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He could feel eyes on them.

The traitorous Elders were sequestered within an old, disused building, no house arrest allowed. The sect’s designated prison was too small to accommodate thirty-seven people at once for extended periods of time, as it was, so the structure had been repurposed with individual cells.

Or so Zhu Li had been told. That information had come straight from Zhu Junhe’s mouth.

As the temporary penitentiary was on the sect’s outskirts, he was leading Chu Ran there on horseback. It hadn’t taken too long for him to start regretting not getting an enclosed carriage or something, though, because the empty-headed morons that he called sectmates had decided that their casual stroll through town was the most interesting thing in the world.

His sisters were right. These people needed to get out of the sect and take a good, long look at things that were actually interesting instead of his damned personal life.

Whatever. As long as they stayed away. Even if they didn’t, Guhui’s folded ears indicated that she would bite anyone that tried.

“Your sectfellows are quite the busybodies, aren’t they?”

He looked over at Chu Ran, who had his eyes curved up in mirth. He was riding a stocky, dark brown steed with white feathering on its legs, the contrast it gave against the man’s furs and light grays great. He looked rather regal as he sat there, bobbing along with the horse’s movements, and likely had no idea that he did.

“I believe that they believe that they’re being quite discreet, but I can sense them rushing forth like roaches whenever we get close,” he continued. “It’s rather interesting.”

The man had made no effort to be quiet. Casting a furtive glance around, Zhu Li noticed some of the less discreet onlookers bow their heads in shame.

That they could still feel any of that at all was a miracle.

“You’re right. They are like roaches,” Zhu Li answered just as loudly. It was an apt description, after all; they were swarming, annoying, and gross.

Oh, and because of the uniform, brown. Couldn’t forget that crucial visual detail.

“I wonder if they realize how unbecoming it is, to flock like officials smelling blood?” Chu Ran mused, putting a hand to his chin in false thought. “You know, Doctor… while I’ve never been in such large sectgrounds personally before, I was under the impression that there would be a lot for cultivators to do. Talisman-making, array maintenance, warding, and the likes, yes? Why, when we were in the Han Estate, they were always working on something or another. I had imagined that such a large sect would be even busier, but I suppose that I was wrong.”

Since rhetoricals didn’t need answers, Zhu Li shot a look at their surroundings, instead.

Like mosquitoes fleeing from cinnamon, the social roaches had greatly receded.

Too bad Zhu Li had never been great with double-speak. He’d have repelled these pests way earlier if he’d known.

When they reached the penitentiary, they were welcomed by the watchman at the gate’s door.

“Greetings, gentlemen,” the older man said, bowing a little. “You must be the Fourth Lord and Sect Head Xin. My name is Sen Ruanlin. What brings you here today?”

Zhu Li didn’t recognize the man nor his name. He was briefly curious as to why the other had recognized them, but then he figured that their physical descriptions—and physical closeness—had probably gotten around the sect by now. Especially since they were about the only ones not wearing the sect’s colors all the time.

As a show of regard, he bowed his head himself after he dismounted. “We’re here to interrogate the former Elders.”

Sen Ruanlin hummed in acknowledgement, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling. “That’s fine. Just remember that no physical torture is allowed, since they’re all dying of meridian withdrawal and that might just kill them faster.”

“Is that so?” Chu Ran chirped. His hand squeezed Zhu Li’s as he helped him down from his horse. “Hopefully mental torture won’t do the same. We have quite a lot of questions for these charlatans, you understand, and they’re quite important.”

The man tilted his head. He was regarding them both with an unreadable expression while he spoke. “That’s probably fine. My job is just to make sure none of them manage to hobble out of their cells and report any deaths, so there’s no need to tell me what you plan on doing.”

Then, he tapped the rightmost corner of his chin. “Their silencing oaths are all here. Put some qi in it, and it’ll temporarily deactivate. Just because they can talk to you doesn’t mean they will, though. They’re an angry and tight-lipped bunch.”

No love lost for the wicked, it seemed.

Thanking the man and heading inside the gates, horses in tow, Zhu Li used this time to peer up at the building.

It was difficult to tell what this place had once even been. Archives, maybe? That would explain the lack of windows on the two-story structure, as well as a lack of any feng shui or ambience. The thing was white stone, having only the most basic and strictly functional features attached to it.

Once they were inside, nothing was any better. It was dark, cramped, and gave even more of a dark, oppressive feeling than Wanming Court had. At least the latter was equipped with lights and decor—this one was equipped with blackness and more blackness.

Near the entrance was a rack of qi lanterns hanging on the wall. Unfortunately for Zhu Li, his qi-sense was too much of a sensory overload on top of being unrefined, so he was going to have to use one of these things to get around. Those motion-activated lights had been apparently deemed wasted in a place like this.

He pulled a variety of things out of his lapels: a brush, a pot of pre-ground and watered ink, and a blank book that had been pre-written with all of the former Elders’ names. What he left behind was a flask of emergency water, just in case that ink went dry.

Their plan was for Chu Ran to do a lot of the talking while Zhu Li did all of the writing. He’d specifically been asked to note the behaviors and reactions of those interrogated as opposed to their words. The point of doing so eluded him, but he was just going to trust the guy who had interrogation experience handle this. Watching over what had happened in the Han Estate hadn’t really imparted any skills unto him.

