Out in the swamps of the Five Sealed Hills region, on a hill of no renown, a cultivator was about to make a breakthrough.

  Qian Shanyi danced around with her sword, swinging it through the air, her footwork perfectly precise. There wasn’t much spiritual energy in the air - and what was there, had already been absorbed by her soul. All she had to work with was the energy within her own body, one that roiled furiously. It spun, wove, accelerated, pushing against the boundaries of her entire meridian network, like a lake swollen from a season of rains, pushing up against an earthen dam…

  And then, the dam broke.

  Qian Shanyi’s lips split in a wide grin as she felt her root dantian unblock, spiritual energy stirring up the impurities that had filled it up since her birth, dislodging them like so much silt to be carried downstream. The wave of power passed through her entire body, down to her feet and up to her scalp, its echoes bouncing around her meridians, until finally, the flow stabilised, slowed down, and smoothed over, coursing gently throughout her entire body.

  Her movements slowed down as well as she let herself feel its effects. It was subtle, and yet… It felt as if she was finally complete after spending her entire life crippled. No longer was she forced to feel that awkward void, that blockage where her root dantian was. For the first time in her life, her body was entirely her own, all seven of her dantian working in tandem.

  She had finally stepped into the high refinement stage.

  Of course, she had been on the cusp of it for weeks, ever since her tribulation - but with everything going on, she simply hadn’t had the time to take the final step. With all the eyes on her, doing it in Glaze Ridge would have been suspicious, and after they left, she was far too busy to properly cultivate.

  But now she was here. Even if it would still take her a couple weeks to fully stabilize, with the scant spiritual energy in the forest - at least, by the standards of Wang Yonghao’s obscenely rich inner world.

  Qian Shanyi sheathed her sword, wiped the sweat off her face, and headed down the hill, whistling a carefree tune. Time to see how her disciple was doing.

  Linghui Mei was cultivating as well - if in a somewhat different fashion. On their daily search for herbs, they happened to find a good earthen cave at the bottom of this hill - perhaps left behind by a bear, or some other beast. As Linghui Mei needed to focus, Qian Shanyi decided it was a perfect place - shielded from the wind, neither too warm nor too cold. Just right for her to learn the mysteries of inner spiritual energy senses.

  So far, she wasn’t making much progress - but Qian Shanyi was optimistic. At least, as long as her disciple could focus on the task at hand.

  As she walked into the cave, Qian Shanyi spotted one eye peeking at her from the darkness. “Master looks suspiciously cheerful,” her distracted disciple said, opening her second eye as well. She had been sitting in a lotus pose, with four acupuncture needles stuck in her face - to help her sense the much increased outflow of spiritual energy.

  “Why shouldn’t I be cheerful?” Qian Shanyi preened, giving a little twirl in front of Linghui Mei. “Tell me, can you notice anything different?“

  Linghui Mei’s eyebrows creased in a frown, looking Qian Shanyi up and down. Qian Shanyi gave her another twirl, just to show off.

  “Your hair looks more… Voluminous today?” Linghui Mei guessed.

  “Hmpf,” Qian Shanyi snorted. Voluminous. She surely meant unkempt. “Well, I suppose without your tails out, it would be a little difficult for you to sense the change. I’ve unlocked my root dantian and reached the high refinement stage! Traditionally, this would be a cause for great celebration.”

  She slapped herself on the butt for emphasis, then did another whirl. Then she did a second one, because today was a brilliant day.

  “Oh!” Linghui Mei gasped, and gave her a little clap. “I am so happy for you!”

  “Thank you,” Qian Shanyi said. She glanced back towards the entrance of the cave. “You know, just a couple short months ago, I thought it would take me years to reach this point,” she said, shaking her head. “Perhaps even as long as a decade, if the Elders decided to cut my allowance.”

  For some, perhaps it would have cheapened the achievement some. Qian Shanyi didn’t feel that way at all. To her, this felt more like the fates finally turning their beautiful faces towards her, as they always should have.

  And yet, the refinement stage was only the first step on the long path of cultivation. Oh, how far she would go from here.

  “Master, if I may -” Linghui Mei asked, bringing Qian Shanyi back down to earth from her dreams of ascension. “What… what does it mean, that you have unlocked your root dantian?”

  Qian Shanyi shook her finger at her disciple. Really, she shouldn’t have been distracting her from her own cultivation, but she was far too jubilant to resist. “You know the rules. When it comes to practice, you ask - but when it comes to theory, you have to try to figure it out yourself first. Even if you don’t know at all, you have to at least make a guess.”

