Qian Shanyi found Linghui Mei only a short distance away from the smoldering pile of wood and steel, the last pyre for Lei Kou's mangled corpse. She must have hit her head when she fell, and remained unconscious just beneath that terrible false sun, her skin scorched well and truly black.

Qian Shanyi felt her heart skip a beat, rushing to her disciple's side through grass and bushes taller than her head - but then she saw smoke and ink flow through air, and Linghui Mei's form shifted, injuries vanishing. She convulsed and choked out a gasp as her eyes finally flew open.

"In Nuwa's holy name," Linghui Mei croaked out, reaching out to take Qian Shanyi's outstretched hand. She was shaking from her head down to her feet. "What was that?"

"He must have detonated his core," Qian Shanyi said, pulling her disciple to her feet, ignoring the painful way her fingers dug into her skin. The healing pills were working, and all the boils had already vanished, but it was still reddened and far too sensitive. "We are lucky. Without the protection of the tribunal, we'd be mere splotches on the walls of a crater he left behind."

"You say it so casually."

"Not much else we could have done," Qian Shanyi noted, frowning at Linghui Mei's appearance. Their perfectly crafted robes had weathered the heat easily, and now that her injuries had vanished, she looked no different than before the tribunal. Which was, of course, a problem.

An ordinary person could never recover this quickly from those injuries, no matter what pills they took. How were they supposed to explain this?

"Did you cover me?" Qian Shanyi continued quietly. She heard the bushes rustle a distance away, so they were already not alone - but by now, there was no hiding Linghui Mei.

"I did, master."

If she hadn't, then Qian Shanyi wouldn't have gotten away with just some light burns, spiritually enhanced robes or not.

"Hm. Thank you," she said, glancing in the direction of the rustling bushes. She felt Svarggam Xiaochun approach and motioned for Linghui Mei to hide, in a vain hope that she would attract a bit less attention - even if she was surely already well within the range of the other woman's senses.

Perhaps she needn't have bothered. By the looks of the dark-skinned woman that now stepped out from beyond the bushes, she had no mind for any other human being. She was covered in a strange, pale mushroom growth from head to toe, spongy and wild, like she was a log left to rot in a swamp for a good decade. The growth was already flaking off, crumbling into dust as soon as it reached the ground, and by the time Svarggam Xiaochun reached the rails, it had already collapsed to half its size.

In her hands, Svarggam Xiaochun cradled a cracked sphere of black jade, tied around her neck by a thin cord - one that seemed to consume so much of her attention that she was barely looking where she was heading. Her lips were quivering - but when she lifted her eyes to look at the mangled corpse of Lei Kou, it was all washed away by fury.

She rushed towards the pile of wood, almost slipping as she scrambled up the side, until she reached the corpse - and kicked it down into the dust below. It landed with a pathetic splat, and Svarggam Xiaochun jumped down right on top of it.

"You!" she screamed, kicking and stomping on the half-scorched mess of meat and bone that used to be Lei Kou with her bare feet. The cracked jade talisman swung wildly around her neck, entirely forgotten. "Mairu! You thalayoli bastard! I hope all your souls burn up in the Heavenly suns, maire, I hope your children burn, and their children's children, you naayinte mone! How dare you kill my brother?! I hope your whole clan drowns in the glacier lakes, you evil demon bastard! You kill us, and now I kill you! So die! Die!! Die!!!"

Her kicks quickly spread the blood and gore all around the ground, turning an already gruesome scene into something completely grotesque. Qian Shanyi hurried in her steps and tried to grab Svarggam Xiaochun by the shoulders, but only got an elbow to the nose for her trouble.

"Xiaochun, please, there is no need," Qian Shanyi said, ducking under another wild arm swing, and finally managing to put an arm around Svarggam Xiaochun's chest and another around her arm. "Give it a rest."

Upon hearing Qian Shanyi speak, all the fighting seemed to have gone out of Svarggam Xiaochun. She slumped in Qian Shanyi's arms and didn't resist as she got pulled away from the desecrated corpse. "Okay," she muttered, sniffling slightly. "I think I bruised my foot. His bones are so hard."

Qian Shanyi almost led her back towards the pile of wood, but reconsidered - after all that excitement, it was starting to seem awfully unstable - and instead made them sit down on one of the rails. The last of the mushroom growth had flaked away from Svarggam Xiaochun, leaving her disheveled, but relatively clean - except for the blood and viscera that now covered her feet.

"Are you unhurt?" Qian Shanyi said, rubbing her nose. Even through her spiritual energy shield, the hit still stung a bit. "I have healing pills."

