Lin Jin had a dream.
In it he was sitting on the top bunk of his university dormitory, cross-legged, eyes shut, sensing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Chu Yang sat on the bottom bunk reading, and without lifting his head he said:
"Mind you don't catch cold."
Lin Jin was about to shoot back what would you know, I'll be riding a sword any day now, and then the picture in front of him shattered into a sheet of golden light.
He felt himself lift into the air. There was a sword under his feet. He passed through the cloud layer, through the sunset glow, and up above the Ethereal Sword Sect. Every disciple on the Transmission Grounds was looking up at him. Senior Sister Qingxue stood at the very front of the crowd and gave him a small smile.
Lin Jin's eyes snapped open.
What met them was a mildewed roof beam. The air was full of dust and the smell of old timber; brooms and broken buckets were heaped in the corner, and a few blades of harsh sunlight came through the gaps in the door.
He discovered he was trussed in hemp rope like a rice dumpling, lying on his side on the rough floor. Half his face had been pressed into a red mark and there was a small puddle of drool.
"Is it morning..."
He worked his neck around with difficulty and tried to struggle upright, and the rope cut into him until he was baring his teeth.
Never mind. Can't get up.
He let out a resigned sigh, shut his eyes, and went back to sleep.
Snn—
Nrrk—
A burst of hurried footsteps came from outside the door, and the jangle of keys knocking together.
Then the storeroom door was shoved hard open from outside.
At the front stood Ling Ruowei. Sixteen or seventeen, delicate-featured, a slender green steel sword at her waist, her head craned forward to see inside.
She had heard that the man Senior Sister Qingxue was looking for had been tied up in the storeroom, and she was ashamed and curious at once — what kind of mortal could bring Senior Sister to somebody's door in person?
And then she saw Lin Jin.
The mortal lay on his side on a floor thick with dust, bound in hemp rope like a pig fattened for New Year, at an angle no body should be able to hold.
His face was blotched green and purple, the wound on his forehead had scabbed over, and there was a glistening trail of drool at the corner of his mouth. Half of his face had a red pressure mark from the floorboards, he was drooling in his sleep, and he was snoring loud enough to shake the roof.
He wore a white short-sleeved shirt with an indistinct design printed on the chest, and there was one slipper on his feet. Where the other had gone was anybody's guess.
Ling Ruowei's expression went through an extraordinarily complicated sequence of changes inside a single breath.
First her eyes went wide and her lips pressed into a flat line. Then the corner of her mouth began to twitch. Then she pinched her own thigh, hard.
She very nearly did not hold it together.
She now understood the outer sect disciple who had tied him up completely.
In his place, she too would never in a thousand years have believed a man like this was Senior Sister Qingxue's disciple.
No — in anybody's place. Nobody could look at this spectacle and connect it with the words the Saintess's man.
Chu Qingxue looked in over Ling Ruowei's shoulder.
She saw the curled-up shape on the floor. Rope biting into it, the posture wrenched, filthy from head to foot. The face blotched green and purple, the cut on the forehead crusted dark red. The whole of him like a sack of rags somebody had beaten and then thrown onto a heap of junk.
Her breathing stopped for an instant.
Then she made out that his chest was still rising and falling, up and down, perfectly steady. The two lips beneath his nose were slightly parted and letting out an even snore.
The string that had been pulled taut in her the whole way here finally slackened — she had half convinced herself her bro had ascended on his first day.
Alive. All limbs present.
She stood in the doorway without moving and simply looked at him for a good while.
Then she walked into the storeroom, crouched down, and looked at the shape on the floor curled up like a shrimp. The rope was tied well enough, though he had worked a good deal of it loose himself in his sleep.
Chu Qingxue put out a hand and stopped it above his cheek without touching down.
Green, purple, swollen, split — every one of those injuries crowded onto this one face. Yesterday at the Jade Pool she had looked at him from a distance, handed over the medicine and turned to go. Only now, up close, could she see how bad it was.
She looked away, and looked back.
She took a white jade medicine bottle from her sleeve, pulled the stopper, and tipped a little of the salve onto her fingertip. Very carefully, she began with the scabbed wound on his forehead.
