Five days passed in a blink.

Lin Xuan spent the road meditating, helping Lian study despite not understanding a single ingredient on the page in front of him. Mira ran the answers through his head while Lin Xuan dictated them. Lian, after the third hour of the second day, had already noted out loud how surprisingly well her Young Master understood alchemy.

She seemed proud of him for it.

By the fifth day Lin Xuan was something else entirely.

Sick.

The road was not straight. Bumps and ruts every few minutes shook the carriage from one side to the other. The tea cup slid. The blanket slid. Lian’s herb satchel slid. By the third day Lin Xuan was sticking his head out of the window every half hour to let cold air hit his face.

[ Since when do you have problems with this, Xuan? I would not have expected a martial artist to get carsick from a carriage. ]

’Neither did I, Mira. This is the first time it has happened. Not even on Earth did this happen to me. Ugh.’

[ Also Madam Mei has not tried anything yet. That is something. ]

’I expected something on the road too. I was also surprised when she came along. I thought she would stay at the sect like my father’s other two wives. But it makes sense. Her son is competing.’

[ Mm. ]

The carriage cleared the last ridge of the day.

Yuncheng appeared at the end of the road.

[ Welcome to Yuncheng, Xuan. We are here for the next month. ]

Lin Xuan leaned forward against the window frame and looked.

The city sat on a wide low plain crossed by two rivers that cut it into three uneven districts. White stone walls rose in three concentric rings, each ring older than the last by a few centuries.

A thousand pagodas pierced the morning sky inside the walls, painted in the colors of the regional sects. The banners of the six hung along the avenues that led from the eastern gate inward, six poles with six colors lifted in the wind. Caravans like Skyedge’s lined up at the gate behind a slow checkpoint of imperial functionaries. The voices of vendors filtered out from the markets even at the gate.

In the very center of the city, larger than any pagoda, larger than any temple, sat a circular stone structure with no roof. The Tournament Arena. The walls of it visible from the gate. The arches of it bigger than the Skyedge complex.

Lian’s eyes had gone round and shining the moment the city came into view. She did not blink for a long count.

"Lin Xuan. It is so big."

"It is, Lian. It is very big."

[ Two hundred thousand mortals minimum. Possibly more. The cultivator population fluctuates with the tournament cycle. This week it is closer to three hundred thousand. (◠‿◠) ]

’Three hundred thousand people in one city. Mira, I am from a city with seven million people.’

[ I forget sometimes. (¬_¬) ]

The caravan rolled through the gate after the checkpoint cleared them. Lin Zhen rode at the front. The Skyedge banner unfolded at the lead carriage. Yuncheng’s mortals barely glanced. The banner of a regional sect did not stop traffic in this city during tournament week.

They reached the residence assigned to Skyedge.

Lin Xuan stepped down from the carriage, looked up at the building, and let the silence sit for one long count.

’This is in the gutter, Mira.’

[ Yes. Effectively. Due to your sect’s recent financial troubles, this is the kind of placement Yuncheng’s tournament office gives to declining sects when the higher-tier residences are reserved for those who can pay the difference. ]

’It looks like it has not been swept in three years.’

[ Bacause... it has not. ]

A wide courtyard with worn wood underfoot. Enough bedrooms, which was good. None of them luxurious, which was less good. The roof of the main building had a crack across one beam that the local servants had clearly been ignoring for at least two seasons. The paint on the walls of the front gate flaked in a manner that suggested a sect with no maintenance budget.

Lin Xuan considered the place for a beat and decided he had lived in worse.

He had lived in a tiny apartment in his university first year with three friends, and the place had been a disaster. Empty beer bottles in every corner. Dishes nobody had washed for a week piled in the sink. The smell of male in the air at all hours.

’Good times.’

[ I do not want to know. ]

’You really do not.’

The Yuncheng house servants were correct and firm. None of them warm.

’What is wrong with these people, Mira. They could be a little happier.’

[ Yuncheng house servants are professionals, Xuan. Warmth is not the product. (¬‿¬) ]

Lin Kai had walked off with his mother the moment they arrived. Madam Mei was, for some reason Lin Xuan could not place, not visibly irritated. Her face had the calm of a woman who had decided something on the road.

That bothered him more than her usual cold.

Lian was already organizing the bags. She had four valises stacked above her tiny body. Only the top of her head was visible behind the pile.

"Lian. I am going for a walk around Yuncheng. There are still a couple of days until the tournament. I will be back by night."

