Lin Jin's eyes went perfectly round.
He wanted to retch and could not.
The cloth was packed in tight, pressing against the root of his tongue, and all that squeezed out of his throat was a muffled mmf, mmf, mmf.
With the tying done, Zhou Cheng turned toward the inside of the lodge and shouted at the top of his voice.
"Everyone out here!"
"There's a mortal who found Senior Sister Qingxue's token!"
About three seconds passed.
The lodge door banged open.
First out was a short, plump menial disciple called Fatty Wang, still holding a half-finished bowl of rice with two slices of spirit vegetable and a piece of braised pork on top and the chopsticks standing in it.
He ran so fast that the broth slopped out of the bowl the whole way, and he paid it no attention at all.
Second out was a lanky outer sect disciple called Li Shou, the most jaded man in the outer sect, who normally had time for nothing — and who this time ran faster than Fatty Wang and nearly lost a shoe doing it.
Third, fourth, fifth — five of them came charging out, and with Zhou Cheng that made six ringed around the gate.
Six pairs of eyes fixed on Lin Jin as one.
"Senior Sister Qingxue's token?!"
"Where, where?"
"Let me see it— no, let me smell it!"
The whole group swarmed in like a moving wall of people.
The sheer force of it startled Lin Jin, and he shrank back on instinct, but the lodge door was right behind him and there was nowhere left to go.
Six heads leaned in toward the token in his hand at the same moment.
They were close enough that he could smell the mingled dinner and sweat on them.
Fatty Wang's bowl came within an inch of Lin Jin's face.
He strained up on his toes, staring without a blink at the cloud pattern engraved on the token, and his throat bobbed once.
"That clean fragrance...!!"
"That is Senior Sister Qingxue's spiritual energy, no mistake."
Li Shou had the sharpest nose of the six.
He bent down close to the token until the tip of his nose all but touched its surface, drew a deep breath, then shut his eyes with an expression close to rapture on his face.
"So pure. One breath and I feel like my meridians have opened."
"You've smelled Senior Sister Qingxue's spiritual energy?"
"How do you know that's what it smells like?"
A menial disciple called Zhao Si pushed in from the side to ask.
Li Shou opened his eyes and gave Zhao Si a look that said I cannot believe you asked me that.
"Last time Senior Sister Qingxue passed by the Transmission Grounds I happened to be standing right there. That is the smell. I didn't have the heart to exhale for three days."
He finished and took another deep pull of the energy coming off the token, like a man topping up on some scarce resource.
Fatty Wang still had the bowl of rice against his chest, but he had forgotten entirely that eating was a thing.
He turned his head toward Zhou Cheng and lowered his voice.
"Senior Brother Zhou, this token...!"
"How did it end up in a mortal's hands?"
"Did Senior Sister Qingxue lose it?"
Before Zhou Cheng could answer, the slightly older menial beside them — a man called Liu Dazhu, longest-serving of anyone at the lodge, who had seen everything — dropped his voice and put on the mysterious look of a man about to share a sect secret.
He leaned in a little.
Six heads squeezed a little closer.
"Let me tell you all," Liu Dazhu said, barely more than a breath. "Last month there was an inner sect disciple, Sun something-or-other, surname Sun anyway, sent by the Enforcement Hall to deliver something to Senior Sister Qingxue. She gave him a token as his warrant."
"And after the errand was done the lad didn't hand the token straight back. Guess what he did with it."
"What?"
Five of them asked it in one voice, and even Zhou Cheng could not stop himself edging half a step nearer.
Liu Dazhu looked around the circle, confirmed there was nobody else about, and went on.
"He took it over to the male disciples' dormitories and rented it out by the day."
"A hundred spirit stones a day."
"A hundred spirit stones?!"
Fatty Wang's chopsticks hit the ground with a clatter. He did not pick them up.
His eyes went wide and his mouth opened far enough to fit the bowl into.
"Was he out of his mind?"
"Who would pay a hundred spirit stones for one breath of spiritual energy?"
Liu Dazhu snorted and folded his arms.
"Heh. Guess what happened."
"Demand outstripped supply."
"The queue ran three days out."
"One man rented five days straight, said he was going to hang it at the head of his bed and fall asleep every night breathing Senior Sister Qingxue's spiritual energy."
"Another swore his cultivation sped up after breathing it. The Enforcement Hall found out eventually, of course. Confiscated the lad's entire take and gave him three months' confinement on top."
The six of them were silent for a moment.
Then six pairs of eyes refocused on the token in Lin Jin's hand.
The look in them had graduated from rapture to something closer to mania.
A hundred spirit stones a day...!
So this token...!
If it fell into my hands...!
Liu Dazhu was the first to break the silence.
"This token obviously has to be returned to Senior Sister Qingxue."
The sentence went into the group like a match into an oil drum.
"I'll take it back!"
Li Shou's hand went up first, his voice ringing, his eyes as fixed as a man going to war.
His arm was straight as a rod.
"I'm going up the mountain tomorrow anyway, so it stands to reason that I should—"
"Nonsense!"
Zhou Cheng cut him off at once, his voice climbing a full eight notes.
He stepped forward, almost colliding with him.
"Where were you when it was time to tie him up just now?"
"If we're counting contributions, I put three more turns of rope on him than you did!"
"It should be me!"
"Three more turns of rope counts as a contribution?"
Li Shou glared back, unconvinced.
"The more rope you used, the more it shows you were afraid he'd get away!"
"I could tell at a glance the man was an idiot. There was no need for that much rope!"
"You two are outer sect disciples, you get chances to see Senior Sister all the time," Fatty Wang said, shoving his way in with the rice bowl, grains of rice still stuck to its rim, his expression deadly serious. "We menial disciples don't see her once in a whole year."
"Let me go this time—"
"On what grounds?"
Li Shou rounded on him.
"On the grounds that you've got half a bowl of rice left?"
"What has the rice got to do with it!"
"Enough!"
Zhou Cheng bellowed it, and swept the assembly with an authoritative stare.
He had the most seniority and the highest cultivation, and the shout did settle things down.
He cleared his throat and adopted the tone of a man who is the eldest here and therefore decides.
"Tomorrow we all go together."
"We return the token to Senior Sister Qingxue as a group, and we march this token-thieving mortal up there with us and let Senior Sister deal with him herself."
Nobody spoke.
Six men each ran the numbers in their heads at speed.
If they all went, everyone got to see Senior Sister Qingxue, and there might even be a reward at the end of it.
Each man's share of her attention would be a little smaller, but that beat the question of who goes and who does not.
And Zhou Cheng had a point besides — the token's provenance was unclear, and if Senior Sister Qingxue asked about it, a crowd made for better witnesses.
"Fine. Together."
Li Shou nodded.
"Agreed, then. Together."
Fatty Wang tucked the rice bowl under his armpit to free a hand and bumped fists with the man beside him.
"And nobody is allowed to sneak off early."
Liu Dazhu added it, running a stern eye over every one of them.
"Anyone who goes early is a dog."
"Fine."
Zhao Si raised a hand and swore to it.
A furious argument about who was entitled to go and see Senior Sister Qingxue had ended in the universally satisfying solution of everybody going.
The six of them stood there with happiness all over their faces — a second look at Senior Sister Qingxue under the cover of returning her token, and the mere thought of it set the blood moving.
Zhou Cheng had already begun rehearsing in his head what he would say when he saw her.
Li Shou was wondering whether the clothes he had planned for tomorrow were good enough.
Fatty Wang looked down at the rice in his bowl and resolved to wash his face first thing in the morning.
As for Lin Jin, trussed hand and foot?
Not one of them spared him a glance.