Svarggam Xiaochun shook her head slightly, demurely resting it on her knees. "I am fine," she said, reaching into her robes and taking out the cracked sphere of black jade. Her face didn't even look singed, but Qian Shanyi supposed it wouldn't show on the dark skin. "My grandfather gifted me a talisman before I left to study. He…he said it would save me, if - if -"

Svarggam Xiaochun teared up, sniffling again, and buried her face in her hands. "I should have given it to Xi-xi-xiaogang," she whined, "then he wouldn't be d-d-dead -"

Qian Shanyi gave the sphere an envious look - from up close, she could see emerald lines deep within the crack of black jade, glimmering with faint light. If only she had a family that could so casually gift her with life-saving talismans that could resist the might of a detonated golden core. But asking about it wouldn't be appropriate, and so instead she patted Svarggam Xiaochun on the shoulder with what she hoped was a friendly demeanor.

"Don't blame yourself," she said, "I doubt it would have changed anything. The abominable Lei Kou was set on killing someone. Even if your brother held your talisman, the man would have simply struck twice."

Svarggam Xiaochun stayed silent for a moment. "Thank you," she finally said, and rose - only to immediately kowtow before Qian Shanyi, burying her face in the dust and the freshly growing grass.

"For helping me avenge my brother, the Zhang clan owes you a debt of blood," she said, "if you ever need our help, fellow cultivator Xing - um, I mean -"

She suddenly stopped, glancing up at Qian Shanyi uncertainly.

Qian Shanyi sighed. This particular cat was out of the bag now. "Qian," she confirmed. "I travel under a pseudonym."

"- fellow cultivator Qian, call upon us, and the Zhangs will answer," Svarggam Xiaochun concluded with a grateful look. She rose back up and dusted herself off, wincing at the sight of her own bloody feet.

"Well," Qian Shanyi said, giving Svarggam Xiaochun a serious look. "I hope at least that your promise to bring death upon Lei Kou's entire house could be taken back."

Seeing the woman's incomprehensive stare, she decided to clarify. "He wasn't lying during the tribunal," she said. "He took me into his house. I did not wish for it, not that he asked for my wishes, and yet it happened nonetheless. Will I have your word that no vengeance will come my way from your clan?"

Even simply asking this question, even if she already expected the answer, it still felt like balancing on the edge of the cliff. When she was gifted the sword, she didn't think through the implications - but in retrospect, it was incredibly troubling. Dozens of cultivators on the sandpiercer had reason to swear a degree of vengeance against him, and even if Lei Kou's statement surely held no formal power, even if she was acting to slay the bastard, others might not take it the same way. At least what he did wasn't public knowledge.

Svarggam Xiaochun blushed and nodded, trying to cover up her face with one hand. "O-of course," she said, "We are now as sisters, and there can be no bad blood between family. I spoke without thinking."

Qian Shanyi relaxed a fraction and let a smile onto her face. She'd figure out what to do about her stained reputation later. "If we are to be as sisters, then do not worry so much about debt," she said easily. "How could I expect my sister to carry such a severe obligation? It is enough to know that I could have helped you."

Svarggam Xiaochun immediately enveloped her in a hug. Qian Shanyi had to suppress her instinct to dodge out of the way - she still could not get used to how physical this strange woman was. "Of course," she said, "it's no trouble at all -"

All of a sudden, Svarggam Xiaochun's face went white, and she sprung back, covering her mouth with one hand. "Oh no!"

Qian Shanyi just about had a heart attack, but calmed down somewhat when she made sure that Lei Kou's corpse still lay unmoving on the ground, and his soul did not somehow manage to re-coalesce from beyond the point of total obliteration. Even golden core cultivators had their limits. "What is it?" she asked warily, not seeing anything else out of the ordinary.

"Your - your disciple, I forgot, she was burned -" Svarggam Xiaochun stuttered out, leaping up onto her feet and rushing back towards the pile of wood. "I have to help her -"

Fuck me. She trained to be a healer, of course she'd think of this.

"She is fine," Qian Shanyi said, following after her. "Please do not worry so much. It is bad for your heart."

"Fine?! Her skin was charred black!" Svarggam Xiaochun hissed, quickly sprinting around the pile of wood, but of course Linghui Mei was not to be found so easily. "Where did she go?"

Qian Shanyi sighed in the depths of her soul. She hoped that there was still a small chance that she could keep the secret away from Svarggam Xiaochun, but if she actually saw the state Linghui Mei was in, then there was nothing to be done.

Well, no point in avoiding the inevitable.

"Mei, come over here," Qian Shanyi called out. Svarggam Xiaochun looked back on her in incomprehension, only to spin around when Linghui Mei emerged from the bushes just a short distance away, entirely unharmed.

