Author Note: Reminder, this chapter continues where chapter 24 had ended - events in the previous interlude are, relatively speaking, several weeks in the future. For those of you who wanted a summary - one Fang Jiugui, a private spirit hunter and an occasional alcoholic, was hired by Qian Shanyi's sect to find her after they received her mail, and had managed to trace her back to Xiaohongshan by following a trail of fingerprints.
Qian Shanyi decided to spend most of the night within the hotel room, her rage slowly simmering down into despair.
It was pointless to try to search for Wang Yonghao in the dark. He had a lead of several hours on her - without any tracking techniques, she would be relegated to pure guesswork as to where he headed. Her best plan for locating him was to question the gate guards to see if anyone had seen him leave town, and if so, in which direction, but trying to improvise a way to approach them in the middle of the night would simply bring questions to the identity of Lan Yishan she could not answer.
Ironically, at the moment, this hotel room was one of the safest places for her in the city, even though it's doors were under surveillance - it kept her concealed, and if the spirit hunters did not choose to break in already, they likely would wait for the innkeeper to open it at the end of the week. At the very least for tonight, this room should be safe.
Safe it might be, but comfortable it was not. The bed sang its siren song from the middle of the room, but Qian Shanyi blocked it out with her iron will, knowing touching it would be a mistake. When she descended down the chimney, she got covered in soot - even if she managed to mostly clean her feet with spiritual energy so that she could walk around the room without leaving black footprints behind, this cleaning was not perfect by far and wasted a lot of spiritual energy. There was no way whatsoever for her to properly clean her entire body - if she crawled under the sheets, then at the end of the week, when the innkeeper would open the room, they would find soot all over the bed and know she had entered the room through the chimney. From there, they could deduce that she was probably still in the city, and her cover would be quickly blown. The only safe option was to leave no evidence of her intrusion behind.
After packing up her writing set, she settled down on the cold stones within the cramped fireplace, throwing one last longing stare at the nice, soft bed. She doubted she would get a full night's sleep, but even a couple hours would be good for the day ahead.
To say the fireplace was a bad place to sleep was an understatement of the century.
Qian Shanyi's body ached all over by the time morning came. It was
much worse than when she had to sleep on the grass in the world fragment: at least there, she could stretch as much as she liked, and the soot didn't threaten to send her into a coughing fit every half an hour. Her limbs grew numb from sitting on the unyielding stones, making her fidget the entire night, and keeping her in a torturous state between true sleep and wakefulness.
No matter. Her mind received
some rest, and her body would just have to deal.
She left the tavern well before sunrise, after smoothing out the remaining soot in the fireplace as best as she could, hiding the last signs of her presence in the room. There was no point in prolonging this cruel self-torture: she got as much rest as she was ever going to get. She left the same way she came in, bringing her writing set with her.
She didn't want to soil her only set of clean - though stolen - clothing by putting it on while she was still covered in soot from head to toe, and instead tied them into a tight bundle she could hang from her neck, and quickly made her way to the river over the rooftops, avoiding the sight of what few people still roamed the streets.
The docks took up the entirety of the bottom terrace, workers busy loading and unloading ships even this early in the morning, but sneaking past them was no trouble at all. She left her writing set on the roof of one of the houses overlooking the waters, made sure there was nobody within earshot, and dived down into the river straight from the roof, her clothes still tied around her neck and her sword in her hand.
The ice cold waters cleansed the last remains of sleep from her mind, and she held her breath, keeping herself underwater and letting the current carry her outside of the town limits. Once her lungs started to burn, she surfaced, and quietly swam over to the shore.
She didn't have any soap, so she cleaned herself as best as she could with forest moss and the river waters, trying to get herself to a state she could call presentable. Once her teeth started to clatter from the cold, she put on her wet clothes, took out her sword, and started to cultivate - more to keep herself warm than anything else, as the forest air contained little spiritual energy.
Cultivating finally gave her time to think, and that only worsened her mood. Her situation was well and truly fucked, in some ways leaving her worse off than back when she was stuck starving in the world fragment. Back then, she was in acute danger, but her long-term prospects seemed bright; now, she was in little direct danger, but all paths ahead lead to disaster.
