Fate Unraveled

CHAPTER

8

SO THEY MEET

JIEYUAN

—∞—

As Yunzhu and Qingshi walked over, the crowd parted around them like Jieyuan had often seen mundanes get out of the way of cultivators back in Radiant Gold City—hurriedly, but discretely, so as not to draw attention to themselves. They were all cultivators here, proud men and women whose lives revolved around facing and overcoming unimaginable pain, but the crowd this side of Ruby Square was mostly outer disciples, first-sign and second-sign redsouls. To them, the approaching pair of fifth-sign redsouls might as well be envoys of the Heavens themselves.

Jieyuan squinted his eyes. There was something around Qingshi and Yunzhu. Something red, something faint, like some kind of red haze. Very faint. Without a cultivator’s eagle-sharp vision he doubted he’d have been able to see it. Jieyuan shifted his attention to Qingshi, recalling something he’d heard before, before concentrating on the red haze again. He had a pretty good idea of what it was, and the moment Yunzhu and Qingshi stepped within the range of his soulsense, about twelve feet away, he had confirmation. There was a faint cloud of chroma surrounding Qingshi and Yunzhu, much fainter than ambient chroma, way below first-density. Attuned chroma. Physicalized chroma, made physically visible and tangible. Jieyuan could sense a spirit-song echo on it. When cultivators used the attuning hymn on something, they marked it with an echo of their spirit-song.

Qingshi and Yunzhu were closer now. Not wanting to be caught staring, Jieyuan looked away and past them, into the surrounding crowd, even as he concentrated on the spirit-song echo that lingered in the chroma cloud. With his soulsense Jieyuan heard a deep, resonant melody, and in his mind’s eye he saw an altar of steel and stone. It wasn’t a spirit-song Jieyuan knew, but he didn’t need to recognize it to know it belonged to Qingshi. The cloud of chroma was as dead a giveaway as the blindfold.

Chroma-sight—the chroma technique Qingshi had come up with to overcome his blindness. It was simple even for a chroma technique, and chroma techniques were more than nifty ways to control chroma someone had slapped a name onto. All chroma-sight involved was keeping up a cloud of sparse physicalized chroma around you so that whenever it touched something, you’d be able to feel it through your soulsense. Dead simple. But Jieyuan had tried his hand at chroma-sight after hearing about it, and as it turned out, simple and easy were two very different things. Just keeping the cloud up had taken up pretty much all of his concentration, and he hadn’t been able to spare any attention to his soulsense, never mind doing anything else with his body at the same time.

Jieyuan shifted the focus of his soulsense from the chroma cloud to Qingshi’s soul and sure enough, he sensed the same spirit-song, a haunting melody filling an altar of steel and stone. He kept his soulsense trained on Qingshi’s soul. The spirit-songs of souls were an exception to a cultivator’s otherwise perfect memory. Just sensing it once wasn’t enough. You had to concentrate on a soul’s spirit-song for a good while to commit it to memory. Given the whole deal with Daojue and Qingshi’s role in it, Jieyuan reckoned it’d pay to have Qingshi’s spirit-song memorized.

Yunzhu wasn’t smiling anymore as she and Qingshi came to a stop in their little slice of Ruby Square. Rather, she was scowling, frustrated. “How come you three aren’t at third-sign Redsoul yet?” She looked between the three of them, arms crossed over her chest. “I was sure that you’d have already broken through by now. I mean, you three are so close. Your souls are almost third-shade red.”

Jieyuan glanced at Meiyao, who was looking faintly amused. Her plan to delay advancing to third-sign Redsoul until after the Hunt started was already paying out if it meant it’d give them an excuse to stay away from Yunzhu. The woman was acting normal now, but Jieyuan would rather not take any chances given what he’d seen from her the last time they met. They were headed to the Inner Forest anyway, but he didn’t think Meiyao would be volunteering that information. As far he could tell, she’d also noticed Yunzhu’s disturbing behavior last time, and there was the whole thing between Qingshi and Daojue, whatever that was. They were better off keeping their intentions to head to the Inner Forest a secret, even if an elder would be secretly watching over them.

