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At Zhu Wuji’s insistence, a schedule was to be set up between the family for spending time with Zhu Li. This mainly stemmed from Zhu Junhe being a problem child that would hog all of his time if not restrained by rules and regulations.

In a great misfortune for them all, there was one entity that actively defied rules and regulations, and seemed to have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly when to come in to ruin something.

As opposed to a rooster crowing to start the day, a lot of the Estate’s disciples awoke to the sonorous, high-pitched calls of a beast.

“Is a yao being murdered nearby?” Chu Ran asked, placing the lid of his cup back down. He turned his head curiously in the direction of the spine-chilling shrieks. “Hm… I feel like it should be put out of its misery a bit quicker than this.”

Zhu Wuji looked up from the schedule she was drawing up. One of the windows—inlaid with carved inscriptions that kept the heat in and cold out, of course—was open, showcasing the white-crusted world outside, and she gazed idly out of it for a second.

A scream-like sound reached them from a distance again.

“It sounds like a horse,” she commented.

“A horse yao? How interesting.”

“No, it’s probably… just a normal horse.”

A foreboding feeling settled in Zhu Li’s gut. He, too, looked out the window.

They were in Zhu Wuji’s study at the moment, sitting across from her at her desk. She wasn’t the presumptive sort and wouldn’t have made the schedule without Zhu Li’s explicit say-so, after all. Having a schedule for spending time with one’s own brother/son would be indefensibly ridiculous in literally any other circumstance, but it was well justified here, in his opinion.

“Regardless of whatever’s going on over there…” she continued, “I’ve drafted this so that the order goes father, me, Canxi, and Junhe, followed by four days of break. The next block goes me, Canxi, father, Junhe, and the break. The block after that goes Canxi, father, me, Junhe, the break. After that, you may be out of here already… can’t you stay a little longer, Ah-Li?”

Not unless I want stress ulcers, Zhu Li snarked internally. Externally, he said, “My retrial is still technically coming up. After this trip, there’ll be only a few months left to wrap things up.”

“The good Doctor speaks the truth,” Chu Ran piped in between his sips of tea. “While this vacation is a welcome break from a lot of proper business, we will need to get back to it before our time limit hits its close. If it’s any consolation, I believe that after we meet with one more person and the information she brings, I will be able to present the evidence before jianghu and clear the doctor’s name ahead of schedule—not that anyone has faith in my family’s words or Masked Wasp’s corps anymore. Once all of the loose ends are tied up, nothing will be blocking further visits, yes?”

That answer seemed to satisfy Zhu Wuji, though she regarded Chu Ran with a sly eye. “The Chu family is quite involved in this case, isn’t it?”

Zhu Li sat up taller at the coy statement. He could spot an information fish from a li away.

“Oh, yes. My family is full of wretches and good-for-nothings that collaborate with shady people and have no morals to speak of. I don’t get on with them because when my father learned of my blindness, he decided to throw me out of the house and provide the bare minimum for me just so that the outside world didn’t talk, if he even provided that much… Ah, as an aside, I was born like this. I believe he threw me out when I was two or so? The story after that is quite long, but I will say that my father could inspire a book titled ‘Records from Observing a Self-Absorbed Father’ that would serve as an admonition for all other fathers of the world. Alas, the outside world places so much emphasis on fathers that speaking poorly of one is taboo, even if they happen to be worth less than pond scum and put in less effort to raising than children than a dog would. There’s no love between the rest of my family and I, Sect Head Zhu, and I do what I can to make them pay for their wrongdoings. For this case in particular, they will pay dearly, I assure you.”

Zhu Wuji had excellent control over her facial muscles. Nothing was betrayed on the surface, but Zhu Li knew her well enough to know that she’d been taken pretty aback by that rant.

He casually drank from his own cup, knowing that the amount of schadenfreude he was feeling was probably not too saintly.

“I see,” she finally said, rallying herself successfully. “In any case, father is waiting for y—“

Another horse scream resounded outside, just a lot closer this time. There was also some human shouting that followed it, all of it accompanied by hooves clacking noisily against stone.

“Really, what’s going on out there?” she said, looking out the window again.

Her study was part of a bigger building, so it had no surrounding wall, which allowed for a fuller view of the Estate at large. Outside was an expanse that would normally be a green, open garden filled with flowers, but was now a dead, open field with bare trees.

Galloping suddenly into distant view came a horse that matched the snow around her, her mane and tail flowing gracefully in the wind she created.

Conspicuously, the coat she had on to shield her short-haired body from the cold was askew, and the reins on her face appeared to be structurally compromised, hanging broken off her mouth.

Following her was a harried-looking Zhu Canxi, who was trying and failing to catch the runaway mare. She would dash to grab the broken reins, only for Guhui to somehow predict her movements and flick her head every which way.

Zhu Li felt a headache coming in. He should have foreseen this happening, really.

Deciding to help his flustered sister, he set his cup upon the table, got up, and approached the window, calling out one firm, “Guhui.”

The selectively-obedient mare whipped her head around at the sound. She skidded almost comically to a stop, then changed direction sharply, gunning right for the window. After stopping just shy of running full force into the veranda’s railing, she expertly maneuvered around it so that she could stick her giant head straight through the window and rest her chin on Zhu Li’s shoulder.

Zhu Wuji jumped at her quick movement. Chu Ran was unfazed, simply stating, “Ah, there you are, Lady Guhui. Were the stables not to your liking?”

