On their last day of travel before they reached the Autumn Valley, Lu Xiuying badly burnt her outermost robe while helping with breakfast.

  Luckily, Lu Xiuying herself wasn’t hurt aside from a few very minor burns on her arm. But the robe itself was beyond repair.

  So, because Lu Xiuying just so happened to need a new robe before the tournament, Qiu Jucheng took off on his sword. He promised to rejoin them where the stream they were traveling along bent to the east.

  Walking along the bank of the stream, Heng Xiaowen fell into step next to Lu Xiuying. He tilted his head towards her. “So, when did you ask for new robes, Shimei?”

  “A month ago,” she responded, a little perturbed. “Your clothes can only be so ragged before even the charms of being a poor but pure hearted maiden are lost.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “Don’t make that face at me.”

  “Besides,” Heng Xiaowen tossed his ponytail. “If I’m already the unsophisticated beauty that’s one makeover away from marrying the prince, you’ll need a different strategy.”

  Lu Xiuying turned slightly green. “Why are you like this? You should go back to wandering around aimlessly and barely speaking.”

  “Wasn’t that creeping everyone out?”

  “This is creepier!”

  Heng Xiaowen pouted.

  “Don’t grow new personalities overnight. It’s unsettling.”

  “I’m not trying to,” he protested. “Have you considered that I’m revealing my true nature to you now that you know my dark secret?”

  Lu Xiuying tilted her head. “Was this how you acted before you died?”

  “Nope!” Heng Xiaowen replied with a smile and bounded ahead to bother Yang Jingfei.

  —

  At the bend in the stream, Liqiu Hua Sect stopped to rest.

  It was a lovely day. Crisp autumn air, bright sunlight filtering through the leaves that had just begun to turn, and interesting birds Heng Xiaowen hadn’t seen before crossing paths with them as they migrated south.

  The disciples settled themselves on sun warmed boulders to snack and Tangtao drifted down to the steam to drink. Ling Hong and Yang Jingfei sprawled out on their stomachs.

  It made for such a picturesque scene, Heng Xiaowen could almost forget that the very same horse that looked like it sprung from a painting in a therapist’s office had tried to murder all of them just the other day.

  Song Jiayi stretched her arms above her head, letting out a contented sigh. Despite Heng Xiaowen and Lu Xiuying both getting themselves into trouble, their teacher hadn’t managed to stay properly angry for longer than a morning.

  Heng Xiaowen raised an eyebrow to Lu Xiuying who shrugged, seeming unconcerned. She wordlessly held her hand out for a slice of the tangerine he was peeling.

  A few minutes later, Qiu Jucheng returned, swooping down from the sky and gliding to a gentle stop before stepping down from his sword and returning it to its scabbard.

  Heng Xiaowen wasn’t sure how long it would take him to learn how to ride his sword like a hoverboard, but considering that it was one of the sickest things he had ever seen, he was motivated to pay even more diligent attention to Song Jiayi’s lessons.

  “Xiaowen,” Qiu Jucheng said, stepping towards him and holding out a neatly folded bundle of brown fabric. “Here.”

  He took the bundle and shook it loose, revealing a simple outer robe, not dissimilar to the one he wore now, but in considerably better condition.

  Heng Xiaowen frowned. “Did you mean to give this to Er-Shimei?”

  Qiu Jucheng glanced to Lu Xiuying and smiled, answering his question but directing it to her. “Your robe barely fits you, so I thought it prudent to replace yours and let Xiuying have your old robe.

  “Shishu!” Lu Xiuying cried. “It won’t fit!”

  Yang Jingfei and Ling Hong snickered. She wasn’t wrong—despite being the second eldest disciple of Liqiu Hua Sect, she was also the second shortest.

  Qiu Jucheng was unmoved by her distress. “We only had the means to buy one robe.”

  Lu Xiuying turned to stare at Heng Xiaowen’s battered robe in despair. “But, Shishu—”

  “You’re not a merchant’s daughter anymore, don’t act so spoiled,” Ling Hong interjected.