“Sorry to disappoint, Yunzhu,” Meiyao said, not sounding sorry at all. “We figured it’d be better to stay as outer disciples and stick to the Outer Forest for now.” She looked between Yunzhu and Qingshi. “Are you two on the same team, then?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Qingshi said. His voice was deep and smooth. An orator’s voice. Practiced. “It’s been a while, Meiyao. It’s good to see you again. You as well, Daojue.”

Daojue had no response. He only leveled Qingshi with his usual, stony glare—one that Qingshi didn’t see. For obvious reasons.

Meiyao, for her part, opted for a snort. “I’m sure it is.”

Qingshi turned his head slightly to the left, and Jieyuan found himself staring into the prime disciple’s white blindfold. It was a thick piece of white cloth, much thicker than the same-color neck shroud Qingshi wore wrapped around his neck. “And you must be Haoyujin Jieyuan, yes? My master’s wife, Protector Wanxin, mentioned she was your proctor in the entrance trials. You left quite the impression on her. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Qingshi extended his hand, and Jieyuan didn’t hesitate to shake it. They were in a crowd—he could feel others looking their way, some more discretely than others—and he was no stranger to this game.

He still had his soulsense focused on Qingshi’s soul, and he felt that he was already close to memorizing the prime disciple’s spirit-song.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Jieyuan said. “I’ve also been looking forward to meeting you. You’re something of a legend in the Outer Court.”

“Ah, yes, I’m well aware of my reputation.” Qingshi tapped his blindfold, smiling wryly. “I’m afraid it’s unavoidable, given my… circumstances.”

Qingshi’s forehead creased slightly and lips quirked up as he took on a pensive look. Despite the blindfold covering his eyes and most of his nose, Qingshi had an expressive face. That wasn’t what Jieyuan had expected, what with Qingshi being known to be a third-order Metalsoul. Jieyuan had envisioned the prime disciple as more of a stereotypical Metalsoul, someone cold and apathetic, even if not as much of one as Daojue, who stretched the stereotype to absurdity.

“I imagine you three won’t be long in advancing to third-sign once the Hunt starts,” Qingshi said, thoughtful. “And I don’t believe there’s anything stopping outer disciples from entering the Inner Forest, yes? Yunzhu, Meiyao could mind-link you once her team advances. Depending on when that happens, you might still get to hunt together, even if for only a day or two.”

Jieyuan turned to Yunzhu, then froze. Yunzhu was staring dead into Daojue’s eyes, and just like when he’d met her a little over a week ago, he saw a dark depth in her eyes, pitch-black pools over a bottomless abyss. Daojue stared back impassively, cool violet eyes peering into her black ones. But it wasn’t Daojue’s usual flavor of stony. There was an edge to it, something sharp, the way you’d regard a nasty-looking, potentially venomous insect that had wandered into your room at night and onto the edge of your bed.

Jieyuan realized he’d stopped focusing on Qingshi with his soulsense, but when he thought of Qingshi’s soulsense he could perfectly recall it. He immediately sent his soulsense toward Yunzhu, searching for her spirit-song so that he could also memorize it. Maeva had warned him about her, and the look in Yunzhu’s eyes now was all the reminder he could ever need that Yunzhu was someone to be wary of.

But then he found Yunzhu’s spirit-song and he got another reminder to be wary of Yunzhu anyway, one that he could’ve done without. Yunzhu’s spirit-song was a dissonant scramble of sounds, and in his mind’s eye Jieyuan saw blood-red jagged shards of crystal, vibrating to the chaotic symphony.

You couldn’t really judge someone by their spirit-songs. Spirit-songs were too vague, too indistinct, to draw any sort of conclusions from them. But he felt that Yunzhu’s spirit-song was pretty indicative that there was something terribly, horribly wrong with her.

“Yunzhu?” Qingshi said as Yunzhu failed to respond. Jieyuan wondered how precise chroma-sight was, whether Qingshi could tell where Yunzhu was looking and what kind of expression she wore.