All of the former Elders been stripped of their rank, titles, family names, and Dao names, leaving just their given names hanging outside their individual cells on crude, unremarkable wooden plaques. While Zhu Li had no pity for people that had essentially left him to die, he couldn’t help but think that the total sum of their punishment—being rendered non-cultivators, muted, stripped of identity, then holed away to die quickly and alone—had been just a little excessive.

Thinking at it from another angle, however, it could be that their latest faux-pas had just been the perfect excuse for his mother to unload decades of hatred onto them all at once.

Hatred that very well might be justified, depending on what they found.

Their first stop was one single-character Hao. She was a woman with white hair, and already looked older than any cultivator would at their hundred-year mark. Qi withdrawal was no joke.

She glared at them both warily from her straw-stuffed and threadbare bed. The only things she had for company were some books, writing supplies, a plain side table, a bedpan, and a qi lantern. This here was a tiny room with no windows or shelves to speak of, and was maybe the size of a larger storage closet.

With no preamble, Chu Ran marched over to her, set his hand against that spot against her face, then injected qi into it. She’d tried to flinch away before all of that, her attempt inherently futile, and the new freedom made her punch out a raspy gasp.

“There we are. That was quite easy,” Chu Ran said. He backpedaled to retake his place by Zhu Li’s side, which was right in front of the door. “No time to explain properly, so I’ll be brief: If you cooperate with our questions, we will pull strings to make the time you have left in this world more bearable.”

She continued to glare at him. There was apparently no rush of instinct within her to jump at the chance for conversation after months of having none.

“What is your opinion of the late Meng Ruoxue?”

No answer. Not even a flinch.

“I heard that your little clique was quite the fan of her. She had a penchant for picking up loyal, if talentless dogs such as yourself to go barking on her behalf.”

No reaction again. Even so, Chu Ran chuckled.

“Oh, did I strike a nerve? I would apologize, but that would make me a liar, and a liar I am not. In any case, the good Doctor and I are here simply trying to solve an age-old mystery. Zhu Longmai says that her mother curiously erased someone from existence. Isn’t that rather ridiculous? Surely a noblewoman such as that wouldn’t do something so vile. Would you know anything further?”

Silence.

“Well, then. That’s too bad. Do let me know if you change your mind,” he said, spinning briskly on his heel. He continued to speak over his shoulder as he opened the door. “That qi will last a tick or two, if you’d like to mumble to yourself a little.—Come, Doctor Zhu. Let’s leave her to stew in darkness.”

Zhu Li blinked a bit in surprise, stepping back to make room for the door, before doing as he was told.

“Was that it?” he asked once the qi-sealed lock was back in place, sealing ‘Hao’ to her feet.

Chu Ran hummed, a smile on his lips. He idly pet the furs cloaking his shoulders. “We have very many ‘friends’ to go through, Doctor. Even being so brisk, this will take quite a while.”

Right. They had forty-nine disgraced Elders to go, and he didn’t want to drag this out another day if he didn’t have to. “You’re right. Should I… write anything for this one?”

“Oh, yes. The word ‘hopeless.’ Or just strike her name off of the ledger. Let’s not waste further time on ingrates.”

Zhu Li nodded slowly, then wrote it down as well as he could while still standing. He just wasn’t going to bother asking until everything was done.

This repeated thirty-six more times.

Zhu Li was now ready to snap someone’s neck and not feel bad about it.

Every last one of these old bastards was so tight-lipped, that even after all of this effort, Chu Ran and he hadn’t garnered a single scrap of usable information.

If they hadn’t been met with glares and silence, they’d been met with platitudes. If they hadn’t been met with platitudes, they’d been met with deflections. If they hadn’t been met with deflections, they’d been met with rudeness, and a hand on Zhu Li’s arm had been all that’d kept him from slapping faces.

What fucking gives? Zhu Li raged to himself as he struck the final word of ‘hopeless’ down onto the page by lanternlight. What’s the point of keeping quiet anymore? Are they that determined to take this to their graves? Are they just that big of assholes? I don’t get it.

That done, he sighed, dunked the brush into the emergency water to clean it, then put it into its case and stored it away. He looked over at Chu Ran, who looked way less frustrated than he felt and much more amused. What was there to smile about?

“Well, that quite the adventure, don’t you think?” the other finally said, tapping his lips with a… fan. What? Where the hell had that thing come from?

“Uh,” Zhu Li said like the intelligent being he was. He reeled his focus away from the mysteriously-appearing fan. “If your definition of an adventure is getting nothing thirty-seven times in a row, sure.”

The man giggled, his hand reaching out to find the crook of Zhu Li’s left elbow. “It isn’t, but that’s not the part that I’m referring to, my dear Doctor. An overwhelming majority of those old fogeys were completely useless—isn’t that strange, in and of itself?”

“I was just thinking that,” he muttered darkly. “Seems pointless to keep quiet about it.”

“Never underestimate stubbornness when it comes to pride,” Chu Ran said airily. “They have little left, but what they do have, they will defend to the death.”

Ugh. Annoying. Still… “You said that only the overwhelming majority of them were useless, but it feels like all of them were.”

“Haha, yes. All of them are stubborn, but some of them had weak spots they failed to conceal. Look through your notes again, Doctor Zhu, and tell me which ones were not hopeless.”

That was easy. The sum of names that hadn’t been struck out was a whopping three.

“Yang, Ling, and Chen,” he read off the sheet. “Chen apparently holds some kind of affection towards Meng Ruoxue. Yang you said was nervous when the funeral was brought up. Ling was just the most interested in not being in here anymore.”

“Yes. I predict those three being most useful in the future to figuring out this nice little mystery. That is, if you don’t mind a second day of this.”

