Chapter Text
"Eagle, ride!"
The bird-named horse was already at top speed, but it mustered more upon her furious cries. Xianhua, the horse's rider, was a cultivator and a master of chariotry in her prime. But that was almost a decade ago. Back when she was married, her husband had had her favorite mare put down and her riding gear slashed. He had guffawed that it was unbecoming of a woman to have such rugged pursuits. It was fortunate that her husband was an unfaithful womanizer and that her maid had caught his eye not long into their union, as she was able to escape from the disastrous marriage and flee the country.
She slowed her horse to a trot, the town of Yunmeng coming into view. As she approached the gates, she admired the rippling river nearby. Her home nation was atop a mountain, so seeing the waters dance and dip in the sunlight tickled her heart. Eagle whinnied in approval as Hua attempted to find a suitable inn and stable. Preferably, one with only the best in wines and spirits.
"Guniang!" shouted a bearded old man. "Your horse looks mighty tired, if I should be frank. Stay with us and we promise only the best straw for your mount!"
"You got booze?" she said through a smirk. The man was momentarily taken aback by the bold tone with which he was addressed. He recovered with a stammered "o-of course!"
The inn consisted of a warm pub smelling of ginger and bustling with all the latest gossip, with a nearby staircase leading to an upper floor with many rooms decorated in floral embellishments. Xianhua picked the nearest table and set about ordering a meal. The waiter served her a bowl of fragrant soup, a platter of braised lamb seared lightly with wine, and a pot of steaming water to serve into her teacups. Notably absent was the liquor she requested.
"'Scuse me, gongzi," she mumbled, "I remember asking for some liquor."
"Apologies!" the poor waiter replied. "We have some pots of Hefeng being delivered soon. One will be taken to your room! We ask for your patience!"
"Three pots."
"Yes!" The waiter bowed repeatedly while backstepping from the table to other guests. As she tucked into her meal, the other tables in the lobby sparked with low chittering and snickering.
"So indignant! Surely a woman of no class?"
"She must be motherless. So ill-bred."
"And just look at that dirty face! I saw her horse outside and even the beast has more luster in its mane."
After scarfing down her last bites, she placed a string of bronze coins on the table and retired to her room with a grimace; these remarks followed her everywhere. Best to let them roll off her shoulders since these men would never be anything more than strangers. She opened the sliding panel to her room, which consisted of a bed with a heavy wool blanket and a pingfeng folding screen with six panels. The panels were moderately embroidered with outlines of lotus ponds. This port town loved its floral themes, and Xianhua could not complain at the sight of them. She groaned in mixed resignation after taking in the spring decor, both relief and anticipation forming in her gut. Tonight would be a huntless night if she couldn't glean information from the inn. Maybe she could ask for news when the attendant brought her wine. A tub had been prepared for her, so she undressed and plopped in with a sigh. The water instantly washed away the errant thoughts.
"What do you think, Bath? Anything interesting around here?"
Splish, splash. Hua flicked the surface of the bath in boredom. Untying her sepia queues, she lifted the wooden spoon and poured the lightly spiced water over her head. The translucent, but now gray bath slowly morphed into an inkier shade. Maybe the man who commented on her face wasn't too far off mark.
She sunk further into the tub, only half of her face now above the water, bubbles coming up from in front of her face. She loved playing in the bath as a kid. She had always loved water in general. Whenever she felt anything, she could retreat to the water. If she was tired, she could relax in the bath. If she wanted to play, she could jump into the river and chase the currents as the fish slid by her legs. If she was angry, she could enjoy the coolness of the water as she completely submerged herself in its depths and became instantly relaxed.
Suddenly, she noticed the ripples in the water had increased in frequency and the water turned black as an ink pot. This blackness could not be from the riding dirt. A chill filled the room, the kind of chill reserved for a vengeful spirit. In the recent decades, vengeful spirits had swarmed the lands as war ravaged the earth. If not for the quick actions of the cultivators, they might have overtaken the villages.
Cultivators used various tools to cleanse the land of resentful energies. They carried swords at their hips at all times, responding to local disasters and hauntings. They maintained the world order and cut swathes of heroism in their wake. Their spirits were nourished by golden cores, a second heart of sorts in their bodies which enhanced their strength and livelihood, allowing them to live longer and channel spiritual energy like magic.