Guhui huffed out of her nose in seeming answer.

“As expected. The Lady likes to be next to her chosen herd, Sect Head; such is the nature of a horse. How long do you suppose it will be until the quarters we’re supposed to be staying in are ready? I believe it should be soon, lest the Lady break more things.”

“It should be sometime today. The… ‘Lady’ shouldn’t have to wait for long,” Zhu Wuji answered, eyeing Guhui warily.

Zhu Li was petting the giant filly’s nose in reassurance. He supposed he ought to be grateful that she’d stayed put for a little over a full day.

Another head popped up from behind Guhui, although at a safe distance. She was huffing hard—chasing Guhui down had clearly given her a workout. “Sorry, I… I tried to catch her, but she’s… she’s really fast… and really, really stubborn…”

Zhu Canxi looked even more tired than she had the day before. Guhui must have announced her displeasure all through the second night, as well.

“Now you know why I got a slopenose for free,” he quipped flatly.

“Ah… she’s still beautiful, though. I’ll probably never get to see another one up close in my life…”

He raised a brow at her. “Aren’t you all working on lifting the prohibition?”

“We are,” Zhu Wuji cut in. “There’s technically nothing stopping anyone from leaving now, it’s just that it isn’t as easy as simply encouraging everyone to leave or taking the alarms off the outer array. We’re already labeled as mysterious ‘dark’ cultivators because of what we do and how secretive we are—we don’t need the additional label of ‘socially inept’ cultivators, as well. It would be an embarrassment to allow the gossipers to leave here and stir up trouble in general society.”

That was extremely reasonable.

“Hm. Is gossip really that much of a problem around here?” Chu Ran wondered.

She sighed, shaking her head. “It’s an epidemic. A deeply-ingrained one, too. It’s a mass, generations-long bout of stir-craze.”

“That’s quite peculiar. Perhaps I should put my own eavesdropping skills to work?”

“Don’t bother,” said Zhu Li. “They don’t have anything good to say.”

“Beyond that, you two are most definitely overtaking the gossip channels right about now,” Zhu Wuji continued, mouth pressed into a disapproving frown. “Unless you want to be upset and offended, I’d suggest not listening to the gossip at all.”

“My, my. It’s that bad?” There was a curious hue to Chu Ran’s voice. “Now I’m morbidly curious.”

Zhu Li gave him a look he wouldn’t see. “Don’t.”

“Come now, Doctor. It cannot possibly be worse than what I’ve already heard in the outside world. Mayhaps I can even manipulate the gossip positively with some of the more agreeable gossipers; there’s always a few that aren’t inherently evil or selfish, just trying to be in the know, yes?”

“…You’re an adult. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do things.”

“Hmm. Then why can I hear your disapproval from here?”

“It’s because I don’t approve. But if you really want to jump into a swamp, you can learn the hard way.”

“How kind of you to care about my well-being, Doctor Zhu. It’s quite good that this wouldn’t be my first foray into such a swamp.”

“Um…” Zhu Canxi suddenly cut in, her eyes shifting quickly between the two of them. She’d just come in from outside while wisely avoiding Guhui. “The gossip really isn’t that great. It’s just about things like whose kids are doing what with their lives that the older folk don’t approve of. Gege’s always hated that vapid stuff, so if you, um, participate in it, he won’t accompany you for it.”

Chu Ran’s brows raised up. He seemed to be seriously considering what she’d said. “Why, yes, we would spend a lot less time together like that… hm, very well. I suppose anything too important will find its way to me without my intervention, yes?”

Way to be blatant, Zhu Li thought, mentally rolling his eyes. Fondly, of course.

He turned his sights upon the quiet Zhu Wuji, who was, in turn, looking at Chu Ran strangely.

Hm.

“Anyways, gege, did you want to see what new animals I got?” Zhu Canxi continued, turning her bright eyes to Zhu Li. “I was promoted to supervisor over a lot of the stock, so I’ve got my own cave and everything!”

Zhu Wuji cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her. “He’s scheduled to spend time with father today,” she stated plainly.

“Huh?… Scheduled?”

“Yes. I’ve drawn up a schedule so that we can all get equal time to spend with Ah-Li.”

Completely understandably, Zhu Canxi looked bewildered. “You… made a schedule for that?”

“She’s worried about Junhe occupying all of my time,” Zhu Li explained.

“I feel like you should just ask her not to?”

Zhu Wuji gave her a wayward look. “Would she listen?”

“…Maybe not. Still, scheduling it out is at least a little weird. And dad’s going to be busy for a while—he always checks in with the Elders every five days. I know you know that, so why did you make him the first in line?”

“Elders always go first. That’s a courtesy.”

Zhu Canxi narrowed her eyes. “It’s even more of a courtesy to give them a full day. Just give the first day to me; I have an even better plan to keep Junhe away if you want her away.”

Zhu Wuji leaned forward, her head resting on one hand. “And what would that be?”

“They can just bring snakes along. She hates them.”

Right. He forgot about that.

“Oh?” Chu Ran piped up, turning towards her. “Are snakes not the sect’s specialty? Do people not like them even here?”

“Not everyone’s cut out for the business just because they’re born here. Especially the people that are scared of bird-catching spiders and faint at the sight of blood.”

There was a pause.

“A bird-catching spider?”

“Mn. You might not have seen them before if you don’t leave Zhongling much, but they’re fat, hairy spiders with huge fangs that are big enough to eat little birds. You have to handle them if you want to be a tamer like me.”