The salve was cool. As it met his skin Lin Jin made a small sound in his sleep and his brows moved, but he did not wake.
She laid down a second stroke, working it slowly out along the bruising over his cheekbone, using very little pressure, afraid of waking him.
The salve dissolved and sank in, and the bruise faded visibly.
Then the split at the corner of his mouth. She put on a thin layer, and the redness and swelling along its edges went down.
Ling Ruowei stood by the door frame watching this.
She had meant to go in and help. Her foot got half a step and stopped. She leaned against the frame with a hand on her sword hilt and said nothing.
She had never seen Senior Sister like this. When Senior Sister gave guidance on the Transmission Grounds she stood three paces off and her tone was always that same cool one.
And now she was crouched on a floor thick with dust with salve on the pad of her finger, putting it a little at a time onto the face of one unremarkable mortal.
Very lightly. Very slowly.
As though he were something well worth handling with care.
Something clogged in Ling Ruowei's chest. She watched Senior Sister's fingertip pick up a little more salve and lay it on the split at the mortal's mouth, and the man made a sound, and Senior Sister's hand stopped and waited until his breathing evened out before going on.
Her heart clenched hard.
She could not have said what the feeling was — only that her throat closed up suddenly and her eyes went hot. She looked quickly away and pretended to be studying the few broken brooms in the corner.
Chu Qingxue put the bottle away, stood, and looked down at the man still snoring.
This idiot is going to make an enormous fuss when he wakes up. The salve is on, and the injuries are near enough healed.
She turned to Ling Ruowei. "Is there water? Ruowei, bring a basin of clean water."
Ling Ruowei nodded at once. In the instant of turning away she blinked twice, fast, and blinked the tears in her eyes out of existence. She made a sign to the outer sect disciples behind her, and within moments a basin of clean water was carried over.
Ling Ruowei took the basin and handed it to Chu Qingxue.
Chu Qingxue accepted it and looked down at the man snoring on the floor.
The corner of her mouth lifted very slightly.
She raised her arms.
And emptied the entire basin over Lin Jin's face with a splash.
"Who—!"
Lin Jin came off the ground like a man electrocuted, tripped on the rope and nearly went over, and thrashed about on the floor soaking wet.
"Who threw water on me— are you sick in the head!"
The storeroom went silent on the instant.
Ling Ruowei's fingers were already on her sword hilt, the green steel half an inch out of its sheath with a clear ringing note.
The outer sect disciples clenched their fists as one.
Lin Jin's brain finally came all the way out of sleep. He blinked the water off his lashes and his vision cleared by degrees — first a basin, then a length of white sleeve, and finally a cold, flawless face.
There was no expression on that face at present, but the eyes, clear as ice, were watching him, and there was still a trace of a faint smile at the corner of her mouth that she had not had time to withdraw.
Lin Jin's brain completed the entire chain of reasoning from who threw water on me to I am finished in three tenths of a second.
"S-s-s-senior Sister Qingxue!"
He came off the floor with a thud, moving so violently he nearly put his head through the roof beam, and once he had his footing both hands went to waving frantically in front of him.
"Senior Sister! I honestly didn't know it was you! This filthy mouth of mine, it's nothing but a filthy mouth!"
He brought a hand up and slapped his own left cheek.
"This is the mouth that just swore at you!"
And gave the right one a slap as well.
"I'll beat it good and hard! Senior Sister, please don't be angry — and if you are angry, come and do it yourself, I promise I won't dodge!"
Chu Qingxue looked at him.
Looked at the two fresh handprints laid over the bruises she had just finished putting salve on.
The salve she had only that moment applied, and he had covered it back over with two slaps. He was soaked through as though hauled out of a river, and there was a blade of grass from somewhere hanging in his hair.
Called her sick in the head, then dealt himself backhanded slaps left and right, the whole sequence inside two seconds.
She did not manage to hold it.
"Pfft—"
The laugh was very light and very short. The corner of her mouth curved, her eyes narrowed slightly, her shoulders shook once.
The Saintess of the Sword Sect, aloof the entire way here, had laughed out loud in a storeroom.
The whole storeroom looked as though somebody had pressed pause on it.