She couldn't take back the letters she already sent to her sect, telling them she was, in effect, running away. Going back into the imperial post office and asking to take them back would get her questioned by the spirit hunters the very next minute, and there were no good answers she could give. On top of that, she couldn't even be sure if the letters were still there - perhaps they were already well on their way down the river.
She could try to race the letters downstream, but she frankly doubted she could ever catch up to them. The imperial postrunners have been doing their jobs for years, knowing the fastest and cheapest ways to travel, while she knew close to nothing about the local area. To make matters worse, she had four jian eight fen left - she doubted it would even be enough to pay for a ship halfway to the Golden Rabbit Bay, let alone to feed her on the way. At best, she could arrive some weeks after the letters did, and that meant she would have to beg for her indiscretions to be forgiven.
She had, perhaps, been a
bit too scathing in her wording when writing the letters. She doubted the sect would forgive her easily - she would be lucky if she was let out of the compound
at all before the decade's end, and any hope of advancing into the building foundation stage would be slashed to ribbons. A life of restless, physical labor would be all that awaited her down this path.
She could approach the empire and get into one of their institutions, but even if she wasn't given up to her sect straight away, she would simply be trading one jailer for another.
The life of a loose cultivator would be little better - there was a reason why most cultivators tried to get into a sect if they could. Ultimately, a refinement stage cultivator was fighting against time - trying to purge their meridians and strengthen their body before their age took its toll and made them too frail to survive the spiritual energy condensation required to advance into the building foundation stage - and without the resources provided by the sect, this was a monumental challenge.
That left trying to find Wang Yonghao, but her prospects there seemed equally grim. He could have headed upstream or downstream, or even deeper into the forest in a random direction - there was just no way to guess. If he wanted to, he could have easily avoided being seen by the guards, and that meant her catching him would be entirely down to luck - a playing field where she couldn't possibly hope to compete.
She still had some other ideas for how to find him, of course, but nothing that was sure to work.
Once she felt reasonably clean, Qian Shanyi sneaked back into the town the same way she left. She briefly considered hopping over one of the walls instead - it wouldn't have been much of a challenge, really - but without knowledge of guard patrols, the risk of being spotted and questioned was too high for her to tolerate. That meant her clothes got wet again, but the river waters were mercifully clean, and she walked through the back alleys of the town waiting for the heat of her body to dry them, occasionally taking some time to cultivate to keep herself warm.
No matter how much she wanted to go after Wang Yonghao, her first priority was to find housing and a way to make money. Even her best plans would take some time to work, and after last night, she would do anything to avoid having to sleep on the streets.
Qian Shanyi spied her mark from afar, the sign shining brightly in the rays of the rising sun. It wasn't something she would have considered before her life turned on its head, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
It was a ramen shop, set in front of a small square just a couple streets away from the waterfront. She picked it carefully: large enough that it took up an entire lower story of a house, but not very prestigious, clearly made to serve dockworkers and sailors as opposed to merchants or, heavens forbid, cultivators. It was far away from both the post office and Cheng Dao's store, and while there was a lot of foot traffic, the kitchens weren't visible from the streets at all.
A young waitress was setting up tables on the square in front of the establishment, and called out to her as Qian Shanyi headed inside.
"Miss? We aren't open yet."
"That's alright," Qian Shanyi smiled back at her, continuing towards the doors, "I am not here to eat, but to talk to your proprietor. I assume they are inside?"
"Propri - do you mean old Chen?" the waitress hurried after her, covering her mouth to stifle a yawn. The skin on her hands was hard, muscles in her arms clearly strengthened by years of carrying food and drinks all day.
"If old Chen owns this restaurant, then yes."
The room inside was cozy, only large enough to fit another half a dozen tables, lit by small red lanterns near the ceiling.
"He is the boss, yeah," waitress continued, trying to catch up to Shanyi's wide stride, made harder by her being a good head shorter in stature, "What do you want with him?"
"Xiao Li, who are you talking to?" a scratchy voice came from the back of the restaurant, where a door led to the kitchens, soon followed by an old man coming out of it. He looked like someone drew a person on a piece of paper and then crumpled it up to wipe a spot of grease: short, wrinkly, with his ears jugging out of a messy head of gray hair.
