Chương 1: Lìchūn: Novice 1

Liu Yinhua was under no delusions that Madame Xue would have cuffed her around the ears if she were here to watch her hovering at the entrance of a home like this. It wouldn't even matter that supposedly this home was hers, only that a properly raised and talented girl of the Moon-Viewing Tower should never lurk.

'Liu,' she can hear, clear as day.

'If you hesitate, I will make you come back to this door for the next moon. In!' Liu Yinhua also knows that were Mama Xue here, it would not be to cuff her but likely to strangle her or attempt to drag her before a court for the missing half of her business. Not that she thinks the lovely Madame of the Moon-Viewing Tower would have much luck with such an endeavour, considering where she stood. Mama Xue would not believe it.

Liu Yinhua is having a lot of trouble believing it too, for all she's the one standing on the stones themselves. Ornate, perfectly carved stone tile paths with no sign of wear, not even the slightest denting of a thousand years of daily walking. The house ahead of her is not the opulent finery of the Tower back in Suzhou, but very few places were, and it far exceeded what she knew of the outsides and inners of the less fortunate of her hometown.

Carved wood, simple but serviceable, held up a large awning roof for the entryway and the door, a sliding paper panel, already partially open. Therein lay the hesitation. Liu Yinhua knows very little of cultivators as a whole, save that they cost Madame Xue just as much in healing and recovery fees for the lower courtesans' nights as they brought in as revenue. She knows even less about the Vermillion Glass Sect.

She has not truly figured out how far from Suzhou she is, all truth be told, and she had not been at all keen to disturb the cold silence of the cultivator who had brought her here, too unsure if she would be returned if she dared to speak. What she knows so far has done little to dissuade her unease. Many of those here are near her age, and many were dressed in the clear finery of those with money or power or both.

With only the sect-issued robe tied around her and its vermillion trim on silver marking her an outer disciple, Liu Yinhua was more than aware of how much she and the scant few without other adornment had stood out. Whoever is in here may look down on her, if the past few hours have been an indication. She cannot fight something already above her in— Magic? Power? It makes her head spin a little. She is standing in a sect. She is a disciple in said sect, and Madame Xue cannot demand her back.

She will learn to cultivate, and there is nothing anyone can do to— She shifts a little, curling a toe in her slipper to distract her and taking a large breath in. She will need a bed to sleep in, no matter the outcome of this. She raises her hand to the doorframe and knocks politely. The door shifts under the touch of her knuckles, already loose in its track and for a long moment, there is only silence.

What she can see through the half-open door is part of a shared communal room, larger than Liu Yinhua had expected. It is by no means luxurious, as she is sure the more opulent of the disciple housing up the hill would be and certainly not as decadent as the rooms of the Moon-Viewing Tower were. The walls she can see are plain, with no hangings and the floors are polished pale wood.

She can see at least one door off the side closest to her, and she thinks that, from what she could see from the street, the dwelling must house two at the very least.

"Come in," comes a somewhat rough female voice a moment into her musings on the house, and her guess about the occupancy of the house was a little conservative it seems. She bows politely in the doorway, rising to view those already in the house. A coarse travelling bag is set somewhat haphazardly in the doorway of the room on the left, half unpacked and items are left strewn around it. A hunting knife is nestled on top, two worn shoes and what she thinks looks like fleece tucked into the side of the bag.

The girl sitting near the bag is equally as rough to Liu Yinhua's eyes, broad-shouldered, but she thinks the sun-brown girl would not be much taller than Liu Yinhua herself if she stood beside her. Unlike most young women of the Blueglass Isles, her dark hair is cut to the level of her jaw, and she has already tied a darker sash around her carelessly tied sect silver robe. If Liu Yinhua had not grown up where she had grown up, she would've said the degree of collarbone being shown was nigh on scandalous.

As it was, she merely let her eyes settle to meet the other girl's golden gaze, quite aware that the other was completing her own assessment of Liu Yinhua in return.

"So," the girl says.

"I suppose you're the last." Before Liu Yinhua can think of replying, a second voice comes in from the right-hand room.

"Very astute of you, Wu Cailan." The speaker emerges from the bedroom directly across from the main entrance, her posture straight as an arrow and with every hint of a well-trained lady. She is approximately the same age as Liu Yinhua, slim and fine in the way that only the very poor or the very wealthy could become, and by the quality of the jade pin holding the neat loops of her dark green hair, it was the latter.