  If she simply spoon-fed the knowledge, there wouldn’t be much point. She needed Linghui Mei thinking. They’d been playing little guessing games together for weeks, to keep it all interesting - at least until Linghui Mei got herself well and truly stuck. Mostly she focused on history and culture - as those questions could make Linghui Mei stand out the most.

  At least, until a convenient subject came up, one that could lead into an interesting topic. They hadn’t discussed dantians much before, but she was loath to have an opportunity go to waste.

  Sure enough, her disciple was already used to the idea, as her eyebrows creased in a frown again. Seconds passed, then a minute, and yet no guess seemed to be forthcoming.

  “...it makes your butt more toned?” Linghui Mei finally guessed, grimacing at her own answer.

  Qian Shanyi blinked, then started to laugh. “What? No, of course not. Why would it do that?”

  Linghui Mei blushed deeply, her gaze flickering to somewhere below Qian Shanyi’s midsection, roughly in the direction of the root dantian. “Um.”

  Qian Shanyi laughed some more. “I suppose I can’t entirely fault your… guess, but dantians merely store and contain spiritual energy. By themselves, that is all they can do.”

  “I thought you’ve said that the spiritual root dantian strengthens spiritual energy senses.”

  “Ah, you are thinking about the indirect effects,” Qian Shanyi said, leaning against a wall of the cave. “It’s really not a bad guess, in that context. But no, the root dantian has no particularly important effects related to strengthening organs. Its effect on my cultivation is quite a bit different.”

  “I see.”

  “You really shouldn’t feel bad about this,” Qian Shanyi said. “Now tell me this. For obvious reasons, the last dantian that the cultivator focuses on unblocking is the one that is least useful to them - and in my case that is the root dantian. Why is that?”

  “Why?” Linghui Mei echoed back.

  Qian Shanyi shook her finger again. “You should already know enough to figure out why, if just barely. This is something we have touched on.”

  Another minute passed in silence, as Linghui Mei thought the question over. “Think about the meridians,” Qian Shanyi prompted her. “The root dantian is located near the base of the spine - or in other words, next to your ass. Which meridians have their point of focus there?”

  She slapped her ass for emphasis again, the noise making Linghui Mei jump a bit.

  “Um,” Linghui Mei said eloquently. “Small and large intestines, as well as the urinary one?”

  “Good. What else?”

  Linghui Mei frowned again, before shaking her head. “Nothing, master. Those are the only ones.”

  Qian Shanyi nodded encouragingly. “True enough, but you are thinking only in terms of the location of primary focus,” she explained. “A meridian isn’t a little blister on your skin. Each of them is a network of channels through your entire body, and I have a pair of beautiful legs, don’t I? Which six meridians have the strongest influence on the legs?”

  “Um. Spleen, Kidney, Liver, Gall, Urinary and Stomach?”

  “Very good. And?”

  “If they influence your legs, they would have to pass by the root dantian,” Linghui Mei said, slowly working through the problem. “But the spleen, kidney, liver, gall and stomach meridians would draw far more energy from the san jiao dantian. This means the primary meridian that will be strengthened by the root dantian is the urinary one?”

  “Almost perfect. Urinary is about half and half between root and sacral dantians, but otherwise on point. And what is the type of the urinary meridian?”

  “Yang and water?” Linghui Mei said, before frowning. “You said it’s not very useful to you before.”

  Qian Shanyi chuckled slightly. She distinctly remembered calling it useless trash, but the point was the same. “Yeah, let’s go with that,” she said, “On top of that, small intestine is yang and fire, and the large is yang and metal. That’s three meridians most affected by the root dantian, and out of them, I get maybe one sixth of the benefit.”

  “That does sound like a bit of a waste,” Linghui Mei said.

  “Well, it’s not quite that bad,” Qian Shanyi said. “Spiritual energy is spiritual energy, it all converts from one type to the other in the end. All it means is that I benefit relatively little from the direct effect of unblocking my root dantian.”

  Qian Shanyi raised her hand, and circulated the Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes, making a spinning circle appear above her open palm. “The real benefit is that now my spiritual energy can finally circulate without any major obstructions,” she said, making the circle spin faster and faster. “It is just like running through a hallway with a lot of crates tossed all over the place. Once all the biggest crates are gone, your run speed would inevitably increase - and the faster spiritual energy recirculates, the stronger its effects.”

