Ran Jun, 1st Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, three-star alchemist of the Stone Forest Trading House, and distinguished member of the Ran Clan, sat speechless and alone at the booth as he watched the display that captivated the entire drinking house.
A man who, despite his disheveled hair and sweat-stained green robes, looked every part a cultivator, had thrown himself down on the ground with such utter shameless debasement that it was hard to look at. What’s more, this man displayed the power of a 1st Stage Core Formation cultivator. Ran Jun had felt an edge like a blade passing across his skin as the intruder suppressed the guards. Once inside, the green-robed cultivator started screaming at the honored guests Ran Jun was supposed to be dealing with. Not that Ran Jun believed the terrifying assassin needed any help, but before he could even involve himself in the situation, the so-called Flawless Blade had thrown himself at the assassin's feet.
He begged the same man who casually threatened Ran Jun's life and career with complete annihilation.
And to top it all off, that same assassin — who studied the spectacle of humiliation with an intensity that sent cold sweat down Ran Jun’s normally sweatless back — was about to embark on a quest to retrieve a flower from the thrice damned, heavens-cursed, forsaken, miserable, nightmarish…
Valley.
Of.
Howling.
Blossoms.
The Ran household maids would tell him stories about that place to make him behave as a child. They would tell him that the Butcher Bird would come and take him away. Whenever he heard wingbeats by his bedroom windows, his little heart would freeze. Eventually, he grew old enough to know that it was just a story.
Then he grew old enough to know that it wasn’t.
Thirty years ago, the city put together an expedition to the Howling Blossom Valley that included the best and brightest of the Ran Clan, some buffoons from the devious Shen Clan, and a hand-picked group of wandering cultivators sponsored by the Stone Forest Trading House. The expedition studied the records and the qi of the mountain for a year, preparing resources and themselves, before they finally headed out.
Of the twenty-seven who left for the valley, only three returned. One killed himself after reporting back to his clan head, one locked herself away in her rooms and wasn’t seen since, and the third…
Ran Jun’s heart pounded as he realized that the third was sitting right beside him. Her qi brushed against his skin like flowers in a garden, surrounding him completely.
A woman in a robe of living sapphire petals, her hair braided, her skin unwrinkled by age, and her eyes like captured suns. Rings of heavy gold clacked as she tapped her fingers on the table, and a similar metallic click came from under the table as she tapped her golden slippers beneath the table.
“Honored Matriarch,” Ran Jun said with as much of a bow as he could manage while seated at the booth.
He realized it wasn’t enough, and so he went to stand, but the Matriarch placed a finger against his wrist. His eyes widened, and he froze completely. She’d done nothing but touch him, but it was enough due to the power of her presence, her authority, and the sheer implication of a 4th Stage Core Formation cultivator.
She smiled at him.
“Alchemist Ran,” she said quietly. “It seems you have brought quite the interesting customer into our store.”
“I…”
“Will you take credit? Or will you apologize? Hmm. I wonder, but let's watch what happens first. There will always be time to judge things later.”
###
The tiled floor of the drinking house was clean, and the Flawless Blade stared at it from less than an inch away. His forehead was pressed so hard into the ground that it would bruise a mortal. It might actually leave such a mark, given his turbulent cultivation. Tears leaked from his eyes and pooled on the tiles.
He wished that the plain-faced cultivator would answer his question.
His plea.
But he had already asked, and now the situation was out of his hands. Having bared his heart as though unsheathing a sword, he let the plain-faced cultivator inspect the blade and determine the fate of his life.
Still, he wished silently and he pleaded internally, for this man, for the heavens, to look on him with kindness.
###
Chen Ai had absolutely no idea what was happening.
She looked between the Flawless Blade, who groveled on the floor like a common beggar, and her senior brother, who stood as though he hadn’t just pulled a sword from his chest.
That the Flawless Blade would ask such a question was ridiculous.
That her senior brother would consider it for as long as he had was ludicrous.
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But a part of her wondered… was there something deeper at play?
She thought she understood the duel. That her senior brother won by virtue of his regenerative bloodline. Was there more to it? Had she mistaken his delayed reactions for swordplay that rivaled that of the Flawless Blade?
Without a doubt, the kowtowing swordsman was the greatest wielder of the jian she’d ever encountered. For him to beg her senior brother like this… what did he see that she didn’t?
She’d been traveling with him for days, and besides his strange desire to carry a rotting cabbage, she thought him normal enough.
But now…
She looked at him again, really looked at him, and wondered what there was that she could learn. After all, she was already lucky enough to be by his side, and, apparently, that was a very desirable place to be.
###
Cultivators were strange people.
Even with my three sets of memories, my regenerating body, and my annoying cabbage of a master, I could say that each and every cultivator was utterly stranger than I.
Did I want to be the Flawless Blade’s master? What kind of question was that? I didn’t know anything! I didn’t even know my own name!
But everyone was looking at me, and the moment had dragged on too long already.
So, I knelt.
“Look at me,” I said.
For a moment, he hesitated, and then he turned his red, tearful gaze up at me.
Damn.
I really felt bad for him.
Was I going to do this just to stop him from crying?
“What’s your name?” I asked as I tried to stall.