Unlike Wu Cailan and herself, the newcomer wears only part of the sect-issued uniform, namely the silver-grey outer robe, already adjusted to bear a verdant green trim, the sash at her waist cut from fine bamboo-green silk. At least the girl has chosen and stuck to a theme, Liu Yinhua notes idly.

"Do come in," she says after a moment.

"Standing in the doorway makes it seem as though we are keeping servants, and despite my best tries with Father, it was not an option for the Outer Sect." Wu Cailan snorts. The somewhat noble-looking girl's mouth tightens, but she does not look away from Liu Yinhua. She has the impression, immediate and sharp, that these two have already spoken, and that it did not go well. The girl in green inclines her head politely after a moment.

"I am Tang Mingxia," she says, with all expectation that those listening will know her name.

"I hail from the Luming Mountains. This one is Wu Cailan." Liu Yinhua can see the seated girl bristle immediately, her eyes narrowing sharply.

"I have a tongue!" she snaps.

"Then perhaps you should use it before others are required to compensate," Tang Mingxia replies somewhat primly. Wu Cailan retorts with a rude gesture that the green-haired girl seems to studiously ignore. She bows politely once more and rises, hands carefully kept at her front.

"I am Liu Yinhua, of Suzhou," she says, polite and even.

"It is an honour to meet you, Wu Cailan, Tang Mingxia. I hope I am not intruding by asking for a room here." She does not relish heading out to fight for the lower-ranked housing scraps now, for all the rules had stated there was to be no fighting or challenging in the first interim period of the outer sect. Liu Yinhua is also far too aware that not every method of challenge or domination was physical or combat in nature.

"Room's empty," Wu Cailan says, jerking her head to the door to the right.

"You can have it."

"How generous of you to offer sect property," Tang Mingxia says mildly.

"You wanna start again?" Tang Mingxia merely turns her nose up, and the two girls regard each other with what Liu Yinhua thinks is mutual dislike that hasn't really formed into anything interesting yet. She suspects that if she had arrived perhaps half an hour later, they might've just resolved the matter by ignoring each other until the snows came. Tang Mingxia turns back to her first, seemingly pleased with herself and perhaps considering herself above such an exchange.

Or perhaps she does not want to appear to have been baited by Wu Cailan. Who can tell?

"You are not intruding, Liu Yinhua," she says.

"This residence is meant for three. It would be improper to refuse a fellow disciple without cause." Her dark eyes shift briefly over Liu Yinhua's sleeves, her hair, her slippers, the quality of her posture, the shape of her face. Liu Yinhua is beyond used to such scrutiny for far less admirable reasons and finds no unease in standing under her gaze.

"You said Suzhou?" She asks.

"That is quite a long way from here."

"Anywhere is far from here if you're not carried by a spirit beast," Wu Cailan points out as she stands, brushing dust from the knees of her pants. The tanned girl crosses the room without much care for either of them as Liu Yinhua steps in properly, discarding her shoes by the door and closing it behind her. Wu Cailan appears to be bringing her bag properly into her room now that Liu Yinhua is inside.

"I must admit that I have little idea of where I have been taken," Liu Yinhua says after a moment, inclining her head to Tang Mingxia and then crossing to the room on the right, glancing inside. A small raised sleeping area with a rolled sleeping mat, the walls and floor plain but clean. A square window looks out towards the back of the residence, where a strip of courtyard lies. It is far more privacy than she has had in years.

A room of one's own had always been a thing spoken of in the Tower as either reward or expense, and usually it ended up as both. The senior courtesans had their rooms because they had earned them, because men paid to cross those thresholds, because Mama Xue understood the value of a curtain, a locked chest, a lamp lowered just so, and it was perhaps easier to keep their clientele if a man believed it was he and he alone.

Liu Yinhua had slept behind screens, beside other girls, in little borrowed corners where privacy existed only so long as no one more important wanted the space. Tang Mingxia seems to take the admission as a surprise, though not an unwelcome one. Her brows lift slightly before her expression smooths again into the polished attentiveness of someone who likes being the one in possession of knowledge. Liu Yinhua is starting to see a theme emerge here. You might be reading a pirated copy.

Look for the official release to support the author.

"You truly do not know?" she asks. Wu Cailan gives a short laugh from the left-hand room, where she is dragging her bag fully across the threshold with a scrape of leather against polished wood.

"Not everyone gets sent off with a map and three crying aunties." Tang Mingxia's mouth thins.

"Some people are raised with an understanding of the world beyond the nearest fishing village."

