SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 8, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Shuishang Province, Huadu Sect

  Floating.

  I opened my eyes to find myself drifting through clouds, my hands scraping through like I was scooping red bean paste. My hair streamed behind me, trailing like a ribbon as I bounced from one puff of cloud to another.

  The clouds glowed in those too-perfect sunset hues, spun-sugar bronze and golds that only existed in the imagination of a romantic painter with a love of candied hawthorns. I reached out and grabbed one. Solid. Real. But silence.

  No birds flapped. No wind brushed my ears. Not even the whisper of gravity. Just me and this ridiculously, painting-perfect sky.

  Nightfall suddenly came, spreading across the sky like butter on bread. Stars blinked into place like God was hand-pinning constellations onto a velvet curtain. They connected into lines. Lines made pictures. Pictures made—

  I grasped my head. Images rushed for my mind, hungry and uninvited. Was I going to go mad? I stumbled, knees crashing onto something solid. Where did the clouds go?

  I looked down. My feet had been sucked into the earth, yet I the ground looked rock solid. I crouched to my feet to touch it, and it rippled away, like water pretending to be concrete..

  The earth released me, and the whole world began to spin like it had somewhere better to be. The stars blinked out and the night sky vanished as if it had never been. The sun blinked in. I raised my arm to shield my eyes from the sudden solar assault.

  A town square.

  Time seems to move differently here.

  I rubbed my face, meandering toward the only sound I could make sense of—rushing water. A fountain. Good. Maybe I can splash some clarity onto my face. Cupping the water into my hands, I let the liquid hit my cheeks—

  It was cold and…dank. t hit my nose like rotting flower petals soaked in iron. It was in my mouth, my hair, my soul. I gagged, wiping my face with every ounce of aggression I could summon from my ancestors. A glint caught eye:

  “100% recycled water. Do not drink.”

  My eyes accustomed to the light as I saw the water feature for what it truly was. A bathing pool for birds. Well. Thank you, mysterious sign. So glad I found you after gargling bird bath juice.

  I straightened up and turned from the fountain-slash-biological hazard. Maybe I could ask someone where I was. Just because I knew I was in a vision didn’t mean I couldn’t interrogate the local scenery for answers.

  A child darted past me, laughing as he flew a dragon-shaped kite. His clean-shaven head gleamed like a mirror.

  Since when were boys bald? What era was this?

  I reached out to stop him, but my hand passed through his chest like smoke. He didn’t even notice. My fingers flickered—visible one second, semi-transparent the next.

  I drifted through a bustling market, phasing through people like a ghost no asked for. The townspeople chattered on, oblivious to the fact that I was, quite literally, walking through their torsos. Were all visions like this?

  My footsteps quickened. Something is off. Very off. I am sure of it. What vision looks like some half-baked reality where—

  The wind was knocked out of me as I collided into a meat bun stand. The cart remained unbothered, immovable as a bureaucrat during festival season, so the only thing left to the absorb the impact had been me. My ribs screeched their protest as I doubled over, wheezing. Excellent. Spectral and bruised. Geez, I didn’t think—

  I fell onto my knees as something clocked me square on the back of the head—a candied hawthorn pole, of all things.

  I groaned, clutching my head like some tragic opera heroine mid-monologue. At least my clothes still felt real. That was something, right? Some evidence that I hadn’t fully vaporised into metaphor. One small mercy, gifted by the fabric gods.

  Note to self. I can still interact with inanimate objects.

  Staggering upright, I began weaving through carts and fruit stands, dragging my fingers through the air like I was trying to trace a memory that wouldn’t stay still. Everything, except the people, were tangible. Just enough to be annoying.

  The sound of light chatter stopped me.

  A man at a teahouse was telling a story:

  “…and that is why we have the Lotus Festival.”

  The Lotus Festival?

  I crept closer and squinted as the man handed out red lanterns gilded in gold. The lanterns were printed with fu (福), the character for good fortune.

  Blessing.

  Longevity.

  That name though…The Lotus Festival. It tickled the edge of my brain like a word I couldn’t quite place. Where had I heard it before?