Zhu Li absolutely did mind a second day of talking to the stupidest people alive. However, the prospect of getting answers overrode the potential headache.

“It wouldn’t make sense for you to get answers for my problems alone,” he grumbled. He clapped the book shut and tucked everything back into his lapels.

“Excellent! Your company never fails to make things more bearable, my good Doctor. Now that this nonsense has decimated quite a bit of our time, how about we find a restaurant? There’s rarely been a day where I’ve skipped both breakfast and lunch, yet here we are. I was just so excited to get back into interrogations, that I nearly forgot… Did I ever tell you that I’ve finished interrogating everyone regarding your framing case? Quite some time ago, in fact. I’ve rather missed the feeling of messing with people.”

Zhu Li unhooked the qi lantern from his belt and hung it back up on the rack. “You didn’t. I know you did it, but I didn’t know that it was… something so regular. Or liked.”

Deng Xia and the Han Estate debacle had told him that his choice of paramour was more than capable of proper interrogation, after all.

“The art of interrogation is one I cherish immensely. After all, I can do precious little else on account of the lack of interest or talent. Wringing out confessions is what comes most natural. I have been thinking about what else I could do with this life of mine, yet have unfortunately been coming up blank. Is there such a thing as a professional interrogator? Perhaps that’s just a bailiff or royal guard. Hm, but I don’t much care for the paperwork of that. Though I suppose I could always use the fact that I’ll never see it to my advantage…”

Extreme disapproval had arisen within Zhu Li after that second sentence, but where Chu Ran would usually stop and ask him what he’d done to displease him, he continued to prattle on. This wasn’t an isolated instance, either. A debate on whether or not the necklace was worth the trouble now waged inside of his head.

It went on until, partway through their horseback ride to the nearest restaurant, a hand on his arm snapped him out of it.

He looked over to see that Chu Ran had urged his horse as close as he’d dared to lean over and grab his arm. His brows her furrowed in question.

“Are you alright, Doctor? I’ve been speaking to you, but you haven’t been answering me.”

Case in point. Chu Ran would have sensed the turmoil within him and not spoken to thin air, otherwise.

“I’m just thinking,” Zhu Li answered. “White Sky is coming up ahead.”

White Sky was the largest and most upscale restaurant in the sect, granted that the honor only mattered so much in what was essentially a small town of utilitarian people. The proprietor was a nice enough man that Zhu Li had met a couple of times. He was also intimidatingly sharp and could plan ahead like a true master; if he were planning attacks in a war instead of sourcing and stowing ingredients for every year, he could take over the world.

Ignoring how sects never allowed war even amongst civilians, that was. The last time a Jin Emperor had threatened civil war, all of the cultivators had come out of the shadows to tell him that they’d behead him if he tried. None had tried their luck since.

Anyway, he was sort of questioning the wisdom of coming to this godsforsaken place, but there weren’t any other restaurants close enough.

With their horses posted, the server inside happily led them to a partitioned-off table. The conversations going throughout the rest of the restaurant’s hall were still audible, but walls and folding screens blocked the prying eyes that had been hounding them this whole time.

The instant they were seated and the server left with their orders, Zhu Li let an involuntary, beleaguered sigh out of nose.

“Oh? Are we tired?” Chu Ran asked playfully, leaning forwards on his hands. “It’s too late in the day for darker teas. Unless you wish to be up later than usual?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m probably immune to tea’s effects at this point.”

“How so?”

“Years of late nights working or researching.”

“Hm. Strange. Were you not the one telling me to take care of myself better?”

Zhu Li rolled his eyes fondly. Not like Chu Ran could see it. “I quit doing it regularly after I left the Caves. The immunity’s still there, though.”

“That’s a shame. If I was immune to tea, I might never be in a good mood again.”

“I bet you wouldn’t. I’ve never seen anyone that grumpy in the mornings that isn’t just grumpy always.”

“It’s an unattractive trait, though I do believe I have you beat in that I’ve never seen anyone at all.”

“…Hilarious. Maybe you should be a stage clown instead of a bailiff.”

“Hm. Not a terrible idea, is it? If you travel as a doctor and I travel as an actor, it’ll be perfect.”

“Do you know what goes into acting? Especially in a cultivator troupe?”

“Not exactly. Why?”

“Research it first.”

“Such ominous words. But I will heed them.”

Zhu Li opened his mouth to say something else. When something familiar hit his ear, though, he trailed off and listened.

A group of people had just entered the restaurant. Every single voice that came up from them was one he recognized from a group of gossipy old cunts that had a habit of talking loudly and rudely. Especially in this restaurant, on account of its open layout.

They were still doing this, were they? This ‘let’s meet up for dinner and talk shit about people that have nothing to do with us and might not even know we exist’ nonsense? And no one had broken their noses over it? Some things just didn’t change.

His and Chu Ran’s food was quick to arrive after that. No surprise there—White Sky mostly made bulk stews in the winter with dried components, so it wasn’t like there was much preparation to go through. From fish to venison to herbs to vegetables to stock on ice, nothing was too out of reach to end up in a stew here.

Chu Ran wasted no time digging in, happily slurping away at his brew. Zhu Li was a lot slower, his mind too preoccupied to be hungry.

This was exactly why he hadn’t been thrilled to see or go to White Sky. It was the common loitering grounds of some of the sect’s worst gossips due to its large tables and open layout; he’d been hoping that they might take a break for tonight, but fate had just scoffed at his assumptions.

