Lei Wujie led the way in front, keeping his pace deliberately slow, turning half his face back every so often, unable to keep a lid on his talk, pouring out one small matter of cultivation after another.
He told them about leading a team to purge the Black Wind Devil Lair last year, and how an inner sect junior brother under him had mistaken a hallucinogenic spirit mushroom for a body-strengthening herb and chewed half of it, whereupon a pink haze had risen off him and he had capered about the hilltop in a frenzy for a solid half-hour, until Lei Wujie pinned him with a lightning technique.
Chu Qingxue kept her eyes down, her gaze fixed on the grain of the bluestone underfoot, offering not half a word in reply, not so much as moving a brow.
Lei Wujie seemed not to register the coldness at all, and moved on to the spirit cranes Thundercry Peak raised — how they understood human ways and would often carry low-grade spirit stones to disciples' cave dwellings, and how a few days ago one bold specimen had made off with the osmanthus steamed cake in his storage pouch and been shut in the crane house to go hungry for three days and reflect on it.
Outside the corridor the mountain wind turned the bamboo leaves over with a dry rustle, and every word of the chatter went into Chu Qingxue's ears the whole way. Her fingers worked at the cuff of her white robe without her noticing, and inside she let out one long, silent sigh.
Had she known she would be talked at the entire way, she would have been better off letting Yue Qingshuang's appointed disciple guide them after all. At least that one would simply have led the way, and would not have kept hunting for pretexts to draw closer.
They passed through two corridors carved over with archaic sword patterns, and the Transmission Pavilion's temporary registration desk stood ahead beside the white jade platform.
The outer sect disciple keeping the desk caught one glimpse of Lei Wujie's silver-white lightning-patterned robes, went rigid, and came out from behind the desk at once, bowing with his back very low, as though he had been waiting a long while.
"Senior Brother Lei, Senior Sister Qingxue, everything concerning the testing has been arranged in advance. A high-grade spirit-testing stone has been set aside in the inner chamber, so there is no need to share with the menials and new disciples coming and going, and I have kept a blank page in the register besides. The two of you may take this junior brother straight in for the test."
Chu Qingxue turned slightly, folded her hands before her, and gave Lei Wujie a correct and formal salute.
"I have put Senior Brother Lei to considerable trouble arranging all this today. Thank you."
Lei Wujie returned the salute at once, his expression melting soft, his tone pitched deliberately intimate, with rather less of the distance that ought to hold between fellow disciples.
"Qingxue, there is no need for such distant courtesies between the two of us. Come to think of it, from now on I ought to be addressing you differently."
Chu Qingxue's brows drew together slightly, a layer of blank puzzlement surfacing in those clear eyes, and she asked softly.
"Why does Senior Brother Lei say so?"
Lei Wujie clasped his hands behind his back, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth that could not hide how pleased with himself he was while trying to look profound, and slowed his speech right down to keep her in suspense.
"The day before yesterday my father, the Master of Thundercry Peak, went to the main peak to confer with the Sect Master, and on his way out he happened to mention an arrangement already settled. One month from now, when the Sect Grand Tournament closes, the Sect Master will formally invest you as Junior Sect Master of the Ethereal Sword Sect. The Tournament is no more than walking through a settled procedure — no one of your generation in the whole sect can stand against you. Once the formalities are done, the title of Junior Sect Master falls to you with full legitimacy, and your cultivation resources will match a peak master's."
The instant the words landed, Chu Qingxue's level, cool voice jumped several degrees, breaking clean through her usual restrained and gentle register, the alarm in it impossible to hide.
"What? The Sect Master told me plainly before that I would not have to take part in the Sect Grand Tournament. Why has he changed his mind so suddenly?"
Seeing her feeling run so high, Lei Wujie took it for delight at the good news, and the smile behind his eyes grew warmer, his tone carrying a careful hopefulness.
"Look how excited you are, Qingxue. You must be very pleased with the surprise the Sect Master has prepared. Once you hold the position of Junior Sect Master — when there is no one about, may I still call you Junior Sister Qingxue in private, as I used to?"
Chu Qingxue did not take in half a word of the second part of that question. Nothing was left in her head but those four words, Sect Grand Tournament, slamming back and forth. She stood rigid before the white jade steps, her mind churned into a tangled mess.
The recruitment lecture seven days out was already a death sentence — she could only cram the entry sword art off the transmission stele in secret, and taking that platform depended entirely on Lin Jin learning the basic forms fast enough to cover for her. And now, out of nowhere, there was a Sect Grand Tournament as well, with every peak's disciples gathered and elders from other sects seated to watch, where she would inevitably have to take the stage, cross swords, and expound doctrine.
She had the shell of a late Golden Core cultivation and not a scrap of true sword-dao meaning or cultivation insight inside it. Let her raise a hand to demonstrate a form, or open her mouth on the subject of the path, and every layer of the disguise would collapse in a moment, the capital crime of body-snatching would be exposed, and the end of it would be her soul burning in the Soul-Refining Lamp. The thought alone went through her cold.