Yunzhu startled, blinking. She looked up at Qingshi, then at them. “Right, yes! That’d be fantastic! Meiyao, you must link me after you three advance.”

Meiyao glanced at Daojue, then at Yunzhu. She frowned slightly. “Not possible. I’ve changed my mind-link artifact.”

“What? Why? Wait— Is it because of what Uncle Junjie and Grandfather did?” Yunzhu groaned. “Are you still mad at them? It’s not like it even matters. What about Aunt Yuyan and Yongyi? They had nothing to do with it. Don’t tell me you cut them off too.”

Meiyao fixed Yunzhu with a stone-cold expression that even Daojue would envy. “We’re not on speaking terms at the moment.”

“You— Well, all right. But you still have your old one with you, right? You can just attune it again when you advance, link me, and then attune your new one back if you don’t want the rest of the family trying to link you.”

“I left it at home.”

“Left it— For Heavens’ sake!” Yunzhu threw her hands up. Dramatically. “Are you trying to be difficult, or does it come that naturally to you?

“Come, now, Yunzhu.” Qingshi put a hand on Yunzhu’s shoulder. “Meiyao clearly doesn’t want to talk about this. You’re making her uncomfortable.”

Meiyao rounded on Qingshi, lips curling back, baring her teeth. “I’ll show you uncomfortable, you rotten—”

“No. No, no, no,” Yunzhu said, putting her hands up as she stepped between them. “I won’t have you two fighting. Qingshi, stay out of this. Meiyao, stop picking fights. Really, you can be such a Firesoul sometimes.” Yunzhu brushed her black hair over her right ear. There was a smattering of ruby earrings on it—her ear was more ruby than skin, really—most of them studs. She plucked the bottommost stud and held it out. “Look, I haven’t filled my artifact’s cipher roster yet. I’ll just trade ciphers with your new one.”

“My roster’s filled.” Meiyao made no move to remove her own mind-link earring.

Yunzhu’s brow rose. “You’re telling me you’ve already recorded ten ciphers in yours? Even though you haven’t even had it for three months?”

“Yes.”

Yunzhu gave Meiyao a long, challenging stare. Meiyao met it evenly, coldly.

“You know what? Have it your way.” Yunzhu sighed heavily and put her earring back on. “Heavens know why I even bother.”

Meiyao looked away, off into the crowd, and for a while nobody spoke. It was Qingshi who broke the silence. “This will be the first time you’ll be facing chromal beasts, yes?”

Jieyuan glanced at both his teammates, saw that neither of them seemed to be in the mood for talking—not that Daojue ever was—and decided to pick up the slack. “It is. Why? Do you have any advice?”

“I do, yes,” Qingshi said, shooting Jieyuan a relieved smile, like he was thanking him for playing along. If Qingshi was supposed to be some kind of plotting, evil mastermind, then he sure hid it well. Which, granted, was what Jieyuan would expect from a proper plotting, evil mastermind. “I joined the sect five years ago, so the first time I faced a chromal beast was also in the Gleamstone Hunt. You three have at least seen a gleam beast before, yes? Most of our enthrallers specialize in them, and I believe new disciples in Gleamstone Hunt years are assigned at least one mission in the sect’s vivarium before the Hunt.”

“We have,” Jieyuan confirmed. It’d been a mission with about fifty other teams of outer disciples. They’d spent a whole day in the sect’s vivarium, purportedly to run some errands for the elders of the sect’s Enthrallers’ Guild, but most of their team’s time had been spent listening to an enthusiastic elder of the guild rattle off about his favorite deadly beasties.

“Then you’ll know that most of their body is covered in gleamstone,” Qingshi said. “Don’t bother trying to break it. Unless you’ve got a weapon with twice the beast’s chromal weight, it won’t get you anywhere. Gleamstone is even harder than diamond at the same soulsign. You’d need an absolute chromal weight differential to damage it. Instead, aim for the gaps in their gleamstone armor. Where these gaps are located varies according to the beast’s race, but some likely locations are the—”

“The base of the neck,” Yunzhu said, suddenly. She was already back to fixing Daojue with that same intense, unnerving look, as if the whole debacle with Meiyao earlier had been just a dream. It was like she whiplashed between cheery and creepy. She traced a line over the collar of her outer robe, just under her neck shroud. “As well as the center of the chest, over the heart.”