He chuckled. “That sounds absolutely terrible.”

She shrugged, unoffended. “It’s a lot less risky as a cultivator, since all the animals just take you as a part of the environment instead of a threat. They won’t bite what they think is a weirdly mobile rock.”

“Is that so? I’m afraid I haven’t been able to get too personal with much wildlife. Or domesticlife. I do have some experience with Lady Guhui there, in addition to… well. Even then, animals are not a huge part of my day-to-day, I’d say.”

Zhu Li raised a brow. What had he cut off there?

“That’s too bad. You can meet some today, though,” Zhu Canxi cheerfully offered. “As long as you haven’t eaten too much meat or done a lot of hunting, even the scariest of animals are as docile as calves.”

“That seems… interesting,” he admitted. “Are you amenable to that, Doctor? Should we go see a bunch of poisonous, venomous little beasts?”

“I’m used to seeing animals like this. If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to,” Zhu Li answered.

“Nonsense, of course I’ll come. Perhaps Miss Canxi could give me a general tour of the sect along the way?”

“Sure!” she said. “The cave is a bit of walk, anyways.”

“This isn’t on the schedule,” Zhu Wuji suddenly protested.

Zhu Canxi gave her a look. “Rearrange it, please? Dad can have tomorrow.”

“But I was going to introduce him to his nephew tomorrow.”

The look turned incredulous. “Do you have to do everything in day slots? It’s not like it’s going to take that long. Just do your introductions later today. Dad’ll understand, I promise.”

Zhu Wuji’s shoulders slumped dramatically. “Canxi, why do you have to ruin all my structure?”

“You’ll be fine. Okay, gege, Sect Head Chu, let’s go.”

Without allowing Zhu Wuji any recourse, the two men (and horse) were quickly collected, ushered out of the study, then brought out of the Estate.

The three of them started off at the Estate’s gate, with Zhu Canxi beginning to explain what they were passing. In the daylight, the white-coated world contrasted strikingly with the sect’s dark building materials. The scene was familiar to Zhu Li, harking back to many wintry days where he’d had to make some trek to the apothecary or run an errand for someone.

Many eyes had peeked out of windows, popped out from behind corners, emerged from bushes, or simply turned in their direction from the road the second they’d shown up, and were now following them along.

This was also a familiar scene to him, unfortunately.

He hated being the center of attention more than he could possibly describe.

Narrowing his eyes dangerously, he swept them around the perimeter. Whenever they caught a peeping Zhang, the perpetrator would quickly get nervous and dart back into the shadows from whence they came. A few people that were brave enough to try approaching would receive the whinny of a very angry-looking mare.

Even with their efforts, news would spread about the disgraced main-branch son and his blind companion being out and about soon enough. He knew that much for sure.

“…over here is the craftspeople’s district, right in the center of the valley. Anyone that offers any service has to set up shop around here. One of our ancestors made this rule because the valley is longer than it is wide, and he hated getting tools from one end and talismans from another. Any place that sells food is allowed to spread out, though.”

“It seems your ancestor valued convenience. I can hardly say I blame him. What I must say, though, is that this place seems less like a sect and more like a town—when I was in the Blue Orchid Sect, the place was big enough as it is, but it simply can’t compare to this.”

“All of the sects you know about are probably one-family sects,” Zhu Li provided. “The five major sects of Jin are inside other settlements, too, so they can only get so big on their own. The Caves have over two-hundred different families. It has to be structured like a town or else it’ll fall apart.”

“Goodness, I never would have known. You did say something about thousands of people earlier, but I suppose I never stopped to think about what that would imply. The way it was spoken of beforehand, I’d honestly assumed the Caves had about a hundred members, at most.”

Zhu Li huffed. “Gossip wouldn’t be such an issue, then.”

“This is true. Gossipers in tight-knit families tend to receive slaps to the face for their audacity. Perhaps they should receive facial slaps in general.”

Zhu Canxi laughed all of a sudden. The sentiment must have resonated with her.

The central part of the sect also hosted the cave she’d been assigned to, so their path diverted to the mountainside instead of the valley’s middle. She still continued to give him a general layout of the sect as the went along, making sure to add a bunch of physical landmarks so that he might be able to navigate there on his own if he needed to.

When they came to their destination after trekking a quarter of the way up the mountain, Zhu Li was greeted with a cave lesser in size than the infirmary’s had been for its own fauna and storage, yet still of similar setup. It was clearly one of the centuries-old ones that had been made from a naturally occurring cave, not one of the newer excavated ones.

Chu Ran made a noise of wonder. “My, my. When you all described ‘caves’, I was expecting something quite a bit more rough. And less warm.”

“Haha, yeah, I’m sure you’ve never seen… um, sensed anything like this before. It’s an old sect habit,” Zhu Canxi said. “Our ancestors used the natural caves in this valley for storage. When the sect grew and the amount of natural caves couldn’t keep up with storage demands, they started carving their own out of the mountainside. Eventually, someone had the idea to carve actual storage into them, too.”

It was easy to see why Chu Ran was astounded. The cave was shaped roughly like a wolf’s claw, and every surface that was one large, unbroken piece of rock had been carved into shelving units. The parts with looser or more uneven rock had been excavated into small pits, either for food or small animal storage. Built off of these were enclosures of varying sizes for animals made of wood, their outermost sides consisting of either latticed grease-paper windows with holes too small for the animal inside to get through, or opaque green glass for the stronger and feistier beasties. Each enclosure also had a small hatch on their tops meant for the delivery of food.

