Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion
- Thread starter Winged_One
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- Original Novel Fantasy
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- He
Most Sane Cultivator's train of thought while fleeing pursuit.
I do like that this shows that for all Qian Shanyi thinks highly of her own intelligence, she makes some hella questionable decisions.
(seriously, even while paranoid, how does getting soot all over the bed inform the theoretical spirit hunter that you're still in the city? All it shows is that you thought you were being pursued at some point, and decided to get a good night's sleep the same night you entered via chimney. (Which could have just as easily been the night before leaving the city.))
This is hilariously evocative. The entire ramen shop job sequence was quite funny, and I liked the interplay of QS muscling her way into the job while trying to get Old Chen to stop extorting himself out of karmist terror-worship.
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- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hopefully this is a big enough town that a couple people talking about what they saw outside the ramen shop will get drowned out in the normal gossip mill. Or those rumors could get exaggerated so much that nobody looking for her would take them seriously; that could be fun!
If nothing else, it shows that she stuck around town for a while before fleeing. It doesn't take a lot of paranoia to assume someone will realize she's still around town if anyone thinks she didn't flee immediately.
And that's not getting into the things she knows she doesn't know. There are cultivators after her, and cultivators can learn some pretty crazy stuff.
It's also a good test/demonstration of character. It's easy to espouse egalitarian ideals when you're on the bottom; how does that stand up when you're the one who could benefit from inequality?
Granted, this isn't 100% "who you are in the dark"; too much deference and wealth could compromise her cover. But still.
His heart's in the right place, but that's compromised by how empty his head is.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Admittedly he's probably a bit traumatized. He's had other traveling companions of similar strength to him and they have all died as a result of his cursed luck. He wasn't worried when he thought she was strong but as soon as her true cultivation level was revealed he started trying to protect her from his luck. Plus, he doesn't entirely realize how much he's screwing her by doing this: he believed she would successfully sell the swords (probably in his mind only because he left and it wouldn't benefit him, things would work out, especially since she seemed so confident on the matter) and didn't realize she was notifying her sect of her dereliction of duty at the same time.
He's an idiot, yes, but she is also an idiot at the same time (put all her eggs in his basket right before he runs off and unknowingly leaves her with the receipt). It is a confluence of idiocy.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
So, are Karmists like part of a religion that believe that cultivators are advanced beings the the most moral of regular people get reborn as or something like that?
That the Karmists we've seen on-screen tend to treat all cultivators as agents of Heaven, not just the ones from Heavenly-approved bloodlines, suggests to me that - much like many other religions - followers join up more because that's what communities they're born into believe rather than any ideological investment.
Well, that and because the cultivators you piss off by treating them as divine are more likely to avoid you than do anything worse, where the cultivators who want to be worshiped might just do significantly nastier when they're not.
Well, that and because the cultivators you piss off by treating them as divine are more likely to avoid you than do anything worse, where the cultivators who want to be worshiped might just do significantly nastier when they're not.
Chapter 26: Forge Your Name With Gentlest Lies
Winged_One
Head Engineer of ATHENA
- Location
- Low Earth Orbit
"Is this cut fine?" she asked, stretching out her hand to show a small plate of carrots she was chopping up to Zhang Sheng - the other cook at the restaurant - so that he could judge the size and shape of the little vegetable cubes she was making. He glanced at it, nodded, and she continued to make her way through the rest of the ingredients, gradually ramping up her speed.
Her worries about him turned out to be unfounded. He was a man of few words, but she could tell he held a faint disdain for the owner of the restaurant, which immediately brought them together, and despite being surprised at having to work with a cultivator had adapted to the situation surprisingly well.
They quickly agreed on a simple division of duties: she would prepare the necessary ingredients, infusing them with a sliver of spiritual energy to make them more nutritious, and pass them on to him to be turned into the actual dishes. The great speed and dexterity that came from being a cultivator made up for her lack of practical skill, and with a scattering of advice from the other cook, she only got better and better as the day went on.
As her hands worked the knife, her mind kept itself occupied with observations. She started to count all the little things: how many clumps of noodles went into each bowl of ramen, how long it took for her to cut servings of various vegetables, how many bowls they made per hour, how often Xiao Li came by to give them new orders from the customers, and so on. When she had the time, she noted her observations down, setting her writing set down on the windowsill. Her observations helped her slowly adjust her work accordingly, keeping a little task schedule inside of her head to make sure Zhang Sheng would get just the right amounts of the necessary ingredients at just the right times.
Old Chen came by several times to ask if she needed anything, and if she perhaps wanted to rest, annoying her to no end. In the end, she had to lie and tell him she practiced a special cultivation art that could blind anyone who wasn't already a cook, and if he didn't clear out of the kitchens right now he might suffer that very fate at any moment. That finally made him flee. Zhang Sheng seemed amused, at the very least, though she could tell he didn't believe a word she said.
She wasn't sure how to feel about the fact that Old Chen didn't tell Xiao Li about her "special cultivation art", nor asked how the waitress could be protected from it, when she had to enter the kitchen to bring the plates of ramen to the customers. Was he too stupid to notice the contradiction, or simply didn't care what might have happened to his waitress?
By the time the evening approached, she had memorized all the steps needed to produce every dish sold at the restaurant - all five of them, plus the sides - and was sure she could take Zhang Sheng's place if absolutely necessary, though she would need some time to truly gasp all the small adjustments that had to be made on top of the overall recipe to account for the individual differences of each batch of ingredients. She wasn't going to try and upset the employment of the other cook, of course - her stay in Xiaohongshan was to be measured in days, not months, and after she left, this restaurant would need to manage somehow.
Keeping all of the recipes in her memory was no great task: she knew a dozen small tricks for keeping information inside of her head when the need called for it. For example, the human mind wasn't particularly suited towards memorizing numbers and quantities, but the numbers could be turned into words according to a simple substitution schema, and those words could be made to rhyme, making the process so much easier.
Back at the sect, she trained those tricks to perfection once she realized the Elders would not grant her the same knowledge of the sect secrets as her supposed peers. She hoped an opportunity would present itself to at least glance at some of the hidden manuals, letting her learn something of use, but sadly, that was not to be.
At least the skills were occasionally useful in gambling. Few people would even suspect the possibility that you could have memorized the deck of cards after casually looking through it once, but once the mind was used to quickly dancing through the many-layered substitutions, the trick was no harder than reading words off a page.
When the evening fell and Old Chen closed up shop, he seemed poised to try and get her to speak about the Will of the Heavens to about a dozen other karmists that came by. Instead, she claimed that she needed to retreat into meditation for the night. In fact, it would be better if the rest of the house was quiet as well - could they skip today's sermon entirely?
Old Chen was disappointed, but told his flock to leave, and even managed to keep his mouth shut on the subject of her being a cultivator - as was their agreement. Zhang Sheng gave her a little smile and a nod as he left, and she knew she did the right thing in saving at least one other person from the torture.
Instead of meditating, she took a piece of wood from the stove, stole a small liquor bottle from the stores of alcohol, and made herself a new divination tool, with much the same design as the one she had used back in the world fragment. Once it was ready, she shook it, and started to count the dice.
Her main plan for finding Wang Yonghao was simple, and also completely insane in that it could not be used to find anyone in the entire world except this one elusive man, whose luck rampaged all out of control. She would shake her divination bottle filled with dice, focusing on the idea of finding him, and then see which side most of the dice fell on. If there were more ones, she would turn left; if there were more twos, she would turn right; threes and fours would control if she went up or down, and if sixes filled the bottle, she would know she was staring straight in the direction of Wang Yonghao.
Ordinarily, no cultivator's luck could be powerful enough to make a method like this worth trying. Furthermore, the luck of their quarry would fight against the attempt, making it even more futile. But Wang Yonghao's luck was strange in many ways, and she hoped she could piggyback off it: if her theories about what it was trying to make him do were correct, then there should be a narrow sliver of opportunity for her to exploit.
She rolled the dice, and they came up with nothing of value. This wasn't unexpected: she would have to try focusing on slightly different intentions, until she would find one that worked best.
All she could do was keep rolling.
When the sun rose, she got up, stretched, and started making noodles they would use for the day. Zhang Sheng came by soon after, bringing fresh vegetables from the port, and joined her in the task.
She felt strange as she worked, and it took her a while to figure out why. For many years now, she had cultivated every single day unless she was too sick to manage it - but spiritual energy in the middle of town was incredibly poor, even thinner than in the surrounding forests, so she barely had anything to work with. If she cultivated to purge her meridians of impurities, she would be relying almost exclusively on the spiritual energy already contained within her body - it would run out rapidly, and take many hours to recover. Given that she already needed that energy to cook, she could scarcely afford to do that - but her body ached for exercise nonetheless.
If she had ample wealth, then she could have consumed spirit stones in order to supplement her spiritual energy reserves, but there was no way to afford them on a cook's salary. She was paid a single silver yuan per day before her bonus for bringing in more customers, but from what she remembered of Cheng Dao's store, low grade spirit stones in this town started from seven yuan. Back in Golden Rabbit Bay, her sect issued her four low grade spirit stones per day for her cultivation, and she would have preferred to have double that number. As it was, she would be lucky to afford even a couple of them per month.
For all the issues she had with her sect, she supposed she couldn't fault them for being too cheap, even if she hadn't put the numbers together until now. Of course, her so-called peers got much more than she did, and even a successful merchant would lust after the riches of princes.
It really put things into perspective that for all the wealth on display within Wang Yonghao's inner world, his largest treasure remained the dense, yet invisible spiritual energy it was constantly producing.
She wasn't used to having to scrounge for every little scrap of spiritual energy - when she had time, she would need to sit down and rewrite her training plans from the ground up, now that she had to make do with being a pauper in the world of cultivators.
She could only hope she would find Wang Yonghao again soon.
"How lucky of me - fellow cultivator Liu Fakuang! You are just the man I need." She smiled, approaching the familiar spirit hunter she tricked back at the inn.
