples, her cultivation, her sense of home, and the future itself. It is too large to mistake for romance. And because of that, she feels no confusion about it.

'Master is tied to something far greater than his cultivation, his age, or his own self-assessment suggests.'

"Ling'er?" She looks at him.

"Yes, Master."

"Are you listening?" She reviews the most recent portion of his speech.

"... Mostly." Lu Chen pauses. His expression suggests this is not the reassuring answer he wanted. He watches her for another moment, then sets the brush down.

"All right. Good work today. I'll have Jun check the village later and see if anyone knows more. We will not send ordinary disciples into that part of the forest until we understand whether this was isolated."

"Yes, Master." He begins gathering the papers, then reaches for the teapot near the side of the table. The tea has cooled somewhat, but not enough to be unpleasant. He pours one cup for himself and one for her.

"Is there anything else to report?" Ling'er accepts the cup. There is something else to ask. She has been considering it since seeing Mei Lin and Wei Chen's threads, and again while studying the connection between herself and Master.

'Master often says that important matters should be clarified before assumptions become mistakes.' Ling'er sets the tea down without drinking.

"Master, have you sworn off a Dao companion in order to lead the sect?" Lu Chen spits tea across the table. Ling'er dodges the spittle but does not interrupt. He coughs several times, turns away from the reports, and covers his mouth with one sleeve while trying to recover the dignity expected of a sect leader.

'Some tea has landed on Shen Qiao's document. That is unfortunate. Shen Qiao's writing is very small and may smear.' After several breaths, Lu Chen manages to breathe properly again.

"What?" Ling'er waits until his coughing stops.

"Have you sworn off romance in order to lead the sect?" He reaches for a cloth and wipes the table, looking toward the door as if hoping no one outside heard him choke. Ling'er remains patient. It is a serious question. Serious questions sometimes require people to organize themselves before answering. Lu Chen eventually sets the cloth aside.

"No," he says.

"I have not sworn off romance."

"Then Master may pursue it later?" His expression becomes complicated.

"That is not exactly how I would phrase it." He looks at the reports, the stained edge of Shen Qiao's document, and then toward the window, where the sounds of construction still drift faintly through the sect grounds.

"In practice, I have duties. The sect is still unstable. Too many people depend on me, and a relationship is not something I would begin lightly when I cannot give it proper attention. Perhaps one day, when the sect is more secure, I might consider it. For now, there are more immediate concerns." Ling'er thinks about this answer.

"How secure?" Lu Chen looks at the pile of reports again. Then he looks out toward the main grounds.

"More secure than this." The answer is not precise enough to be satisfying in her mind. Love, in Master's explanation, is not forbidden. It is delayed by responsibility. That is familiar. Much of life in the sect is delayed by responsibility. Cultivation is delayed by resources. Comfort is delayed by repairs. Safety is delayed by strength. Sleep is delayed by reports, training, damaged roads, injured disciples, and corrupted tigers in forests where rare leaves grow.

Romance, apparently, belongs to the same category. Ling'er lifts her tea and drinks. The taste has cooled, but she does not dislike it.

"Thank you for answering my question, Master." Lu Chen studies her as though trying to determine whether the conversation has ended or whether another question is waiting behind it.

"You're welcome," he says carefully. Ling'er bows and leaves his quarters with the jade box stored away again. The Thunderclap Leaf must be preserved properly before any further distractions. She returns to her own quarters and places it beside the other ingredients gathered over the past weeks. The room has become more organized since Master gave her additional shelves. One section holds foraged herbs. Another holds mineral powders.

A third holds alchemical texts and the notes she has written in margins where the authors were incomplete, imprecise, or wrong. Her pill furnace sits near the center, cleaned and covered. Ling'er checks the jade box's stabilizing formation, confirms that the leaf remains potent, and stores it where temperature and qi flow will remain steady. Then she resumes her ordinary duties. Lian is waiting near the side courtyard, nervous enough that the thread between intention and movement trembles before she even begins.

She has purchased this session to train outside formations. That phrasing still seems strange to Ling'er. It is not inaccurate, but the sect's newer system of contribution points has made several ordinary interactions sound like merchant transactions. Master says this creates fairness. Ling'er accepts that Master understands the management of people better than she does. Lian bows deeply.

"Senior Sister Ling'er. Thank you for instructing me."

"There is no need to bow so much," Ling'er says.

"We are not far apart in age." Lian bows again.

"Yes, Senior Sister." Ling'er decides not to repeat the instruction. It has failed once already.