"Some people are raised to talk until everyone wishes they hadn't been," Wu Cailan retorts. There is a pause as Tang Mingxia either decides the insult is beneath her or decides that answering it will only reward the other girl and turns instead toward Liu Yinhua's doorway and folds her hands before her waist.

"You are still in the Blueglass Isles," Tang Mingxia says.

"Though calling this place part of the Isles feels rather generous once one is this far north. Suzhou lies along the southern merchant coast, where the river roads meet the sea lanes, and the Vermilion Glass Sect holds territory in the northern mountain chain, above the inland passes and below the old storm peaks."

"We are north of Suzhou by several hundred li at least. More, depending on the road taken. Mortal caravans would take weeks in decent weather. Longer if the passes were troubled. A sect beast or flying carriage can make the journey much more quickly." Weeks. Liu Yinhua keeps her face arranged because there is nothing useful in letting either girl see it. Weeks between herself and Suzhou.

Weeks between herself and the painted eaves of the Moon-Viewing Tower, and the back stairwell where the servants smoked when Mama Xue was not looking, and the little courtyard where the youngest girls practised sleeve movements until their wrists ached, for the chance at something better than servitude for all their days and unknowing of how deep the maw of that trap yawned. Weeks between herself and any hand that might reach after her. She had wanted distance before.

She had dreamed of it, vaguely and uselessly, the way girls dreamed of rich patrons with gentle hands or winter robes that did not have to be shared. It had never occurred to her that distance might arrive all at once, without permission, and leave her sitting in a sect residence with two strange girls discussing mountains as if mountains were ordinary things. Her thoughts are a maelstrom, but she drags herself free to focus on the conversation once again, relieved when it appears she has missed little.

"Still feels like forever when you're stuck in one," Wu Cailan says, emerging again with an empty cup in hand.

"And that's assuming they bothered putting you in something with seats. Mine smelled like old feathers and medicine." Tang Mingxia doesn't glance at her.

"Perhaps it objected to your manners." Wu Cailan smiles at that, which does very little to soften her face.

"Maybe it liked me fine and just hated perfume." Tang Mingxia ignores it again. Her attention returns to Liu Yinhua, hands folded in her sleeves, as the graceful girl settles into a pillow at the low table as well and after a moment, she follows her example.

"The nearest mortal settlement is Glasswater Town, at the base of the lower road. It serves the sect. Craftsmen, farmers, clerks, porters, physicians, families of servants, and the like. It is not large, but it is wealthy compared to most mountain towns, because everything here exists in the sect's shadow." Wu Cailan takes a drink from the cup and grimaces, apparently having forgotten it was still empty.

"There's also charcoal camps, mining roads, and old villages in the valleys, when you want to go looking."

"Outer disciples are not permitted to leave the first mountain without written approval," Tang Mingxia says.

"Which means don't get caught," Wu Cailan says.

"Which means do not leave." Wu Cailan looks at Liu Yinhua then, and for the first time, there is something almost like an attempt to share in her expression.

"Means both, depending on how smart you are." Liu Yinhua has absolutely no desire to challenge anything that might see her loosed from the sect. She doubts Mama Xue will welcome her back after that particular issue, no matter how much money she could make from a cultivator flower. Tang Mingxia draws in a quiet breath, visibly deciding not to start another argument.

"The Vermilion Glass Sect itself occupies three peaks and the inner ridge beyond them. We are on the lowest disciple mountain. Outer sect novices live here for at least the first year unless removed, promoted, punished, or reassigned," she explains, clearly in her element.

"The upper disciples live higher. We are not permitted near those paths without summons, nor is it easy for those below the third realm to access the next peaks regardless." She says it cleanly, but there is a little longing in the last sentence. From her seat, Liu Yinhua can see the narrow courtyard beyond her room window. It is bare except for a stone basin, a young pine, and a stretch of swept gravel. Nothing in the room bears any trace of a former occupant. Tang Mingxia's gaze follows hers into the little room.

"It is not much," she says, and for once the remark does not seem barbed.

"But it is better than the lower huts. Those have no private rooms at all." Wu Cailan leans against the frame of her own doorway.

"It's dry. Door shuts. Roof doesn't leak. That makes it a palace."

"That is a very sad standard."

"It's a practical one." Tang Mingxia looks at Liu Yinhua again. Her eyes linger, just briefly, on Liu Yinhua's face in a way that suggests she is still trying to decide where to place her. Not clan-born, that much must be clear, and it is rare for pretty girls to be so unfettered in the social world outside a sect. Liu Yinhua finds herself in no particular rush to enlighten anyone here about where she came from.