Xianhua, also a cultivator, carried her sword with her. As a child, she dubbed the sword Cao Shao, an homage to the soft sound it made when unsheathed on horseback, an ambient flute against the wind. Cao Shao shook in response to the impending danger.
"Finally, some fun," Hua said with a crack of her neck.
Jumping out of the tub, the thin sword flew into her left hand, its emerald sheath glowing in the moonlight. The handle was grooved for her fingers, a nice addition made when forging the sword. The weapon greeted her with a small shudder in her palm.
She could see a thick mist fill the air as voices sounded from the surrounding rooms. Such a haze could disorient even the most astute of cultivators, and disorient it did. Hua closed her eyes to prevent visual hallucinations, but this simple solution would only buy her enough time to jump out the window before her mind itself was flooded with images. She would have to hope that the images wouldn't be the same color as the assailant who cast the mist. Logically, she thought, I can use the colors to separate objects and people. Then she might still tell the difference between the illusions and her target.
Long before she had become a married woman, she was taught how to deal with illusions. The brain played tricks, whether influenced by magic or fatigue, so a cultivator must deal with it by recognizing colors. If an object’s resentful energy were to cast a colorful aura, a cultivator should attempt to interpret the colors of the shapes it produced. If she was lucky, Xianhua would only have to deal with a few colors. If she was even luckier, the colors would be very different and very familiar.
She followed her memory to the bank of the river where she picked up some water to rinse her eyes, hoping that might clean her eyes of some of the smog, then, she continued to where the smog was the most dense. Again, she figured that if she washed her eyes out, maybe some of the mist would wash away in the process. It was perhaps a clever idea, but in practice it did not prove horribly effective. The path had almost completely faded from her vision. A crunching of gravel signaled the road that was being traveled by carts. Footsteps and frantic voices sounded from a short distance ahead as well as the fwishing of swords.
The hallucinations increased in frequency, so by now, Xianhua couldn’t discern a person from a flagpole. Image after image flashed before her. First she saw a spider web which reached out at her with ribbons of ruby and jade. The creature that descended from the eerie latticework first appeared to be a shadowy spider and then slowly morphed into a shapeless mass as it crawled towards her. She needed to act.
Cao Shao answered her by clinking in its scabbard. Would the sword cut an illusory spider web? Could it stab anything? She could only hope. As Hua sent her sword out, a small clang sounded when it passed through the creature. Through the fog, the blob began to reshape into the silhouette of a woman, shades of lavender and violet swirling around her like smoke. Hua reached out to retrieve her sword and instead, something thin and cool flew into her palm. The mist began to dissipate upon the object touching her fingers. It was over already?
“Well, what a damn waste.”
The images in her head disappeared one by one with the fog. Slowly, the real world materialized and Xianhua made herself return to it. A single carriage came into view and figures started to materialize as the road became clearer. Finally, the night was restful, the chill abated; and Hua glanced down at the object in her hands, an elegant jade hairpin, fit for a princess or perhaps a rich man’s only daughter. She looked back up to see the cart surrounded by panicked women with swords at their hips.
“Cultivators?”
The lady cultivators set about loading their cargo back into the wagon, which consisted solely of several large ceramic jars labeled “Hefeng”. Hua ran to the cart and the girls surrounding it turned to face her. Brief shock registered on their faces… and then a chorus of giggles.
“‘You ladies well?” piped Xianhua as her sword returned to its sheath. “Is anyone hurt?”
“Yes, we are, um, fine,” stammered the young girl cultivator. “Um… what about you?”
The giggling continued before it finally dawned on Xianhua why the lady cultivators hadn’t stopped staring.
“I’m fine. But maybe you could spare me some of that liquor? And, uh… a cloak?”
~~~~
They reached the inn and unloaded the jars, passing a single jar to Xianhua with a bow. She returned it in kind. Along the road, the women revealed that they had journeyed from the nearby Lotus Pier when they came upon a man selling hairpins.
"I saw the jade one and I really liked it. It didn't occur to me that it might be cursed and then-"
"The mist came in," Hua finished. "'You remember who sold it to you?"
"He was an older man with kind eyes and a red gown. He was smiling the whole time, so I held no suspicion. I... um..."
The girl's eyes suddenly became glossy and tears began falling down her cheek valleys. A girl with a scar on her left temple stepped forward, putting a hand on the crying girl's shoulder.
"She doesn't want to say it, but she recently was left by her foremost suitor. The old man noticed she was heartbroken, and told us that a hairpin was the perfect gift to cure a broken heart. I just had to buy it."