Luck had nothing to do with it, of course - she casually walked past every spot where guards aggregated looking for the man out of the corner of her eye - but there was no need to mention this. She finally found him on the southern edge of town, where he seemed to be performing an inspection of a gatehouse. He was dressed in much the same way as two nights before - dark robes with many lanyards and ribbons, with his black hair tied back into a short braid.
"Lan Yishan?" He raised his eyebrows at her, recognising her, and smiled openly. "Is there a problem? Please, let's go inside where we can speak freely."
He led her to a small rest room within the gatehouse, where a couple guards had been playing cards while waiting for their shifts to start. As soon as they got a stern look from Liu Fakuang, they cleared out, and left the room to the two cultivators. There wasn't much in the room itself: just a table, some cabinets full of paper records, and a small clay stove. Liu Fakuang put a tea kettle on the fire while she took a seat at the table.
She didn't hurry the man - she had plenty of time to spare. The noodle shop was busiest late in the evening and early in the morning, as sailors who were spending the night in town came to have a hearty meal or a good breakfast before setting off down the river. In the middle of the day, the flow of people dried up, and so she excused herself for several hours to handle her own affairs. She didn't expect the conversation to take longer than ten minutes, in any case.
"So, miss, how might the Empire help you on this fine day?" Liu Fakuang sat down once both of them had cups of tea in hand. She cradled her own in both hands, warming her fingers from the cold mountain air, as she pretended to consider her response.
"In truth, it's somewhat embarrassing," she sighed, "I appear to have misplaced my seal, and I want to know how one would go about acquiring a new one."
Seals were a widespread fixture of the empire, used by cultivators and common people alike. They differed in size and shape, with some small enough to fit on a ring and others as large as a fist. Their overall design wasn't particularly complex, with most being merely an embossed engraving on wood, stone or metal, that could be pressed into paper to leave behind an identifying mark of ink, but some were radically different. Spirit hunters like Liu Fakuang carried special seals, so as to better identify them among other cultivators. Her own sect seal stated her name, her sect, and the name of the city she came from - all the information she wished to conceal at the moment.
It wasn't particularly unusual for someone to lack a seal, even if they were a cultivator - in fact, the majority of the people in the empire did not possess one. However, having a seal was a requirement for accessing many important services - for example, entering any imperial library, selling or purchasing landed property or major cultivation goods, and so on. This was a part of the overall imperial effort to make their adoption more widespread, and in turn, to make it easier for people to identify each other on paper documents.
Her father helped her acquire her first seal when she came of age, and once she joined the sect, the Elders handled the replacement. She had personally barely interacted with the entire process, and so couldn't begin to guess where to get a new one, or even if she could do so at all.
Ordinarily, this would be the time to head over to the local library to research the topic - but of course, a seal was already required for entry. To make matters worse, in a town of this size the imperial library would be managed by the post office, and in fact should be located underneath the building itself - trying to enter it would be dangerous, as postmaster Lan Yu was one of the only people in town who could conclusively identify her as Qian Shanyi. Having a seal with her fake name on it would make moving around the empire so much easier, especially when she would set off on her chase after Wang Yonghao.
"Misplaced? Do you mean you have lost it or did someone steal it?"
"I am not sure," she hedged, taking an opportunity to pull on her other investigative thread, "I would rather not make any accusations without good evidence, but there was this strange man…"
She described Wang Yonghao, and a fictional situation where they had a short argument on the street, and saw a frown come onto Liu Fakuang's face like a cloud coming in front of the sun.
"Hmm, he sounds very similar to the man from the pair of cultivators I have been told to keep an eye out for," he said, scratching his chin.
"The ones you mentioned to me back at the tavern?" She raised her eyebrow, taking a sip of her tea. It was surprisingly good, for a guard post. "Did anything come out of your search?"
Lan Yishan, a burgeoning immortal chef and a disciple of an unnamed spirit hunter had no particular reason to be interested in the search for an unlicensed sword seller Qian Shanyi and her accomplice. By making up the story about Wang Yonghao, she was simultaneously justifying her lack of a seal in the eyes of Liu Fakuang and giving herself a reason to be interested in the investigation. This was one of the main reasons why she sought him out personally: the rapport she built on the night before would help sell the story better.
"No, they pretty much vanished into thin air," he shook his head, "Without anything concrete to base our suspicions on, we don't even have the grounds to send missives to other cities about them."
Well, so much for that.
"Unless you would be willing to make a report about the theft?..." he trailed off.
"No, I wouldn't besmirch the honor of a fellow cultivator on a mere suspicion," she shook her head, pushing down her disappointment. Relying on the empire was always going to be a reach. "It's just as likely that I lost it to a mere pickpocket in town."
"Yeah, I wouldn't either, in your place." He shrugged, and the frown vanished off his face as if it was never there. "But enough about them, let's talk about you! How did you come into this town?"
"Through the port, of course," she said smoothly. It wasn't much of a choice - there were only two ways into the town, but cultivators entering from the forest were a highly memorable sight, and if the guards at the gates were questioned, her story would fall apart quickly. The port saw dozens, if not hundreds of ships per day - she could easily hide among the crowds. "Do you think I lost my seal there?"
"No, no," he shook his head, getting up, and putting away their empty tea cups. "You see, normally for a cultivator to get a new seal, they would have to wait several months as we send messages around to make sure they aren't trying to impersonate someone. But if we already have evidence they are who they claim to be - such as reliable documents, or the vouching of someone honorable from the local community - then we can expedite this process. There should be a ship manifest at the port with the mark of your previous seal still on it - with my help finding it, we'll get the whole thing wrapped up within just a couple days. It's good that you didn't enter from the forest - there is no guarantee that the guards on duty would have even recorded your entry."
Her mind ran into a wall and bounced off.
"I see." She nodded, following after him as he strolled out of the gatehouse, frantically trying to think of a reason why her name wouldn't be where he expected it to be. "Thank you for the advice, but surely there is no need for you to involve yourself? I can find the port authority on my own."
"Oh it's really no trouble," he waved her off, "I was about to head off to have lunch with my fiance in the docks in any case. With me there, you'd get to skip queues - it would be over in a jiffy."
She studied his face carefully, but there wasn't even a hint of duplicity or self-satisfaction there. He was really just that helpful.
"Surely you'd prefer to have lunch instead of escorting me around through dusty port offices?" She smiled, still following after him through the streets. "I do not mind queues. I have some reading with me to pass the time."
"Nonsense. It's the least I can do after you entertained me with conversation that night." He waved her off, giving her yet another of his sunny grins. "I always hate stakeout missions, they are incredibly boring."
Damnable moron, stop being helpful!
"What will happen if I find my seal again?" She asked to pass the time, as she searched for better options to get out of the trap she walked herself into. Rudely refusing this courtesy when she clearly had no reason to would only make the man suspicious, but he was clearly missing her subtle hints. At this point, her best idea was to try faking a medical emergency, but she wasn't sure she could do that convincingly. "Would I have two different seals to my name?"
"It's not that uncommon," he responded, "for example, when a new sect is established but before it is properly registered, cultivators that join it often carry two seals. They can't use a proper sect seal before the registration is complete, of course, so instead some order loose cultivator seals with the name of the sect added next to their name. Various clubs and organizations that don't pass the mark for registration do so as well."
"But doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of the seals? To identify someone?"
"No, not really - it still uniquely identifies you, you can just choose which one to identify with. Now, if you wanted a sect seal, this would be a whole process, but the requirements for loose cultivators aren't quite so stringent. After all, what would we care? If you were in a sect but pretended to be a loose cultivator, you would just pay higher taxes."
"Couldn't someone pretend to have a different name by making a new seal?"
"Well, yes, that's why even loose cultivators need to have some evidence they are called by their chosen name before we grant them the seal," he grinned at her, "Empire isn't quite so loose! Besides, why would anyone except demonic cultivators bother? There are legal ways to make a seal with a pseudonym, if your deals require discretion."
Unless the one you are trying to keep discretion from is the Empire itself.
She kept spinning the problem inside of her head as they walked into port, and was already prepared to try and use her spiritual energy to "stumble" and "accidentally" dislocate her own foot, when a young, richly-dressed woman from a group of merchants near one of the ships called after them.
"Shining Fakuang! Surely you won't walk past without giving me a smile?" the woman said, quickly separating from her group and approaching the two. She was dressed in a long, emerald dress, with a matching overcoat and a small parasol to shield her jade skin from the sun. Her other hand held a small fan. Her black hair was tied into a complex shape, with only two loose locks framing her face on both sides, fluttering gently from the quick and practiced movement of her fan.
Despite her refined appearance, there wasn't even a hint of spiritual energy circulating through her pores: this woman was no cultivator. When Liu Fakuang saw her, his face lit up like the morning sun.
"Who is your friend, my dear?" The woman drawled, giving Qian Shanyi an interested look over as she came up to them.
Dear? Is this his fiance? Bless my luck, an opportunity!
Qian Shanyi stepped closer to Liu Fakuang, sneaked a hand around his waist and pulled him closer before the man could react. The other woman's eyes narrowed jealously.
"Fellow cultivator Fakuang was just helping me with a little administrative issue," she said, fluttering her eyelashes innocently, and using her other hand to brush off imagined dust off his sleeves, "he has been ever so helpful!"
The woman's gaze shifted between the two of them, and Liu Fakuang chuckled awkwardly, trying to politely extricate himself from Qian Shanyi's grasp. She held firm.
"Is that so, dear?" The woman's tone became as cold as ice, and she closed her fan with a single dangerous clack of ivory, putting it away into her dress. "And what help might that be?"
"Lanhua, it's not like that!" he chuckled again, finally managing to pull himself free, "I was just going to show fellow cultivator Lan where the port authority was and help her with some documents!"
"I even said it wasn't necessary, but dear Fakuang insisted," Qian Shanyi helpfully threw some more oil on the fire, "he said with him there, it would be done in no time!"
"I don't suppose you forgot we were supposed to have lunch together, dear Fakuang," the woman's tone somehow became even colder. Qian Shanyi couldn't manage that range of emotion with her voice alone, "while you were busy helping honorable immortal Lan?"