"Suzhou is a wealthy city," she says.

"Merchant families, salt houses, silk brokers, river guilds. If you were sent from there, someone must have noticed something worth carrying so far."

"Or something expensive broke, and the sect took the blame away," Wu Cailan says with a snort.

"Or snatched up a new fun soldier for their ranks." Tang Mingxia gives her a sharp look, but Wu Cailan just shrugs.

"What? That happens too." Liu Yinhua can still smell the smoke, and her own fear, the acrid stench of burning paint and lacquer and hair and silk, the cacophony of a roaring wild fire. Outside, voices rise briefly in the lane as two other girls quarrel over a residence further down. One of them threatens to report the matter to a steward, and the other laughs at her. Their voices fade after a moment, swallowed by distance and the strange, clean stillness of the mountain.

It is a little unnerving, truly, but it at least draws her from the memory.

"Settling quickly would be wise," Tang Mingxia is saying, clearly having been organising while she was distracted.

"There is an evening bell before the first curfew, apparently. Tomorrow morning, we are expected at the lower instruction hall for the first spiritual cultivation lecture. If you do not know the way, you may walk with us." Wu Cailan looks as if she has not agreed to anything like that, but she does not contradict her. Tang Mingxia's mouth curves, faint and composed.

"Provided, of course, that we can all refrain from murdering one another before dawn." Wu Cailan lifts her empty cup in a mock toast.

"Big ask."

"How long has everyone been on the mountain then, if you both seem to know where exactly you are?" Liu Yinhua asks after a moment, examining the small, low shelves and simple kitchen built into the far wall, the small hearth there. There is a small cupboard beside the hearth, a water jar, three plain bowls, a narrow clay pot, and a wrapped bundle of rice set neatly on the counter. Someone has already taken inventory. Liu Yinhua suspects Tang Mingxia.

"I arrived shortly after noon," Tang Mingxia says, adjusting her sleeves.

"There was an intake hall first, then a steward with a face like an old ledger. We were given robes, tokens, directions, and a very uninspiring explanation of the rules."

"Lucky," Wu Cailan says.

"Mine talked." Tang Mingxia ignores her again, though the effort is visible.

"My family was informed ahead of time that the sect would be accepting this year's novices over a three-day window. Those with arrangements or recommendations could arrive earlier. I imagine common selections were gathered by scouts and ministry riders as they were found." The last part is phrased carefully. It is almost polite. Almost. Wu Cailan pushes away from her doorway and finally crosses to the low table, dropping down onto one of the cushions without much ceremony.

"I got here yesterday and slept in the lower hall with six other girls and a boy who was moved after someone screamed at the steward. They sorted the rest of us after the morning bell."

"A charming introduction," Tang Mingxia says. Wu Cailan shrugs.

"Got a roof by the end of it." Liu Yinhua can see the difference in them more clearly now that they are both seated. Tang Mingxia holds herself as though the house were already a small receiving room and she were its temporary mistress. Wu Cailan sits with one knee raised, sleeve slipping back from a strong wrist, careless enough to offend and aware enough to keep doing it. Tang Mingxia turns back to Liu Yinhua with clear interest, even if she is masking it as mere curiosity.

"You must have been brought directly, then. If you do not know where we are." Wu Cailan notices it too. Her golden eyes cut briefly from Tang Mingxia to Liu Yinhua, and her mouth curls like a wolf scenting a rabbit carcass.

"So it seems," she agrees mildly.

"Lots of people get brought directly," she says.

"Doesn't mean anything."

"It usually means something," Tang Mingxia replies.

"Usually means the sect wanted them here before some local official could make a mess of it." Tang Mingxia's gaze sharpens.

"That is a rather specific assumption."

"It's a rather common one." Liu Yinhua has the sense, then, that Wu Cailan knows more about being taken than Tang Mingxia does, though perhaps not more about the world. The girl's roughness has edges that were not formed in a single day. She speaks like someone who Liu Yinhua would have asked for directions in the streets of Suzhou and have to pay a copper to get a word out. Tang Mingxia seems to come to the same conclusion, because she lets that particular thread fall.

"In any case," she says, "most of us are newly arrived. The older outer disciples have their own residences higher along the west road, though still below the second peak. We have been placed in the novice district. The first three months are apparently under stricter protection, which extends to no formal challenges, no theft, no maiming, no killing, and no leaving the mountain." She ticks each off on one hand as she speaks. Wu Cailan's expression turns dry.

