The wedding drums sounded like a funeral.
Everyone in Greypine Valley knew why.
Han Jiu stood at the gate of the ancestral hall in red wedding robes that were two sizes too big. They had belonged to a cousin who had outgrown them years ago. The bottom of the robe dragged in the dust. Somewhere around the third hour of standing there, he had stopped caring.
Above him, the Han Clan’s banner hung completely still in the heat. Three hundred Han cultivators filled the courtyard.
Not one of them was smiling.
"Ninth Young Master."
Elder Yun Hai came up the path on the back of his crane. He didn’t bother to get off it, and that was an insult all by itself. He looked down at Han Jiu the way a man looks at a stain on his best sleeve.
"Qi Gathering, second stage. Four years at the same stage." He smiled. "How very consistent of you."
Someone behind Han Jiu snickered. It was Han Bo, the fifth young master. He was Han Jiu’s cousin, and he was the reason Han Jiu had spent three weeks last spring trying not to breathe too hard with broken ribs.
Han Jiu bowed exactly as low as he was required to. Not one finger lower.
"Elder Yun. The Han Clan is grateful for the Yun Clan’s generosity."
"Generosity." The old man said the word slowly, like he was enjoying the taste of it. "Yes. Your grandfather begged us for a marriage to save this valley. We were kind enough to agree. Everyone here should be very grateful."
On the stage, Han Zhengyuan said nothing.
The old patriarch of the Han Clan sat with his hands folded inside his sleeves. He looked like a man watching his own house burn down, too far away to do anything about it.
Han Jiu kept his eyes on the ground. He thought, ’That isn’t what happened.’
But nobody in the courtyard was going to say so. If you told a lie loudly enough at a wedding, it became the truth that everyone remembered. And that was the only thing the Yun Clan had ever really wanted.
Six months ago, the Yun Clan had taken the Greypine spirit mines away from the Han Clan. They didn’t do it with a war. They did it with paperwork, three bribed magistrates, and eleven Han cultivators who were found dead on a mountain road. Nobody ever found out who killed them.
After that, the Han Clan only had two choices. They could die slowly, or they could kneel and agree to a marriage.
They chose to kneel. And they sent their ninth grandson to do it, because he was the only thing they could afford to lose.
The bride’s carriage came through the gate.
It wasn’t really a carriage. It was a supply cart with a red cloth thrown over it. The woman who climbed down from it didn’t wait for anyone to help her.
The courtyard went quiet. It wasn’t out of respect.
Yun Qingshuang wore her red wedding dress like it was armour.
She was nineteen. She was tall enough to look most of the Han cultivators in the eye. Her black hair, which had a purple shine to it, was pinned up with a plain wooden stick. There was no gold in it and no jade. Her wedding veil had fallen off somewhere on the road, and nobody had given her a new one.
She was wearing a sword. At her own wedding.
She was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that made men lower their voices when she walked past. But there were grey shadows under her eyes. Her left hand shook once, and she quickly pressed it flat against her leg to stop it.
Han Jiu saw it shake.
He was fairly sure nobody else did.
"The Yun Clan’s fourth daughter," Yun Hai announced, loud enough for the whole courtyard to hear. "A generous gift for a generous ally."
The snickering spread through the crowd.
And finally, Han Jiu understood what had been done to both of them.
The Yun Clan hadn’t sent a real bride. They had sent someone they had already thrown away, wrapped her in red, and given her to a family too weak to say no.
Two people nobody wanted, tied together, so that everyone could watch.
Yun Qingshuang walked across the courtyard while three hundred people stared at her. She didn’t look at any of them.
She stopped in front of Han Jiu. Up close, he could see her jaw clenching.
"If you touch me tonight," she said quietly, "I’ll cut off your hand."
"Understood," said Han Jiu.
Something flickered across her face.
She had been ready for him to argue. Or to leer at her. Or to act hurt, like a boy whose pride had been bruised.
She hadn’t been ready for him to simply agree.
The wedding ceremony had three bows. The first bow was the problem.
At a cultivator’s wedding, heaven had to see the bride and groom. That was what made it different from a farmer’s wedding. Both of them had to move their Qi once while they bowed, so that heaven could see their strength and record it.
The master of ceremonies raised his hands. Han Jiu took a breath and moved the small, tired amount of Qi in his body, the same way he had been doing since he was thirteen.
Two black bulls appeared above his head.
Every cultivator in the world had something like this. Whenever a cultivator moved their Qi, a small, faint image appeared above their head. It showed exactly how much power they were using. Anyone who cultivated could see it.
In the first realm of cultivation, Qi Gathering, the image was always bulls.
A cultivator at the first stage of Qi Gathering showed one black bull. At the second stage, they showed two. At the third stage, four. The number doubled with every stage. Eight at the fourth stage, sixteen at the fifth, and so on, all the way up to the ninth stage.
When there got to be too many, they joined together. Sixteen black bulls joined into one big iron bull. So a ninth-stage cultivator, the strongest you could be in Qi Gathering, showed sixteen iron bulls above their head.