"I'm so sorry," the lovelorn girl cried. "I didn't mean to bring a curse on Yunmeng."
"Hey," Hua consoled, "don't feel bad, you hear me? It's not your fault that pin had resentful energy. If you ask me, that guy seems sketchy."
The girl wiped her tears only for more to fall in their place. Xianhua knew that her guilt was only half the problem.
"Listen, the sting of heartache can kill you, but not feeling at all is an uglier pain. You're not weak for your sadness and it's okay to feel that. Men and women are widespread as the grass whistling in the wind. One day, love will find you. And it'll be the love you deserve, yeah?" Before marrying young, Hua’s teacher had always told her that love was a beautiful spring garden and each blade of grass was a person searching for their happiness in that beautiful spring. Not that Hua had ever felt that it was true in her heart, but it would not be such a terrible sin to give another person hope for the future, the kind she could never have.
The crying girl smiled and turned to her friend to receive a warm hug. Xianhua suppressed a laugh as she noticed the scarred woman's hands lingering gently over her distraught friend, an unspoken feeling hanging on her tongue. Well, maybe it wasn't a lie after all. A warmth filled Xianhua's heart at this fortunate turn. She would not have to look far for companionship.
"That explains the pin. Now, we should give an account to your clan leader. Where is your clan leader?" Xianhua queried.
"He's supposed to come to town tomorrow. He was supposed to come today with us as well, but he never met up with the cart after going to the ancestral shrine and we were already late delivering the Hefeng. According to his nephew, he flew into a rage over something."
"He's always mad about something," laughed the second girl. "He's only ever nice when the Guild visits."
The Guild was a fairly new group in the land, but its reputation was garnering a fanbase. Rather than a traditional clan with hundreds of disciples, this small group consisted of a few young cultivators from the gentry clans. Currently, this included two young men from the Lan Clan of Gusu, one from the Ouyang Clan of Baling, and of course, the heir to the Lanling Jin Clan who also happened to be nephew to the Jiang clan leader.
"Well, then, tomorrow it is. And thanks for the cloak. I'll make sure it gets cleaned and returned when I meet with your clan leader."
Returning to the comfort of the room, Hua uncorked the first jar and gingerly sipped. The unusual flavor greeted her tongue and washed the liquid down with little burn. Truly worth the journey. Hua peered at the hairpin, trailing a finger down the grooves. She would need to get a musician to play a tune for her the following day, one who possessed spiritual power to suppress the resentful energies still pulsing within the beautiful pin. And she would need to find the pin peddler. She stuck the object into a red and black drawstring pouch and knotted it closed. The following morning would be interesting.
Hua asked the innkeeper if he knew any cultivating musicians in town. As luck would have it, a man in robes of black had arrived that morning with a dizi strapped to his belt and he knew the tune "Requiescat". The flutist asked some questions about the object and then offered to accompany her as she sought the answers. Xianhua turned him down, not wanting to draw too much attention to herself.
"Well," teased the man, "suit yourself. If you haven't solved your problem by the time I'm done with my booze though, I'll have to insist!" The man had a charms-birds-from-their-nest smile and a devil-may-care attitude about him.
"There's no way you'll drink fast enough to outrun me and Eagle," retorted Xianhua. "Tell you what: if I haven't solved my problem by tonight, I'll hand over one of my own jars of Hefeng."
"Ah, fine compensation, guniang!" cheered the impish man.
"But only one. I rather like the taste and would like to enjoy my last two jars before I leave."
As it turned out, she only needed to walk for half a stick of incense before she noticed a small cart painted in red. As an old man with a long beard set about his wares, Hua admired the combs, hairpins, tassels, and rings in alluring colors. He turned to face her and sure enough, his smile was amiable.
"Ah, wonderful traveler, a most humble welcome to you," the gentleman said with a bow. "Have you an interest in anything here?"
Hua wasted no time in asking about the hairpin.
"That pin came to me from the mouth of a wonder dog. It dropped the pin at my feet and scurried away as if it had completed its mission. I guess it knows my talent for these trinkets."
"Talent?"
"Ah, where is my humility? Guniang, I sell these objects, but my true gift is the sight of zhiji. If two or more people are fated to be together, I can see it. They are tied together by strings. What's more, that pin seemed to tell me that it came from Lotus Pier, a gift of love from a man to a woman whose heart he had broken. When I saw the ladies in their gowns, I knew it would be safe for me to hand it to them. There were two among them tied together and I could not resist giving them a little push."