  Lu Xiuying bristled. “Why don’t you alter it for me then? Didn’t you grow up in a laundry?”

  Ling Hong threw a tangerine at her head, which Lu Xiuying ducked, hitting Heng Xiaowen instead.

  Heng Xiaowen sighed, shucked off his outer robe and threw it over Lu Xiuying’s head. “Stop that.”

  Lu Xiuying pulled his robe off her head and scowled at him. He shrugged. “Who are we to question the Honorable Treasurer Qiu?”

  “Precisely,” Song Jiayi interjected. “Now, let’s get moving again, I want to make another twenty li before nightfall.”

  Lu Xiuying sulked, wrapped in a hand-me-down outer robe, but didn’t complain aside from shooting the occasional dirty look at Heng Xiaowen as they walked.

  Qiu Jucheng waved Lu Xiuying to his side and she picked her way over, holding up her robes so they wouldn’t drag on the ground.

  “Xiuying, you can sew, yes?” he said.

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  Lu Xiuying nodded.

  “Good.” Qiu Jucheng handed her a spool of red thread and a needle. “Hem your robes so you won’t tangle yourself in them.”

  Lu Xiuying’s eyes widened, cupping the spool in her palm. “Thank you, Shishu,” she said quietly. She sounded almost abashed.

  He put his hand on her shoulder briefly. “Take better care of your things.”

  “En.”

  Qiu Jucheng walked ahead to talk to Song Jiayi and Heng Xiaowen replaced him at Lu Xiuying’s side.

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  Lu Xiuying tucked the spool into her sleeve. “Nothing. Shishu just gave me some thread and now I’ll be up all night fixing your horrible robe”

  “Maybe you could have asked Ling Hong to help if you hadn’t picked on him earlier.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if he wouldn’t have been just as insulted by that. His face is paper thin.”

  “His face is thin?”

  “Obviously? Looking at him the wrong way wounds his pride.”

  “Ah, okay, I see what you mean.” At the very least, Heng Xiaowen thought he had the rough idea of it. “So, someone who picks on an eleven year old because he called her spoiled would have a ‘thin face’ then?”

  Lu Xiuying hit him with her umbrella.

  —

  The next morning Heng Xiaowen understood Lu Xiuying’s gratitude for the thread.

  She emerged from the tent last, only appearing after everyone was halfway through eating breakfast.

  The old robe was transformed: while it certainly didn’t look new, Lu Xiuying had hemmed it to the appropriate length and taken it in so she no longer drowned in it. The worst of the wear had been near the edges, so its appearance was instantly refreshed. As a final touch, the lapels had been embroidered with clusters of red flowers.

  Lu Xiuying had taken extra care with her makeup as well, either in preparation for finally arriving in the Autumn Valley, or to conceal the effects of a late night sewing on her face.

  Heng Xiaowen gave her a thumbs up. “You look nice!”

  “Thank you, Da-Shixiong,” she replied brightly, settling next to him and helping herself to the last of the morning’s congee.

  Ling Hong raised his eyebrows, his eyes flicking down her clothes and up to her face. “The stitching is uneven,” he commented flatly.

  “As if you could tell from this distance,” Lu Xiuying retorted.

  “Even if I couldn’t—which I can—the bigger problem is that anyone could see from seven li away that you’ve painted your face like a cheap courtesan.”

  Yang Jingfei choked on her congee.

  “Enough,” Song Jiayi cut in, voice firm.

  Lu Xiuying, who was in the process of standing, let Heng Xiaowen tug her back down next to him.

  Song Jiayi set down her bowl and straightened up. “All of you blockheads, pay attention to your poor old shizun for a moment.” Having captured their attention, she smiled and addressed them. “While I suffer no delusions about having well mannered, obedient disciples and instead I endeavor to teach a pack of wild beasts how to wield a sword, I need you all to remember our precepts while we’re in the Autumn Valley and behave accordingly.”