Lian made a sound from behind the valises that might have been a yes.

[ You are a bad person, Xuan. You could help her. ]

’She would be angry if I did. Probably.’

[ That might be true. ]

He left.

He went straight to the Arena.

It was visible from the residence. It was visible from anywhere in the inner ring of Yuncheng. It rose from the center of the city.

Up close, it was bigger than it had looked from the gate.

Three concentric rings of stone seats. Capacity of perhaps fifteen thousand spectators. The fighting floor at the center was a wide circle of pale stone, polished by two centuries of feet. Around the perimeter ran a low wall and beyond that a moat of running water for runoff and ritual cleaning. Above the highest ring of seats, six standing poles ready for the banners of the six regional sects on the day of the opening ceremony. Two additional poles, taller, for the imperial blessing flag and the great sect invited disciple’s banner.

Lin Xuan walked the lower ring.

The stone underfoot was cool. The morning sun fell across the fighting floor at an angle that lit the polished circle like a coin.

[ Good idea coming here. We can get a feel for the space before you fight on it. By the way, do not forget that you still have nightly mental sparrings to do. I have programmed Yun Hai’s construct to keep showing up for one-versus-ones. He is going to beat you up. Muahahaha. ]

’Was that supposed to be an evil laugh?’

The panel went a faint pink. Mira said nothing for a long count.

’...Mira.’

[ Move on, Xuan. ]

He moved on.

He walked the lower ring twice, looking at the floor from different angles, watching how the morning light fell across it. He was about to take the stairs to the second ring when something at the edge of his vision stopped him.

Two figures on the far side of the fighting floor.

A young woman. Pale blue and white robe. Black hair tied back with a clasp shaped like a piece of cracked ice. The cold air of the morning seemed to gather around her shoulders even though it was not cold enough yet for breath to fog. She stood with her arms crossed.

Across from her, a young man.

Tall. Dark robe. He was speaking. His mouth moved fast and his hands moved with it. The body language of a young man trying very hard to convince a young woman of something she had already decided about.

[ That is Su Qingyue, Xuan. And it looks like she is in conversation with someone. ]

’Conversation is generous, Mira.’

[ Stay there. Watch. ]

Lin Xuan stepped behind the nearest pillar of the lower ring. He could see them clearly, but could not hear them. The Arena’s acoustics carried voices to the seats in summer when they were full, not across an empty stone floor at this distance.

Su Qingyue’s arms uncrossed.

The young man took a step closer. He was still speaking.

She said one short thing.

He kept speaking.

She said another short thing, and her hand came up palm forward in the universal gesture for stop.

He did not stop. He took another step closer and his hand reached for her wrist.

What happened next took perhaps half a second.

Su Qingyue’s body shifted weight to her back foot. Her front knee came up in a clean arc. The young man’s posture went from confident lean to a collapse so complete his upper body folded before his knees registered they were no longer holding him.

He went down, and stayed down.

He did not make a sound that carried across the floor, but the way his hands scrabbled at the stone and the angle his torso curved into the ground told Lin Xuan everything he needed to know about what had just been hit.

Su Qingyue lowered her foot. She adjusted her sleeve. She turned and walked away from him without looking back.

’Oh my god his precious stones! That had to hurt like hell.’

He stayed behind the pillar until Su Qingyue had crossed the fighting floor and disappeared up the opposite stairs. The young man on the ground stayed where he had landed, curled tight, breathing very carefully.

Lin Xuan turned the other way and walked back toward the residence with careful steps.

—————————————————————————

Yuncheng. Skyedge residence. Madam Mei’s wing.

In a small room, Madam Mei sat across from an old man. Master Hu was his name, or so he had given it.

"Madam. What service may I offer you."

"The principal tournament begins the moment the secondary closes. I would like my stepson... forgive me, the Lin family’s problem to be unable to use his Qi on the day of his match. Do you believe you are capable of arranging that."

"At an appropriate price, Madam, anything is possible."

—————————————————————————

Yuncheng. A teahouse in the third ring. Same evening.

Two old men shared a corner table on the upper floor. They were dressed as merchants. One drank slow. The other did not drink at all.

One spoke first.

"It seems they have arrived at last. You remember the duel, don’t you."

"I do. We will keep watching the Lin family for now. If something stranger than the duel surfaces, then is when we send word to the Second Prince."

The lamps along the canal below them lit one by one as dusk settled over Yuncheng.