  Ah. Madam Wei’s history lecture on flowers. Something about the final years of the last dynasty, and—

  But that was eons ago.

  So, this wasn’t just a vision. It was a vision of the past.

  My revelation was interrupted by a woman sprinting through me. Again with the ghost thing. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. She grabbed the bald boy, kneeling to scold him gently.

  “Don’t run away from me.”

  The boy ignored the woman. Instead, he looked straight through her—past her—and met my eyes.

  No.

  Not my eyes.

  He was looking behind me.

  I turned.

  And choked on a scream.

  Red. So much red. Blood poured from their mouths. All of their mouths. A tidal wave of crimson rushing between bricks, flooding the cheerful square like the gods had turned vindictive.

  The joyful marketplace collapsed into chaos. Screams cracked against the alley walls, echoing and multiplying like demons in a jar. Smoke billowed from rooftops. People scattered like ants under boiling water.

  It was coming from the palace. The palace?

  Of course there was. Where else do massacres start?

  I hurried toward the palace. Maybe it was a fire. Maybe they needed help. Maybe I was the sort of person who ran toward chaos like an idiot. Large gold lettering framed the entrance: Liantai.

  A sharp, shrill noise sliced through the air—a girl, maybe my age, came barrelling right through me. For once, I was grateful for being invisible. Given the tidal wave of terrified maids, flailing courtiers, and sobbing attendants stampeding out the castle doors, there was no way I’d have gotten in if not for my new phasing ability.

  The smoke should’ve been suffocating. It wasn’t. Which was worrying, because either this vision had selective realism, or I’d lost the ability to feel distress properly. Neither sounded comforting.

  Bodies littered the stone floors like broken dolls. Every single one bore the same eerie marking: a jagged blue line slashed across the neck. Not burn marks. Not smoke damage.

  Poison.

  I stepped back instinctively, my foot crunching on something brittle and black. A roof tile. I looked up at the ceiling, before barely dodging a chunk as it crashed down beside me. Judging by the scorched, ashy shingles and the slow drip of ruin from above, this fire had been burning for at least an hour.

  Where were the guards? Weren’t they responsible for putting out the fire? How could the palace have been burning for so long?

  The next corner I rounded answered my questions.

  Dozens of soldiers stood in a perfect ring, weapons drawn, polished steel flashing in the smoky air. In the middle of this circle were three people. One was standing with their back towards me.

  And they were facing a dishevelled couple.

  Their hands were tied. Tied so tightly that rivers of red streamed down their wrists. Their heads were stuffed into burlap sacks. Nothing on them identified who they were but their clothes screamed a different era—bold colours, thick layers, the kind of regal fabric that only royalty possessed.

  They were kneeling before the one was standing. The person was covered in black like the night itself and their hood was up. They radiated dread like a scented candle designed by a war criminal.

  But when they spoke, it came softly and gently. Like a lullaby layered in arsenic.

  “How does it feel?”

  One of the bound figures raised their head, muffled by the sack, but clear enough to speak:

  “The law knows we have done no wrong.”

  The hooded figure cackled. Actually cackled. Like some villain well-versed in theatrics. They slowly pulled back the hood.

  A woman. Of course. A gorgeous, smug silhouette of a woman. She didn’t even look in my direction, just turned her face slightly. Leaning in, she lifted the prisoner’s chin.

  “I am the law.”

  She then turned to the soldier beside her and drew a finger across her neck.

  Thwack. Splatter. Silence.

  Two heads rolled onto the ground like overripe fruit. Blood puddled on the tiles. The couple’s bodies slumped over, necks spurting, staining everything in sight.

  I slapped my hands over my mouth to smother a cry.

  The woman didn’t even flinch. She just turned, heels clicking, and strutted off with her entourage.

  Who were they?

  My knees gave out, and I crawled toward the bodies, stomach lurching. I collapsed, trying not to retch, trying to remember this was just a vision. Warm blood soaked my legs. Their skin was still pink. They’d been alive. Only minutes ago.