Still staring straight into Daojue’s eyes, Yunzhu reached out with her hand in Daojue’s direction, the rubies in the knuckles of her fullgauntlet catching the sunlight and glistening, one finger stretched outward. Just as she was about to touch Daojue’s chest, Daojue’s hand snapped out in a blur, snatching her wrist and holding it in place.

Jieyuan felt a chill. It pooled in his nape and crept frostily down his spine. There was some kind of icy, creeping pressure radiating off Daojue. But also from another direction—from Qingshi. The prime disciple had gone statue-still, head turned toward Yunzhu and Daojue, as if he were looking at them. His jaw was visibly clenched.

Meiyao wasn’t looking away anymore, intent eyes on the unfolding situation. Her hand drew closer to the handle of her finesaber, and Jieyuan found himself doing the same, grabbing onto the ends of the halves of his spear.

Then Yunzhu giggled softly and pulled her hand back, effortlessly breaking Daojue’s grasp, and Jieyuan was reminded she was a fifth-sign redsoul. She could cut down his entire team in moments if she wanted to. “Sorry about that,” she said bashfully, as if all she’d done was stumble onto him or something insignificant like that, and not attempt to molest him, or whatever in the Heavens it was that she’d just tried to do.

Whatever spell that had come over them was broken, and the chill vanished. Qingshi’s jaw slowly relaxed, and he chuckled. It sounded awfully forced. “Like Yunzhu said, two common places are near the neck and on the chest. Another good place is the eyes. Targeting them isn’t so easy, but they’re the softest area by far on a gleam beast’s body. And in most cases, it can be an incapacitating wound—the kind that the beast won’t be likely to recover from, at least not quickly.” He smiled a wry little smile and tapped his blindfold, just as he’d done earlier after introducing himself to Jieyuan. “Trust me, I should know.”

Jieyuan recalled, then, perhaps the most famous story he’d heard about Qingshi. Qingshi was blind—that much was a fact. But it hadn’t always been like that. When Qingshi joined the sect, there were those who thought he was faking his blindness, that he could actually see through his blindfold. The matter was settled when Qingshi took off his blindfold after winning a tournament in the Inner Court, in front of thousands of inner and outer disciples, and revealed a stretch of burnt, scarred skin where his eyes should’ve been. Before he joined the sect, Qingshi had been a blacksmith’s apprentice, and according to him he’d lost his eyes in an accident in the forge.

“Now,” Qingshi said, “to any new disciples, I’d recommend taking it slow and hunting a first-sign redsoul beast to start with. But between Daojue and Meiyao, I know that any such warnings will fall on deaf ears, and I doubt a Firesoul will care much for caution, either, so I won’t waste my breath.” He placed his hand back on Yunzhu’s shoulder. “Yunzhu, we should get going. It’s almost time. I need to meet up with my teammates, and you with yours.”

“Hmmm? Right, right, of course,” Yunzhu said, looking away from Daojue—whom she’d been staring at, again. “It really is a pity we won’t get to hunt together. And trust me, Meiyao, we’ll be having words later about this whole situation. Aunt Yuyan is miserable, you know? So is your brother. And they’re not at fault at all. Sure, your father is… well, you know, and Grandfather is acting like an idiot, but you shouldn’t take it out on everyone else.” She looked at Meiyao expectantly, but Meiyao did not react, pretending not to hear. Yunzhu rolled her eyes dramatically. “Well, I guess I’ll see you guys after the Hunt. Just bear in mind what Qingshi said, and I’m sure you three will get first place.”

Qingshi gave them a nod and nudged Yunzhu along with him as he walked off. Yunzhu made to turn away, but then stopped to stare eerily at Daojue again.