"Ah, no, it's just it would be so quick -" Liu Fakuang looked between the two in a bit of a panic, until he finally made a decision, and bowed deeply. "I am sorry, fellow cultivator Lan Yishan, I think I'll have to go with my betrothed and won't be able to help you."
Miss Lanhua seemed pleased at that, and while outwardly Qian Shanyi made sure to appear dejected, in her soul she shared the sentiment. She would need to find a way to pay this woman back for her unknowing assistance.
"But then I would have to wait in a queue for ever so long," Qian Shanyi sighed theatrically, bringing her deception to a close, "and I was already feeling quite hungry. But I suppose I shouldn't get in the way of young love…"
"Look, I - ", the man looked torn, but then sighed and reached into a small bag on his waist, drawing out a stack of papers clipped to a small wooden board, as well as a tiny inkwell and a brush on a short chain. He held the board with one hand while writing with the other, then reached into his bag again, bringing out his seal, and stamped it on the paper. Tearing it off, he handed it to Qian Shanyi. She accepted it, hiding her surprise.
"Let's make this easier," he said, "I personally vouch that you are Lan Yishan, on my honor. With this paper you should be able to get a new seal made - just show it to anyone at any of the guardhouses, and they will tell you where to go. This way, you don't even have to go to the portal authority."
Qian Shanyi took the paper, and bowed in thanks. This was an entirely unexpected outcome, but very much an enjoyable one. Lanhua hooked her hand around Liu Fakuang's, and led the man down the street. Qian Shanyi watched them walk away, and saw Lanhua glance back, giving her a completely different look: not of jealousy, but of interest and calculation.
Their eyes crossed, and for a moment, she had the strangest feeling that she was looking in a mirror.
Author Note: If you'd like to read three chapters ahead, or read other works I write, you can find me on patreon for a low low price of 3$ per month. Sadly due to working on another story in parallel during NaNoWriMo, the backlog is getting a bit shorter as of late.
Her worries about him turned out to be unfounded. He was a man of few words, but she could tell he held a faint disdain for the owner of the restaurant, which immediately brought them together, and despite being surprised at having to work with a cultivator had adapted to the situation surprisingly well.
They quickly agreed on a simple division of duties: she would prepare the necessary ingredients, infusing them with a sliver of spiritual energy to make them more nutritious, and pass them on to him to be turned into the actual dishes. The great speed and dexterity that came from being a cultivator made up for her lack of practical skill, and with a scattering of advice from the other cook, she only got better and better as the day went on.
As her hands worked the knife, her mind kept itself occupied with observations. She started to count all the little things: how many clumps of noodles went into each bowl of ramen, how long it took for her to cut servings of various vegetables, how many bowls they made per hour, how often Xiao Li came by to give them new orders from the customers, and so on. When she had the time, she noted her observations down, setting her writing set down on the windowsill. Her observations helped her slowly adjust her work accordingly, keeping a little task schedule inside of her head to make sure Zhang Sheng would get just the right amounts of the necessary ingredients at just the right times.
Old Chen came by several times to ask if she needed anything, and if she perhaps wanted to rest, annoying her to no end. In the end, she had to lie and tell him she practiced a special cultivation art that could blind anyone who wasn't already a cook, and if he didn't clear out of the kitchens right now he might suffer that very fate at any moment. That finally made him flee. Zhang Sheng seemed amused, at the very least, though she could tell he didn't believe a word she said.
She wasn't sure how to feel about the fact that Old Chen didn't tell Xiao Li about her "special cultivation art", nor asked how the waitress could be protected from it, when she had to enter the kitchen to bring the plates of ramen to the customers. Was he too stupid to notice the contradiction, or simply didn't care what might have happened to his waitress?
By the time the evening approached, she had memorized all the steps needed to produce every dish sold at the restaurant - all five of them, plus the sides - and was sure she could take Zhang Sheng's place if absolutely necessary, though she would need some time to truly gasp all the small adjustments that had to be made on top of the overall recipe to account for the individual differences of each batch of ingredients. She wasn't going to try and upset the employment of the other cook, of course - her stay in Xiaohongshan was to be measured in days, not months, and after she left, this restaurant would need to manage somehow.
Keeping all of the recipes in her memory was no great task: she knew a dozen small tricks for keeping information inside of her head when the need called for it. For example, the human mind wasn't particularly suited towards memorizing numbers and quantities, but the numbers could be turned into words according to a simple substitution schema, and those words could be made to rhyme, making the process so much easier.
Back at the sect, she trained those tricks to perfection once she realized the Elders would not grant her the same knowledge of the sect secrets as her supposed peers. She hoped an opportunity would present itself to at least glance at some of the hidden manuals, letting her learn something of use, but sadly, that was not to be.
At least the skills were occasionally useful in gambling. Few people would even suspect the possibility that you could have memorized the deck of cards after casually looking through it once, but once the mind was used to quickly dancing through the many-layered substitutions, the trick was no harder than reading words off a page.
When the evening fell and Old Chen closed up shop, he seemed poised to try and get her to speak about the Will of the Heavens to about a dozen other karmists that came by. Instead, she claimed that she needed to retreat into meditation for the night. In fact, it would be better if the rest of the house was quiet as well - could they skip today's sermon entirely?
Old Chen was disappointed, but told his flock to leave, and even managed to keep his mouth shut on the subject of her being a cultivator - as was their agreement. Zhang Sheng gave her a little smile and a nod as he left, and she knew she did the right thing in saving at least one other person from the torture.
Instead of meditating, she took a piece of wood from the stove, stole a small liquor bottle from the stores of alcohol, and made herself a new divination tool, with much the same design as the one she had used back in the world fragment. Once it was ready, she shook it, and started to count the dice.
Her main plan for finding Wang Yonghao was simple, and also completely insane in that it could not be used to find anyone in the entire world except this one elusive man, whose luck rampaged all out of control. She would shake her divination bottle filled with dice, focusing on the idea of finding him, and then see which side most of the dice fell on. If there were more ones, she would turn left; if there were more twos, she would turn right; threes and fours would control if she went up or down, and if sixes filled the bottle, she would know she was staring straight in the direction of Wang Yonghao.
Ordinarily, no cultivator's luck could be powerful enough to make a method like this worth trying. Furthermore, the luck of their quarry would fight against the attempt, making it even more futile. But Wang Yonghao's luck was strange in many ways, and she hoped she could piggyback off it: if her theories about what it was trying to make him do were correct, then there should be a narrow sliver of opportunity for her to exploit.
She rolled the dice, and they came up with nothing of value. This wasn't unexpected: she would have to try focusing on slightly different intentions, until she would find one that worked best.
All she could do was keep rolling.
When the sun rose, she got up, stretched, and started making noodles they would use for the day. Zhang Sheng came by soon after, bringing fresh vegetables from the port, and joined her in the task.
She felt strange as she worked, and it took her a while to figure out why. For many years now, she had cultivated every single day unless she was too sick to manage it - but spiritual energy in the middle of town was incredibly poor, even thinner than in the surrounding forests, so she barely had anything to work with. If she cultivated to purge her meridians of impurities, she would be relying almost exclusively on the spiritual energy already contained within her body - it would run out rapidly, and take many hours to recover. Given that she already needed that energy to cook, she could scarcely afford to do that - but her body ached for exercise nonetheless.
If she had ample wealth, then she could have consumed spirit stones in order to supplement her spiritual energy reserves, but there was no way to afford them on a cook's salary. She was paid a single silver yuan per day before her bonus for bringing in more customers, but from what she remembered of Cheng Dao's store, low grade spirit stones in this town started from seven yuan. Back in Golden Rabbit Bay, her sect issued her four low grade spirit stones per day for her cultivation, and she would have preferred to have double that number. As it was, she would be lucky to afford even a couple of them per month.
For all the issues she had with her sect, she supposed she couldn't fault them for being too cheap, even if she hadn't put the numbers together until now. Of course, her so-called peers got much more than she did, and even a successful merchant would lust after the riches of princes.
It really put things into perspective that for all the wealth on display within Wang Yonghao's inner world, his largest treasure remained the dense, yet invisible spiritual energy it was constantly producing.
She wasn't used to having to scrounge for every little scrap of spiritual energy - when she had time, she would need to sit down and rewrite her training plans from the ground up, now that she had to make do with being a pauper in the world of cultivators.
She could only hope she would find Wang Yonghao again soon.
"How lucky of me - fellow cultivator Liu Fakuang! You are just the man I need." She smiled, approaching the familiar spirit hunter she tricked back at the inn.
Luck had nothing to do with it, of course - she casually walked past every spot where guards aggregated looking for the man out of the corner of her eye - but there was no need to mention this. She finally found him on the southern edge of town, where he seemed to be performing an inspection of a gatehouse. He was dressed in much the same way as two nights before - dark robes with many lanyards and ribbons, with his black hair tied back into a short braid.
"Lan Yishan?" He raised his eyebrows at her, recognising her, and smiled openly. "Is there a problem? Please, let's go inside where we can speak freely."
He led her to a small rest room within the gatehouse, where a couple guards had been playing cards while waiting for their shifts to start. As soon as they got a stern look from Liu Fakuang, they cleared out, and left the room to the two cultivators. There wasn't much in the room itself: just a table, some cabinets full of paper records, and a small clay stove. Liu Fakuang put a tea kettle on the fire while she took a seat at the table.
She didn't hurry the man - she had plenty of time to spare. The noodle shop was busiest late in the evening and early in the morning, as sailors who were spending the night in town came to have a hearty meal or a good breakfast before setting off down the river. In the middle of the day, the flow of people dried up, and so she excused herself for several hours to handle her own affairs. She didn't expect the conversation to take longer than ten minutes, in any case.
"So, miss, how might the Empire help you on this fine day?" Liu Fakuang sat down once both of them had cups of tea in hand. She cradled her own in both hands, warming her fingers from the cold mountain air, as she pretended to consider her response.
"In truth, it's somewhat embarrassing," she sighed, "I appear to have misplaced my seal, and I want to know how one would go about acquiring a new one."