Ling Ruowei's fingers came off her sword hilt. When she saw that smile on Senior Sister's face it was as though a sword light went through her head and cut every thought in it into blank space.
So Senior Sister could smile like that.
And when Senior Sister smiled like that she was ten thousand times better-looking than usual.
Her body swayed once, and she slid slowly down the door frame with her eyes still open and no focus left in them.
Out cold.
The moment Lin Jin saw that smile there was one thought in his head: I'm done for, here we go again.
His heart rate went straight to a hundred and forty and his eardrums filled with the roar of his own blood. He suspected he was still asleep and all of this was a dream.
He pinched himself on the inside of the thigh, in secret, and hissed air in through his teeth at how much it hurt.
Not a dream. Real.
The smile froze on Chu Qingxue's face.
It struck her all at once — she was the Saintess now. Chu Qingxue, Saintess of the Ethereal Sword Sect: aloof, reserved, unsmiling, a face like frost. And she had just laughed out loud, with no dignity whatsoever, in front of a dozen outer sect disciples, an inner sect junior sister, and Lin Jin.
That's it. Blown. The whole persona, blown.
She coughed twice quickly, put the back of her hand against the corner of her mouth, and forced the smile down by main strength. Her shoulders eased, her brows and eyes lowered, and her face resumed that unruffled, aloof composure.
Three seconds, start to finish. But those three seconds cost her more than a hard fight at Golden Core.
"Junior brothers and sisters." Her voice had returned to its cool register, her speech a few degrees quicker than usual. "Since the man has been found, I will take him with me."
She paused, hunting at speed through her mind for a reasonable pretext to leave on.
"He is a mortal the sect engaged for a particular task. I will take him now; the task requires it."
That said, she cast a glance down at Lin Jin on the floor.
"Lin Jin. Stop playing dead and get up."
Lin Jin blinked, confirmed he was not dreaming, struggled to his feet, forgot that the rope was still wound around his legs, staggered three steps before he found his balance, and followed after Chu Qingxue dripping wet.
Chu Qingxue walked in front, and as she passed Ling Ruowei her stride slowed by a beat. She turned her head and added, low:
"Ruowei. Thank you for your trouble just now."
Ling Ruowei had still been swimming, and that one line brought her all the way back.
She snapped upright. "It was no trouble, Senior Sister!"
Chu Qingxue glanced at her, said nothing more, and turned and walked out.
She walked faster than usual, and the wind off her hem lifted the dust from the floor and set it down again.
That smile just now was far too obvious. Will it be all over the sect by tomorrow?
The thought went through her mind for a moment. And then her step slowed a little, as though something had resolved itself.
Let it go around. So I smiled once. Is a Saintess not allowed to smile? Report me if you dare — and whoever reports me is the traitor.
Lin Jin has been found. That is what matters.
Lin Jin, following behind, asked quietly as he passed the dazed Ling Ruowei, "What's the matter with her? Senior Sister."
Chu Qingxue did not turn her head. "Don't talk."
Lin Jin shut his mouth and followed obediently.
The two of them walked out of the storeroom, crossed the lodge's main hall, and set off along the mountain road toward Purple Sun Peak.
In the storeroom behind them the outer sect disciples were still standing where they had been. Nobody spoke. Ling Ruowei leaned against the door frame and watched Senior Sister's back disappear at the end of the corridor.
She got slowly to her feet, straightened her collar, and put the composure of an inner sect disciple back on her face.
"What happened here today," she said, looking around the room full of junior brothers, "no one is to spread a word of it. Senior Sister not punishing us is already an enormous mercy."
Every head in the room nodded at once.
Out on the mountain road, Lin Jin walked behind Chu Qingxue, soaked through, and finally had a matched pair of shoes on his feet — the right one yesterday's flip-flop, the left one a broken straw sandal some outer sect disciple had abandoned in the corner of the storeroom.
He looked down at the state of himself, then up at Senior Sister's back.
He thought of that smile of hers a moment ago, and his mouth stretched into a grin, which he put away in a hurry.
Then he noticed that her pace had slowed a little from before.
And he could not tell whether he was imagining it, but Senior Sister's shoulders seemed to have come down, just slightly.