This made Zhu Li think back to Deng Xia’s makeshift snake pen—which had a heating array, like this cave, at least—and the one random old guy who had pet vipers in wooden boxes. Not everyone knew how to care for reptiles, it seemed—then again, he doubted that they’d had access to the knowledge and resources a sect of generational reptile-keepers had. Glass, for example, was rare, expensive, and unattainable for even the rich, at times.

“This does make quite a bit more sense than just shoving some animals into an open cave and hoping for the best,” Chu Ran continued, walking himself to the nearest side of the cave. His fingers trailed curiously over some lattice, glass, and rock. “What sorts of creatures are in here? Just snakes and spiders?”

“And toads, insects, and newts,” Zhu Canxi said, smiling. “Come on, gege, let me show you all the wedding moths I got in…”

Not only did she show him an eclipse of those red-and-black moths, but she also immediately went to show him a ten-legged spider. When she brought it out of its enclosure, Chu Ran bodily put himself on the other side of Zhu Li from it.

“What a fascinatingly enormous spider you have there,” he said from a safe distance.

“It is fascinating,” Zhu Li said, leaning in to examine the creature. “Ten-legged spiders are rare. Extremely venomous, too.”

“Neat, right?” Zhu Canxi enthusiastically chirped.

“Yes. Very neat,” Chu Ran insincerely agreed.

Zhu Li turned to look at him with a raised brow. The smile on the other’s face screamed, ‘I’m very uncomfortable right now.’

He had no sympathy. He’d been warned, and this was his own fault.

Zhu Canxi proceeded to go through every single giant spider she had. Zhu Li had been desensitized to them years ago after needing to research treatments for their specific venoms—judging from Chu Ran’s expression and the way he was clinging to his back like a spooked child, he hadn’t been.

It seemed like his knowledge of toxic substances didn’t extend much to animals, just plants and metals.

And feathers in water.

Zhu Li narrowed his eyes in thought.

During an appropriate pause in the conversation, he called Zhu Canxi’s name, then asked, “Do you know how a feather in water could make poison?”

She was stopped in the middle of her row of snakes, brows furrowed. “A feather in water? What kind of poison is it?”

“A kind that gives an inevitable death without a cure.”

Her brows furrowed harder in concern. “Have you… come across it personally?”

In an answer, he drew a certain bottle out of his sleeve and passed it to her. “I’m pretty sure it’s in here. Right, Yingliu?”

He peered over his shoulder at Chu Ran, who looked like a pheasant caught in a viper’s hold.

“Ah… Is this the feeling of being… sold out?” he said uneasily.

“I’m finding out the source of a poison when you won’t tell,” Zhu Li argued back, voice betraying no emotion. “I have to know as a doctor, even if you say it’s fatal.”

“I had no idea you felt so strongly about that, Doctor. I simply… assumed that you may have figured the source out already? You’re quite smart and learned.”

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere. And the issue here is that I don’t know what a feather-in-water poison is, which means that it’s not a common source. I need to know about that source.”

“Um, wait…” Zhu Canxi piped up. He turned to her, only to see that her expression was slightly pensive. “If the feather is in the water, then it’s what makes the water poisonous. That means that there’s poison on the feather, but birds don’t make their own poison, unless…”

She trailed off uncertainly. Distantly, Zhu Li was proud that his walking-bestiary sister wasn’t going to let him down, yet also nervous of what she was going to say. What did Chu Ran have, exactly?

The next second, his sister went to one of the enclosures. She opened its latticed hatch, reached inside, then pulled out two relatively small, matte red snakes in one hand.

“I was going to give you these two, anyways,” she started. “They’re cinnabar black-bellies. We study them because they’re not venomous, but poisonous—they eat toads and survive by storing that poison in their own body. As long as you don’t eat them, there’s no issue, and they’re too weak and docile to bite hard even if we were mortals.”

She stopped right before passing the serpents to them, looking down at the bottle she held. “In theory, any animal could have the same adaptation. Toads and newts usually get their poison from the plants and bugs they eat in the first place. It isn’t that much of a stretch for a wolf to eat something bad and just secrete the poison onto their fur, or for a bird to do the same. I’ve never seen a living bird do it, but…”

She raised her head abruptly. “Gege, do you know the legend of the zhen?”

Chu Ran’s eyes widened a little. He really wasn’t good at controlling his face.

“No,” Zhu Li confirmed, watching his companion carefully.

“The zhen were tall bird yao that came from somewhere up North. After they mutated, they started eating poisoned snakes like these two, which coated the birds’ feathers and meat. Because these birds were so toxic, any predators would die trying to eat them, so their numbers spread across the land like a plague. They were said to be especially dangerous because just one of them could taint water supplies, giving the water a numbing effect to anyone that touched them and instant death to anyone that drank from them. A common assassination technique back then even involved plucking a feather from a zhen, dipping it in the target’s tea, then leaving before anyone could catch on.”

A wave of apprehension prickled up Zhu Li’s arms.“Why haven’t I heard of that before?”

“Because you’re only interested in modern medicine, not ancient history,” she said. “Zhen were hunted to extinction over six hundred years ago. There’s been nothing like them since.”

…Huh. What?

He turned to Chu Ran. He wasn’t even expecting an explanation—he was just baffled.