Seals were a widespread fixture of the empire, used by cultivators and common people alike. They differed in size and shape, with some small enough to fit on a ring and others as large as a fist. Their overall design wasn't particularly complex, with most being merely an embossed engraving on wood, stone or metal, that could be pressed into paper to leave behind an identifying mark of ink, but some were radically different. Spirit hunters like Liu Fakuang carried special seals, so as to better identify them among other cultivators. Her own sect seal stated her name, her sect, and the name of the city she came from - all the information she wished to conceal at the moment.
It wasn't particularly unusual for someone to lack a seal, even if they were a cultivator - in fact, the majority of the people in the empire did not possess one. However, having a seal was a requirement for accessing many important services - for example, entering any imperial library, selling or purchasing landed property or major cultivation goods, and so on. This was a part of the overall imperial effort to make their adoption more widespread, and in turn, to make it easier for people to identify each other on paper documents.
Her father helped her acquire her first seal when she came of age, and once she joined the sect, the Elders handled the replacement. She had personally barely interacted with the entire process, and so couldn't begin to guess where to get a new one, or even if she could do so at all.
Ordinarily, this would be the time to head over to the local library to research the topic - but of course, a seal was already required for entry. To make matters worse, in a town of this size the imperial library would be managed by the post office, and in fact should be located underneath the building itself - trying to enter it would be dangerous, as postmaster Lan Yu was one of the only people in town who could conclusively identify her as Qian Shanyi. Having a seal with her fake name on it would make moving around the empire so much easier, especially when she would set off on her chase after Wang Yonghao.
"Misplaced? Do you mean you have lost it or did someone steal it?"
"I am not sure," she hedged, taking an opportunity to pull on her other investigative thread, "I would rather not make any accusations without good evidence, but there was this strange man…"
She described Wang Yonghao, and a fictional situation where they had a short argument on the street, and saw a frown come onto Liu Fakuang's face like a cloud coming in front of the sun.
"Hmm, he sounds very similar to the man from the pair of cultivators I have been told to keep an eye out for," he said, scratching his chin.
"The ones you mentioned to me back at the tavern?" She raised her eyebrow, taking a sip of her tea. It was surprisingly good, for a guard post. "Did anything come out of your search?"
Lan Yishan, a burgeoning immortal chef and a disciple of an unnamed spirit hunter had no particular reason to be interested in the search for an unlicensed sword seller Qian Shanyi and her accomplice. By making up the story about Wang Yonghao, she was simultaneously justifying her lack of a seal in the eyes of Liu Fakuang and giving herself a reason to be interested in the investigation. This was one of the main reasons why she sought him out personally: the rapport she built on the night before would help sell the story better.
"No, they pretty much vanished into thin air," he shook his head, "Without anything concrete to base our suspicions on, we don't even have the grounds to send missives to other cities about them."
Well, so much for that.
"Unless you would be willing to make a report about the theft?..." he trailed off.
"No, I wouldn't besmirch the honor of a fellow cultivator on a mere suspicion," she shook her head, pushing down her disappointment. Relying on the empire was always going to be a reach. "It's just as likely that I lost it to a mere pickpocket in town."
"Yeah, I wouldn't either, in your place." He shrugged, and the frown vanished off his face as if it was never there. "But enough about them, let's talk about you! How did you come into this town?"
"Through the port, of course," she said smoothly. It wasn't much of a choice - there were only two ways into the town, but cultivators entering from the forest were a highly memorable sight, and if the guards at the gates were questioned, her story would fall apart quickly. The port saw dozens, if not hundreds of ships per day - she could easily hide among the crowds. "Do you think I lost my seal there?"
"No, no," he shook his head, getting up, and putting away their empty tea cups. "You see, normally for a cultivator to get a new seal, they would have to wait several months as we send messages around to make sure they aren't trying to impersonate someone. But if we already have evidence they are who they claim to be - such as reliable documents, or the vouching of someone honorable from the local community - then we can expedite this process. There should be a ship manifest at the port with the mark of your previous seal still on it - with my help finding it, we'll get the whole thing wrapped up within just a couple days. It's good that you didn't enter from the forest - there is no guarantee that the guards on duty would have even recorded your entry."
Her mind ran into a wall and bounced off.
"I see." She nodded, following after him as he strolled out of the gatehouse, frantically trying to think of a reason why her name wouldn't be where he expected it to be. "Thank you for the advice, but surely there is no need for you to involve yourself? I can find the port authority on my own."
"Oh it's really no trouble," he waved her off, "I was about to head off to have lunch with my fiance in the docks in any case. With me there, you'd get to skip queues - it would be over in a jiffy."
She studied his face carefully, but there wasn't even a hint of duplicity or self-satisfaction there. He was really just that helpful.
"Surely you'd prefer to have lunch instead of escorting me around through dusty port offices?" She smiled, still following after him through the streets. "I do not mind queues. I have some reading with me to pass the time."
"Nonsense. It's the least I can do after you entertained me with conversation that night." He waved her off, giving her yet another of his sunny grins. "I always hate stakeout missions, they are incredibly boring."
Damnable moron, stop being helpful!
"What will happen if I find my seal again?" She asked to pass the time, as she searched for better options to get out of the trap she walked herself into. Rudely refusing this courtesy when she clearly had no reason to would only make the man suspicious, but he was clearly missing her subtle hints. At this point, her best idea was to try faking a medical emergency, but she wasn't sure she could do that convincingly. "Would I have two different seals to my name?"
"It's not that uncommon," he responded, "for example, when a new sect is established but before it is properly registered, cultivators that join it often carry two seals. They can't use a proper sect seal before the registration is complete, of course, so instead some order loose cultivator seals with the name of the sect added next to their name. Various clubs and organizations that don't pass the mark for registration do so as well."
"But doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of the seals? To identify someone?"
"No, not really - it still uniquely identifies you, you can just choose which one to identify with. Now, if you wanted a sect seal, this would be a whole process, but the requirements for loose cultivators aren't quite so stringent. After all, what would we care? If you were in a sect but pretended to be a loose cultivator, you would just pay higher taxes."
"Couldn't someone pretend to have a different name by making a new seal?"
"Well, yes, that's why even loose cultivators need to have some evidence they are called by their chosen name before we grant them the seal," he grinned at her, "Empire isn't quite so loose! Besides, why would anyone except demonic cultivators bother? There are legal ways to make a seal with a pseudonym, if your deals require discretion."
Unless the one you are trying to keep discretion from is the Empire itself.
She kept spinning the problem inside of her head as they walked into port, and was already prepared to try and use her spiritual energy to "stumble" and "accidentally" dislocate her own foot, when a young, richly-dressed woman from a group of merchants near one of the ships called after them.
"Shining Fakuang! Surely you won't walk past without giving me a smile?" the woman said, quickly separating from her group and approaching the two. She was dressed in a long, emerald dress, with a matching overcoat and a small parasol to shield her jade skin from the sun. Her other hand held a small fan. Her black hair was tied into a complex shape, with only two loose locks framing her face on both sides, fluttering gently from the quick and practiced movement of her fan.
Despite her refined appearance, there wasn't even a hint of spiritual energy circulating through her pores: this woman was no cultivator. When Liu Fakuang saw her, his face lit up like the morning sun.
"Who is your friend, my dear?" The woman drawled, giving Qian Shanyi an interested look over as she came up to them.
Dear? Is this his fiance? Bless my luck, an opportunity!
Qian Shanyi stepped closer to Liu Fakuang, sneaked a hand around his waist and pulled him closer before the man could react. The other woman's eyes narrowed jealously.
"Fellow cultivator Fakuang was just helping me with a little administrative issue," she said, fluttering her eyelashes innocently, and using her other hand to brush off imagined dust off his sleeves, "he has been ever so helpful!"
The woman's gaze shifted between the two of them, and Liu Fakuang chuckled awkwardly, trying to politely extricate himself from Qian Shanyi's grasp. She held firm.
"Is that so, dear?" The woman's tone became as cold as ice, and she closed her fan with a single dangerous clack of ivory, putting it away into her dress. "And what help might that be?"
"Lanhua, it's not like that!" he chuckled again, finally managing to pull himself free, "I was just going to show fellow cultivator Lan where the port authority was and help her with some documents!"
"I even said it wasn't necessary, but dear Fakuang insisted," Qian Shanyi helpfully threw some more oil on the fire, "he said with him there, it would be done in no time!"
"I don't suppose you forgot we were supposed to have lunch together, dear Fakuang," the woman's tone somehow became even colder. Qian Shanyi couldn't manage that range of emotion with her voice alone, "while you were busy helping honorable immortal Lan?"
"Ah, no, it's just it would be so quick -" Liu Fakuang looked between the two in a bit of a panic, until he finally made a decision, and bowed deeply. "I am sorry, fellow cultivator Lan Yishan, I think I'll have to go with my betrothed and won't be able to help you."
Miss Lanhua seemed pleased at that, and while outwardly Qian Shanyi made sure to appear dejected, in her soul she shared the sentiment. She would need to find a way to pay this woman back for her unknowing assistance.
"But then I would have to wait in a queue for ever so long," Qian Shanyi sighed theatrically, bringing her deception to a close, "and I was already feeling quite hungry. But I suppose I shouldn't get in the way of young love…"
"Look, I - ", the man looked torn, but then sighed and reached into a small bag on his waist, drawing out a stack of papers clipped to a small wooden board, as well as a tiny inkwell and a brush on a short chain. He held the board with one hand while writing with the other, then reached into his bag again, bringing out his seal, and stamped it on the paper. Tearing it off, he handed it to Qian Shanyi. She accepted it, hiding her surprise.
"Let's make this easier," he said, "I personally vouch that you are Lan Yishan, on my honor. With this paper you should be able to get a new seal made - just show it to anyone at any of the guardhouses, and they will tell you where to go. This way, you don't even have to go to the portal authority."
Qian Shanyi took the paper, and bowed in thanks. This was an entirely unexpected outcome, but very much an enjoyable one. Lanhua hooked her hand around Liu Fakuang's, and led the man down the street. Qian Shanyi watched them walk away, and saw Lanhua glance back, giving her a completely different look: not of jealousy, but of interest and calculation.