  I gagged. Nothing came out. I almost wished it had. The coppery stench of blood rose like a striking asp. Thick, slithering, and wrong. So wrong. It curled into my nose, mixing with the scent of smoke and charred flesh.

  Calm down, it’s only a vision. This isn’t real.

  I squinted and breathed. This isn’t real.

  I swallowed and reached for one of the corpses’ hands.

  There was a signet ring on the male’s pinkie finger. Ornate and unmistakable. A dove’s wings spread wide over a coiled dragon, the dragon clutching a blooming lotus. Its tail curled around a single character: 蓮. Lian. Lotus. The royal seal of Liantai.

  That meant—

  I looked at the corpses again. Really looked.

  And lightning struck.

  Of course. My Taishan history lectures. All those sleepless nights and ridiculous mnemonic devices. It all clicked.

  I had landed smack in the middle of the fall of the Lian Dynasty. These two—these poor, bloodied corpses—must have been the last ruling monarchs. Executed in the aftermath of Ze Lujin’s failed assassination of the Yun Dynasty’s current rulers—Empress Huangmei and Emperor Tai Quan.

  But why am I here?

  I staggered upright—or tried to. Pain exploded behind my eyes like firecrackers in a migraine convention. I keeled over again, grabbing at my head, clawing at the stone floor as though pain might keep me conscious.

  The world wavered. My vision rippled. The floor melted like water under my fingers.

  ***

  I’m drowning. I need air. Help!

  “AHH!” I shrieked, jolting upright like a possessed marionette.

  Ju Ying let out a fat sigh beside me. “Keep your voice down.”

  My fists were white from how hard I’d been clutching my blanket. I scanned the room, heart hammering, trying to anchor myself to something, anything, remotely familiar.

  The Blossom Chief stood nearby, her expression unreadable in that very obvious, I-am-being-profoundly-stoic way. “I have made Madam Wei (伟) aware of your situation. Take the day off.”

  Take the day off? Was this the same shījiě I knew? The shījiě I knew would never let anyone take a day off. There was something seriously wrong.

  But there was something else even more pressing. I’d meant to say it earlier—given that I’d followed her instructions to attend the ceremony and behave—but with all the recent events, there had been no time to mention it.

  Ju Ying turned to leave with a flourish far too dramatic for someone in plain robes.

  “Blossom Chief,” I called, catching her hand before she could fully escape.

  She half-turned, and for a moment, just a flash, her eyes wavered.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said.

  She tilted her head, then frowned. “What?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Can I have The Thousand Petals Diary?”

  The force of Ju Ying’s headbutt could’ve blown me into the future. I tumbled back into the bad, grasping at my head.

  “So immature!” she muttered.

  “You really don’t have it?!” I exclaimed.

  “Of course I have it,” she said, with smile so fake it deserved a stage and a spotlight. Funny how she was always the one lecturing me on performance skills. She slipped her hand out of mine and turned away again, the fake smile vanishing as quickly as it came.

  And to think I was this close to having that precious treasure. I wonder which lucky person owns it.

  “As your shījiě, I order you to go to sleep.”

  I tried to wave her off, but my head was spinning like a cursed top. Probably just a lovely little side effect from having someone else’s eight-thousand years of cultivation stuffed into my body.

  You know, normal things.

  I crossed my legs and shut my eyes. Not for a full meditation session—I wasn’t that disciplined—but just long enough to stop the floor from doing pirouettes. And to calm my disappointment that she had completely lied about giving me a certain book.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat until sanity returns.

  I tapped around my mental cultivation palace, checking the walls and whether new rooms had been built since levelling up.

  Except I couldn’t find the walls. Or the rooms.

  I frowned and pushed harder, prodding at the edges of my magic like someone knocking on a locked door they swear used to open.

  The doors gave way.

  The place that had been the location of my cultivation palace was now filled with the overwhelming sensation of blank space. The floor stretched on in every direction, endless tiles glinting like polished glass under a light that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. Perfect, seamless, and unnervingly quiet.