  Everyone nodded, awkwardly righting themselves from a variety of improper slouching and sprawling postures.

  “Especially the fourth, I don’t want to attract any negative attention from a sect that could grind us under their heel, understood?”

  “Yes, Shizun.”

  Heng Xiaowen thought back to when he had picked a fight with Zhu Guangli and cringed. He hadn’t known any better at the time, but considering his mutual’s fixation on the guy, it probably wouldn’t be the last time he’d see him. Hopefully, Heng Xiaowen could apologize and smooth things over. Maybe, Zhu Guangli wouldn’t be the type to hold a grudge.

  “Then let’s go, maybe if we keep a good pace there will still be decent camping spaces available.”

  —

  The entrance to the Autumn Valley was through an archway in a formidable city wall, built of gray stone and directly underneath a gatehouse.

  As soon as Heng Xiaowen saw it, the System chimed.

  [System: The protagonist has received a mission.]

  [Mission: Place in the top ten contestants in the Autumn Valley Immortal Youth Tournament.

  Reward: Invitation as a guest disciple at Zhai Xing Peak. Bonus rewards can be unlocked if placed in the top three.

  Penalty: Unknown]

  Heng Xiaowen took a minute to absorb that information.

  He didn’t like any of it.

  After hiking at the intense pace Song Jiayi set that morning, they were now stuck in a line that stretched out from the gate for at least two city blocks.

  Just looking at it, even knowing only a small percentage were actual competitors, Heng Xiaowen knew he was going to fail.

  There were bright caravans of carriages pulled by horses, surrounded by riders in expensive uniforms. There were gaggles of shabby folk like Liqiu Hua Sect, traveling on foot or in ox-carts. There was everything in between. Not to mention the cultivators whizzing overhead on flying swords.

  People were shouting greetings to each other, stopping to bow politely or laugh and slap each other on the backs. Occasionally the curtains of a carriage would be pulled open and the occupant would shout to a friend picked out in the crowds, inviting them to join them inside.

  Even Song Jiayi and Qiu Jucheng weren’t entirely immune to this, exchanging everything from a jovial reunion with a man who had fallen off a donkey when he spotted them to icy pleasantries with some of the finely dressed cultivators on horseback.

  While there was considerable variation in tenor, what united these interactions, was out of the small handful of people that recognized them, every one of them seemed surprised to see them.

  As the morning wore on, it almost seemed like Liqiu Hua Sect wasn’t just running into the occasional acquaintance, but that it might even have become a topic of discussion.

  Heng Xiaowen bent his head towards Lu Xiuying. “Did I just overhear someone calling Shizun a cake artist?” he asked, baffled.

  Lu Xiuying sighed. “Drawing cakes to satisfy her hunger. Cultivators that are old enough to remember Liqiu Hua Sect before it was annihilated think Shizun is deluding herself by thinking she can reestablish her sect by herself.”

  Heng Xiaowen glanced ahead, to where Song Jiayi was strolling with her arms tucked behind her back and a smile on her face, either not paying attention to the gossip that was sporadically bubbling around them, or entirely indifferent to it.

  “Is she?” he asked quietly. “Deluding herself, that is?”

  “Yes,” Lu Xiuying answered, immediately. “That’s why I intend to marry out as quickly as possible.”

  Heng Xiaowen glanced at Yang Jingfei and Ling Hong, the former so overfull with restless excitement she had resorted to practically running laps around their group. And the latter–in a rare display of really acting like a child–was trailing close behind Qiu Jucheng, watching his surroundings apprehensively.

  Heng Xiaowen wondered what it would mean if Lu Xiuying was right.

  At long last, after several hours of standing in the sun, Liqiu Hua Sect reached the gate.

  Built into the wall, there was a sort of kiosk, where a very bored looking cultivator stood inside.

  “Greetings, fellow cultivator,” he droned. “How can I help you?”