"No getting caught stealing." Tang Mingxia looks pained, and her shoulders shift minutely.

"No stealing." Wu Cailan reaches for the empty cup again, remembers it is empty, and sets it down with faint irritation.

"The rules said no stealing sect property. They said nothing about the food someone forgot to guard."

"That is called theft, Wu Cailan."

"That's dinner." The exchange is sharp enough that it might become tiring if allowed to continue, but neither girl looks truly angry now. Tang Mingxia is irritated, certainly. Wu Cailan seems to enjoy irritating her. It is not friendship. It is not quite enmity either, and for a few moments, Liu Yinhua tunes out their bickering as she watches the window. Beyond the paper door, the light is already lowering.

The mountain catches the evening strangely- one moment, the courtyard beyond Liu Yinhua's room is clear and pale and the next, the ridge shadow slips across the gravel and turns the stone basin grey. Somewhere farther up the slope, a bell sounds once. Not curfew yet, Liu Yinhua thinks, because neither of the other girls seems alarmed by it. Tang Mingxia follows the sound with her eyes.

"First warning bell. Evening meal provisions should now be available at the district storehouse. We are meant to cook for ourselves unless we can afford prepared food from the stalls." Wu Cailan looks offended by the idea, and Liu Yinhua is becoming quite certain that the girl might be half-wild.

"Who pays someone to cook rice?"

"People with standards."

"People with soft hands, maybe," Wu Cailan retorts, her mouth twisted in a scowl. Tang Mingxia glances at Liu Yinhua's hands, and it takes a surprising amount of effort not to hide them below her sleeves under the scrutiny. Liu Yinhua's hands are pale and fine, the nails neat, the skin too smooth for field labour. There are other marks, of course, but not the kind that would make sense to either girl without explanation.

The hands of the ladies of the Moon-Viewing Tower should be graceful, slender and utterly without flaw, as should the rest of them. Mama Xue had once struck a maid for letting hot water redden Liu Yinhua's knuckles before a viewing. It had been treated as damage to property rather than cruelty to a girl, which Liu Yinhua had understood even then was the point. Tang Mingxia at least looks away before it could be considered blatantly rude. Wu Cailan does not bother with such delicacy.

"Can you cook?" Tang Mingxia's face freezes for just a moment, the tiniest little flare of heat over her cheeks, and she says nothing. Wu Cailan laughs once.

"So no," she says, leaning against her door frame.

"I can prepare tea," Tang Mingxia says, her tone far cooler with it.

"That's not cooking," Wu Cuilan retorts, and Liu Yinhua can practically see the temper rising on the noble girl's face as she huffs"It is a cultivated skill, one of the Noble arts."

"It's hot leaf water." Tang Mingxia looks as if she might actually reach for the cup and throw it. Then she remembers herself, and her gaze settles on Liu Yinhua instead as if searching for a distraction.

"I can assist with simple things. I was not raised in a kitchen, but I am not incompetent." Wu Cailan's smile says she thinks that sounds like an excuse.

"I can prepare porridge, simple soups and rice," Liu Yinhua offers after a long moment, perhaps a little too late to have interjected into their argument, but trying to lighten the room just a little. She is beginning to think she perhaps should've stopped next door instead, but it seems a little late for that. The house is quiet for a breath after that, and Tang Mingxia speaks first, shaking off the previous topic.

"It may be best to make some agreements before habits become difficult to correct. We should agree on the times for communal food, cultivation privacy hours and how we should approach inviting others into the residence. It would be unfortunate to begin with… misunderstandings." Wu Cailan waves a hand at that, grin growing sharper with it.

"She means she wants rules," she says, much like the tone of a young child discovering a plot.

"I mean that I prefer not to live like an animal."

"Then stop making noises only dogs can hear." Tang Mingxia's eyes narrow, but the second bell sounds before she can answer, and Liu Yinhua is beyond thankful for it. Wu Cailan stands.

"I'm getting food before all the idiots touch everything." She looks at Liu Yinhua.

"You coming, Suzhou?" Liu Yinhua feels the easy mask of her face twitch with that, eyes narrowing for just a moment, and the grin Wu Cailan shoots back is one of victory. It is far less amusing to be on the receiving side of the girl's rough teasing. Tang Mingxia rises as well, smoother and more slowly.

"We should all go. It will be useful for Liu Yinhua to learn the route." For the first time, they agree, but she doubts either of them is pleased by it.