  Lao Zhe had once said your magic well was fixed at birth, its depth unchangeable even with training or divine intervention. But if that were true, then—

  I turned around the mental space searching for the familiar boundaries I’d always known. The sense of safety, of limits, of a place that belonged to me. But there was only floor. Miles and miles of beautiful, eerie floor. Like being trapped in an infinite art gallery designed by someone with a grudge against walls.

  —where were my walls?

  I stood at the centre of it, alone in my own mind, and for the first time since this whole cultivation fiasco started, I felt a flicker of something I hated admitting to.

  Fear.

  This wasn’t just a bigger cultivation palace.

  It was something else entirely.

  I can’t feel the bottom of my well anymore.

  I swung my legs over the bed, my mind racing faster than my pulse. Someone had to hear about this.

  ***

  Everyone was staring at me.

  Well—not exactly. But I could feel it. Like the room had collectively decided to press pause and hold its breath while I stumbled in like the last page of a ruined manuscript.

  Luckily, Xiao Wu had saved me a seat. He patted the chair next to him, grinning like the adorable idiot he was. I dove for it, praying to the Eight Immortals that Madam Wei wouldn’t turn from the chalkboard. I had precisely zero brain cells left for another impromptu lecture.

  I hadn’t planned to come to class. Honestly, I had intended to sit in a tree somewhere and process the fact that my supposedly feeble magic well was, in fact, a bottomless ocean in disguise. But after realising that I had no idea what that meant or what to do with it, I did the only thing any lost soul would: returned to the one place that never changed.

  School.

  Madam Wei brushed away yesterday’s scribbles on the board and slowly turned around, eyes blinking behind her thick glasses like an owl preparing to judge the weak. “Historically, huǒhuā has been one of the most prized herbs in Huadu Sect. Who can tell me why?”

  Xue Wan’er’s hand shot up like a firework desperate for attention. Madam Wei nodded at her with the sort of pleased expression one might give a loyal lapdog.

  “huǒhuā is the active ingredient in most salves used to treat burns, lacerations, bruising or other surface skin injuries,” Xue Wan’er recited, voice sharp and mechanical. “They also promote circulation, accelerate external tissue regeneration, and possess mild anti-inflammatory effects—”

  I rubbed my eyes, then clamped a hand over my mouth to suppress a yawn. Why am I feeling so exhausted?

  Theory class drifted by in a fog of pharmacological jargon and diagnosis drills. It was like wading through knee-deep mud made of textbooks and boredom. But eventually—thank the heavens—practical class arrived.

  Most of my classmates couldn’t produce a single medicinal paste, let alone refine a proper pill. If they had ten years in a cave, undisturbed and fed only through spiritual osmosis, maybe their cultivation would reach the lofty heights of ‘mediocre.’ Maybe.

  Xue Wan’er sat upright, arranging her hands in front of the flowerpot like it was an altar. She was following the textbook's instructions on how to grow huǒhuā and failing miserably. On her third attempt, she slouched back in her chair like the flower had personally offended her.

  I placed a hand on her shoulder. “You got this.”

  She gave me a look through her narrowed eyes that could curdle milk. “Stop lying. You know I’ll never grow it.” She released a sigh. “It’s like this every year.”

  Unfortunately…she wasn’t wrong. And being the deeply flawed friend I was, I didn’t even have a comforting lie to offer. This year, of all years, was the one that mattered. If the students couldn’t conjure a viable huǒhuā, they’d be disqualified from the Imperial Alchemist Guild’s exam selection. The alternative options? Become a labourer. Or worse, a latrine cleaner.

  Xue Wan’er was her family’s golden ticket out of eternal servitude. If she failed now…they all lost.

  Maybe I could help. There had to be some clever workaround. Even with her magic well as shallow as a puddle in a drought, there were surely some techniques that could compensate.

  But, of course, Genius Xiao Wu beat me to it.

  “Wan’er, don’t be discouraged. I have an idea.”

  She lifted her head slowly, already loading her sarcasm cannon. But he steamrolled on, completely unfazed.

  “Your magic well is shallow,” he said—bold opening. “Which means you can’t store large quantities of power. But that doesn’t mean you can’t channel large quantities of power.”