  Heng Xiaowen recognized the glazed look in the man’s eyes that he’d worn himself countless times in his first life working as a cashier.

  “Hello, hello!” Song Jiayi said. “I would like to enter my disciple into the Tournament.”

  He gave the group a brief once over. “You have a beast, I take it?”

  “We do indeed,” she replied, dropping the qiankun bag containing the rabbit onto the counter.

  “One moment.” He took the bag and disappeared into the squat house. After a minute, the man returned, passing the qiankun back to Song Jiayi. “Unaffiliated?” he asked, opening a box and retrieving a sheet of paper.

  “Oh, no,” Song Jiayi said. “I am Sect Leader Song of Liqiu Hua Sect, and this is my head disciple Heng Xiaowen.”

  The man sighed and bent down to retrieve a stack of papers. “I’ll need a sect tally, the sect leader’s personal seal, and a current list of all cultivators and their disciples, as well as all previous sect leaders to register a new cultivation sect for the tournament.”

  “Ah, you must be young then,” Song Jiayi said, placing a bronze flower-shaped token on the counter. “No, Liqiu Hua Sect has already competed several times.”

  Heng Xiaowen didn’t think the cultivator behind the counter looked much younger than Song Jiayi, but he didn’t protest and started paging through the thick tome in front of him before stopping and raising his eyebrows.

  The look he gave Song Jiayi when he raised his eyes was hostile. “It says here that Liqiu Hua Sect was annihilated fifty years ago.”

  Fifty years?

  “Common misconception!” Song Jiayi said. “Liqiu Hua Sect was almost annihilated fifty years ago.”

  Heng Xiaowen stared at Song Jiayi and Qiu Jucheng. Even if they’d had been children then, they hardly looked older than their mid-thirties. They must be the students of the survivors, or maybe their children?

  The cultivator was unimpressed by Song Jiayi’s response, looking down his nose as he surveyed them. “Do you really think you can round up some street urchins and—“ His eyes caught on Lu Xiuying and his nose wrinkled. “—some girl from a brothel, and pass yourself off as the former sect of Weifeng-zun?”

  To her credit, Lu Xiuying didn’t flinch. She just held the man’s gaze until he shifted his attention back to Song Jiayi. Heng Xiaowen stepped in front of her all the same.

  Song Jiayi’s smile had remained stubbornly affixed as well, but Heng Xiaowen thought he saw a muscle in her jaw jump.

  ”Gongzi,” she said. “I appreciate your concern for the reputation and legacy of Liqiu Hua Sect, but your efforts are misguided. I assure you, we are who we claim to be.”

  The cultivator picked up the bronze flower and turned it over in his hand. “Let me guess, you found this somewhere and learned it was the symbol of the former sect of a famous cultivator and thought that your luck had finally turned? I will tell you now, it’s not uncommon for unsavory types to wave around the tallies of dead sects trying to reap unearned rewards.”

  “It’s not!” Song Jiayi said brightly. “I even confiscated several Liqiu Hua Sect tallies from some bandits I encountered some years ago.” Song Jiayi plucked the flower from his fingers. “How about this, Gongzi? While I appreciate your diligence in making sure nothing unscrupulous is being done in the name of my sect, this isn’t a good use of your time or my own. How about you check the tournament records. You will find that in the last tournament Liqiu Hua Sect participated in, I, Song Jiayi, placed fifth, Weifeng-zun placed first, Liang Teng placed fourth and Mo Liao…” Song Jiayi glanced to Qiu Jucheng.

  “Thirty-sixth.”

  “Thirty-sixth, that’s right. Why would we know that if we weren’t Liqiu Hua Sect?”

  The man’s face twitched in annoyance. “Very well.”

  He then pulled a thick book from under the counter and started paging through it. Finally, he paused, narrowing his eyes and tracing a column of densely packed characters with his finger.

  The man paled.

  “My apologies, Sect Leader Song,” he said faintly. “I was mistaken.”