Their eyes crossed, and for a moment, she had the strangest feeling that she was looking in a mirror.
Author Note: If you'd like to read three chapters ahead, or read other works I write, you can find me on patreon for a low low price of 3$ per month. Sadly due to working on another story in parallel during NaNoWriMo, the backlog is getting a bit shorter as of late.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Add "Forgery" and "Identity Fraud" to the titular list.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Eventually she will break every single law on the books and also a few more they invented just for her.
Haaaaawt.
Haaaaawt.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Impossible to tell at this point, but I really hope it's the former.
Live and learn. Next time, deceive someone slightly less polite.
I used to wonder whether Yonghao's luck was still affecting Qian or if it only wanted her to tidy up the inner world a bit. This serendipitous event makes the former seem much likelier.
- Location
- Cyberspace
- It wants her to have no option but to stay with him and manage his inner world. Hiding from a pursuing sect would do it; she doesn't really need much more prodding really.
- It wants her to learn how to cook some tasty dishes for it's principle. Needing to spend a bit of time working at a restaurant does the trick.
- Going back to her 'serendipitous' discovery of a cultivation law that fits her perfectly. Not just in the prereqs, but it's a "vicious killer and ruthless household in innocent guise" that honestly suits her well overall.
- This also makes her a useful guard for its principle, who would probably be averse to a more traditional appearance.
- Her pursuit by the spirit hunter gives her and (once she catches up) its principle motive to keep moving and grow stronger.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
With regard to 1 and 4: Those can just as easily be explained by Qian running from a sect that knows good asset recovery specialists and not being explicitly protected by Yonghao's luck. Qian was useful, but she's done her part, and Yonghao doesn't need to put much effort now that the chiclotron has been set up. Pretty much all he needs to do is stick future treasures in the right spots. If Qian meets misfortune, that's just her own bad luck. Or consequences, either or.
With regard to 2: ...fair point.
With regard to 2: ...fair point.
- Location
- Argentina
Do remember the thing keep having problems and needed adjustments.
- Location
- Alaska
There's also the evil plant to worry about, right?
- Location
- Leeds
Just binge read over a couple of days.
Chapter 27: Wash The Stress And Lies Away
Winged_One
Head Engineer of ATHENA
- Location
- Low Earth Orbit
Two days passed as Qian Shanyi was slowly growing stir-crazy.
She wanted to, needed to cultivate, but all the spiritual energy she could spare went into her cooking, and she couldn't justify making her dishes worse simply because of her own deeply ingrained habits. Even as it was, she was barely managing to scrape by, and tended to run completely dry by the time the night fell - the city wasn't like the world fragment, where spiritual energy was so dense she could easily recover her entire reserves in only a dozen minutes. Sword exercises she did each morning helped only so much: without spiritual energy coursing through her meridians, it was simply not the same.
To get her mind off it, she went to visit the public baths, and paid for a private room for herself. It set her back one and a half yuan, a full day and a half of her salary - an outrageous price for a mere hour - but she no longer cared.
The room was small - only a couple meters to the side, tiled with patterned ceramics, and with a mosaic of a cultivator slaying a demon beast up on the ceiling. She couldn't recall anything similar from any myths she knew, so perhaps it was a local story, or simply made up whole cloth by the artist.
The rest of the room was pretty bare, with only a single bench alongside one of the walls, and most of the floor taken up by a pool of heated water, the basin sloped gently on one end and just long enough for a person to comfortably lay down in.
Dim light streamed in from slits above the door, leading back into the corridors of the bathhouse, and sent strange water reflections dancing across the walls. Right next to the door was a sand clock, and she flipped it over to keep track of how much time she had left.
She quickly undressed - leaving her sword and jade slate on the bench - put her clothes into a basket and pushed it out through a small door back into the corridor, where a servant would pick them up to be washed, cleaned, dried and brought back well before her bath ended.
With a tired sigh, she walked into the pool of water, and laid down on the stones. Hot water felt like liquid bliss on her skin, and she closed her eyes, letting stress slowly wash out of her.
The need to cultivate constantly banging in the back of her head was only a part of it - her attempts to find Wang Yonghao had all but hit a dead end. The worst part was that her divination idea was producing results - just not enough to actually work. She had been fruitlessly spinning her bottle throughout the days, on the assumption that his luck might vary by the hour, and noting down the results on a sheet of paper. It was good that she decided to keep records: without written data, she would never have noticed the effects, no matter how good her memory was. When she was concentrating on the search, she was rolling markedly more ones, twos, and sixes than would be expected - not enough to tell anything at all was occurring with a glance, but enough that with a bit of math, she could prove it wasn't mere chance after hundreds of rolls.
She supposed she should be glad her crazy idea worked at all, but the effect was so slight as to be all but unusable. That is what made it all the more frustrating: if she got nothing whatsoever out of it, she could have made her peace, and focused on trying to find rumors about Wang Yonghao from traveling merchants, or looking for another path forward. But as it was, she always felt that it was just on the cusp of working, and couldn't quite get herself to call off the plan entirely.
To top it off, she had a very strong suspicion of what could make it all snap into place, but to do that, she would need to go directly against her principles. Wang Yonghao's luck was quite clearly centered around making him cultivate - so if she pre-committed herself towards forcing him to advance in realm, as opposed to merely thinking of how her presence might indirectly strengthen his cultivation, she suspected his luck would immediately begin to cooperate. She could even seal the deal with a heavenly vow, if the need called for it.
But of course she didn't want to force him. It was, after all, ultimately his decision how to advance his cultivation, or wherever to do so at all - going against it would be the exact thing that made her blood boil. Perhaps if she was on the verge of death she would have done it, but not as she was now. And that meant this path was largely closed to her.
You could fool the heavens, but not blind luck.
Despair filled her mind at the thought that she might be stuck, running in place, merely working to make ends meet, and she submerged her head underwater to keep a hold of herself, blowing bubbles to the surface. How often could she cultivate, working like she did? Perhaps one day in five, if she limited her expenses as much as was feasible? The building foundation realm would remain forever out of reach.
She was caged just as surely as if she went back to her sect - it is just that this cage had an open roof.
She couldn't even write to her parents. Not only was it dangerous - she was sure the sect would surveil their mail in some fashion, and who knew what they could discover if she sent more than a single letter - but the thought of telling them she gambled, lost and still couldn't return was unbearable.
She stayed underwater until her lungs started to burn and then surfaced, breathing deeply. Perhaps she could find a way to earn a lot more money - become a merchant guard, or something of that nature. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
She relaxed again as she washed herself with soap, finally starting to feel clean as opposed to merely adequate, circulated Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes to put color back into her hair, and got out of the bath, putting on a bathrobe provided by the establishment. The sand clock near the door said that she still had ten minutes remaining, so she closed her eyes, resting on a bench near the wall of her small private room and waiting for her clothes to come back.
For now, there was no need to think of that future. The local imperial offices told her her new seal should be ready tomorrow, and by then she could expand her search beyond this town. If she could find some rumors of Wang Yonghao passing through, then she might be able to find him without any need for divination.
She drew stares as she returned to the ramen shop from her trip to the bathhouse, but she was used to that. Her beauty was noted by many customers at her father's store while she worked there, and it only became more pronounced once she became a cultivator. Refining your body with spiritual energy didn't just make it physically stronger and more resilient against damage - it also normalized most biological functions, and gave you a significant degree of control over them. Until a cultivator got into the building foundation stage, this merely meant better digestion, mildly stronger resistance to disease and poisons, an ability to stop your hair and nails from growing, and other small things - but it did tend to lead to clearer and smoother skin, stronger and denser hair, and more controlled fat distribution, which, in turn, meant that cultivators tended to be more beautiful than average.
There were exceptions, of course - one of her sect Elders was famous for having ruined his hair due to what Qian Shanyi privately considered to be decades of an abominable disdain towards safety precautions when working with "safe" alchemical concoctions - but they did not affect the overall trend much.
What she wasn't used to was that some moron decided to tag along after her from the bathhouse. She wasn't sure what he was planning, as she didn't reciprocate his attempts to call after her near the baths, but perhaps he got foolishly brave from seeing her walk around without any guards. This had only rarely been a problem for her back in the Golden Rabbit Bay - nobody was stupid enough to approach a cultivator wearing sect robes with a sword at their waist without a good reason. Only on the rare days when she dressed down to visit some gambling parlor without revealing herself as a cultivator did she have to suffer the occasional annoyance of such "courtship".
Her sword was wrapped in a piece of fabric she borrowed from Old Chen, and she carried it in her hands as if it was a mundane package, so it wasn't surprising the idiot felt safe, not knowing she could run him through at any moment. She could have worn it in the open, for some women certainly carried swords around - but if you saw a jade beauty armed with a sword, then chances were you were looking at a cultivator, and that would bring a different type of attention to herself, one that she didn't need.
She circled a city block to make sure he was still following her - he was - and then led him into the narrow alleys of the docks, broke line of sight, and vanished by quickly parkouring up onto a rooftop, crossing the line of buildings, and dropping down into the next street over. She briefly considered breaking his leg - or at least threatening to do so - to teach him a lesson about wasting her time, as well as about trailing other women from the bathhouse with unclear intentions, but then he might talk, and she needed neither rumors about a mysteriously strong woman in a green dress, nor an investigation into the case of assault.
In the evening, she finally sat down with old Chen to look at his financial books, to figure out how much he owed her for the extra sales that came from customers ordering more food due to the spiritual energy making it that much more delicious. He readily agreed, saying that it was crownday, the start of a new week, and thus a perfect time to work with money. She personally did not care for that old superstition - she knew from her experience processing mail for Elder Striding Phoenix that various subcontractors and branches of their sect did their accounting on all sorts of days - but she thought it would make a karmist like old Chen a lot less obnoxious to talk to, and she needed every advantage in that regard that she could get.
What she saw in his books surprised her.
It wasn't anything major, but she had counted the number of dishes sent out of the kitchen every day, and so she knew exactly how much the revenue the restaurant should be bringing in. She had worked here for four days so far: twice, she left for several hours around noon and couldn't be sure, but on the other two days, the figure in the books was lower than it should be by about five percent, and thus so was her bonus pay.
She glanced over at the old Chen. There was no reason for him to underestimate his own earnings - the empire only taxed him on his land, not his sales. That left one obvious culprit.
She waited until the day was over - and until old Chen stopped proselytizing to his flock. When she heard the people start to disperse, she left the kitchen through the window to avoid meeting anyone else, and caught up with Xiao Li. The little waitress jumped as she tapped her on the shoulder, and Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at her.
"Jumpy, aren't we?"
"Honorable - uh, I mean, Yishan," Xiao Li laughed, "I was still thinking back on what was read today. Was there something you wanted with me?"
"Just taking a stroll before bed," she said, shaking her head, "I hope you don't mind if I join you?"
"Oh, not at all!"
To get the waitress to relax a bit, she spoke about some of the real cultivation stories from the empire's founding - not the trash that karmist would bring up. Xiao Li seemed to enjoy it.
"I did actually want to talk to you about something, Li," Qian Shanyi finally said, once she felt the waitress had calmed down enough, "Are you stealing from the restaurant?"
The waitress jumped up again, yelping as if she was bitten by a wasp, looking around in a panic.
'N-no?"
"You are a terrible liar."
"I am not lying!"
"I counted the dishes," Qian Shanyi continued calmly, "and I know how much money the restaurant got. I suspect you aren't telling old Chen about some of the orders, but get the kitchen to prepare them, and pocket the pay. Do you have another explanation?"
Xiao Li breathed in shallow breaths, her eyes flickering between Qian Shanyi's eyes and her hands. Finally, she saw the waitress deflate entirely.
"So what, will you chop off my arms now?" she said, sniffling as tears started to roll from her eyes.
"Why would I do that?" Qian Shanyi blinked in confusion. She didn't even bring her sword with her, figuring it wasn't necessary for a short stroll, and she could still defend herself with her sandal daggers if the need called for it.
"Because I a-am a thi-ef? Old Chen said - "
"The empire doesn't punish thieves this way," she pursed her lips in disappointment. What was that man telling the people who came to listen? Perhaps she shouldn't have avoided his lectures after all. "And I am not the empire. I didn't even tell old Chen about it."
Xiao Li looked up at her with hope in her eyes.
"You di-didn't?"
Qian Shanyi sighed, and came closer to put an encouraging hand on the waitress's shoulder, only to have her close in and bury her face in her chest. What a mess - she didn't expect it to blow up this badly.
"There there, you'll be fine," she said, patting her on the back, "I just wanted to know why you did it."
It took a while for her to calm down.
"I have a little brother," she said, still sniffling, "he is sick, but I don't earn enough to buy him medicine."
She wrung her hands.
"I - I promise I won't steal anymore, but please don't tell Chen! Without me working here, we'd both be out on the streets!"
Qian Shanyi stared at her before sighing. Originally, she just wanted to know what was going on - her agreement with old Chen meant that by stealing from him, she was also stealing from her, and she figured she could get the waitress to pay her a cut to keep quiet, for as long as she was working here. Depending on where she'd have to travel to find Wang Yonghao, she might need every fen and yuan. This, though…
"I won't tell anyone, Li, and I don't care if you steal more," she shook her head, "But if your brother is sick, then let's go see him. I am not much of a healer, but I know enough about the basics to tell you what to ask of a doctor and how much it should cost, so you don't get screwed when talking to a merchant."
Xiao Li opened her mouth in shock, but quickly gathered herself up, and led her further into the streets of Xiaohongshan.
"Why don't you care that I steal?" she asked as they walked, "I-I mean I appreciate it, of course, but Chen always said cultivators exist to enforce the heaven's will, and stealing is one of the Nine Great Transgressions - "
"Chen has no clue what he is talking about, Li," Qian Shanyi interrupted her, adopting a lecturing tone, "To cultivate is to rebel against the heavens - this principle lies at the heart of all modern cultivation. If I blindly enforced anyone's will but my own - heaven or otherwise - I wouldn't be a cultivator, I would be a lapdog. You need the money more than Chen does, so why should I punish you?"
They walked together in silence for a while.
"My name is Ling," the waitress said quietly, "Li is my family name, but people started calling me little Li, and now everyone assumes it's my name because I don't correct them. It's easier that way."
Qian Shanyi did think it was a strange name, but kept quiet.
Xiao Li glanced up at Qian Shanyi.
"You are a very strange cultivator, Yishan, but please call me Ling."
In the morning, Xiao Li's - or rather, Li Ling's - behavior towards Qian Shanyi changed subtly compared to the previous days. She was a lot more relaxed, and not once did the waitress have to stop herself from referring to her as an honorable immortal - they were finally on a proper first name basis. They also talked a bit more about history, and for once, Qian Shanyi felt like she was really listening and thinking about what was being said. She could only hope she managed to put a few cracks into the surface of karmist propaganda around her mind.
Her musing on how to further push Li Ling's burgeoning education was interrupted when she heard loud cursing followed by a crash from the main room of the restaurant. Someone must have started a fight.
She briefly debated what she should do, before deciding that she might as well save Chen's furniture from being wrecked. Her seal should be ready later today, and once it was, she would most likely leave the town right away - there was no longer a need to conceal the fact that Lan Yishan, an immortal chef taking her first steps on the dao of cooking, worked at this particular restaurant.
She grabbed a towel and marched into the main room, wiping off her hands still wet from washing vegetables, and took the scene at a glance. Two young men - neither of them a cultivator, thankfully - were wrestling on the ground next to an overturned table, with Li Ling watching in horror not far from them. Old Chen was berating them from behind the counter, but wisely kept his distance away from the pair - his old bones probably wouldn't have survived a glancing blow from either of them.
She had no such concerns, and approached the pair casually, whistling shrilly to get their attention, but they seemed to be too focused on each other. Oh well, she tried.
A couple targeted kicks to the solar plexus of either man later - she didn't even have to use spiritual energy, just time her strikes well - and the pair was lying down peacefully, gasping for breath. She picked one of them up by the collar and brought him outside - his futile struggles against her grip leading nowhere while he still could barely breathe - and set him down on the ground, taking the time to dust him off as much as she could.
"Apologies, honored customer, but I had to stop your mighty duel before you would have destroyed the rest of the restaurant," she said, helping the man stay upright. Color was slowly coming back to his face, and he scowled at her. She returned it with a smile, "What brought this on, if I may ask?"
"That bastard Liu Shishou dared to take my seat, and then insult my wife," he gasped, "how was I supposed to let that go?"
"I see. Liu Shishou has been a menace at our restaurant for quite a while," she nodded, pretending to know what inane drama he was talking about, "I again apologize for kicking you, but you understand that I have to give face to all our customers. How could the other people know which one of you was in the right? If I openly sided with you and simply threw him out, nobody would patronize our restaurant anymore."
She leaned forwards conspiratorially.
"But honored customer, I made sure to secretly kick him twice as much as you," she winked, "Besides, let me offer you a much better seat outside - in this beautiful weather, would you want to be cooped up within a stuffy room where smells from the kitchen would disturb your meal? Let Liu Shishou suffer on his lonesome."
She motioned towards one of the tables on the open square, and waited until he nodded in agreement. Knowing that his rival was getting the worse seat seemed to really placate the man.
She made sure to get his name before she returned inside, ready to solve the other half of the puzzle.
Liu Shishou was standing down on all fours, slowly managing to get up off the ground while Li Ling berated him, still not daring to approach. She crossed eyes with the waitress and winked at her, closing in on the other man and giving him a hand to rise up.
When he saw her face he recognised her, and actually tried to throw a punch. She caught his wrist and squeezed just tightly enough to cause pain, brought her face in close, and flashed her eyes with Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes so that only he could see it. His face contorted in a mix of pain and shock, and she patted him on the back with her other hand.
"Honorable master Liu, I humbly apologize for kicking you, but you understand that I have to give face to all my customers, right?" She lowered her voice so that only he could hear, "It was quite discourteous of you two to start a fight in my establishment."
"That bastard Zheng -"
"- is as sinful as a pig is dirty, I know. He had been terrorizing our humble restaurant for a long time - do you think I do not know your suffering? But how could the other people know which one of you was in the right? If I openly sided with you and simply threw him out without giving you a kick too, nobody would patronize our restaurant anymore."
She leaned closer still, pitching her voice conspiratorially.
"But honored master Liu, I made sure to kick him three more times than you on your behalf," she winked, "Besides, I made him sit outside in the wind, where his noodles will get cold and tasteless. Why not let him suffer alone while you enjoy a warm meal here?"
She reached behind herself and flipped one of the chairs lying on the ground with her foot, sending it just behind Liu Shishou, and helped him sit down. She nodded to Li Ling, helped her put the table back up, wiped her hands off again, and headed back towards the kitchens.
"Oh, Lan Yishan! Is that you?"
She glanced over at the corner of the restaurant, and was surprised to see Lanhua, soon-to-be wife of that spirit hunter. She was dressed completely differently from how she saw her last time: her hair covered by a headscarf, wearing robust dark green clothes suitable for a sailor instead of a dress, and a solid pair of boots. Her eyes, though, remained just as cold and calculating as before. Qian Shanyi approached her carefully, letting surprise show on her face.
What in the netherworld's name was she doing here?
"I believe we haven't been properly introduced. My name is Wu Lanhua, I happen to be an insignificant merchant of little note," the woman smiled at her, which just unnerved her more, "would you have a couple minutes to talk to me? Our last meeting ended somewhat poorly."
The name Wu stirred something in her memory, from back when she visited the local postal office and read a lot of information about the surrounding area. Wasn't this the wealthiest merchant family in town?
Qian Shanyi glanced over Wu Lanhua, and then the rest of the tavern. Why did she come here? There was no way this was a coincidence - there must have been a hundred dining establishments in Xiaohongshan, and a woman this rich should have had her own cooks besides. She glanced at her table: there was a kettle of tea, but no food. A slight chip on the handle of the kettle was familiar - it had been sent out of the kitchens a good twenty minutes ago. If the woman was going to eat, she would have received her food already - but who came to a ramen shop just to drink tea?