  She tilted her head, brow furrowed. I mirrored the expression. Honestly, I wasn’t following either.

  He gestured with his hands in the air like a mad poet mid-performance. “Think of it this way: instead of relying on your own qi, draw it from the environment, and use it to conjure the flower.”

  From his sleeve, he pulled out a thin parchment. “This one’s a lower grade huǒhuā. Tier-two. As long as they don’t burn it for pill refinement, they won’t be able to tell it apart from a tier-four.”

  Blossom Chief would call that cheating. But technically… it wasn’t. The exam tested qi manipulation, not power storage. And nowhere in the rules did it state the flower had to be self-grown from scratch. Burning it to test its tier? Not included.

  And…she was desperate.

  “You’re not lying, right?” she asked, her voice quiet but sharp-edged with hope.

  Xiao Wu grinned. “Lying is for cowards. We wouldn’t do that.”

  A spark lit her face. It was the tiniest light, but in the grim mess of her situation, it looked like salvation. She grabbed onto his idea like it was a lifeline—and maybe it was.

  Xiao Wu turned to me, full of smugness and sincerity. “I told you, jiě! I’m going to be the best alchemist this world has ever seen.”

  Such confidence. Such arrogance. If anyone else said that I would’ve filed it under delusions of grandeur and moved on. But with Xiao Wu, it was…charming.

  I returned his smile. “Of course.”

  The moment was ruined by the thunderous scuffle of one very angry person storming into the classroom.

  “Su Tang, get over here! Now!”

  Lao Zhe barrelled through the doorway like an angry wind spirit with no regard for boundaries—or my nerves. I flinched. Understandably. I’d already been chewed out by the Blossom Chief and Shuishang’s governor. I was not in the mood for Round Three.

  I took a cautious step back. Surely Lao Zhe wasn’t actually mad. He never got mad at me. Mildly disappointed? Constantly. Loudly exasperated? Daily.

  But genuinely angry?

  He snatched my ear like it was a dumpling and yanked me outside, half-dragging, half-hurling me into the courtyard like I was yesterday’s compost. Apparently today is a special occasion.

  Still in his rumpled martial arts uniform—creased beyond salvation—he stomped across the freshly mowed lawn, kicking up tufts of allergy-inducing greenery. I pinched my nose. I hated the smell of grass.

  Lao Zhe halted and tilted his head skyward like a confused meerkat. I blinked.

  “So… are we just going to stand here or…?” I offered, annoyed with his erratic behaviour.

  He snapped his head toward me. “Stand here? Stand here?! Is that all you know how to say? What about ‘I’m sorry for causing trouble’? Ever tried that one on for size?”

  I felt my brows knit in genuine confusion. It must’ve shown, because he immediately rolled his eyes. He rolled them so hard, I worried they might never come back down. A new wrinkle etched itself across his forehead like a crack in an old vase.

  Perhaps now was a good time to dangle the carrot.

  “I got a cultivation increase,” I said, flashing him my most innocent smile. I braced for astonishment, awe, pride, or even tears of joy.

  Instead, he looked like someone had just informed him he was adopted. At age ninety.

  His face collapsed in slow motion. His mouth hung open. His Adam’s apple bobbed like it was treading water.

  “How much?” he croaked, voice as dry as old parchment.

  I hesitated, digging my fingernails deeper into my palm. “Eight thousand.”

  “Ei…ght…thou…san…d.”

  He began pacing, and muttering, and casting nervous glances in my direction. He dragged trembling fingers through his thinning hair, which now stuck out in every direction like he’d licked lightning. If anyone needed a visual guide to ‘losing it,’ this was it.

  I shifted my weight. Okay, yes, maybe eight thousand years was a lot of cultivation all at once—but weren’t we supposed to celebrate things like this? After all, wasn't our whole quest as cultivators to earn cultivation?

  “JU YING!” he barked.

  Now I've done it.

  Ju Ying appeared beside me, as unbothered as ever. Her eye bags had reached suitcase status. She looked like sleep was something she'd heard of in theory, like flying pigs or listening to me.