A better cultivation method could make the number bigger. A technique as well. And a cultivator could always choose to show less than they really had. Nobody could force them to show more, unless they were forced to use their power for survival.
Han Jiu’s two black bulls were about the size of a thumbnail. They were faint and blurry, like smoke. They walked in a slow circle over his head and didn’t look at anything.
Two.
Three hundred people looked up at his two bulls.
He was nineteen years old, and he only had two bulls. Most fourteen-year-olds were stronger than him.
Han Jiu heard the whole courtyard let out a breath. It wasn’t laughter, not yet. It was quieter than that, and worse. It was the sound people make when something turns out to be exactly as bad as they expected.
He had heard that sound before. He had heard it at every assessment since he was fourteen.
The joke wasn’t just that Han Jiu only showed two bulls.
Everybody in the Six Valleys showed less than they really had. Everyone knew that. People held back all the time.
The real joke was that nobody in Greypine Valley had ever wondered if Han Jiu was holding back. They all knew he wasn’t. He had the worst kind of spirit root, no talent for cultivation, and no support from his clan.
Next to him, Yun Qingshuang bowed.
The light above her head came up all at once.
Iron bulls. Eight of them. They were dark and heavy, and they turned slowly above her.
One iron bull was worth sixteen black bulls. So eight iron bulls were worth one hundred and twenty-eight.
The eight iron bulls filled the space above her shoulders and cast a shadow onto the stones below.
The courtyard stopped wanting to laugh.
Eight iron bulls meant she had to be at least at the seventh stage of Qi Gathering. It also meant her cultivation method was much better than the cheap, useless ones the Han Clan gave to its outer disciples.
Han Bo was at the eighth stage. But he had never once shown that much power in front of the clan.
’Tsk,’ Han Bo thought, glaring at the two of them. ’It doesn’t matter. I’ll only get stronger, and she’ll only get weaker, just like that trash Han Jiu.’
Someone near the back of the crowd muttered, "Not so bad."
Elder Yun Hai let them talk for exactly three heartbeats.
Then he said, in a warm voice, "When my niece was sixteen, she showed a tiger."
The whole courtyard went silent.
Han Jiu felt it happen. Three hundred people did the same maths at the same time, and they all came to the same answer.
A tiger.
The tiger was the symbol of the next realm, Body Tempering. One tiger was worth five hundred and twelve black bulls, all joined together into one shape.
A ninth-stage Qi Gathering cultivator had two hundred and fifty-six. That was the very top of the whole realm. But her cultivation method was Earth-rank. Her clan had spent a fortune to buy it for her, and it doubled her power.
So at sixteen years old, she had stood in front of the Coldpeak Sect’s assessors and shown them five hundred and twelve. A tiger. The symbol of a realm she hadn’t even reached yet.
And now, at nineteen, she was standing here showing eight iron bulls. She had been losing her cultivation ever since that assessment, because of one cruel decision.
"Three years," Yun Hai said, to nobody and to everyone. "Heaven can be so unkind, even to the mighty."
Yun Qingshuang stayed in her bow. Her back was very straight.
Her eyes shook. They showed hate, then anger, and then nothing at all.
The light above her head didn’t change.
They bowed to heaven. They bowed to earth. They bowed to each other.
The drums kept beating like it was a funeral. And the Han Clan of Greypine Valley officially accepted what had been done to it.
...
Their bedroom was an old storeroom with the crates carried out.
Han Jiu had swept it out himself that morning. Nobody had sent a servant to help. There was one candle, one bed, and one window with a cracked shutter that let the cold mountain air straight in.
On the table were a wine jug and two cups. Somebody had filled the jug with water, to make a point.
Yun Qingshuang sat on the edge of the bed with her sword across her knees. She sat with her back against the wall, so she could watch the door.
Han Jiu sat on the floor under the window. It seemed like the simplest thing to do.
An hour went by. The candle burned down a little.
"You’re not going to ask," she said.
"Ask what?"
"What’s wrong with me." Her voice was flat. "Everyone asks by now. Usually they start by telling me how much I was worth two years ago."
Han Jiu thought about lying. He decided he was too tired.
"You have a Frost-Devouring Spirit Root," he said. "I looked it up when the marriage letter came."
She turned her head to look at him.
"It takes in about five times more energy than an ordinary root." He kept his eyes on the candle. "But it only keeps about as much as an ordinary root keeps. So everything you need, you have to take in five times over. And if you stop feeding it, the root doesn’t stop eating. It just starts eating whatever is closest."
"Which is me," said Yun Qingshuang.
She let that sit for a moment. Then she told him the number, because sooner or later, everyone heard the number.
"A hundred and fifty thousand spirit stones. That’s what the Coldpeak assessors wrote down. That’s how much it would cost to raise me to the Foundation realm."
Han Jiu blinked. "And they wouldn’t pay it?"
"They would have. That’s the part people always get wrong." Her mouth moved, but it wasn’t a smile. "The assessor was very kind about it. He sat down with my father and showed him the numbers, one line at a time, like a man explaining a bad harvest. A hundred and fifty thousand stones would make one of me at the Foundation realm."