That meant she had to have come here specifically to talk to her. But about what? And how did she even find her? She never told anyone where she worked.
Worry started to flood her veins again. Was this some kind of revenge for her not so subtly implying Liu Fakuang was cheating on her?
Or, perhaps, did she get fully discovered?
Author Note: If you'd like to read three chapters ahead, or read other works I write, you can find me on patreon for a low low price of 3$ per month.
Alternatively, if you are feeling parched on new writing while you wait for new chapters, how about read my other story, The Summoned Hero Is A Historical Materialist?? It's been called mildly political and is very different from Feng Shui Engineering, but it is the best I can offer.
I also now have a discord server, where you can discuss my fics, and perhaps read some semi-exclusive worldbuilding notes. Come hang out!
She wanted to, needed to cultivate, but all the spiritual energy she could spare went into her cooking, and she couldn't justify making her dishes worse simply because of her own deeply ingrained habits. Even as it was, she was barely managing to scrape by, and tended to run completely dry by the time the night fell - the city wasn't like the world fragment, where spiritual energy was so dense she could easily recover her entire reserves in only a dozen minutes. Sword exercises she did each morning helped only so much: without spiritual energy coursing through her meridians, it was simply not the same.
To get her mind off it, she went to visit the public baths, and paid for a private room for herself. It set her back one and a half yuan, a full day and a half of her salary - an outrageous price for a mere hour - but she no longer cared.
The room was small - only a couple meters to the side, tiled with patterned ceramics, and with a mosaic of a cultivator slaying a demon beast up on the ceiling. She couldn't recall anything similar from any myths she knew, so perhaps it was a local story, or simply made up whole cloth by the artist.
The rest of the room was pretty bare, with only a single bench alongside one of the walls, and most of the floor taken up by a pool of heated water, the basin sloped gently on one end and just long enough for a person to comfortably lay down in.
Dim light streamed in from slits above the door, leading back into the corridors of the bathhouse, and sent strange water reflections dancing across the walls. Right next to the door was a sand clock, and she flipped it over to keep track of how much time she had left.
She quickly undressed - leaving her sword and jade slate on the bench - put her clothes into a basket and pushed it out through a small door back into the corridor, where a servant would pick them up to be washed, cleaned, dried and brought back well before her bath ended.
With a tired sigh, she walked into the pool of water, and laid down on the stones. Hot water felt like liquid bliss on her skin, and she closed her eyes, letting stress slowly wash out of her.
The need to cultivate constantly banging in the back of her head was only a part of it - her attempts to find Wang Yonghao had all but hit a dead end. The worst part was that her divination idea was producing results - just not enough to actually work. She had been fruitlessly spinning her bottle throughout the days, on the assumption that his luck might vary by the hour, and noting down the results on a sheet of paper. It was good that she decided to keep records: without written data, she would never have noticed the effects, no matter how good her memory was. When she was concentrating on the search, she was rolling markedly more ones, twos, and sixes than would be expected - not enough to tell anything at all was occurring with a glance, but enough that with a bit of math, she could prove it wasn't mere chance after hundreds of rolls.
She supposed she should be glad her crazy idea worked at all, but the effect was so slight as to be all but unusable. That is what made it all the more frustrating: if she got nothing whatsoever out of it, she could have made her peace, and focused on trying to find rumors about Wang Yonghao from traveling merchants, or looking for another path forward. But as it was, she always felt that it was just on the cusp of working, and couldn't quite get herself to call off the plan entirely.
To top it off, she had a very strong suspicion of what could make it all snap into place, but to do that, she would need to go directly against her principles. Wang Yonghao's luck was quite clearly centered around making him cultivate - so if she pre-committed herself towards forcing him to advance in realm, as opposed to merely thinking of how her presence might indirectly strengthen his cultivation, she suspected his luck would immediately begin to cooperate. She could even seal the deal with a heavenly vow, if the need called for it.
But of course she didn't want to force him. It was, after all, ultimately his decision how to advance his cultivation, or wherever to do so at all - going against it would be the exact thing that made her blood boil. Perhaps if she was on the verge of death she would have done it, but not as she was now. And that meant this path was largely closed to her.
You could fool the heavens, but not blind luck.
Despair filled her mind at the thought that she might be stuck, running in place, merely working to make ends meet, and she submerged her head underwater to keep a hold of herself, blowing bubbles to the surface. How often could she cultivate, working like she did? Perhaps one day in five, if she limited her expenses as much as was feasible? The building foundation realm would remain forever out of reach.
She was caged just as surely as if she went back to her sect - it is just that this cage had an open roof.
She couldn't even write to her parents. Not only was it dangerous - she was sure the sect would surveil their mail in some fashion, and who knew what they could discover if she sent more than a single letter - but the thought of telling them she gambled, lost and still couldn't return was unbearable.
She stayed underwater until her lungs started to burn and then surfaced, breathing deeply. Perhaps she could find a way to earn a lot more money - become a merchant guard, or something of that nature. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
She relaxed again as she washed herself with soap, finally starting to feel clean as opposed to merely adequate, circulated Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes to put color back into her hair, and got out of the bath, putting on a bathrobe provided by the establishment. The sand clock near the door said that she still had ten minutes remaining, so she closed her eyes, resting on a bench near the wall of her small private room and waiting for her clothes to come back.
For now, there was no need to think of that future. The local imperial offices told her her new seal should be ready tomorrow, and by then she could expand her search beyond this town. If she could find some rumors of Wang Yonghao passing through, then she might be able to find him without any need for divination.
She drew stares as she returned to the ramen shop from her trip to the bathhouse, but she was used to that. Her beauty was noted by many customers at her father's store while she worked there, and it only became more pronounced once she became a cultivator. Refining your body with spiritual energy didn't just make it physically stronger and more resilient against damage - it also normalized most biological functions, and gave you a significant degree of control over them. Until a cultivator got into the building foundation stage, this merely meant better digestion, mildly stronger resistance to disease and poisons, an ability to stop your hair and nails from growing, and other small things - but it did tend to lead to clearer and smoother skin, stronger and denser hair, and more controlled fat distribution, which, in turn, meant that cultivators tended to be more beautiful than average.
There were exceptions, of course - one of her sect Elders was famous for having ruined his hair due to what Qian Shanyi privately considered to be decades of an abominable disdain towards safety precautions when working with "safe" alchemical concoctions - but they did not affect the overall trend much.
What she wasn't used to was that some moron decided to tag along after her from the bathhouse. She wasn't sure what he was planning, as she didn't reciprocate his attempts to call after her near the baths, but perhaps he got foolishly brave from seeing her walk around without any guards. This had only rarely been a problem for her back in the Golden Rabbit Bay - nobody was stupid enough to approach a cultivator wearing sect robes with a sword at their waist without a good reason. Only on the rare days when she dressed down to visit some gambling parlor without revealing herself as a cultivator did she have to suffer the occasional annoyance of such "courtship".
Her sword was wrapped in a piece of fabric she borrowed from Old Chen, and she carried it in her hands as if it was a mundane package, so it wasn't surprising the idiot felt safe, not knowing she could run him through at any moment. She could have worn it in the open, for some women certainly carried swords around - but if you saw a jade beauty armed with a sword, then chances were you were looking at a cultivator, and that would bring a different type of attention to herself, one that she didn't need.
She circled a city block to make sure he was still following her - he was - and then led him into the narrow alleys of the docks, broke line of sight, and vanished by quickly parkouring up onto a rooftop, crossing the line of buildings, and dropping down into the next street over. She briefly considered breaking his leg - or at least threatening to do so - to teach him a lesson about wasting her time, as well as about trailing other women from the bathhouse with unclear intentions, but then he might talk, and she needed neither rumors about a mysteriously strong woman in a green dress, nor an investigation into the case of assault.
In the evening, she finally sat down with old Chen to look at his financial books, to figure out how much he owed her for the extra sales that came from customers ordering more food due to the spiritual energy making it that much more delicious. He readily agreed, saying that it was crownday, the start of a new week, and thus a perfect time to work with money. She personally did not care for that old superstition - she knew from her experience processing mail for Elder Striding Phoenix that various subcontractors and branches of their sect did their accounting on all sorts of days - but she thought it would make a karmist like old Chen a lot less obnoxious to talk to, and she needed every advantage in that regard that she could get.
What she saw in his books surprised her.
It wasn't anything major, but she had counted the number of dishes sent out of the kitchen every day, and so she knew exactly how much the revenue the restaurant should be bringing in. She had worked here for four days so far: twice, she left for several hours around noon and couldn't be sure, but on the other two days, the figure in the books was lower than it should be by about five percent, and thus so was her bonus pay.
She glanced over at the old Chen. There was no reason for him to underestimate his own earnings - the empire only taxed him on his land, not his sales. That left one obvious culprit.
She waited until the day was over - and until old Chen stopped proselytizing to his flock. When she heard the people start to disperse, she left the kitchen through the window to avoid meeting anyone else, and caught up with Xiao Li. The little waitress jumped as she tapped her on the shoulder, and Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at her.
"Jumpy, aren't we?"
"Honorable - uh, I mean, Yishan," Xiao Li laughed, "I was still thinking back on what was read today. Was there something you wanted with me?"
"Just taking a stroll before bed," she said, shaking her head, "I hope you don't mind if I join you?"
"Oh, not at all!"
To get the waitress to relax a bit, she spoke about some of the real cultivation stories from the empire's founding - not the trash that karmist would bring up. Xiao Li seemed to enjoy it.
"I did actually want to talk to you about something, Li," Qian Shanyi finally said, once she felt the waitress had calmed down enough, "Are you stealing from the restaurant?"
The waitress jumped up again, yelping as if she was bitten by a wasp, looking around in a panic.
'N-no?"
"You are a terrible liar."
"I am not lying!"
"I counted the dishes," Qian Shanyi continued calmly, "and I know how much money the restaurant got. I suspect you aren't telling old Chen about some of the orders, but get the kitchen to prepare them, and pocket the pay. Do you have another explanation?"
Xiao Li breathed in shallow breaths, her eyes flickering between Qian Shanyi's eyes and her hands. Finally, she saw the waitress deflate entirely.
"So what, will you chop off my arms now?" she said, sniffling as tears started to roll from her eyes.
"Why would I do that?" Qian Shanyi blinked in confusion. She didn't even bring her sword with her, figuring it wasn't necessary for a short stroll, and she could still defend herself with her sandal daggers if the need called for it.
"Because I a-am a thi-ef? Old Chen said - "
"The empire doesn't punish thieves this way," she pursed her lips in disappointment. What was that man telling the people who came to listen? Perhaps she shouldn't have avoided his lectures after all. "And I am not the empire. I didn't even tell old Chen about it."
Xiao Li looked up at her with hope in her eyes.
"You di-didn't?"
Qian Shanyi sighed, and came closer to put an encouraging hand on the waitress's shoulder, only to have her close in and bury her face in her chest. What a mess - she didn't expect it to blow up this badly.
"There there, you'll be fine," she said, patting her on the back, "I just wanted to know why you did it."
It took a while for her to calm down.
"I have a little brother," she said, still sniffling, "he is sick, but I don't earn enough to buy him medicine."
She wrung her hands.
"I - I promise I won't steal anymore, but please don't tell Chen! Without me working here, we'd both be out on the streets!"
Qian Shanyi stared at her before sighing. Originally, she just wanted to know what was going on - her agreement with old Chen meant that by stealing from him, she was also stealing from her, and she figured she could get the waitress to pay her a cut to keep quiet, for as long as she was working here. Depending on where she'd have to travel to find Wang Yonghao, she might need every fen and yuan. This, though…
"I won't tell anyone, Li, and I don't care if you steal more," she shook her head, "But if your brother is sick, then let's go see him. I am not much of a healer, but I know enough about the basics to tell you what to ask of a doctor and how much it should cost, so you don't get screwed when talking to a merchant."
Xiao Li opened her mouth in shock, but quickly gathered herself up, and led her further into the streets of Xiaohongshan.
"Why don't you care that I steal?" she asked as they walked, "I-I mean I appreciate it, of course, but Chen always said cultivators exist to enforce the heaven's will, and stealing is one of the Nine Great Transgressions - "
"Chen has no clue what he is talking about, Li," Qian Shanyi interrupted her, adopting a lecturing tone, "To cultivate is to rebel against the heavens - this principle lies at the heart of all modern cultivation. If I blindly enforced anyone's will but my own - heaven or otherwise - I wouldn't be a cultivator, I would be a lapdog. You need the money more than Chen does, so why should I punish you?"
They walked together in silence for a while.
"My name is Ling," the waitress said quietly, "Li is my family name, but people started calling me little Li, and now everyone assumes it's my name because I don't correct them. It's easier that way."
Qian Shanyi did think it was a strange name, but kept quiet.
Xiao Li glanced up at Qian Shanyi.
"You are a very strange cultivator, Yishan, but please call me Ling."
In the morning, Xiao Li's - or rather, Li Ling's - behavior towards Qian Shanyi changed subtly compared to the previous days. She was a lot more relaxed, and not once did the waitress have to stop herself from referring to her as an honorable immortal - they were finally on a proper first name basis. They also talked a bit more about history, and for once, Qian Shanyi felt like she was really listening and thinking about what was being said. She could only hope she managed to put a few cracks into the surface of karmist propaganda around her mind.
Her musing on how to further push Li Ling's burgeoning education was interrupted when she heard loud cursing followed by a crash from the main room of the restaurant. Someone must have started a fight.
She briefly debated what she should do, before deciding that she might as well save Chen's furniture from being wrecked. Her seal should be ready later today, and once it was, she would most likely leave the town right away - there was no longer a need to conceal the fact that Lan Yishan, an immortal chef taking her first steps on the dao of cooking, worked at this particular restaurant.
She grabbed a towel and marched into the main room, wiping off her hands still wet from washing vegetables, and took the scene at a glance. Two young men - neither of them a cultivator, thankfully - were wrestling on the ground next to an overturned table, with Li Ling watching in horror not far from them. Old Chen was berating them from behind the counter, but wisely kept his distance away from the pair - his old bones probably wouldn't have survived a glancing blow from either of them.
She had no such concerns, and approached the pair casually, whistling shrilly to get their attention, but they seemed to be too focused on each other. Oh well, she tried.
A couple targeted kicks to the solar plexus of either man later - she didn't even have to use spiritual energy, just time her strikes well - and the pair was lying down peacefully, gasping for breath. She picked one of them up by the collar and brought him outside - his futile struggles against her grip leading nowhere while he still could barely breathe - and set him down on the ground, taking the time to dust him off as much as she could.
"Apologies, honored customer, but I had to stop your mighty duel before you would have destroyed the rest of the restaurant," she said, helping the man stay upright. Color was slowly coming back to his face, and he scowled at her. She returned it with a smile, "What brought this on, if I may ask?"
"That bastard Liu Shishou dared to take my seat, and then insult my wife," he gasped, "how was I supposed to let that go?"
"I see. Liu Shishou has been a menace at our restaurant for quite a while," she nodded, pretending to know what inane drama he was talking about, "I again apologize for kicking you, but you understand that I have to give face to all our customers. How could the other people know which one of you was in the right? If I openly sided with you and simply threw him out, nobody would patronize our restaurant anymore."
She leaned forwards conspiratorially.
"But honored customer, I made sure to secretly kick him twice as much as you," she winked, "Besides, let me offer you a much better seat outside - in this beautiful weather, would you want to be cooped up within a stuffy room where smells from the kitchen would disturb your meal? Let Liu Shishou suffer on his lonesome."
She motioned towards one of the tables on the open square, and waited until he nodded in agreement. Knowing that his rival was getting the worse seat seemed to really placate the man.
She made sure to get his name before she returned inside, ready to solve the other half of the puzzle.
Liu Shishou was standing down on all fours, slowly managing to get up off the ground while Li Ling berated him, still not daring to approach. She crossed eyes with the waitress and winked at her, closing in on the other man and giving him a hand to rise up.
When he saw her face he recognised her, and actually tried to throw a punch. She caught his wrist and squeezed just tightly enough to cause pain, brought her face in close, and flashed her eyes with Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes so that only he could see it. His face contorted in a mix of pain and shock, and she patted him on the back with her other hand.
"Honorable master Liu, I humbly apologize for kicking you, but you understand that I have to give face to all my customers, right?" She lowered her voice so that only he could hear, "It was quite discourteous of you two to start a fight in my establishment."
"That bastard Zheng -"
"- is as sinful as a pig is dirty, I know. He had been terrorizing our humble restaurant for a long time - do you think I do not know your suffering? But how could the other people know which one of you was in the right? If I openly sided with you and simply threw him out without giving you a kick too, nobody would patronize our restaurant anymore."
She leaned closer still, pitching her voice conspiratorially.
"But honored master Liu, I made sure to kick him three more times than you on your behalf," she winked, "Besides, I made him sit outside in the wind, where his noodles will get cold and tasteless. Why not let him suffer alone while you enjoy a warm meal here?"
She reached behind herself and flipped one of the chairs lying on the ground with her foot, sending it just behind Liu Shishou, and helped him sit down. She nodded to Li Ling, helped her put the table back up, wiped her hands off again, and headed back towards the kitchens.
"Oh, Lan Yishan! Is that you?"
She glanced over at the corner of the restaurant, and was surprised to see Lanhua, soon-to-be wife of that spirit hunter. She was dressed completely differently from how she saw her last time: her hair covered by a headscarf, wearing robust dark green clothes suitable for a sailor instead of a dress, and a solid pair of boots. Her eyes, though, remained just as cold and calculating as before. Qian Shanyi approached her carefully, letting surprise show on her face.
What in the netherworld's name was she doing here?
"I believe we haven't been properly introduced. My name is Wu Lanhua, I happen to be an insignificant merchant of little note," the woman smiled at her, which just unnerved her more, "would you have a couple minutes to talk to me? Our last meeting ended somewhat poorly."
The name Wu stirred something in her memory, from back when she visited the local postal office and read a lot of information about the surrounding area. Wasn't this the wealthiest merchant family in town?
Qian Shanyi glanced over Wu Lanhua, and then the rest of the tavern. Why did she come here? There was no way this was a coincidence - there must have been a hundred dining establishments in Xiaohongshan, and a woman this rich should have had her own cooks besides. She glanced at her table: there was a kettle of tea, but no food. A slight chip on the handle of the kettle was familiar - it had been sent out of the kitchens a good twenty minutes ago. If the woman was going to eat, she would have received her food already - but who came to a ramen shop just to drink tea?
That meant she had to have come here specifically to talk to her. But about what? And how did she even find her? She never told anyone where she worked.
Worry started to flood her veins again. Was this some kind of revenge for her not so subtly implying Liu Fakuang was cheating on her?
Or, perhaps, did she get fully discovered?
Author Note: If you'd like to read three chapters ahead, or read other works I write, you can find me on patreon for a low low price of 3$ per month.
Alternatively, if you are feeling parched on new writing while you wait for new chapters, how about read my other story, The Summoned Hero Is A Historical Materialist?? It's been called mildly political and is very different from Feng Shui Engineering, but it is the best I can offer.
I also now have a discord server, where you can discuss my fics, and perhaps read some semi-exclusive worldbuilding notes. Come hang out!
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- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
She has learned the ultimate lesson of the retail worker: The customer is always being lied to their because they're a bunch of morons. Classic.
I wonder why a rich merchant might want to speak to a cultivator chef
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Classic mystical trickster move. Bugs Bunny would be so proud.
If Qian is lucky, Lanhua just wants to hire her or cater a party or something. But she isn't, so this probably has something to do with Liu Fakuang.
- Location
- Leeds
Ah, the lucks rubbing off on Qian.
"I'm going to give you $100 to fuck off, leave town, and never see my fiance again."
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm sure Qian would appreciate having an excuse for Lan Yishan to skip town. "I'd love to stick around, honest, but I don't want to cause trouble."
- Pronouns
- He/His/etc
She's a fox not a cat.