  “Yes?” she sighed.

  “You let this happen!” Lao Zhe hissed, flailing toward me like I was a ticking time bomb.

  Ju Ying marched forward, fists clenched. “I did this? Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been spoiling her rotten since her youth. This is on you.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  Lao Zhe crossed his arms, seething. “Aren’t you the Blossom Chief? You’re supposed to stop disasters. And now she—” he trailed off, either too furious or too frightened to finish.

  Ju Ying let out the longest, most exhausted sigh I’d ever heard. She slapped a hand to her forehead like she was trying to smother a headache with sheer willpower.

  “I tried,” she muttered, voice hoarse with sincerity.

  Lao Zhe froze mid-pace. For a moment, the crazy left his posture. He approached her cautiously, placing his darker, weather-worn hand over her pale, shaking one. She glanced at him, frowning. He gave her a small, sad smile and patted her hand.

  What. Was. Happening.

  “Would someone care to explain?” I said.

  Lao Zhe glanced at Ju Ying. She gave him a tiny nod—more a twitch, really. He took a deep breath and turned toward me, looking as if he were about to deliver a eulogy.

  “Tang’er. We—we need to tell you something. We should’ve told you earlier. Much earlier, considering your age. But... anyway…don’t panic.”

  I arched an eyebrow. Lao Zhe was stammering. Stammering. The word ‘stammering’ and Lao Zhe should never been in the same sentence, but they were.

  He wrung his hands, eyes darting everywhere. “You may or may not have...accidentally broken a blood-seal that was meant to protect you. And we may or may not have...failed to make sure that never happened and well—”

  “What?” I interrupted. “A blood-seal? Wait—when did I have seals?”

  Lao Zhe grinned, clearly trying to distract me from the fact that he looked ready to vomit. Ju Ying stepped in.

  “What he means is,” she said carefully, “there have always been magic seals on you. Since you were born.”

  I blinked at her.

  I knew a few things about seals and none of them fit under the category of cheerful, happy things. Most of them in fact, were used to contain individuals’ abilities, in a much less friendly way.

  They were parasites, if you will.

  “They were just temporary,” she added quickly, like that made it better. “To help you cultivate more safely.”

  “Who puts a curse on a baby," I muttered.

  “It’s not a curse,” she said sharply.

  Her tone had some sort of finality to it and that made me feel super annoyed.

  “And how exactly, would you know? Did you make the seal? Is that what that hairpin was?” I retorted.

  Ju Ying threw her hands up, shaking her head vigorously. Lao Zhe mirrored her, which made me even more suspicious.

  “And it never occurred to you,” I said slowly, pointing between them, “that you should tell me?”

  “Well, things were…complicated,” Lao Zhe began.

  “Oh, do tell.”

  Ju Ying finally snapped. Her voice cracked like lightning. “Su Tang! Be angry all you like, but don’t be disrespectful.”

  I rolled my eyes which probably only served to prove her point. Lao Zhe, ever the human tumbleweed of nerves, was still wringing his hands like they owed him an apology.

  Heat drained from my face.

  “yéyé, are you okay?”

  Lao Zhe shook his head. Not as answer to me but like he was trying to wake himself up from a very bad dream. His eyes blinked a number of times. Then, finally, he looked at me again.

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure he even recognised me.

  “Oh…yes,” he said softly.

  A pang of guilt knocked the next words right out of me. I hadn’t realised how much stress he was already under; I hadn’t even thought to ask. Gosh, I'm so childish. I tugged at the cotton ribbon around my waist, trying to tighten something, anything, even if it was just fabric.

  But…I want to know.

  “Can you please explain?”

  Ju Ying opened her mouth—probably about to add another punishment to my already bloated list—but I cut her off, “Please. Enough of this,” I waved vaguely at them, “or whatever you’re doing. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  Lao Zhe's face had gone chalk white. His brow twitched. Like the tiniest furrow of his paper-thin restraint cracking open.

  “If I’m going to die,” I added, “I might as well know too.”