Whatever. Hopefully those noisy decrepits hadn’t seen them come in.

“So,” Chu Ran started between a few bites, “how would you feel about meeting Zheng Tonghao again?”

Zhu Li looked up from the food bits he was absent-mindedly pushing around the bowl. “What?”

“Sometime after this trip—very soon after it, I imagine—she’ll be joining us in Zhongling for a nice and fairly vital chat, with some nice and fairly vital evidence. I have plenty of evidence already, granted, but it’s good to be thorough when decimating one’s foe. Some benevolent manipulation would be nice to provoke her into fessing up more.”

Echoes from a conversation long past started bouncing around in Zhu Li’s head. Shit.

“That soon, huh.” He sighed, his free hand pushing his loose hair back. “You’re only bringing this up now, when you knew before we left?”

“Ah, I’ve been caught with my tail out. I apologize, but it did only just reoccur to me.” Chu Ran tilted his head while wearing an expression detailing how he wasn’t sorry in the least. “My question stands regardless. How do you feel meeting her?”

“Neutrally.”

“Hmmm. I did do some research into Miss Zheng, I’ll have you know; she’s supposedly a renowned painter in spite of her young age, as well as the fact that she displays her works only rarely. She’s also considered the most beautiful woman in Xiyuan, and a very talented cultivator. A noble lady of many talents.”

He stopped there with a small smile on lips. It was like he was waiting for a response, though Zhu Li wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be responding to.

“Uh… yeah. I knew she was a great painter and strong swordswoman. Why are you bringing that up now?”

A pause ensued. A somewhat awkward one, in fact.

“My good Doctor, you seem to have glossed over the ‘most beautiful woman’ part. As I recall, you yourself have been labeled the most handsome man in the land by anyone that’s seen you. Many seem to believe that that detail makes you perfect for each other.”

“Looks can’t make up for personal flaws. And she has at least one really bad one,” Zhu Li dryly remarked. “Seriously, what is this about?”

“I’m only gauging your reaction to Miss Zheng, as you were rather upset by even the thought of her before. Though I must say that doing so is rather hard with that necklace around.”

That could also possibly be phrased as, ‘I hate that thing. Can you not wear it?’

“You could just ask me like a normal person, Yingliu. It’s not like I’d lie.”

Chu Ran tilted his head with a cheeky smile. “But that takes the fun out of speculation, Doctor. How am I meant to second-guess your actions and my own self if you’re bluntly honest?”

“…Do you want to do that?”

“It’s not the most entertaining way to pass my time. So, how do you feel about talking to Miss Zheng again?”

Zhu Li shook his head. Chu Ran’s thought processes would probably never make sense to him. “Neutrally. I got over it a while ago. Especially since we were never going to work out.”

“Never?”

“Yeah. Never.”

“Not even if she agreed to go on your travels? That was the lone problem, wasn’t it?”

A sigh left Zhu Li’s lips. “That she’d never agree to it was the problem.”

Chu Ran hummed with a puzzled lilt, his expression telling him that he better elaborate.

“It’s just…” Zhu Li put his forehead in his hand, abandoning his spoon to clatter against the bowl. “Since I don’t have a—uh, I thought I didn’t have a sect, it made sense that she would want me to stay with her. But that would also make me leaving the sect in the first place moot. She never really wrapped her head around that. It was like she… I don’t know, like she was always expecting to be able to convince me to give that up. The way she spoke kind of implied that she thought I was being stupid by not taking her up on her offer.”

“Hm. Was she always like that?”

“No. I don’t think she realized how she was coming off. Painting was just really important to her, and I guess she never understood that healing was just as important to me. Painting on the road would’ve been hell for her, anyway.”

“Ah, I get it. Being together would have required sacrifices neither of you were willing to make. How unfortunate for her; she may be regretting her decision to stay put all too soon.”

Some alarm—just a tiny bit—shot through Zhu Li. “You think she’ll be caught up in this?”

“Only by proxy. She plans to cooperate, so if she’s truly blameless in all of this, I’ll lift a corner of the net for her to slip through. If she’s not blameless, then she helped to frame you and deserves no sympathy.”

Zhu Li felt a headache coming on. He’d already thought all he’d wanted to think about Zheng Tonghao by now, and digging this up was just putting him in a foul-ish mood. “I get it,” he said quietly. “I’ll talk to her if you need me to, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re strangers now.”

“That’s good.”

Then, Chu Ran went quiet, which was definitely odd. Hm.

I feel like I’m missing something, Zhu Li thought as he carefully observed his counterpart’s odd expression. I also feel some deja vu. Didn’t we talk about Zheng Tonghao already? Maybe that was Junyan… no, I’ve definitely talked to Yingliu about this before. He’s not forgetful—except for when it comes to remembering to take care of his damn self, I guess—so why would he bring her up again? Did something change?… Oh.

As per Zhu Li’s own personal policy, he was letting his actions speak instead of his words. Only recently had those actions shifted in any sort of noticeable way.

Was Chu Ran trying to probe out his intentions? Maybe that ‘second-guess your actions’ thing hadn’t just been a joke. Now was as good a time as any to be frank.

He took a deep breath, opened his mouth to speak, and—

“…hear about what… Zhu’s Fourth…”

One extremely grating, unfortunately recognizable voice cut itself into his mind, its contents thus bringing all of his higher thoughts to a halt.

A cool feeling swept through his gut. Nothing good ever came when those gossipers started up about him.