“My point is that since zhen existed once, it’s not impossible for them to exist again. The Dao works in strange ways,” Zhu Canxi continued. She set the poison bottle down on the ground, then handed them each one snake. Once she got to Chu Ran, she very obviously stopped in front of him. “But if you do have a bird that’s a lot like the zhen, you should tell us. We’re supposed to be experts on toxic things, here.”

Chu Ran looked a bit reluctant to answer. He allowed the dusky-sunset-colored snake he held to twine around his fingers, idly petting it with a thumb.

“Do you think you’re in trouble or something?” Zhu Li asked, placing his own snake on his shoulder. Cinnabar black-bellies were too weak to constrict. “You’re not. She’s not a jianghu bailiff.”

“I know this, it’s merely that… honestly, I’d been hoping to be rid of the accursed bird soon. As I’ve been found out, that seems to no longer be an option. What a conundrum…”

There came a break in his thoughts. Zhu Li waited patiently, acutely aware of the little serpent slithering itself comfy. Even in the cave’s decent temperature, it was automatically drawn to the heat of his neck, nosing its snout around his collar.

“The birds have been in my sect for as long as I’ve known,” Chu Ran continued. “My teacher never offered details as to how she got them other than that she’d stolen the eggs from someone else. She was never shy about using poisons—a relic from her time with Senior Zhu, I’m sure—so we all use the birds for our own poison-making. It’s an efficient substance for doing away with bad actors. As for whether it’s the same zhen you speak of, I can’t know, but I do know that it reaches my shoulder in height.”

“A tall bird yao,” Zhu Canxi repeated in awe. “Do you really have something that’s been extinct for centuries?”

“Perhaps. It’s quite the shame I have no idea where my teacher got the eggs from. It’s not impossible that a small batch of zhen hid away somewhere and survived because they bothered no one, is it?”

“It isn’t. If it’s still poisonous, it must’ve found poisoned prey somewhere not even people go. A new toxic animal… fascinating.”

A keen glint was in her eyes, signifying the rousing of her interest. That probably wasn’t good, when lethal birds were concerned.

“Well, if you don’t mind, you can have the one I keep. I no longer have need of it. It’s the last of its kind, as for reasons we’ve never quite figured out, their chicks have a high mortality rate and their adult lifespans are atrociously short. You may very well be able to care for it better here.”

That definitely wasn’t good, either.

Zhu Canxi lit right up. “Why would I mind? I’d love to study a zhen! And if there’s only one, we won’t need to cull them for safety concerns. Can we set up a time to transfer it? We have protocols for transporting animals that can’t be touched, so I can help arrange for that.”

He waved his hand. “By all means. You’ll be doing me the favor of not having to safely burn the corpse once I need to move. I would never leave such a creature in the hands of my sectmates; I simply don’t like them enough for that.”

She quirked a brow, but ultimately decided not to comment on that. “You’ll need to move?”

“Yes. Once my extended family meets their fate, I’ll hardly be allowed to keep living just next door. All of their assets will likely be absorbed by the imperial family, my so-called home included. It’s of no matter. After all…”

Right on cue, he leaned against Zhu Li’s arm. “I have a place to go when the ash settles.”

“Uh… huh. What did your family do, exactly? I don’t think you said,” she did comment on. Her sharp gaze definitely boggled at their close proximity.

“Everything, and some more things on top of that, naturally,” he answered. “This is a very calm little worm you’ve given me, Miss Canxi. As it were, I’ve always been told to stay away from all snakes—is there a way to tell the difference between these harmless ones and the less harmless ones?”

“They’re usually brightly… colored. Uh, I don’t think that means anything to you, though?”

He smiled. “No, it does not. Is there any other way?”

She sunk into silence. Zhu Li did, too; he tried to think back to all he’d learned about snake identification, hoping that something in his knowledge would help him. He had his own self-made reference book of them, so there had to be something, right?

A few seconds passed, after which Zhu Canxi shook her head. “I’ve always been taught to identify them by patterns and colors. If it makes you feel better, bright colors aren’t a sure thing alone, and a lot of harmful snakes look identical to harmless ones. It’s best to just not touch any snakes at all if you’re unsure.”

Yeah, they learned that from the whole death-goddess snake debacle.

Actually, now that he was thinking about that…

“Can you take a venomous one out, Canxi?” Zhu Li suddenly asked.

She blinked. “Oh… sure,” she said, moving to yet another cage. She pulled a bright green snake out of it that he recognized as a jasper-eyed emerald viper. “This one’ll be sleepy, since it just ate. What do you need it for?”

“There’s a way for Yingliu to tell them apart. He just needs one for reference.”

He held out his hand, and the sluggish green snake was obediently placed within it, after which he moved it so that it was placed next to the black-belly still in Chu Ran’s hand. Leaning in towards Chu Ran’s ear, he patiently explained, “Venom comes from fluid-filled sacs in a snake’s head. A non-venomous snake either has no sacs, or very small ones, right behind the eyes. You’ll be able to sense those, which might be easier than trying to identify them by teeth.”

Chu Ran’s eyes widened. He then adopted a look of concentration, his thumb running over the smooth body of the coiling, curious black-belly.

“There they are,” he confirmed. “I must admit that this is quite disturbing to sense. Particularly the lack of brains they seem to have… Now that I have this fascinating knowledge, could you please move the dangerous, biting worm away from me, Doctor? I’m not a hundred percent positive on how to interpret a snake’s ‘emotions’, if they can even be called that, but I believe it wants to bite its friend.”

Zhu Li chuckled low in his throat. Like a good friend would, he moved the jasper-eye away, intending to hand it back to his sister.