  She shut her fist with a clap, startling Linghui Mei again. “Let’s focus on your training, shall we?” Qian Shanyi said with a grin. “Once you can see the meridian network with your inner senses, understanding this will become so much easier. There is no need to memorise what you can directly observe.”

  “I already know what it looks like, master,” Linghui Mei grumbled, but closed her eyes, going back to meditation. “I ate plenty of cultivators. I already know what your people see.”

  Two weeks passed, yet Linghui Mei’s cultivation had seen no progress.

  They fell into a little routine. Every morning they would leave the village to stay out of sight, sell their herbs from the previous day - as well as an occasional demon beast fur - and every evening return with a new basket. With Linghui Mei’s nose, gathering them only took a couple hours, and they could have easily gathered far more - but avoiding notice was far more important than getting a bit more spending money.

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  That left them with the rest of the day to cultivate. Every morning and evening, Linghui Mei would take her dose of Seventh Revelation Piercing Mushrooms, and meditate for hours straight. Qian Shanyi would help her by inserting acupuncture needles into her acupoints, to help her sense the change in her spiritual energy recirculation. Linghui Mei studied the theory and did everything Qian Shanyi told her to do.

  And yet, her cultivation has seen no progress. She still could not sense any spiritual energy within herself.

  It wasn’t obvious right away. Linghui Mei had meditated before they left Glaze Ridge - but with everything going on, her training went on pause. On top of that, she still had half of the mushrooms left. It was understandable that she had not seen many results up until then.

  But a week went by, and yet nothing changed. Her enthusiasm dropped day by day, replaced by a sense of complete futility. Distractions crept back in, and with them came excuses - excuses to not meditate at all.

  The mushrooms ran out two days ago.

  And yet, her cultivation had seen no progress.

  Today they’ve spent a good hour simply sitting together, side by side in their usual cave. Linghui Mei was huddled up against the wall, hugging her knees and munching on a steam bun - one filled with so many dried fruits it was really more of a cold dumpling. Qian Shanyi had to wake up early to make them, mostly so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the other members of that unpleasant household. The grandmother had still refused to tell her her real name.

  “Perhaps I simply cannot do it,” Linghui Mei said in a hollow voice. “I was just born under the wrong moon.”

  Qian Shanyi snorted slightly. “Who gave you the right to insult your master’s disciples?”

  Linghui Mei turned to her in surprise, before her eyebrows creased in a frown. “Wait. That is just myself. Are you saying I cannot insult myself?”

  “Not without my permission,” Qian Shanyi said with a little twinkle in her eye.

  She was trying to cheer Linghui Mei up - but it seemed she was far too deep in her emotional sump for the humor to really reach her. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Perhaps it is,” Qian Shanyi agreed easily. ”But you really shouldn’t feel discouraged.”

  For all that her disciple’s growth had stagnated, Qian Shanyi still felt optimistic. Encountering a bottleneck in cultivation was nothing unusual - she herself had felt well and truly blocked too many times to count. The key was to keep pushing, and not allow yourself to fall into despair.

  But of course this was easy for her to say; she’d been a cultivator for almost a decade - while Linghui Mei had barely even started.

  “You said it should have taken a month,” Linghui Mei said, confirming Qian Shanyi’s suspicions.

  Qian Shanyi shrugged with one shoulder. “I said it should take less than a month if it works,” she said. “Evidently it didn’t. There are other meditatives we can try, and if they all fail, you can always get there the hard way.”

  “And what if I can’t?” Linghui Mei said. She wasn’t really looking anywhere in particular - just staring straight ahead. “What if I can’t unlock my inner spiritual energy senses at all?”

  Qian Shanyi snorted again. “I very much doubt that. Jiuweihu lords are known to have used some form of cultivation.”

  “Well maybe my ancestors did it differently.”

  “Mmm. Perhaps. How is that steam bun?”

  This finally brought a small smile to Linghui Mei’s face. “It’s good,” she said, glancing at Qian Shanyi. “Thank you for making them.”

  “I am glad.”

  Qian Shanyi’s good mood wasn’t merely down to her longer experience. Over the past two weeks, they had gone back to Wang Tingting twice more - with Linghui Mei taking on a new face each time. The last of them was just two days ago - and they had finally gotten their first set of finished seals.

  Qian Shanyi had been playing with one of her own as she spoke. Octagonal, just like her old sect seal - but this one was new, and still shiny, without any scuff marks. More than that, it was hers.

  Qian Shanyi, Sky Void Island Temple Sect.