He should ignore them. He should. They and everyone else’s words were a poison that stuck around longer than they had a right to. The best choice would be to put them out of sight and out of mind for good.

But turning a deaf ear to things like this hadn’t worked out well for him before. Sure, the stakes for this were different, but wasn’t the essence the same? If he didn’t know the gossip’s contents, they would inevitably blindside him in some awful way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chu Ran also turn his ear towards the gossip. The man himself likely had no idea that this was tantamount to an endorsement.

Zhu Li’s mouth clacked back shut. He tuned his ears to a place beyond the partitions, across the room.

“…lot of nerve, showing up here after he left. Apparently, he was never officially removed from the registry. Can you believe that?”

“Zhu Longmai clearly thinks her own family is above the rules. Typical!”

He clenched his fists tighter. The gall of them for not referring to the former Sect Head as her title. Who did these pricks think they were?

You know who they think they are, he thought. Enforcers of their own made-up status quo. Filthy gossipers with words covered in slime. Cowards.

“I heard that no paperwork was ever filed for anyone, actually,” the voice of his main tormenter, Yang Bintong, raked across his mind like a broken qin strong. “Even that foul Zhu Qiongqi could walk right back in here.”

“I heard that the Fourth Zhu has been attracting eyes lately,” whispered the woman’s past words in his head. “I wonder who’s going to be the lucky one?”

“Tch, that invalid?” Zhang Maoze’s gruff voice picked up. “She’d have to find her way back here first. Also, the fact that the new Sect Head isn’t rectifying her mother’s mistakes just lends credibility to that one theory you brought up, Paotong. What was it again? Flaws run in families?”

Zhu Li remembered passing this very restaurant during an errand he was running for the infirmary. While doing so, he’d heard Zhang Maoze said, “It’s been months of marriage requests, yet the Fourth Zhu has yet to respond to any of them. Not even the courtesy of a rejection letter! Young ones have no respect anymore.”

He remembered how his stomach had flipped at being mentioned, at being critiqued, and how he’d shrunk in on himself.

“Right. Irresponsibility runs in that one,” yet another person picked up. “The mother doesn’t uphold the law, the Eldest doesn’t fix anything, the Second takes nothing seriously and flirts with everyone all day, the Third never shows her face, the Fourth just up an abandoned everything, and the Fifth is too busy playing with animals to do any real work. Like mother, like children, indeed.”

By the end of that, he was trembling uncontrollably in rage, fists clenched so that his nails dug into his palms. That sharp pain was the only thing keeping him from bolting out of his seat and strangling all of those old fuckers where they sat.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong—everything they said was either completely wrong, a gross misrepresentation of the truth, or none of their business to begin with.

“Not that the father’s much better,” Yang Bintong nearly hissed. “He doesn’t do anything to help the sect, just sits around and meditates or plays music. Useless, that man.”

The only thing that stopped Zhu Li from flying out of here and throwing punches was Chu Ran’s hands pressing down on his fists, gently pinning him to the table.

He quickly looked up to read the other’s expression, but it was mostly blank, slightly pained if he squinted.

“This was a lot of what I heard the other day on my own,” Chu Ran whispered, the drone of the decrepits’ cruel words fading against the melody of his voice. “When the gossip wasn’t benign, it was this. Often were the same horrible things repeated over and over again, as if they couldn’t get enough of hearing them. It’s not something I understand, but… well, a spot of advice, good Doctor; if you wish to hear this at all, then you may want to listen to the very end. I’m loathe to say that there’s more coming up.”

As if on cue, the shrill voice of that one woman, that singular adult bully he knew so well, scratched at his ears yet again.

“Like father, like son, too. Standoffish, like someone’s prized flowers. The young one was blessed with looks, yet never gave anyone who approached him the time of day. Must have felt himself too good for the rabble just because the Dao blessed him. Hah!”

Such familiar complaints. Such a familiar presumption that he’d felt himself to be ‘too good’ for others, when the reality was that he’d been overwhelmed by the unwanted attention. Why should he have dedicated hours of his time brushing out rejection letters to the dozens of love letters or proposals he’d gotten, none of which he’d asked for? Training to be a doctor took time, a lot of it. None of it could be spared fixing problems he hadn’t created.

But these people never cared about that. They never really cared about him as a person. They cared about appearances and manners and other words they didn’t know the proper definitions of, all for the sake of social status.

“Too bad that he wasn’t taught how to have proper courtesy.” It was one of the others speaking again. “Beauty seems to always be wasted on poor moral characters. Perhaps it’s meant to be a sign to stay away, like the brightly-colored scales of a viper.”

Yeah, it is. So stay the fuck away from me and stop talking about me, he wanted to shout at them. Listening to this was digging up way too many bad memories that made his teeth grind together.

“Although… have you all seen that man he’s been seen with as of late?”

All at once, Zhu Li felt his heart stop, soon followed by its beats ticking up in pace.

“Ah, that one?” Yang Bintong said. “A man. Such a shame that no children are coming from the Fourth anytime soon. He would have made someone a pretty gaggle of grandchildren.”

“His alleged choice is the leader of the Xin Sect, I’ve heard. An information gatherer.”

“Do we know why they’re acquainted?”

“The Xin leader helped him out of jail, apparently. It’s an understandable reason to be attached, but I have to say that they don’t exactly… suit each other.”

“I know what you mean. Like a sleek, feather-eared hound striding alongside a homely roughskin. The Fourth could have done much better than that.”

“Did you see the Xin leader as he skulked around the sect earlier? I ran into him, myself, and that dead stare was just unnerving. There’s something off about the man. When I heard him speak to the others, he had a surprising lack of tact. I can’t imagine him being much of a leader of anything.”

“I heard he’s a son of that unsavory Chu Haoyu. It’s just as we’ve been saying; flaws run in families. A lot of those were probably passed down that bloodline, and that’s why good backgrounds and breeding are so important.“

“The Fourth certainly doesn’t have any taste, in that case—“

Rushing blood deafened Zhu Li’s world at last.

His chair was shoved back into the wall behind him. The nearest partition was all but bowled over, falling to the ground. His footsteps thundered as he took long, quick strides across the hall. Shoulders squared, fist clenched, teeth gritted, and eyes practically aflame, raw fury came off of him in waves he only half-felt leave him.

The noise he made had already alerted the slanderers. Eight pairs of widened eyes turned to him in succession, the last occurring just before he reached them, raised a palm above his head, then brought it down hard upon the table, immediately sending cracks throughout its surface.

All of the cups, bowls, plates, and so on jumped half a chi into the air from the force. Some cracked when they landed, but most tipped and spilled, their contents merging together into a disgusting slurry that spilled into the cracks, down to the floor, and onto clothes.

Seven out of the eight Elders were too cowed by his outburst to react in time. The eighth one had the gall to start, “You—“

“Shut up, you fucking waste of skin.”

Venom drenched each word as he spat them out. Indignation that he’d been repressing for years was seething beneath his skin in a threat to splash out and burn everyone around him.

Any other time, he’d try to put a lid on his temper. Right now, he was fully willing to let it boil over, its steam disgorging from his skin.

“You’re all wastes of skin,” he continued, “and by this time tomorrow, you’re not going to be in this sect anymore.”

Shouts of protest promptly cropped up, but a quick and sweeping glare silenced the cowards. And of course they were cowards—they were bold enough to whisper into the shadows, speak where they thought no one important would hold them accountable, or coat their words to give themselves plausible deniability, yet not enough to resist any sort of confrontation.

Good. They should feel afraid. They should feel as cowed and nervous as they’d made teenage-him. The thought calmed him ever-so-slightly.

Taking a deep breath, he retracted his hand and stood tall, crossing his arms. “You were pretty confident just a minute ago. Why do you look like a bunch of scared rabbits now?”

Two of the old folk were sane enough to look abashed. The rest had recollected their imperious nature enough to stab him with needly glowers in response.

“Juniors grow wiser when they show respect to their seniors,” one of the elders Zhu Li didn’t recognize said. He’d heard her speak earlier, however. How bold of a stranger to talk so confidently of a stranger. “You should mind your tongue.”

“Mind your own tongue. Last I checked, there was nothing respectable about a bunch of gray-haired lechers talking about how people a fraction of their age look.”

The statement sent shockwaves around. “How dare you?!”, “That’s crossing the line!”, and other such objections rose up around him.

“You think what I said’s uncalled for,” he dryly repeated past their cacophony of bullshit, voice raised so that he’d be heard. “Then tell me why describing me as some kind of stud horse is called for.”

Yang Bintong scoffed. “Don’t be dramatic. Isn’t it natural that we’d speak of what goes on in the sect? You don’t have any respect for the natural order, so—“

“What natural order? That sounds like civilian talk. Are you going to start saying that women need to stay indoors and the lower classes should be kept out of sight?”

“Cease the dramatics, Fourth Zhu. We just worry about what the future of the sect will look like. Discussing what’s happening with major figures here is inevitable. Do you want us to never speak of those who’ll help to run the sect in the future?”

Trying to minimize your actions, huh? Zhu Li internally mocked. You’re not getting away with that anymore.

“Not that any of you deserve an explanation,” he replied, not bothering to hide his exasperation, “but there’s a huge difference between spreading news and repeating malicious slander. You all probably should have spent time learning it a few decades ago.”

His lips curled into a sneer. “You also should have focused more on your cultivation instead of talking shit about your juniors. That’s a lot of wrinkles and gray hairs.”

Comments about his rudeness came up in waves. Even so, there was an undercurrent of embarrassment going throughout, and he knew he’d poked some sore spots.

Someone having poor cultivation could mean anything. Poor teachings, poor resources, poor luck, not enough time, or simply being born with no capacity for it—the list went on, but by far and above, the two most common reasons were ‘incompetence’ and ‘immorality.’

Be too stupid, and one would never comprehend the Dao or find their path. Be too immoral, too caught up in other people’s business to improve oneself, and the Dao would not bequeath anything. Without the Dao’s blessing, one’s cultivation would not slow the effects of aging enough, and… well, it would be obvious in a few decades who wasn’t cut out for this.

And none of these gossipy, annoyingly noisy badmouthers were.

“I said shut up,” he snapped out when their talking started to genuinely hurt his ears. “Nothing you say anymore is going to keep you in this sect. What I heard before is more than enough to get you exiled, and if you don’t know why, that’s also proof.”

Some faces showed surprise, fear, confusion. Not Yang Bintong’s, though. She was too proud to do anything other than scrunch up her nose, narrow her nasty little eyes, and look at him like he was a misbehaving child. “Don’t spout nonsense, Fourth. We haven’t done anything.”

He looked down upon her right back. “You have, actually. You’ve done a lot. The sect rules didn’t change after I left, which means you’re all either stupid enough to forget them and therefore don’t belong here, or you’re arrogant enough to think they don’t apply to you and therefore don’t belong here. Pick one.”