Beside her, Lin Jin quietly raised his eyes, his gaze settling heavily on Lei Wujie, having taken in every one of the man's moves.
He had seen plenty of men chasing girls at a modern university, and he knew this playbook far too well. Arranging special treatment on purpose. Staying glued to her side the whole way and never stopping talking. Angling by every available means for an exclusive, intimate form of address. Eating away at the space around her step by step, using the standing of a fellow disciple to close the gap. There was a plainly visible possessiveness under all of it.
This Senior Brother Lei at peak Foundation Establishment looked at Senior Sister Qingxue with an obsessive attention in his eyes. That was nothing like the ordinary concern of a fellow disciple. The man was courting her.
Lin Jin's guard went straight to maximum and his back straightened slightly.
In the single day since he had crossed over, Senior Sister Chu Qingxue was the only person willing to shield him, the only one who had given him a way to live. She had been gentle and generous with him and had handed him a full set of cultivation resources. And Senior Sister plainly did not like this Lei Wujie — so I'll deal with this problem for her.
He shifted lightly forward half a step, cutting off Lei Wujie's line of sight to Chu Qingxue, and broke into their conversation, his tone flat and carrying a thread of stubbornness.
"Senior Brother Lei, in my view it is better to hold strictly to the sect's proprieties. Forms of address between ranks have their fixed rules, and changing them at will invites talk. Etiquette must not be disordered on any account."
Only then did Lei Wujie finally shift his attention off Chu Qingxue. He looked down at Lin Jin — unremarkable of feature, in ill-fitting moon-white practice robes — and the layer of gentle warmth behind his eyes drained away on the instant, leaving a thin contempt and distance.
"Junior Brother Lin? Ah — no. At present you do not yet rate the title of junior brother. The result of the spirit root test is still unknown, and you remain a mere mortal who appeared out of the Jade Pool's spirit spring from nowhere. If your spirit root proves inferior, you will not even qualify to cross the outer sect's threshold. Rushing to discuss the sect's rules with me at this moment is somewhat premature, and in the end will leave nothing behind but embarrassment."
Lin Jin was not cowed in the slightest by the contempt in the man's eyes. He raised his own and met Lei Wujie's gaze squarely, pulled a loose smile onto the corner of his mouth, and spoke easily and unhurriedly, without a trace of nerves showing.
"Senior Brother Lei need only wait with an easy mind. My aptitude will certainly exceed everyone's expectations, and when it does I shall have to trouble Senior Brother to have a celebratory banquet ready in advance. Ah — and Senior Sister is partial to stir-fried kidney flowers, so do remember to lay on a few extra plates of it."
At those words a vein tightened at Lei Wujie's temple, and a jealousy he could hardly suppress churned in his chest.
He had followed Chu Qingxue for years and had gone to every length to learn her preferences. He knew she loved quiet, favored clear cold spirit tea, and cared for nothing so much as a cold jade heart-calming pendant — but he had never once heard that she was partial to a meat dish this thick with common street cooking. And this mortal of unknown origin and no cultivation whatever could name a dish she liked to eat offhand. There was plainly a closeness between the two of them that he knew nothing about.
And then, on reflection, those three words left him thoroughly at a loss. In thirty years of cultivation his meals had been the fine meat of spirit birds and spirit beasts and spirit vegetables off the mountains, and he had never heard of this strange dish. How could Qingxue — so aloof, so far above the dust of the world, untouched by the mortal realm — be partial to food like that?
Jealousy mixed with incomprehension stopped up his chest. Lei Wujie closed both fists, the faint lightning energy about him turning restless, and his voice came out wrapped in a cold that cut to the bone, one word at a time with the anger pressed down beneath it.
"If you genuinely possess aptitude of that order, then naturally I shall lay on the banquet. But you would do well to remember firmly that wild talk with no real cultivation behind it ends as nothing but a joke to the entire sect. There is never room at Qingxue's side for a weakling of no use to anyone. And even if one should remain beside her a while by luck, I will personally erase anyone who does not belong there."
As the last words fell, a heavy cultivator's pressure with the keen edge of thunder in it came down over Lin Jin, weighting his limbs and setting a faint numbness through his flesh.
Lin Jin understood perfectly that the gap between their cultivations was cloud to mud, that he had not the strength to truss a chicken at present, that he could not move a single thread of spiritual energy and was wholly incapable of resisting. And he did not shrink or look away in the slightest. He went on looking straight at Lei Wujie, pulled out a smile that said none of it mattered, and spoke lightly, deliberately diluting the murder in the other man's words.
"Senior Brother Lei need not stand here probing at me. Lead the way to the test and be done with it. I have been wanting to see for a while now just what spirit root I turn out to have."
The needle-against-needle tension between the two of them spread out under the corridor, and the air around them seemed to congeal a little.
Chu Qingxue, at their side, had not noticed the undercurrent of that confrontation at all.
Her head was down, her unfocused gaze on the white jade tiles at her feet, her voice so low that only she could hear it, murmuring the same thing over and over, nothing left in her but boundless panic.
"It's over. I have to take part in the Sect Grand Tournament as well... this time it's really over."