"Now that's a wild power for such an old man," Xianhua said skeptically. "I don't believe in tall tales. But far be it from me to disrespect my elders, laoren."
"You should take that pin back to Lotus Pier if you would be so kind. Also... since the pin has troubled you, maybe you would take this as my own sort of compensation. May it guide you to love and contentment."
The old man then pressed a chrysanthemum hairpin into Xianhua's hands. Adorned with beads in a blush color and engraved with painstaking lines, it was lively and elegant. The pin almost looked like a real flower, polished to a shimmer. It brought to mind images of butterflies in the springtime wind. In a different light, the beads danced, the light reflecting off of them like fireflies. Something about it felt soothing as it touched her palm, like water trickling softly against her skin.
"Ah, and look, it matches your robes of lotus!"
If she had pressed the pin up to the borrowed robes, she would perhaps see a lake filled with lotus pods, leaves craning up over them to stare at their own reflections in the water. The fireflies would dance over the water in a ballad created from the hum of the flowing ripples and wind-rustled lotus stalks. The lyrics would be the flashing lights at night from the bodies of the contented fireflies. The harmony of the pin and robes was undeniable. She couldn’t turn down the gift, even if she suspected foul play.
"Thank you, kind elder. Good business to you."
"Remember, hope for the future. Your road has been rugged, but you shall one day race across fields in a chariot of love and lavender."
The chariot remark made Xianhua pause. Could this old man really see the unseen? Should she ask about her own string? No, what nonsense! Her marriage had been one of political necessity. She had received no offers otherwise, and the man in question had not had more than a passing interest in her. They hadn't even consummated the marriage more than once. No, Xianhua would be alone with her sword and her horse for the rest of this life. Politely, she set off back to the inn to gather her things and head out to Lotus Pier.
The old man watched her walk away with a sly grin.
"The string never lies."
~~~~
When she returned to the inn, the man in black had indeed finished his 3 jars and received a fourth jar of liquor from Xianhua as per their bet. She explained between swigs that she needed to take the pouch to Lotus Pier and find the woman it belonged to. Of course, she would have to find someone fluent in spiritual music to calm the item for however many days and nights she spent searching.
"The Guild should be there and there's a boy among them that plays qin," the man bragged. He slapped a hand to his chest and gave a wide, toothy grin. "That's my son!"
They finished their drinks in companionable chatter. As they took their final sips, the man thanked Xianhua for the alcohol through a brilliant set of teeth.
“Oh! Where are my manners, I haven’t even told you my name! I’m We-”
He jolted mid sentence, however, and his brilliant smile faded into a disappointed groan.
"Aiyah," he lamented. "I'll be outta here now." The man excused himself and skipped out the tavern entrance. What a strange fellow, Hua mused.
"Welcome in, Jiang-zongzhu," came the voice of a waiter.
Hua looked up from her table to see a man in gilded blue robes. He wore a cape of equally bold colors, deep night violets and greens swirling against an iridescent surface. His eyes were a piercing stormcloud gray and his brows perfectly shadowed them in foreboding omen. Hair bound in an ornate metal and leather band, his shoulders broad and imposing, his jawline square and set, he was a mature and handsome specimen– save for that sour scowl printed on his face. With an almost corporeal temper, the man strode into the tavern, scattering the patrons in his way and slamming his hand onto the bar with a clang.
Xianhua noticed a piece of jewelry adorning his wrist that gave her pause; many in the cultivation world knew of the Zidian. The whip was the first-class tool of the beautiful and bold Yu Ziyuan, known in her prime as the Purple Spider. It was said that when the Purple Spider fought, the Zidian's cord spun across the entire battlefield, and its victims who were not paralyzed by its lightning were struck immobile by its bite. The Purple Spider herself unarmed had been a force to be reckoned with and might have still been one of the most powerful women in the cultivation world had it not been for her untimely death at the hands of her martial brother, Wen Zhuliu: the Core-Melting Hand.
The Zidian hissed on the hand of its current master, ready to lash out at whoever set the man off. His posture stiff as a bamboo pole and brows permanently furrowed, he was definitely a figure to be feared. Not by Xianhua, of course. Much to the relief of the barkeep, Hua decided that it was time for her to confront the man before he destroyed the whole of the inn. Cao Shao clicked in agreement.