  The letters glittered slightly in the dim light, veins of different metals coming together to form them. There was a circle of dots and lines around the perimeter, and a slight texture to the surface - perhaps some manner of added security, one she couldn’t really parse. She had ordered three more pseudonym seals, too - though only one of them was ready so far.

  Still. It was a start.

  “You are certain you cannot sense anything new?” she said, looking away from the pretty bit of wood and metal. “No strange sensations, no changes to your perception, nothing at all?”

  “No, master, I cannot see a thing,” Linghui Mei replied despondently. This wasn’t the first time they had this discussion. “Only the darkness behind my eyelids.”

  “Hmm. Is there anything I could do to help your meditation?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. There are just too many distractions,” Linghui Mei said, picking at her steam bun. “The smell of the forest, that damnable ringing in my ears, the rough ground here… I don’t know how you could make it any better.”

  Qian Shanyi froze for a moment, before turning to Linghui Mei. “Ringing in your ears?” she asked with casualness she didn’t really feel.

  “It’s not quite ringing,” Linghui Mei said, still pouting. “Just a noise from the stress. Very distracting.”

  “A noise,” Qian Shanyi deadpanned. “You heard a persistent noise when meditating, and you didn’t tell me.”

  “What relevance does a noise have to inner sight?!” Linghui Mei snapped, “I know what it should look like! I even know what it looks like to you, master - I ate your memories of meditating more than once!”

  Qian Shanyi sighed, closing her eyes, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Fourteen Heavenly tribulations upon this idiot disciple of hers. If it was that simple…

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered, opening her own and giving Linghui Mei a flat stare.

  “What?”

  “Eyes!” Qian Shanyi said, snapping her fingers in front of Linghui Mei’s face. “Close them. Go back to meditation.”

  “Master, what have -”

  “Why are you still not meditating?” Qian Shanyi asked, flicking Linghui Mei on the tip of her nose. “Shoo. Go, eyes closed, mind focused, mouth locked shut.”

  Linghui Mei gave her a pleading look that could have melted an iceberg, but Qian Shanyi was undeterred - and so the jiuweihu closed her eyes.

  “Are you hearing the noise?” Qian Shanyi asked after a minute.

  “Yes, master.”

  “Tell me if it changes,” Qian Shanyi said, pressed her finger against the tip of Linghui Mei’s nose, and pushed some of her spiritual energy directly through it and into Linghui Mei’s body.

  Linghui Mei’s eyes flew open immediately, and she jerked back in shock, her hand subconsciously covering her nose. “Ah! What was -”

  “What is it with my disciples and not doing what they are told?” Qian Shanyi asked rhetorically. “Did someone order you to open your eyes? Well, no matter. What about the noise?”

  Linghui Mei quickly nodded. “It’s - yes! That is to say, it changed,” she said, stumbling over her words.

  “Changed how?”

  “It’s - hard to describe. It got louder?” Linghui Mei said wonderingly, before she caught Qian Shanyi’s flat stare and stopped.

  “It got louder,” Qian Shanyi deadpanned. “Did it now. I am willing to bet it also got quieter any time I put those acupuncture needles into you.”

  “...Maybe?”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Linghui Mei shifted around uncomfortably. “It started… maybe a day after we got here? I didn’t really pay attention.”

  Sweet mercy, so much stress for nothing.

  “You were hearing a persistent noise while meditating for weeks, one whose volume changed in response to spiritual energy,” Qian Shanyi said, flicking Linghui Mei on the tip of her nose again. “And you didn’t think to mention this?”

  “Um. I didn’t want to bother -”

  Flick. ”You.” Flick. “Arrogant.” Flick. “Disciple.” Flick. “Tell.” Flick. “Me.” Flick. “What.” Flick. “You.” Flick. “Sense.” Flick. “When.” Flick. “I.” Flick. “Ask.” Flick. “You!” Flick.

  By the end of it Linghui Mei was looking properly chastised, and the tip of her nose was starting to look redder than her deeply blushing cheeks. Qian Shanyi flicked her one last time for emphasis, and lowered her hand with a deep sigh.

  “...I take it this was important after all, master?” Linghui Mei said shyly after a minute.

  “Yes,” Qian Shanyi deadpanned again. “It was important.” She rubbed her eyes, sighing deeply, before opening them again and letting her lips split in a wide grin. “Congratulations on unlocking your inner spiritual energy senses and stepping on the path of cultivation!”

  “...that smile of yours is a little scary.”

  Qian Shanyi grinned even wider, patting Linghui Mei on the head. “Why should you be scared, Mei?” she said. “Just because you wasted a couple weeks? Bah. This is a cause for celebration, not fear.”

  She really couldn’t be too harsh on her. Telling her about all the different forms inner spiritual energy senses could take would have been counterproductive, as a certain degree of focus on a single idea was required. Still, she could have been a bit more explicit with her questions.

  Linghui Mei did not seem to be entirely comforted by Qian Shanyi’s smile. “I still do not understand you,” she muttered. “How could I have unlocked my senses? I can’t see -”

  “Whoever told you that they absolutely have to be based on sight?” Qian Shanyi interrupted her, before sighing again. “Well, that’s not fair, perhaps I implied it at some point or another. It is by far the most common form, so the words are often used synonymously.”

  “So… if not sight, what is it?”

  “Hearing, in your case. Obviously.”

  “How could I hear my meridians? That… doesn’t make sense.”

  “You can hear your own heartbeat sometimes, can’t you?” Qian Shanyi said, poking Linghui Mei in the chest. “Awakening your spiritual energy senses is not that different from a particularly persistent - and useful - hallucination. The technical term is artificially induced synesthesia, and yours happens to be auditory.”

  Linghui Mei frowned. She looked a bit more alive than before, but only just. “But… how am I supposed to map out my meridians without seeing them?”

  Qian Shanyi shrugged. “By hearing the differences when you focus on different parts of your body, I presume,” she said. “I never had a need to learn more about the subject. Not even one in a hundred cultivators has their inner spiritual energy senses manifest as hearing.”

  She would have to visit a library to learn more. But it was heartening to know Linghui Mei kept enough attention to know what the next step was.

  Somehow, instead of cheering up, Linghui Mei’s mood seemed to sink even deeper. It was as if her soul had left her body entirely, leaving behind nothing but a lifeless corpse.

  “Why are you sulking again?” Qian Shanyi asked, once she couldn’t handle it anymore. If she wanted to commune with corpses, she’d have visited a graveyard.

  “Even if I have unlocked my senses, so what?” Linghui Mei said bitterly. “I am still cursed with inferior -”

  Flick.

  “I do not recall giving you permission to criticize yourself, Mei,” Qian Shanyi said, glaring at her petulant disciple. “So what if your senses are different? To cultivate is to rebel against the very heavens! Will you give up at the first hurdle?”

  Linghui Mei hiccuped, and shook her head. “Sorry. No, I won’t.”

  “The fate of all jiuweihu rests upon your shoulders! Will you let your people down?”

  Linghui Mei’s shoulders straightened slightly, a bit of color returning to her cheeks. “No. No, of course I won’t.”

  “Good,” Qian Shanyi said and reached over, stealing one of her own steam buns from Linghui Mei’s lap - to her disciple’s protestant squeak. “Still, you aren’t completely wrong,” she continued, biting into the treat. “This does present some new difficulties. We will need to consult a library, at the very least. What do you think about a little trip?”

  “A trip?”

  “A couple days of travel east will take us to Grasshopper Gully,” Qian Shanyi explained. “It’s a large town - large enough to let us celebrate properly, and get the books you will need. And it is also where the Crimson Cliff Catacombs are situated.”

  Linghui Mei’s eyes narrowed slightly in the darkness of the cave. She recognised the name, of course - it was a sect Wang Yonghao had visited before, where he saw cultivators dancing to jiuweihu songs. They discussed visiting them before, and now that they had some new seals, doing so should have been safe enough.

  But Qian Shanyi had a second motive in visiting the sect. One mystery that had been swirling around in her head for most of the past month.

  Fang Jiugui was surely talented - but he was far from unique. Surely many other cultivators - many other spirit hunters - had possessed the same techniques. He had managed to find her from all the way across the province based on only a single letter - and stayed on their trail, even as they escaped Glass Ridge. And yet - despite all the enemies Wang Yonghao had made throughout his life, he did not have to deal with such hunters chasing him down across the empire. Nor did he have to deal with the empire itself recognising him for what he was.

  These puzzle pieces simply didn’t fit together. Qian Shanyi doubted Wang Yonghao was lying about his adventures - and yet what other possibility was there? Heavenly interference was far from omnipotent.

  If there was a key to this mystery - it was to be found in places where Wang Yonghao had already been. Places like Grasshopper Gully.

  Qian Shanyi smiled roguishly towards Linghui Mei. “So why don’t we pay them a little visit?”