However, when he looked up to meet her eyes, all he saw was her gaping at him.

He waited a bit for her to explain herself. That didn’t happen, so he had to suppress the urge to fidget. “What?” he asked somewhat gruffly.

“Did you just laugh?” she asked right back. “Did you just laugh with someone else?”

She was clearly in… kind of offensive disbelief. How dare she.

He frowned at her. “Why is that shocking?”

“Because you don’t like other people and don’t have a sense of humor?”

…

How dare she.

“I have a sense of humor.”

“Not really.”

“Yes I do.”

“I have vivid memories of Junhe trying to tell you jokes and you looking at her like she’s stupid.”

“That’s because her jokes are terrible.”

“They’re not terrible. It’s not like you’re the type to make jokes, either.”

“I don’t need to make jokes to know when a joke is terrible.”

“No, but you do need one thing: a sense of humor. You hardly ever laugh! You can’t blame me for being surprised that you did!”

“I do have a sense of humor,” he insisted. “Puns just aren’t funny.”

“It doesn’t seem like anyone or anything is ever funny to you, but okay.”

“The good Doctor’s humor best comes out in his dryness,” Chu Ran butt in. “He also likes others’ bluntness, in turn. Perhaps he isn’t the most expressive to you, but I can tell that he’s amused by a lot of things. Like when Lady Guhui does something silly, or Mei’r does something adorable, or when I seemingly speak at all, at times.”

Zhu Canxi’s eyes threatened to split her lids and pop right out. “You can tell what?” she almost spluttered.

“My qi sense allows me to ‘read’ emotions, as it were. I cannot read faces, which I’m told is how those with sight do it, so I have to default to the next best thing.”

Her head swiveled around to stare at Zhu Li again. “You think things are cute?”

This was getting out of hand.

“Why are we talking about this?” he asked, giving Zhu Canxi a stink-eye.

She didn’t react to that. He could visibly see the mice in her head running about behind her eyes, trying to keep up with whatever she was processing.

At that exact moment, Chu Ran decided to grab Zhu Li’s elbow. “Is the animal tour over? I do hope the spiders are at least over. Preferably all the bugs and bitey things.”

Zhu Canxi looked at where his hand was, snapped out of it, finally grabbed the viper out of his hand, then said, “Congratulations.”

Zhu Li was now the one to stare at her. “What?”

“Nothing. Want to see my mossy viper?”

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her. Alas, she seemed immune to his gave, having plastered a sunny smile on her face.

The rest of the visit went on without further interruption. Zhu Canxi excitedly told him about how she was getting approval to keep an evil-warding monkey once some were imported from the south, all while shoving the rest of her colorful and dangerous snakes right before his eyes. None of them were anything new to him, and neither was her enthusiasm for animals.

Everything else aside, that much comforted him a little. It seemed like she’d weathered these five years just fine on her own, her passions having only sharpened.

When she’d inevitably exhausted her supply of new creatures, Zhu Canxi saw them out. Her smile hadn’t lost its curvature all this time—instead, it’d just grown more severe.

“It’s lunchtime. If you’re hungry, why don’t you stop by Aunt Man’s? She’s been giving out seitan jerky with every meal lately,” she suggested, shooting Zhu Li a cheeky look. “She has private rooms, too, if you don’t want watching eyes.”

Oh. That was what she meant.

“That sounds nice. What do you say, Doctor? Is there time to get a meal in before we go back and… meet your nephew, was it? Hm. That can probably happen without me, actually,” Chu Ran said, tapping his lip in thought.

Zhu Li sent his sister an unamused look. “If that’s what you want.”

She just laughed at him. “You know, this is kind of unfair, gege,” she started, eyes curved like a wolf’s. “You were able to leave and find yourself a ‘friend.’ I can’t do the same even with the prohibition lifted, since my animals are all here.”

“Those animals include dogs, yes?” Chu Ran asked, tilting his head towards her. “Junyan loves dogs, but I would never allow her one. Why not show her yours? I’m sure she would have a fine time.”

She blinked. “Oh. Sure, I can do that.”

“Very good.”

Hm. It was so hard to tell what Chu Ran was thinking or aiming at, sometimes; was he consciously setting up those two, or was he just making an idle conversation? Or was he really just that good at disguising one motive as another?

This was probably one of those things Zhu Li was never going to be great at differentiating.

After they bid farewell, called Guhui over, and they took all of one step, Chu Ran stopped, then turned back around. “One more thing if you don’t mind, Miss Canxi. What do you know about your grandparents?”

The sudden question caught both Zhu siblings off guard.

What is he asking for? Zhu Li thought, watching him carefully. His shoulders tensed for reasons beyond his understanding. Are they relevant to his investigation?

“Uh… Not much, really,” she answered. “They died either shortly before or shortly after I was born; I can’t remember which. Dad, Wuji, and Junhe didn’t have much to say about them when I asked, and mom outright refused. I probably know way less than gege does. Why do you ask?”

“As you never met them, I assume that your view of them is technical and unbiased. What have you heard, then? Both from your family and from others?”

Her brows creased together. “Grandmother, Meng Ruoxue, was a socialite that was friends with all of the Elders— well, the former Elders. Grandfather, Zhu Qipin didn’t interact with the outside world much. He never had interest in being the Sect Head, but he was the only child of the main branch, so it fell on mom’s head to take over immediately when she came of age. They both died in a yao attack. That’s all I really know.”

He hummed. “No big personal achievements or such? Anything that would get them written down in the history books?”

“I… can’t think of anything big they’ve done, no.”

“Hm. Well, thank you for the information. Farewell yet again.”

Zhu Canxi met Zhu Li’s eyes in questioning. He shook his head, because he had no idea what that was about, either.

When they were well on their way to where Zhu Li remembered Aunt Man’s was, he asked, “Why are you interested in our grandparents?”

“Long-ingrained habits are difficult to change. My habitual nosiness is getting the better of me due to something your mother said this morning; I hope you don’t mind too much, but it left my conscious thought up until that very moment we left.”

Zhu Li pointedly ignored the jump of his own stomach. “What did she say to you?”

“We spoke of my teacher, what she’d taught me, and other such things. It was all very enlightening. Anywho, at one point, I gently suggested that she should be frank with you as to why she acts the way she does—you’re a very smart and understanding man, so why the need to hide things? After that, well… in all honesty, I was expecting her to be cross with me for butting in to family affairs, but she instead gave me insoluble riddle: ‘Tell him to get everyone’s opinion on my parents.’”

Wh— okay. Him trying to put in a good word for him aside, what sense did that make? “What do they have to do with anything?”

“That, I cannot answer. If I may be so blunt, your mother seems to have issues being open with what she wants to say?”

He couldn’t help but snort. That was the worst understatement he’d ever heard. “She also seems to be more open with you.”

“Oh, not at all. It may have given off that impression, but I am intimately familiar with the way people speak in circles, and she was expertly deflecting anything she didn’t want to answer. Namely, most things pertaining to herself. While she would spill everything she knew about Han Wenkang in one breath if I let her, she would rather pull her own teeth out than tell me anything of what she was thinking. Such is the feeling I get from her.”

“She’s always been like that.”

“Has she always had that tension coming off of her, too?”

Zhu Li quickly looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Hm… It was as if she was constantly on high alert. It wasn’t that she was scared of me or anything similar, but that there was this prickling sensation coming off of her. Quite odd, if I must say. It failed to cover her emotions from me, so it certainly wasn’t for that… Ah, she would be quite down whenever she refused to say something, by the way. A faint sadness of sorts.”

Sadness? She can feel that? he snarked bitterly on the inside, but… a prickling sensation? What could that be?

“Of course, I could very well be wrong. Emotions are tricky, and my interpretations are not always correct. Regardless of what she could be thinking, however, one thing was quite clear to me—she wants you to have some background information before she can tell you what you want to know.”

“So she’s willing to tell me why she was an asshole to me, but only after I jump through a bunch of hoops first?” he grumbled, glaring at the snowy ground just ahead of him.

At that, Chu Ran stopped in his tracks.

Surprised, Zhu Li stopped a step later and turned to him, too.

The other man was smiling as usual. Nothing about him indicated that he was anything other than normal. The faint valley wind twisted his long, loosely-bound hair about himself, and his pale robes fluttered much the same.

They were almost back to the sect’s boundary at the foot of the mountain, yet still far enough away for no one to hear them speak.

“Zhu Li,” Chu Ran said, voice strangely warm.

The lack of ‘Doctor’ immediately stilled him.

“There’s a knot in your heart, isn’t there?”

Zhu Li paused. What was he…?

“As cultivators, it’s imperative for there to be as few knots in our heart as possible, lest we stagnate on our path forth. Being without knots may well be impossible, but making them as few and as small as they can be is not. The knot you have in your heart concerning your mother is quite large, is it not? While the others you must have had regarding your family have surely alleviated some now that you know they were lied to, the one related to her remains, doesn’t it?”

What was this line of questioning? What had brought this on?

“I…” Zhu Li began, tripping up on his words, “I don’t forgive them fully yet.”

“‘Yet.’ That’s a powerful word. With time, you will forgive them—but if she gives you no explanation, will you ever forgive her on your own?”

No.

Although the answer never made it to his lips, the instantaneousness of it appearing in his mind was telling.

Chu Ran slowly came closer, then reached over to grab his hand. He was no longer smiling.

“Tell me, Doctor Zhu,” he continued, his voice now a whisper. “Is there a reason you haven’t given yourself a name?”

Time seemed to stop briefly. An uncomfortable tingle ran across Zhu Li’s shoulders. No response came from him, as he couldn’t force his tongue to move.

“Your mother’s behavior is inconsistent and frustrating to you, as you’ve told and shown. I could feel the pain in your heart whenever you thought of her, too—but it wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t care, would it? You care about what she thinks of you, and you care about why she’s been awful to you. You want to understand her, yet no explanation comes, so you are left to assume the worst. That’s why it hurts. That’s why it tangles up inside you, dragging you down with it. That’s why I… overstepped my bounds.”

He gulped hard all of a sudden. “Strained as it is between you, you love your mother. You should… protect that, and not let it go. It’s a precious thing to have.”

Oh.

“Yingliu…” he began, only to end it there. What could he really say?

Chu Ran smiled. It was a sad, distant thing. “I have no keepsakes from my birth mother. She was from a poorer family, and what little she had was taken after her death. The one thing I do have from her is my given name, that single character of ‘Ran’, picked out just for me—jade and tortoiseshell stuck together, don’t you know? Two very coveted gems, whose luster I will never see… just as I never got the chance to meet the woman who had looked at me and deemed me so precious.

“I… wonder a lot, on days that are just too cold, what she thought of me. Did she care about my blindness, or was it a non-issue? Was I precious because I was hers, or because I was a firstborn son? Did she pick my name out of genuine sentiment, or just a hope for what I’d be in the future? What were her thoughts as she held me?… Did she even get to? Was she torn from this world before she could, leaving just a name for me behind?

“I will never know the answer to any of those questions. What I do know for certain is that I hate how the choice to meet her was decided for me. I hate it, with all of my being.”

With a soft chuckle, he shook his head. “And isn’t that selfish of me? Madam Du could have very well been right in what she did, as living with my father would have been a living hell, and yet I still wanted my mother to live long enough so that I would at least know what her voice sounded like.”

A beat passed.

“You know already that I went through a great many nannies. Some were kind, some were not—all ended up dead or gone. As for my late teacher, she was the closest thing to a proper mother I’ve ever had. She taught me cultivation, discipline, fighting, manners, social cues, our writing system, how to manipulate conversations, everything. What I am today, I owe to her.

“With that being said… With that being said, even though I regarded her as a mother, she regarded me as only a student. She was not a replacement for a true mother, and I was no son to her.”

Another.

“…My point in saying this is that… Hm. My point… is… ha.” Chu Ran’s free hand went up his forehead, raking his hair away from his face. “My point, my point, what is my point here, truly… I…”

Zhu Li squeezed his hand in silent encouragement. Chu Ran smiled faintly as he squeezed back, yet it fell swiftly.

“It… would be a shame if you lost your connection to your mother over mere words left unsaid, I believe. A terrible, terrible shame. I will never tell you what to think, feel, or do, Doctor Zhu, and I know that your relationship with your mother is complicated, but I must at least implore you to listen to the end. Do you remember what I said about the bones in the river?”

Of course he did. Shocking truths were more believable if they had precedent—it made sense.

But then, that would mean… that his grandparents were a precedent to some truth?

What truth? What did they have to do with his mom not giving him a damn Dao name, when they’d died long before it was relevant?

Chu Ran seemed convinced that Zhu Longmai was trying to communicate something to him. Zhu Li wasn’t sure that she wasn’t just avoiding the hard questions with a scavenger hunt.

No answer I could give you would be satisfactory, echoed his mind, in reminder that he still wanted an answer, unsatisfactory as it might supposedly be.

…Fine.

Fine, then. He would play his mother’s little roundabout game with the hope of getting at least one straight answer out of him. Time to add a family mystery on top of the murder mystery they were already working away at, he supposed.

So much for a ‘vacation.’

He shut his eyes, took in a breath through his nose, and nodded once. “I do.”

“Good,” Chu Ran said, sighing. “Whether she hands you a good or a bad final answer, I hope that it will bring you closure, bitter or sweet as it may be. If you deem her answer unacceptable, no one will blame you for giving up on her—but you must wait until after you have that answer with you to judge upon it.”

“I know,” Zhu Li said. “Come here.”

Not giving Chu Ran any time to even say ‘What?’, he pulled on their joined hands to tug him into him, then looped his arms around his shoulders in a very tight embrace.

They’d had their first side-hug not too long ago that he’d not-so-cleverly disguised as a warming tactic. This had no such cutesy excuse. Zhu Li was hugging him because it simply felt right to do.

“Oh,” breathed Chu Ran.

The other wasn’t tense, just temporarily frozen in surprise. All too soon, his arms slowly and carefully raised to return the hug, and he rested his cheek against Zhu Li’s shoulder.

The wind died down around them, as if knowing it shouldn’t interrupt. It made the space between them all the warmer, and all the closer.

“I must say that this was unanticipated, Doctor Zhu,” Chu Ran eventually said, his breath tickling what little of Zhu Li’s neck wasn’t exposed. “I was more expecting you to be mad.”

“What would I be mad about?”

“Bringing up your mother before didn’t yield favorable results, and I have been an incorrigible busybody not minding my own business. Is that not a reason to be mad?”

“No. Things are different now, anyway.”

“I suppose that’s true.” He cuddled in further to Zhu Li’s shoulder, like a little bird making himself comfortable in his nest. “Ah, how nostalgic this feeling is. Why, the last time I was hugged like this, I was…”

He hesitated. Then hesitated. Then hesitated some more…?

Zhu Li almost wanted to break the hug just so that he could see the wheels turning in Chu Ran’s head.

Much later, he finished with a, “…eight? Yes, eight.”

Ah. Of course. There was no way that sentence would have ended light-heartedly.

Zhu Li tightened his arms around him some more.

“Ah. Ouch? Please mind your strength, Doctor, it… may be greater than you realize.”

He untightened them. Oops.

Chu Ran pat his back appreciatively. “Thank you. Did you still want to get lunch, or have I killed the mood?”

“I was never the hungry one. Did you?”

“…Hm. Not really. I seem to have killed my own mood. What I would like is some more nice, strong tea—and to stay here for a minute longer, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Zhu Li didn’t mind in the slightest.

---

The author says: ‘bird-catching spider’ is a literal translation for tarantula, because i knew no one would like knowing that 🙂
i never know what genre to put this novel as (wuxia/xuanhuan/alternate history/mass character study??) but it should definitely get the ‘educational’ tag for the sheer amount of research i’ve had to do and include involving snakes

P.S. wordpress’s spam filter works well, but it’s been catching actual comments sometimes as of late. i’ve started checking every other week or so, so if your comment never showed up on something, it probably got sent to spam as opposed to me deciding you don’t get to comment.

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