"Hey, Angry Clan Leader," she spat, "cut the tough guy act and quit bothering the patrons. They did nothing to you."
He turned to look at her, scanning her form with a scrunched nose.
"Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?" he shouted indignantly. "Do you even know how serious my business is?"
"Not serious enough for fighting innocent bystanders."
"Then should I fight you?"
"Yeah" Xianhua smirked, "but outside, you bitch."
That rankled the man and he lunged at Xianhua with his sword. She slid deftly out of the tavern and onto the street before drawing her own sword to stop his attack. Their blades grappled as the combatants skidded to a stop, a fierce current running between them. Xianhua peered over the interlocked blades to see the man's face somehow twisted in more wrath than before. As she looked into his wide gray eyes, she found a smirk pulling at the edges of her mouth. How had this bundle of relentless rage become the clan leader of such a prominent sect? What a hothead! Yu Ziyuan and her Zidian had been a masterclass of control and poise, never striking innocents as she whipped her enemies away. This man wielding Zidian seemed more like combustion and poison; she needed to lure him away from the crowd or he would likely destroy the produce stalls and cause damage to surrounding buildings.
The opportunity presented itself when he lashed out the Zidian directly at her chest. She spun her blade in front of her torso, using the centrifugal force to trap the Zidian and drag the man wherever she willed it to go. She tactfully led them both out of the town's gate.
"Stay still," growled Zidian's master as he yanked hard on the whip, still tangled around Xianhua's sword. The woman was pulled hard, face first into the grass along the trail and scraped her knees as the whip continued to drag her. Damn, she thought, this isn’t good. I’ll be halfway to Gusu by the time he’s done pulling. Okay, he wants to play dirty, so can I. She let go of her blade, still tangling the Zidian, and the sudden loss of weight made the man briefly lose balance and tumble backwards.
"That's what you get," Hua giggled. "Now can we talk a bit? Apparently I have something that belongs to your clan."
"Yeah, that robe, for starters," snarled the man. "Only Lotus Clan members should wear that. What poor woman did you steal it from? Hand it over immediately."
"It was a gift, but I was gonna give it back anyways before you threw your little tantrum," she replied through narrowed eyes as she sheathed Cao Shao. "Well, either way, I had fun."
The man stopped and blinked several times before rolling his eyes and looking at the ground. After a deep breath, he seemed more collected and met Xianhua's eyes once again. Though annoyance was drawn clearly across his face, somewhere behind his burning gaze was amusement. He had also enjoyed their less-than-casual brawl.
"You weren't a challenge at all, but my clan duties are, uh, more important than some street scuffle."
He dusted his shoulders off and made about straightening the metal cuffs on his wrists, though they seemed to be perfectly fine where they were. His nose unscrunched and his jowls lowered, his jaw unclenching considerably but never fully relaxing his features. His brows were pacing over his eyes. He was absolutely flustered but still physically contorted his mouth into a straight line in what seemed to be a painful process. This man surely valued his own pride over his clan, yet he had struggled to push all of that down in an attempt to save face. Perhaps his pride as clan leader had won out over his pride as a warrior by sheer force of will.
"Don't get me wrong, I don't hurt women," spat the clan leader, "but you don't even conduct yourself like a real woman."
Perhaps not.
"What do you even mean by that?" she asked with one brow perked up in faux confusion.
The man could not answer without being disrespectful, so he changed subjects.
"Well, what is it that you have for me?" he hurriedly asked.
"I'm sure you would ask my name before my mission?" replied Xianhua caustically.
As a personal rule, Xianhua rarely ever asked people for their names. She wouldn’t stay at any one place for too long and the fewer people she connected with, the fewer had the chance to ask for her name. It was easier this way. Once a cultivator, then a forlorned wife, then an exile… yes, this past must remain tucked away. But the hairpin also needed to go home.
"I'll save you the trouble. Name's Xianhua. I don't belong to any clan, but I know courtesy. You are the Jiang clan leader, though I have yet to know your name."
As Xianhua lowered herself into the traditional cultivator's bow, she met his eyes again. This time, she was greeted with an equally respectful bow from the man, the contrast in his sudden shifts in demeanor as night and day. Only one man was this prone to blaze like fire one minute and glaze over in ice the next.
"Representing the Jiang Clan, I am Jiang Cheng, courtesy name Wanyin, clan leader, son of Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan."