A lot of things went into preparing me for my abrupt reintroduction to the world of cultivation.
Most of them were not at all the ones I'd been expecting.
"I beg your pardon?" I told my impromptu instructor with a not-quite-begging tone.
"Stop wasting your time," she repeated with a tone that begged for a complimentary pinch of the nose bridge.
"I am training," I replied with… I would dare to say a modicum of dignity.
Or, at least, close to begging for it.
… For all the good it did me when an elegantly plucked blonde eyebrow slowly rose as Xia gave me an undisguisedly critical look that meticulously went from my tense shoulders, to the hands that should have been effortlessly hovering like clouds over my slightly bent knees, to the unsightly tremor that said knees had fallen into after a mere few seconds of me trying to perform the torture method quite aptly named Standing Like a Post.
Given the skeptical stare that assaulted my masculine pride when my lady's eyes returned to mine, said torture may have been slightly less useful for the purposes of qi gathering than my father used to claim.
"You are trembling like a leaf about to fall off the branch, except with less vigor," she condemned.
My shoulders didn't fall in crestfallen humiliation, but that was only because my muscles already were, in fact, bereft of all vigor.
She held my gaze for what felt like an eternity (mostly due to the excruciating pain ravaging my joints), and then, of course, she stepped forward and managed to stop even my quivering breath with…
With the proximity of a very fit woman wearing her training gear, which amounted to an ensemble of pants and a short-sleeved shirt, both woven out of viridian silk that fell over her curves like cascading water, with the knotted, off-center fasteners doing nothing but strain and hint at what they futilely tried to contain.
"Wu… No. Just no," she said before her finger rose up and pushed down on the middle of my chest, making me fell back with what I would never describe as a squawk right before she caught the front of my thick tunic and stopped me, my whole bodyweight hanging from an unmovable fist that all notions of physics dictated should have followed me toward a swift reacquaintance with the training hall's wooden floor, no matter how strong her grip and stable her posture.
But when had natural law ever failed to bow to the whims of cultivators?
"I thought I was supposed to be training?"
The risen eyebrows fell into a flat, mildly pitying, fully condemning line that brought attention to green eyes warmed by the tones of the rising sun softened through the paper screen of the door that guarded this room in the middle of the compound, the one most carefully aligned with the flow of energy that descended from the top of the Empress' tower, the core of the palace watching from the peak of the mountain around which the entirety of the Jade Hive revolved—no longer literally, though.
Once, the compounds of the noble lines afforded the privilege of a place on the second-highest terrace of Yaozhu were shuffled around daily, nudged away or toward the richest veins of qi running alongside the cascading four rivers that divided the city and the very realm below. Entire households floated away from the spire under the Porcelain Pagoda and toward the very edge of the platform standing above the wealthy quarters of magistrates, craftsmen, and scholars whose good standing saved them from the ignominy of the merchant district or those even further… fallen.
Representatives and heirs alike had learned to fear the displeasure of the imperial throne, as the ones who claimed the Mandate of Heaven made a spectacle of those who merited a public display of their changed position among the ranks of aristocracy.
That had been two generations ago.
Nobody dared question why the practice had stopped.
"Injuring yourself in a boneheaded attempt at trying to show off is not training," she finally said, right as my musings on the urban planning of the Jade Hive had headed in a dangerously interesting direction.
"I'm not trying to—"
"Then listen to me rather than try to do… this."
An exasperated hand waved at the body hanging more or less limply from her unmovable grasp.
My embarrassment was quickly turning to annoyance.
"I was merely going through a warm-up routine."
She sighed.
"Wu… do you really think I need you to become a wrestler, of all things?"
It was implied in both the tone, the wording, and the casual way in which she dragged my hanging torso without any sign of strain, that I was expected to reply in the negative.
"Body and mind are ever so intrinsically linked—"
"It's your mind that I need."
Xia was close.
… As should've been easily surmised by the fact that she was still gripping the lapels of my tunic with a single deceivingly dainty fist.
What stood out to me at that moment, though, was the sheer intensity in her eyes. The way that I could no longer feel the cool air of the morning in the training hall as it once again filled with a heat and warmth that would never stop feeling stolen. The presence of the blonde girl bearing down on me, pressing on my skin, making me feel…
Needed. Truly needed.
A heat all of my own surged up the sides of my neck, and I cursed the way that my cheekbones flamed under her eyes.
It… It took a lot out of me to catch her adamant wrist and pull myself up, to look down at her as I fooled myself into believing that her own cheeks tinted at least a fraction as deep as mine.
"All right. Tell me what you need, my lady."
A thrill of fulfillment rushed in at the thought that, maybe, she had nervously swallowed at that point.
Though I could not even begin to fathom why she would have done so.
━❖━
So. There were a lot of steps that went into preparing me for my new duties in my lady's stead.
The wooden crates cracking and splintering on the other side of the currently pyrotechnical wall remind me of just one such step.
Repressing any kind of outward expression, extra care taken despite my face still being carefully hidden beneath my white mask, I fold the empty sack of explosives and stow it away in the satchel disguised among the ostentatious folds that my pauldrons shape my black cloak into.
A brigand may have hidden knives, sabers, or even a reasonably long sword under such a silhouette-obfuscating ensemble. I had seen stage curtains more revealing than the clothes my lady had deemed adequate for this first outing of ours, and…
And I still can't help the thrill of nerves and other contemptible things that go down my spine at the thought that we may one day go against a cultivator apt enough to peer past this costume and see me, Wu, the average scribe.
My anonymity, my irrelevance, how unlikely it is that my visage will ever be known to any such master, is the second shield that protects us from an early unmasking and the persecution that will inevitably follow.
The third shield…
I brush my fingers against one of the talismans sown into the satin lining of my cloak, a cold, disagreeable sensation tingling once more past skin and through bone as the flowing characters and abstract shapes keep draining away my energy and turning it into a bubble that separates me from the world outside black velvet folds, delineating an impenetrable border meant to dim my spark of cultivation into a void that only a true adept can push through.
This makes me come across, ironically enough, as a master myself—one with such a thorough grasp of his own energies that not even a whisper of life carries past what is in truth a stealth enchantment usually too weak to disguise any trainee with the slightest proficiency in the art.
The fact that I am too weak myself to accidentally break the enchantment is… a mixed blessing.
At best.
It is also the reason why I am now looking for crates to pile up so that I can climb this side of the wall rather than acrobatically jump over it when the signal comes for me to do so.
Because, at this very moment, I'm still too average to be accidentally discovered by something as commonplace as a spike of qi or charged intent.
━❖━
The Merchant Quarters of Yaozhu had, once upon a time, been a privileged location reserved for those trustworthy enough to base their operations a mere two rings below the noble houses of the empire. To tower over their competitors as the common rabble strove to make a living on the outskirts of the city, dreaming of the day when they would rise past the hills and valleys surrounding the center of the world.
Nowadays, it… still is that. To an extent.
The passage of time had seeded the foot of New Mount Song with so many shanty towns and refugee camps that most reputable businessmen (and a lot of the non-reputable) had managed to maneuver into Yaozhu proper, blurring the lines between the Merchant Quarters and the fifth ring of the mountain where peasants and those of ignoble crafts dwelled.
With each generation, the clear vision of the first emperor for his mountain city deviated more and more as people did what people do best and failed to live up to expectations.
My lady, though, was behaving just… as imperiously expected.
"I refuse," she said, staring with vitriolic distaste at the spread of ornate craftsmanship exhibited on the green mantle of a street stall with delusions of grandeur.
"My lady…" I told her with exasperation discreetly shared by the seller trying to look as small as humanly possible despite a rich, healthy diet making it quite difficult for him to do so.
"Surely, there must be alternatives."
At that moment, she wasn't Xia, genial and exuberant, brimming with energy, but… Lady Zhinu, looking down her aristocratic, powdered nose at the assorted wares.
"The… The workshops of the Jinyan produce nought but the utmost quality. I would dare not offer anything of lesser make to a reputed—"
Abruptly, the merchant cut off further praise of the clan to which my lady's fiancé belonged.
It's a complete mystery why he did so. Truly, a loss of knowledge for future generations.
"You will offer me whatever I deem worthy of my attention, am I understood?"
"But… the things you ask for… There's no one who would dare compete with the Golden Swallow when it comes to their specialties…"
"Maybe I should find a more daring establishment to grace with my business?"
At this, the moon-like face of the rotund merchant paled further still than his heavenly counterpart.
Apparently, the loss of a customer was a far direr threat than the wrath of a noble cultivator.
━❖━
In the end, some of the Jinyan's wares were purchased, despite my lady's reluctance, but…
There simply was no alternative.
So, it is with a small measure of distaste that I reach into one of the pockets sewn into my cloak's lining and extract an admittedly marvelously crafted tube the color of the patina of aged bronze, decorated with abstract filigree and stylized phoenixes diving from one end to another. The distinctive, intricate clockwork of the clan of the Golden Swallow spins with engineered silence as the tube extends section by section, and, in the end, I have in my hands one very expensive…
Periscope.
Or, well, it is a periscope in its current configuration.
A push on a non-descript pinion would turn it into a telescope as prisms and mirrors shift and lenses spin in place, while pushing it back to its shortest form makes it into a spyglass ready to delight any detective, the single contraption becoming the equivalent of a comprehensive eagle-sight technique that a rank novice can use without a whisper of qi being discharged.
Or expended, when it comes to those of us without deep reserves to pull from.
And thus, with one of my lady's careful preparations in hand, this tube of metal polished to a matte finish so that an errant ray of light won't give away my hiding place, I peer over the top of the white wall, holding my breath as she dances in the middle of the periscope's glass, golden fur flaming under torchlight, sparks seeming to leap off her limbs with every vibrant strike that shakes the bracers tied around taut forearms and the bands covering slender ankles.
My mind supplies the absent whistle of sharp motion, the clap of loose clothing abruptly halted at the end of a technique. All the sounds I learned while watching her train with unparalleled focus are now replaced with wild abandon, with the joy of combat that I have yet to understand as I see her fold a man in half with a punch that drives deep into leather-armored flesh before she kicks behind her without even deigning to look back, catching another guard in the jaw and sending him corkscrewing through the air against two of his comrades.
She straightens her guard once more, facing away from the slowly falling opponent clutching his stomach at her back, and her hands join in seals too fast for me to follow until a writhing, golden wreath joins its vibrance to the joyous torches gleaming off her animal pelt before all light surrounding her seems to race down her bracers to gather at her claws.
A wild grin unveils two sharp fangs. Hard breathing and snapping flames mingle in a ritual chorus. Men step back. Fear roars in their veins.
And my own heart hammers in its prison as I witness my lady finally becoming the Heavenly Hound.
━❖━⧫━❖━
So. We're finally here. At the point in the story that stumped me for literal months.
Wu's first cultivation session.
… I'll let you guess precisely why this was such a hard thing to write. There were concomitant factors, but most of it amounts to… just how far are these two gonna take things?
The answer? Well, that… is a secret. (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa/posts/heavenly-hounds-161758931?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link)
See you soon, everyone. Wu and Xia have some fallout to deal with.
As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): aj0413, Crimson Grave, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Vergil1989 Crossover King, and Xanah. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!