"Did you bring a friend to work too?" he grinned, leering at Qian Shanyi, "She looks fine enough to be a waitress."
"She isn't my friend! She just walked in!"
"My name is Lan Yishan," Qian Shanyi bowed politely, "I
am looking for work, but not as a waitress. I would be of better use to you as a chef."
"I already have a chef, and besides, won't I be wasting your best assets that way?" he looked her over again.
Qian Shanyi laughed at that, and circulated the Crushing Glance of the Neverworld Eyes, making her eyes flash and her hair change through a dozen different colors in a breath. She saw Old Chen's eyes widen, while Xiao Li yelped, actually leaping away from her in shock.
"Honorable immortal, this humble servant apologizes - " Old Chen began, his demeanor changing on the spot, as he tried to make his rigid spine bend at the waist. Xiao Li apologized, and ran out of the restaurant, saying she had to get back to work.
"Oh give it a rest," she waved the owner off, pursing her lips, "I am merely studying to become an immortal chef, and my master sent me to get experience cooking in real restaurants. I hope that clarifies things somewhat?"
"We couldn't possibly - " he responded, still trying to kneel in front of her, wincing from the pain in his old back.
"
Unbend yourself, old man," she scowled at him, "I will be quite cross if you manage to die giving me courtesy I
did not ask for."
He didn't do that, and she had to come closer and help him up directly, hating every moment of it. Most people did not react this way, but even mild amounts of all this damned deference still made it impossible to interact normally with any ordinary person, except for those who already worked closely with cultivators. If she had a choice, she would have preferred to conceal the fact that she was a cultivator at all - but she needed a freer schedule and a lot more pay than a commoner could really ask for.
"Now," she said, keeping her hands on his shoulders and staring straight into his eyes, so that he couldn't start trying to kneel again, "Do you have a spot in your kitchen for another chef or not?"
"We couldn't possibly accommodate you in our measly kitchen, honorable immortal!"
"I do not require
accommodation," she ground through her teeth, "a set of knives and a stove would do just fine. Now do you have a spot or not?"
"If the will of the Heavens demands this, then of course we would have a spot!" he nodded vigorously, a look of almost rapturous dedication on his face, "But what could my humble restaurant have done to deserve this great blessing?"
Is he an actual karmist? Just her luck, meeting a fanatic. No wonder he was being this extreme.
She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.
"Look, this isn't a demand. If you do not have any need for a second chef, then I will look somewhere else," she said, "You stand to benefit from this arrangement - I could mix in spiritual energy into your dishes, and they will taste better and become more nutritious. I work quickly, so your kitchen would be as fast as lightning. Overall, you should have more customers and earn more money with me here, even though I would be gone in a week at most. But if you do not want me here, then that is also fine."
He shook his head.
"Of course we want to serve all Heavenly servants in whatever they demand! If you have a need for my restaurant, then it is yours!"
"Good," she said, pinching her nose in frustration, "this leaves the question of remuneration."
"If you have any need of money, then all my family's funds are yours!"
"
No," she ground out, "I will
not steal food out of your family's mouths. You will pay me
the same as your other chef. Then if -
if, you hear me? - I actually get you more customers, then you can pay me a
third of the added profit, compared to a typical day when I did not work here. I would also appreciate a bed."
She needed money, but damn it, she had
skills with which to get it. She wasn't yet desperate enough to simply
take it from a bloody
karmist - they were loose in the head as it was, without any need for the ravages of malnutrition.
"A bed - absolutely! You will have my personal bedroom -"
"A
cot on the
kitchen floor will suffice, thank you."
In the end, she had to intimidate him by flashing her eyes to get him to back down.
Well. At least she found a place to stay.
Qian Shanyi left the restaurant to find Xiao Li finishing up bringing the tables around and setting the chairs around them. She was concentrating on her work, and Shanyi coughed slightly as she approached to catch her attention, making the waitress jump slightly in the air.
"Oh, uh, honorable cultivator, you startled me," she laughed slightly, turning to face her.
"Please stop it," Qian Shanyi rolled her eyes, "My name is Lan Yishan. You should call me Lan Yishan, or just Yishan, if we are to work together."
"I couldn't possibly -"
"Whyever not?" Qian Shanyi cut her short. Sweet mercy, would she have to go through this with the chef too?
"It - it would be insulting, would it not?" Xiao Li blushed slightly.
Shanyi sighed. Well, this wasn't the first time she had to deal with this. Newcomers to the sect also needed time to adjust, but there was a faster way, when it was necessary.
"Alright, I can see that you haven't interacted with cultivators before, is that right?" she said, approaching Xiao Li, and sitting down on the edge of the table near her. The waitress just shook her head slightly.
"I am sure you have heard all sorts of stories about us, that we are like gods among men?"
"Old Chen has us stay after we close to listen to them," she nodded, "he has a little book."
Of course he does.
"Most of these stories are nonsense," Qian Shanyi continued bluntly, "Cultivators are just people. We aren't any more moral or upstanding than any others, and often we are less."
She could see doubt in the waitresses' eyes.
"I see that you need a demonstration," she hummed, leaning forwards, "slap me."
"What?" Xiao Li squeaked out.
"Across the face, as hard as you can," she nodded, intentionally suppressing her spiritual shield, "don't worry, I won't be hurt."
"I - I can't -"
"You have hands, you can slap anyone you want. I am not going to hurt you either, this is no trap."
"I can't! You are a
cultivator, how could I - "
"I am asking you to," Qian Shanyi said, "don't you know it's rude not to do the things people ask of you? Come on, just do it."
Xiao Li looked around herself, but the street was still mostly deserted, with only a couple passersby in the distance. Finally, she breathed deeply, closed her eyes, and slightly slapped Shanyi on the cheek.
"You can do better than that," Qian Shanyi rolled her eyes, "that was barely a touch."
She got a somewhat stronger slap in response, and a little giggle from the waitress. Out of the corner of her eye, Shanyi could see passerby stop and stare at the scene of a woman being slapped. She ignored them: they were too far away to hear their conversation, which is all that mattered. Xiao Li had her back to the street, and so couldn't see any of them.
"Are you caressing a kitten or slapping? Come on, put your shoulders into it."
She had to goad her a couple more times until
finally Xiao Li hit her properly. She caught Xiao Li's hand on the backswing, and looked her in the eyes.
"Well? Did anything happen when you slapped God?" She asked, "Did the Heavens fall down? Did the Netherworld open up?"
"No," said Xiao Li, still giggling.
"Great," Shanyi sighed, hopping off the table, "nothing will happen if you call me by my name either. Now let me help you with these tables."
They talked a bit as they worked, and shared some stories about their lives. Shanyi kept to the generalities, of course - it was still far too dangerous to leave identifying marks behind. The passerby started to move on, seeing that the slapping show was over.
"You are a strange woman," Xiao Li finally said, as they put the last of the tables down on the square, "why wouldn't you want people to bow to you? I definitely would like that."
Qian Shanyi stopped and bowed theatrically, making her head almost touch the ground. Her long hair pooled comically around her.
"Honorable daoist Xiao Li," she spoke loudly, projecting her voice across the street with the practiced ease of a lecturer, "the practitioner of the dao of food and drink, of the seven chair-flipping techniques, this humble woman beseeches you to forgive her ignorance!"
At first the waitress giggled at her antics, but blushed as she saw the passerby starting to gather for the show.
"Truly, my wisdom is like an ant in front of your great virtues!" Shanyi continued, bowing a shade deeper still, "Could there be any greater honor for me than to listen to your advice - nay, to even stay in your presence - nay, to even lay a glance upon your boots! My life would be fulfilled - "
"Stop, stop!" Xiao Li whispered to her, pulling her up by her arm, "This is getting ridiculous, people are staring at you!"
"Well there you go, now you understand me," she sighed, heading towards the restaurant doors, "it is impossible to deal with this every single time I have to talk to someone. Now help me convince the other chef to relax around me, just like you did."
She had a roof over her head, and a fairly safe way to make money. Now she just had to convince these people to keep their mouths shut about her being a cultivator, and she could start on her plans for finding Wang Yonghao.
Talking to karmists had to be less painful than sleeping on cold stones of the streets, right?
Author Note: If you'd like to read four chapters ahead, or read other works I write, you can find me on
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