“The Flawless Blade,” he whispered.
“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “Your actual name.”
His eyes widened as he understood, and his lips moved for a moment, sounding something out, before his head fell.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
Wow.
It was pretty annoying to be on the other side of that. I felt bad for Qian Ling and Mu Min. Though they’d suspected me of being a demonic cultivator in the end…
Hmm. I hoped that didn’t come back to bite me.
The Flawless Blade was still silent.
Chen Ai was staring at me intently. Everyone was. It was really getting awkward, but I wasn’t getting any suggestions.
Except for the tables.
“Just say yes,” said one of the tables. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Even if things go bad,” called out the table I’d been sitting at. “It will make for a funny story!”
“That’s a terrible idea,” slurred a sticky table near me, where people had spilled drinks before fleeing the Flawless Blade’s outburst. “You should teach him to keep your enemies close and your drinks closer.”
I frowned.
“Chen Ai?” I whispered.
“Yes, senior brother?” she whispered back.
“What would you suggest?”
“I would do literally anything to end this situation if I were caught in the middle of it,” she said quietly and directly.
“Yes,” I said to the cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade. “I will take you on as my disciple.”
A collective gasp went up from the other patrons in the drinking house. The booths all had their curtains drawn back, with nobody even pretending that they weren’t watching. They were all smiling or frowning as they spoke to each other, their conversations drowned out by the rising applause. I counted five different bets resolved as money changed hands.
The cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade wept at my feet — which he kept trying to kiss — as he thanked me over and over again.
“You won’t regret this, master,” he said. “You shall never have a disciple as diligent as this one, master.”
I pulled my foot back.
“That’s enough,” I said. “I saw you act normally before. Please do that again. Quietly, if you can.”
He abruptly nodded and rose to his feet with an uncomfortably serious expression. It was good enough.
“Are you alright, Chen Ai?”
She nodded slowly.
“You stopped him before he could do anything,” she said before her eyes drifted to my chest. “I mean, to anyone else…”
Right. I needed to repair my robes. Even if I’d worn my last few sets to tatters, I wasn’t about to do that unless it was necessary.
“Shall we return to the booth?” I asked her.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh, that’s right!” she said. “Senior brother, tell me what happened with you and Alchemist Ran Jun? He’s a three-star alchemist, you know?”
I was speechless.
“Master, who is this Ran Jun?” asked the cultivator previously known as the Flawless Blade. “If he is a threat, allow me to thwart him. Though my blade is worthless before your might, it is more than enough to deal with some villainous alchemist.”
“You’re an idiot,” Chen Ai said angrily and, as I regretably recalled, drunkenly. “I would demand you kowtow before my senior brother, but you have already acted shamelessly enough for a lifetime! Ran Jun and senior brother were about to confess their love when you so recklessly barged in!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose as though that might do anything. I really leaned into it, crunching the cartilage between my fingertips. Some memory from one of my lives remembered doing that, but it just didn’t translate into this body.
“You’re both wrong,” I said. “We should go back to the booth.”
“We?” Chen Ai asked. “Are you really bringing him?”
“Master made me his disciple. It is not for you to decide.”
“Please, let’s just stop making a scene.”
Though most had gone back to their own conversations, a lot of people were still watching me intently. There were even a few people walking in my direction. They looked rich.
And though my merchant memories pushed for me to introduce myself, I decided that I’d rather retreat from powerful people when I’m just passing through the city.
Well, even more powerful people than the Matriarch of the Stone Forest Trading House, who wanted to see me…
The navy uniformed attendant appeared beside me as though she read my mind.
“The Matriarch will see you now,” she said. “If she did not, I would have you thrown out onto the street for the way your group has acted in this prestigious establishment.”
Despite being scolded in public, I felt relieved that the advancing nobles backed off a step. They must fear this woman as much as I did.
“Of course, you’re absolutely right,” I said. “Lead the way.”
She held up her hand.
“He may not come,” she said, pointing at the cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade. “While honored guest Chen Ai is permitted to join, he must leave. We will not permit Core Formation cultivators who cannot control their power to endanger our guests or goods.”
The cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade straightened.
“You cannot tell me to go anywhere,” he said. “Only my master may do that.”
The attendant raised an eyebrow at me.
“You’re responsible for him?”
“I don’t…” I began before I sighed. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
My disciple looked at me with tears brimming in his eyes.
Chen Ai shook her head at me.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered.
I think she’d been hanging out with Cabbagy behind my back.
“Good,” said the prim attendant. “Then you can deal with the guards who are looking for him.”
What?
“What?” I asked.
The attendant smirked as she pointed toward the entrance where my disciple had stormed in just a few minutes ago. Nine guards in heavy stone wood armor. The thick plates of petrified wood were carved with enchantments. Every mortal memory I had wanted to run as fast as I could.
The guards wore masked helmets, and the guard in the lead removed his to reveal a familiar face.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I’m sorry for the disturbance.”
It was the guard whom I lied to at the gate. The one who believed I was an Imperial Special Inspector. Damn, I’d really hoped not to see him again.
Why was he here?
“I’m here to arrest that man,” he said as he pointed directly at me.
like having another look at the start and seeing how the new intro flows, I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
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