“Yunzhu?” Qingshi said.

Yunzhu broke her gaze away from Daojue and gave them a little wave before turning around and walking back into the crowd together with Qingshi.

Jieyuan watched Yunzhu and Qingshi leave in silence. In his mind he went over their conversation. Qingshi had given no indication that he was up to something—but then again, Jieyuan hadn’t expected him to, not in the middle of a crowd like this. If anything, Qingshi had seemed almost like a kindred soul to him. Were the situation any different, Jieyuan could’ve seen the two of them getting along just fine, both of them mundane-borns who’d risen to the level of clan-borns. Yunzhu, he didn’t bother thinking on. He hadn’t managed to learn much else about her over the last few days. All he knew was that he wanted as much distance between him and her as possible, especially if Daojue was involved. That woman was an outright menace.

As Yunzhu and Qingshi disappeared into the crowd, Jieyuan shifted his attention to his teammates, observing them out of the corner of his eye. Daojue had gone back to his usual state of both looking and acting like the perfect statue. Looking at him, Jieyuan realized with some amusement how Qingshi and Yunzhu were only problematic when you added Daojue to the equation and perfectly pleasant otherwise. It was like his teammate brought out the worst in others.

He looked to his other teammate. Meiyao… was looking at the crowd. No, not at the crowd, but at someone. Jieyuan followed her eyes to a man in sapphire robes—a core disciple, then—who was walking towards them.

The man was still a good distance away, far beyond Jieyuan’s soulsense, but Jieyuan could see the angular lines of his face and his yellow eyes. Or rather, his citrine eyes. A true-blood Liangshibai. One with third-order heavenly affinity, given the color of his eyes.

The man came to a sudden stop after a couple of steps. He was frowning, hesitating. Jieyuan glanced back at Meiyao and saw that she was glaring at the man now, her lips drawn tight. She couldn’t have looked less welcoming if she’d tried. Slowly, the man nodded and turned around, walking away.

Jieyuan leaned closer to Meiyao. “Your brother?”

Meiyao turned her glare to him. “Mind your own rotten business.”

Jieyuan scowled. “I was just—” Don’t get mad, don’t get mad. “Never mind.” He looked away as Meiyao did the same. Then, feeling himself cool down some, he couldn’t help but glance back at her.

She had her brow deeply furrowed, lips half-curled, jade-green eyes hard and cool as she stared at nowhere in particular. Even like this, fuming, incensed, borderline murderous, she looked like a dream. Heavens take me.

He didn’t know what it was that she and Yunzhu were talking about—why she’d fallen out with her father, and from the looks of it, all of her family. He’d looked further into Meiyao as Maeva had suggested, but details on any recent developments concerning her were scarce. Most of what he’d learned had been about her mother, Linzushen Lianhua. It was from her that Meiyao inherited both her family name and her looks, her green eyes and brown hair and impossible beauty. Lianhua had been a protector of the sect, and together with Liangshibai Yuyan, she’d married Yunshenji Junjie, Meiyao’s father, who was then adopted into the Liangshibai Clan as Liangshibai Junjie and made sect leader. Eleven years ago, Lianhua was declared dead, supposedly killed in a mission outside the sect, but nobody had been able to tell him what exactly that mission was or how she died.

Jieyuan looked away. As Maeva had pointed out to him, Meiyao was probably part of whatever it was he and Daojue were involved in, part of the Weave Mystery, so he’d have liked to know more—both about Meiyao’s mother and her falling out with her family. He couldn’t imagine getting anything out of Daojue on his background, but Meiyao might be willing to share further down the line. Or at least she’d seemed that way until her conversation with Yunzhu. He wasn’t so sure about that anymore. And right now was definitely not the time to bring either matter up. Not unless he wanted to get intimate with the blade of her finesaber.

He didn’t try to make conversation, and neither did either of his teammates. They spent the rest of their wait in silence. As the sun drew closer to its peak, as midday drew closer, the conversations around them quieted down and soon died as disciples started looking up, toward the sky, waiting.