She turned her hand over and looked at it.
"Or five other people at the Foundation realm."
The candle flickered.
"If I died on some mission, they would lose everything they spent on me. If they split it between five people instead, they could lose one or two and still have the rest."
"That was all it was," she said. "It wasn’t about talent. Nobody in that room said I didn’t have talent. They said I was expensive. They were right, and they’re still right."
"And the boy who took your place?" asked Han Jiu.
"My cousin. My uncle’s son." She let out a breath. "Pure Yang Root, Earth-rank. The sect will pay thirty thousand spirit stones to raise him to the Foundation realm, and they think that’s a bargain. He’s twelve."
"How long ago did they stop giving you resources?"
"A little over two years ago. I was three months away from getting a Body Tempering Pill." She said it the way someone reads out the weather. "I was at the ninth stage of Qi Gathering. I’d half-mastered my Earth-rank cultivation method. The pill was already bought and sitting in the sect’s vault with my name on the label. Then the name on the label changed. I’ve been going backwards ever since."
"You’re at the seventh stage now."
"I’ll be at the fifth stage by winter. The third by spring, if you’re curious." She shrugged one shoulder. "After that, it’s not my cultivation it eats anymore. It eats my marrow. My blood. My body."
She looked straight at him for the first time since the wedding.
"So congratulations, Ninth Young Master. You’ve married a woman with no foundation, no sect, no future, and a hunger that’s going to kill her soon. At least you’ll be free after that."
Han Jiu had spent seventeen years being the least valuable person in a poor family.
He knew exactly what she was doing, because he had done it himself, many times.
Say the worst thing about yourself first. Say it loudly, in your own voice. That way, when someone else says it, it can’t hurt you as much.
He stood up.
She went still. Her hand slid toward her sword.
He walked past her to a loose stone under the window and pried it out with his fingernails.
There was a cloth bundle hidden behind it. Inside the cloth was one low-grade spirit stone. It was cloudy, and its edges had been worn smooth from being held so often.
"Thirty days in the frost pools," he said. "That’s what this cost. Cutting moss off the rocks under the freezing water. Nobody wants that job, because of what the cold does to your hands after a year."
He held it out to her.
"I was saving it for my next breakthrough."
Yun Qingshuang looked at the stone. She didn’t take it.
"That’s worth about six of my heartbeats."
"I know."
"Then what do you think it’s going to do?"
"Tonight?" Han Jiu shrugged. "It’ll stop your hands shaking long enough for you to sleep. You can let me watch the door, instead of watching it yourself. That’s all. I’m not pretending it’s more than that."
"And what do you want in return?"
"Nothing."
He put the stone on the blanket next to her knee. Then he stepped back out of range of her sword, because he wasn’t stupid.
"They put us in this room so they could watch us hate each other," he said. "I’d rather disappoint them. That’s my whole plan. It isn’t a very good plan."
Yun Qingshuang opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her hands were trembling. Her body was desperately telling her to take in some spiritual energy.
Then her fingers closed around the stone.
She grabbed it fast, the way a starving person grabs bread and hates themselves for how fast their hand moved.
Silver light leaked out between her fingers, and then it was gone. It took four seconds.
Her shoulders dropped a little. The trembling stopped.
"...Thank you."
And that was when it all began.
[Genuine Investment Detected. Host compatibility +999999∞]
Han Jiu froze.
The voice wasn’t in the room. It was behind his eyes. It was clear and enormous. The candle flame had stopped moving completely.
[Target: Yun Qingshuang. Frost-Devouring Spirit Root, Heaven-rank.]
[Investment: 1 × low-grade spirit stone.]
[Recipient’s need: critical. Investor’s remaining assets: zero. No return expected. No witnesses. No leverage sought.]
[The only way to get a rebate is by investing things that took you effort or cost you something to get.]
[Sincerity verified. Boundless Return activating.]
Han Jiu tried to speak, but no sound came out.
[System tier: 1. Current return rate: ten-fold.]
[Maximum potential rate: ten-thousand-fold.]
[Rebate issued: 10 × low-grade spirit stone. Deposited to Rebate Inventory.]
A cold grey space opened up somewhere at the back of his head. It felt like a drawer sliding out of a wall he had never known had a drawer in it. Inside, ten spirit stones floated in a neat, slowly turning column.
Then the candle flame started moving again. The cold air came back in through the broken shutter. Outside the courtyard, a night bird made a noise.
Yun Qingshuang was sitting four feet away, rubbing her chest where the Qi had settled.
She hadn’t noticed anything at all.
’What just happened?’
Han Jiu was stunned. ’What the hell just happened?’
"You’ve gone pale," Yun Qingshuang said, without turning around.
Han Jiu looked at the drawer at the back of his head. Ten spirit stones. They were sitting in a place that nobody in the Six Valleys could see, weigh, price, or take away from him.
"It’s been a long day, that’s all," he said. "We should get some rest."