Rage reddened her face. Before her fish mouth could open and spout some denial, he held up a palm to cut her off. “Save it. Our ancestors knew for centuries that bad faith gossip would only hurt the sect, so there’s been rules against it for that long. The only reason you’ve gotten away with it this long is because it wasn’t enforced. Remember how that law about not talking about me wasn’t actually a joke?”

Her and a few others’ faces went green, likely due to the memory of receiving the rod for their words in the past.

“It was an unreasonable rule to begin with,” Zhang Maoze weakly argued.

“No, what was unreasonable was every single person around my age harassing me every time I left the Zhu Estate. Even more unreasonable were their elders that refused to have shame and do anything about it. You can mock it as ridiculous and over-the-top all you want—the fact of the matter is that you morons taught your juniors so poorly, they all forgot what proper boundaries were.”

“That’s hardly—“

“The worst part is that you don’t learn,” he growled with a sudden vehemence. “You don’t think. None of you have ever reflected on yourselves. You’re still the same assholes now that you were when I was five, ten, fifteen, and twenty, and I’d bet money on you still being the same when I’m thirty. If you haven’t died of old age by then.—I swear on the Dao itself that if you keep fucking trying to talk, I’m going to rip all your tongues out myself.”

That seemed to cow them into reluctantly snapping their teeth together. Good thing, too, because his barely-there patience was not holding up well.

Letting a breath out of his nose, he said, “In my capacity as the Fourth Lord, you’re all hereby stripped of your ranks for the crime of malicious slander. I suggest getting out of the sect by midnight, unless you want to rot alongside your friends in the penitentiary.”

Yang Bintong opened her mouth, her low and dangerous voice spreading across the room. “You don’t have the right to do that, young man. Has your time outside introduced deviant thoughts into your head? The company one keeps helps to shape our morality. I’ve heard smatterings of how Xin Yingliu behaves, and th—mmgh!“

Zhu Li’s hand had shot out on its own and latched onto her face like a vice, pulling her slightly forward from across the table. While his short fingernails dug into the flesh of her cheeks and her mouth was covered firmly by his palm, her eyes widened in fear and horror.

He couldn’t see his own face, but he could feel how it twisted up hideously alongside the swell of his emotions.

Great wisdom sometimes looked like stupidity. Other times, great stupidity just looked like stupidity. Many people in history had been alleged death-courters, but it was rare to find someone that genuinely didn’t have the intelligence to keep themselves alive.

How Yang Bintong had not gotten the message to keep her mouth shut and not insult an extremely angry man—especially one not typically prone to either excessive anger or violence—who was right in her face would be a mystery for ages to come.

Countless words of distilled fury eddied through Zhu Li’s head. Ironically, he was too furious to grasp many of them, leaving him to breathe hard through the near burn that took him over.

When he finally grasped onto something, it naturally came out in a deep growl interspersed with : “Keep his name out of your mouth, you piece of shit.”

He shoved her backwards hard enough to pitch her out of her chair and onto the floor, where she landed in a graceless, yelping heap. Any rebuke he could have garnered from these half-witted loudmouths were dead in their throats, which doubtlessly spawned from their still-functioning survival instincts.

“Be out of here by midnight,” he continued to grind out. “All of you. I know your faces and your names. If I ever see you again, I’ll make you wish I could kill you.”

With that said, he quickly spun around and left the restaurant altogether for the sake of preserving his sanity. As he passed the barrier of a heat-containing array, a burst of clarifying cold hit him in the face.

And Chu Ran’s face almost hit him in the chin.

The other had since relocated himself to the outdoors. When the other recovered from the near-collision, his face inadvertently pointed up, and the expression he donned was so out-of-character, it gave Zhu Li pause.

His usual smile was nowhere to be seen. He looked wide-eyed and concerned, both things he’d never been before now.

A sudden squeal broke Zhu Li out of his confusion. He looked over to see the restaurant’s stablehand valiantly trying to keep his hold on Guhui’s reins, but the mare was thrashing her neck against his hold and pushing back. A mortal in his position would have long been flung to the side.

Zhu Li’s heart picked up a bit. While Guhui could be foolhardy, her actions were never this exaggerated without reason. What had spooked her?

“Ah, the Lady was already angry when I got out here,” Chu Ran supplied, turning in the struggling stablehand’s direction. “What angered her, I’m not too sure. There aren’t any other horses in the stable other than mine, nor did I sense anything amiss, and yet she broke the fence trying to get out. It’s quite odd…”

Following that, he turned that disconcertingly worried look back to Zhu Li. Why would—

No. He could feel the agitation still stabbing at him from beneath his skin. They needed to get out of here sooner than him losing his shit again.

Turning around in a whirl, he vaguely registered Chu Ran calling out to him as he stormed to Guhui, snatched the reins out of the stablehand’s grasp with a mumbled apology, then led the now-compliant horse to the entrance. Why she’d gotten mad and why she wasn’t anymore was not a concern in his mind.

He mounted, threw a “We’re leaving” over his shoulder, and spurred his steed down the cobbled road without waiting up for him.

His upset could only be held back for so long. While he rode through the streets, the loud clacking of Guhui’s hooves on rock echoing throughout the mostly-cleared spaces, thoughts lifted themselves from the dark recesses he’d once banished them to.

There’d been whispers behind his back, eyes peering at him from behind corners, judgements about every single thing he ever did, all because… what? He hadn’t conformed to expectations? To make him look bad? It made his head hurt to even try to comprehend their motives.