"Show me the footwork." Lian takes position and begins the movement. Her first three steps are acceptable. The fourth catches. Qi gathers too early near the ankle, making the turn heavier than it should be. By the sixth step, the weight has shifted into the wrong hip, and the final motion requires correction from the upper body instead of flowing naturally from below. Ling'er demonstrates the sequence once. She moves slowly enough for Lian to follow each part.

"Your qi is catching here," Ling'er says, pointing toward Lian's lower leg without touching.

"You are preparing for the turn before the foot has accepted weight. Let the ground confirm the step first. Then move." Lian tries again. The improvement is immediate. Ling'er adjusts the next attempt, then the next. Lian learns quickly when given exact corrections. Her nervousness remains, but eagerness sits beneath it, bright and persistent. After the seventh repetition, the movement becomes smooth enough to continue practicing alone. Lian bows deeply.

"Thank you, Senior Sister. That explanation was very clear." Later, Ling'er passes the herb plots. The garden has expanded significantly. Mei Lin stands near one of the newer beds, speaking with one servant about which shoots should not be mistaken for weeds. Her voice carries more confidence than it once did.

"This row needs more distance between roots," Mei Lin says.

"If they crowd each other now, Senior Sister Ling'er will say we wasted the soil later."

"I would," Ling'er says. The two turn and bow. Ling'er examines the bed.

"The spacing is better than last week. The drainage channel should be deeper on this side. Snowmelt gathers here first." Mei Lin looks down, studies the slope, and nods.

"You're right. We can cut it deeper before evening." She doesn't accept blindly. Her eyes check the ground first. She compares the suggestion to what she can see, then agrees because it is correct.

'It is… different from before.' Mei Lin is comfortable with her. Fond of her. Loyal to her. The thread between them is warm and steady, shaped by shared lessons, danger, gratitude, and the early days when Ling'er was only another disciple who happened to understand more than she should. But Mei Lin does not stand with Ling'er the way she stands with Wei Chen. Ling'er's rise to Core Disciple changed the shape between them. So had the day she came to rescue Mei Lin from the bandits.

Mei Lin now looks upward more often than across. Ling'er gives two more suggestions for the garden and leaves before the feeling becomes more difficult to name. The afternoon training session gathers several disciples near the lower yard. Wei Chen is there, along with a handful of younger disciples who have drawn the unfortunate assignment of practicing against wood-style interference. The drill is effective.

By the time the sun begins to lower, the disciples are covered in mud, broken leaves, and small scratches from branches that were supposed to be avoided rather than endured. Wei Chen has fallen twice, which means the younger disciples have fallen many more times and are pretending not to count.

"Again," Ling'er says. Several faces tighten. They obey. Roots rise beneath their feet at uneven intervals. Wooden poles swing from the side. Vines tug at ankles when their weight distribution becomes careless. Wei Chen breaks through one snare with force, only for another to catch the opening created by that movement and send him stumbling into a patch of mud. He spits out dirt and raises one hand.

"Senior Sister."

"Yes?"

"We have a mission tomorrow. We would prefer to arrive with functioning legs." Several disciples immediately look at him with expressions of horror and gratitude, as though he has leapt in front of a blade for them. Ordinarily, Ling'er would explain that training under exhaustion reveals flaws hidden by comfort. She would state that enemies do not wait until legs feel prepared. She would continue until the planned number of repetitions was complete, because incomplete training produces incomplete habits.

She looks at them and sees the threads. Shared suffering. Loyalty. Fear of disappointing her. Trust. A kind of affection formed by being dragged through hardship together and surviving it because she knew how far to push. But the imbalance is obvious. They can plead, but they do not expect to influence her. If she grants mercy, it will be a gift from above, not the natural result of mutual negotiation. If she refuses, they will obey.

They may complain, but they will obey because she is Senior Sister Ling'er, Core Disciple, the one who sees their flaws more clearly than they see their own bodies. Ling'er lowers her hand.

"Practice is over." Everyone freezes. Wei Chen blinks several times.

"Really?"

"Yes." No one moves for a heartbeat. Then several disciples begin leaving very quickly, as though afraid she might reconsider if they remain within range. Wei Chen stays where he is, eyes narrowed.

"Is this a test?"

"No."

"That sounds like something a test would say." Ling'er looks at him.

"Do you want to continue training?" Wei Chen immediately turns.

"Excellent session, Senior Sister. Very educational. Many lessons. I will reflect while walking away." He leaves at a speed that suggests his legs are more functional than he claimed. Ling'er watches them go.

'They love me. They trust me. They are grateful to me. But even my mercy surprises them.' The thought remains with her after the training yard empties. She has many connections. More than most people. The sect's threads gather around her until the mountain feels bright with them. Some come from discipleship, some from gratitude, some from the safety people feel because she stands nearby. She does not despise any of it. It is warm and precious. But it is not what she saw between Mei Lin and Wei Chen.