  “Pah! Touchwood,” Lao Zhe blurted reflexively, knocking on the nearest bush. Though I doubted there was much wood in there. Ju Ying’s glare sharpened into a blade, and she firmly planted her hand on his shoulder.

  Lao Zhe shoved her hand aside.

  “She’ll have to know eventually,” he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else. Then, he clasped his hands together in the same way he always did when preparing to tell a bedtime story.

  “When we found you,” he began, “there was this riddle:

  ‘Seals reflect, seals reveal.

  The first; no truer a test than the past itself.

  Seals reflect, seals reveal.

  The second; great power waits upon your shelf.

  Seals reflect, seals reveal.

  The third; look into the mirror and know thyself.’

  That’s how we knew. Why or from who…we don’t know.”

  He rubbed his palms together, nervous. “You’ve already broken the first seal by increasing your cultivation. If the riddle’s correct, some part of your past should’ve resurfaced?”

  I said nothing. Just stared.

  When we found you.

  That sounded like I came from somewhere else. Which couldn’t have been true. I came from a flower.

  That was what I had been told. The children of Huadu Sect sprouted from sunlight, dew, and the ding of a Taoist bell. No parents, no crying babies, no messy attachments. Just a clean, floral entrance into the world. Like magic. Like me.

  I liked that story. I liked not belonging to anyone.

  When we found you.

  If I wasn’t born from a flower…then what was I?

  A leftover. A mistake.

  An orphaned thing. Moulded from someone else's discarded clay, slapped together behind some cosmic curtain and passed off as divine. Is that why the Empress asked about my parentage?

  I pressed my palms to my face, as if I could squeeze the doubts back into whatever sealed box they had escaped from.

  There was no need to think such unfounded conjectures.

  “It would’ve been best,” Lao Zhe sighed, “if you’d never broken your Seals.”

  They exchanged a look—the quiet kind that adults used when they knew they’ve screwed up and didn’t want to say it aloud.

  Ju Ying took my clenched hand and uncurled my fingers, placing something light into my palm.

  Wooden shards.

  My hairpin. Or what was left it after the guard had crushed it.

  “It came with you when you arrived at the Sect,” she continued. “It was crafted to conceal your eye colour. But now…what’s done is done.”

  I stared at the pieces. And just that, things started to make sense, alongside realisation of my own stupidity. The fuss over that stupid hairpin. Why Ju Ying insisted I never took it off. Why she practically banned me from increasing my cultivation.

  Even if I was unrelated to Liantai Sect, a distinguishing feature of the sect had been amethyst irises: like those of Ze Lujin. Just having purple eyes was enough for a death sentence.

  She really was trying to protect me, in her own way. If only I had been more cluey and less stubborn…would I have known?

  Probably not.

  “Can’t it be fixed?” I asked.

  Ju Ying shook her head.

  I rubbed my forehead like it might stop spinning. “And the other two Seals?” I tried to sound casual, like I wasn’t thinking about how seals were poisonous spells.

  Lao Zhe, whose expression had already taken the prize for ‘Most Exhausted Man in Huadu,’ nudged Ju Ying.

  She placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Well. All that’s left is to break the rest.”

  I tilted my head. “You know how?”

  “No.” She smiled.

  I was struggling to find the hopeful or funny side in this whole mess of a situation that wouldn't have happened if they had just told me earlier.

  Still, I found myself matching her expression, unwillingly. That was the annoying part about my shījiě. There was always something grounding about her. Even when she looked like she hadn’t slept since the last dynasty.

  Lao Zhe rested a hand on my other shoulder. “I might have a few ideas.”

  So, he had a plan? Yet another thing my trustworthy guardian had failed to mention. He laughed. I expected it to be harsher. After all, they'd been playing my life like a fine-tuned fiddle for six-thousand years. Instead, his laughter tinkled like wind chimes.

  Between the Blossom Chief and Lao Zhe, it was a miracle Huadu Sect hadn’t collapsed in a dramatic blaze of miscommunication.

  Still, one thing was undeniably clear:

  Whatever was sealed inside me was related to the Lian Dynasty.

  And whether I liked it or not, something I didn’t want to think about was clawing its way back.