Nevermind that he hadn’t known any of the gossipers personally. Nevermind that what they’d said in sum had been stupid and ultimately inconsequential. The fact of the matter was that he’d had to deal with anxiety, the worry of what cruel things people were saying about him, as a kid, and he hadn’t needed to.

From a certain perspective, he should probably thank Yang Bintong and her ilk for forcing him to learn how not to care.

Guhui let out an angered whinny and began to charge forward more fiercely, her flying mane glowing from the surrounding lanternlight. Everything about her right now was a representation of what he felt and wanted to do, a true spirit of wanting to tire himself out and run.

The burning in his gut went infinitesimally down with every cold breath he took. At the Zhu Estate’s doors, he was just un-angered enough to not have the desire to chuck shit around indiscriminately. Speed-walking his way back to his Court with his equine bodyguard on his heels was still fine.

Woefully, his stampede across the Estate’s grounds was stopped by someone grabbing his arm at just the halfway mark. He partially turned, doing all he could to suppress the instinct to yank his arm out of that grip.

It was Chu Ran, of course. His hair looked windswept and unkempt; his breathing was faster than normal. He’d clearly rushed to catch up with Zhu Li in his almost mindless rage.

“Haa… Goodness, Doctor, you’re fast on your feet when riled up,” he puffed out. “Perhaps I need to work on my agility to keep up with you.”

That innocent comment slapped shame right onto Zhu Li’s face. The realization that he’d completely lost his composure in front of someone whose opinion he cared very much about finally overshadowed his primal desire to be mad and stay mad.

Shit. Why had he let them get to him? Now he looked like a hysterical fool.

Embarrassment and anger blended together in his gut. Stings went through his palms due to how tightly he was clenching his fists.

“Oh? Why that reaction?” Chu Ran asked, tugging him so that he faced him fully. “Do you feel bad for something? I can scarcely imagine why. Those that should talk the least always seem to talk the most, don’t they? They invert yin and yang like it means nothing.”

Rekindled ire made Zhu Li’s brow twitch. Truer words had rarely been spoken.

His negativity was cut off when he beheld Chu Ran letting him go, then reaching both hands up to either side of his face, settling against him, and gently tipping his head down.

Bump.

Their foreheads touched, and all other thoughts left Zhu Li’s mind at once.

“There, there,” Chu Ran hummed. His light breath blew gently against Zhu Li’s face, contributing to the warmth that was building up in the intimate space between them. “They aren’t worth such an emotional maelstrom, are they?”

No. Logically, they weren’t. But the heart rarely listened to logic when decades of unaired grievances were at one’s back.

It also wasn’t listening in regards to this new development. In fact, it seemed divided on whether he should lean into this, keep being mad, or straight-up burst into flames for some reason.

“Come, now. Don’t clench your fists so tightly… and take deep breaths. Your qi will go into disarray if this keeps up, and if some major issue arises from that, I may just have to go back out there and skewer them through their stomachs.”

Uh. Hm. Violence wasn’t the most romantic thing in the world, but it was the sentiment that counted. Especially when it settled something restless within him.

Screwing his eyes shut, he started breathing in evenly through his nostrils, allowing the refreshing coolness to fill his chest.

They’re not worth it, he told himself. They’re not worth a single thing, they don’t mean a single thing, and they’ll be gone soon enough. Let it go.

And so he did.

Tension he wasn’t even aware that he had left him in increments. His fingers unflexed, the small crescents he’d cut into his palms now exposed to the air. Once it was all gone, he sighed heavily, opening his eyes again.

Chu Ran’s face was too close to be anything but blurry. He reached up to wrap his fingers around the other’s wrists, then just let them sit there, basking in the closeness they shared.

He was suddenly very, very tired.

“This place isn’t good for my health,” he tonelessly truth-told.

Chu Ran hummed. “There’s no need to confront tigers when your own side is full of snakes.—Ah, that saying would be quite literal in this situation, wouldn’t it? Though the actual snakes here are much more laidback and useful than the metaphorical ones. Perhaps we don’t give the chubby little pest-eaters enough credit.”

Zhu Li had to smile weakly at that. “We probably don’t.”

A gentle, companionable atmosphere settled around them. Although he was as calm as he was going to get after the fiasco that was this blighted day, Chu Ran was in no rush to let go of him, and he was in no hurry to pull away.

Until Guhui—surely feeling left out—put her hairy lips on Chu Ran’s face, making him yelp and dodge the side in surprise.

Cold abruptly replaced warmth as Chu Ran’s hands fell away. It immediately gave Zhu Li a sense of significant loss. He turned to narrow his eyes balefully at the unwelcome, moment-ruining mare, who lifted her lips to show him her teeth.

“My goodness,” Chu Ran remarked while rubbing the cheek that had been disgraced by lip hairs. “Lady Guhui, you must always ask permission before you kiss someone. Such boorish behavior is quite unbecoming of a noble.”

She snorted at him and flicked her tail.

Zhu Li gave her an unhappy look. Why had she felt the need to interrupt? And why the hell was she trying to steal a kiss before he’d even gotten to?

(It wasn’t that deep because she was a horse, of course, but it was still the principle of the matter.)

---

The author says: you can’t steal my first kiss! you’re a horse!!!
(sorry if there’s a dip in quality this chapter, you wouldn’t believe the hellish writer’s block i had for the damn thing. i don’t even know why.)

updates will be monday and friday now! hopefully.

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