Affection cannot be the whole answer. Ling'er has affection. Trust cannot be the whole answer. She is trusted. Being needed cannot be the answer either, because she is needed almost everywhere. The thing she envies seems to require–"... Vulnerability." Her words echo quietly amidst the empty training ground. That is difficult to understand. In battle, vulnerability is corrected. In cultivation, weakness is refined. In comprehension, ignorance is reduced through study.

'How can someone stand beside me if nothing they do can reach me?' The question follows her toward the old tomb. Old Zhao and miners are near the entrance to the mine path when she passes. They bow respectfully. Ling'er returns the gesture and continues until the air grows cooler and quieter around Elder Frostheart's resting place. The tomb is still as she enters. Ling'er sits before the crystallized remains and folds her hands in her lap.

"Master says speaking aloud helps organize difficult problems." The skeleton does not answer. Ling'er nods.

"You are suitable. You do not interrupt, Senior." The silence continues. She begins laying out the theories in order.

"Perhaps the answer is someone stronger than me." That would make sense in several ways. Someone stronger could stand without being protected. Someone stronger could correct her. Someone stronger could make her uncertain.

"Yan Gaoque was stronger when I saw him," she says. She considers this.

"Possibly." Then she thinks of Xu Wuyin.

"She may also have been stronger in some ways." Another pause.

"Temporarily." That is the problem, she realizes. Strength changes. She has already surpassed people who were once above her. A relationship built on present strength would become unstable as soon as the measurement changed.

"Perhaps someone I cannot defeat?" The tomb remains silent.

"No," Ling'er says after several breaths.

"Danger is not closeness. An enemy can threaten me without understanding me." She considers the next theory.

"Perhaps someone with talent equal to mine?" That would solve some problems. Talent might allow a person to continue growing. It might prevent the road from ending too early. It might reduce the distance. But talent is not personality, kindness, or trust. Talent is not the willingness to remain when remaining becomes difficult. Ling'er thinks of Mei Lin and Wei Chen. They are beginning to become equal to each other in the small ways that matter to them.

They can annoy each other, correct each other, worry for each other, refuse each other. Mei Lin can strike Wei Chen because he is being foolish. Wei Chen can make Mei Lin angry enough to forget being patient. Neither position remains fixed. There is a back and forth to it, an exchange that does not exist when everyone waits for Ling'er to decide. Then she thinks of the Purple Crane disciples from Celestial Jade City. Their display had seemed almost shameless to her at the time. Too open. Too certain.

Too willing to let the world see a thread that most people kept private. But it had moved something in her. They had seemed so certain of their place beside each other. Ling'er looks at the skeleton.

"I… don't think the answer is someone stronger." No response. The form of the thought is still incomplete, but the center of it begins to settle.

"Someone who can keep up." The words sound imprecise. She does not fully understand them yet. Someone whose road does not end while hers continues. Someone she does not have to slow herself for. Someone who changes quickly enough that she cannot simply place them into a role and be finished understanding them. Someone who can surprise her not once, but repeatedly, and not only through strength. Ling'er studies the skeleton.

"Is that too much?" Elder Frostheart does not answer. Ling'er considers the silence.

"I don't think so." Another pause. Then, more quietly, she adds, "Master might think it's too hard. He thinks very highly of my talent. But the world is vast." The tomb remains as patient as before. Ling'er rises and bows to the remains.

"Thank you for listening to my problems, Senior." Evening has settled over Coiling Dragon Mountain when she returns toward the sect proper. The construction noise has softened. Smoke rises from the kitchens. Disciples limp toward dinner after training, moving with the exaggerated suffering of people who want their pain witnessed. Somewhere near the lower yard, Wei Chen complains too loudly about his legs. Ling'er continues along the path. Lu Chen's light is still burning in his quarters.

He is likely reading reports with too much concentration and too little regard for the hour. If she reminds him to rest, he may say he will finish one more page. Then he will finish several. In Ling'er's sight, the sect is bright with threads. Some are old. Some are new. Some are faint. Some are strengthening. Some are tangled in ways that will cause trouble later.

Her own threads run everywhere, through Master, the disciples, the gardens, the training yards, the kitchens, the unfinished buildings, the future the sect is trying to reach, and the mountain that has become home. She is not alone. She has never been less alone. But there is still one shape she does not have. Ling'er walks back into the living noise of the sect, carrying a private standard she cannot yet explain fully, but knows will remain with her for a long time. Someone who can keep up.