"How -" Svarggam Xiaochun said, taking a step back. Had she been too distracted to sense her presence earlier?

"She has a special constitution that assists with healing," Qian Shanyi lied, putting an appropriate amount of gravitas into her voice. "It's a sect secret, and attention could bring her to harm - I would appreciate your discretion, Xiaochun."

As she said these words, she watched Svarggam Xiaochun like a hawk. Linghui Mei's miraculous healing abilities would come out sooner or later - but how suspicious were they on their own? Just because she could heal quickly, did not mean she was a jiuweihu. There were a thousand mysteries between heaven and earth - who could say what was and wasn't possible?

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Qian Shanyi needed to know what a healer might find suspicious, and she had a healer right in front of her. Ordinarily, she would never have dared running such an "experiment" - but if fate had pushed the issue, she might as well try to learn something from it.

She didn't want to fight Svarggam Xiaochun. But if she was going to freak out…

Much the same thinking must have passed through Linghui Mei's head. A wariness crept into her step, one that could have passed for someone understandably not wishing to reveal the secret of their constitution - but Qian Shanyi could tell that she was ready to transform and strike at any moment.

Fortunately, she wouldn't have to. Svarggam Xiaochun laughed easily, surprise slowly fading from her expression. "Oh, so that's how it was," she said, not even a single trace of concern in her voice. "Your secrets don't matter to me. I was worried that I might have let an ordinary person die because I forgot about them. I would have never lived it down."

Qian Shanyi breathed out a bit of tension. She was hesitant to thank their luck, but as long as Svarggam Xiaochun could be convinced to stay quiet on the matter, this secret of theirs shouldn't spread any further.

"Thank you," Qian Shanyi said, giving Lei Kou's corpse and the pile of smoldering wood one last look-over, just in case she missed something, before looking away into the distance, where the sandpiercer had stopped several kilometers away. "Well, let's head back. I'll need some bags to bring his body with us."

"Bring him with us?! Why?!" Svarggam Xiaochun burst out. She spat on the ground in the direction of Lei Kou's corpse, but thankfully, did not pounce on it again. "Let the vultures feast upon his bones!"

"I am sure that the empire will want the body," Qian Shanyi explained calmly. "Who knows what secrets can be learned from a dead golden core cultivator? They don't exactly grow on trees. Besides, there is also the issue of forfeiture to consider."

She was really hoping her guess was right, and the man had a cosmos ring - and that it had survived his core detonation.

Svarggam Xiaochun crossed her arms on her chest, but did not contradict her - and together, the three of them set off for the sandpiercer.

Lei Kou's corpse had stayed exactly where it was left, blood soaking into the dust and moss, empty eye sockets gazing out into its last garden.

By the time they returned, bringing with them the good news of Lei Kou's demise, the sandpiercer was abuzz with activity - but the reception Qian Shanyi got was so cold that she almost expected her to be turned away entirely, if not for Svarggam Xiaochun speaking on her behalf. The memory of her serving as the man's right hand was still far too fresh in everyone's minds.

Qian Shanyi didn't try to press the issue, and once they had the bags, headed back with Linghui Mei, to gather up the mangled corpse and put it on ice. It took far longer than she'd have expected, but with the sandpiercer damaged as it was, there was no real rush.

The dining car had an enormous hole cut through it from the tribunal, and was mangled even more by the sandpiercer's own weight as it was brought to a stop, crushed up like a cup of soft, unfried clay that fell down to the floor of a potter's shop and was then stepped on. It was completely unsalvageable; before the sandpiercer could continue on, it would have to be moved off the track.

It was a wonder - and a testament to the skill of the Steel Torrent sect - that sandpiercer had not derailed entirely.

Lifting the wagon off the rails could not be done safely with the tools available aboard the sandpiercer, and so the Steel Torrent sect was planning to disconnect the locomotive and drive onwards to the city, to bring back help - but in the meantime, it left them with a day of rest.

As soon as Qian Shanyi got back to their cabin, she fell on her bed and slept like a newborn baby. She woke up eight hours later, feeling thoroughly refreshed. The Lei Kou affair had exhausted her down to the bones, but just like a phoenix bursting forth from its own ashes, she had also been renewed by it.

Linghui Mei was still asleep when she awoke, but Wang Yonghao had vanished off somewhere, and so Qian Shanyi got dressed and lazed about on top of her bed covers until he returned. To pass the time, she got out the crystal chip left behind by the tribunal. It was a small thing of pale green jade, a bit larger than her fingernail, with faint blue veins that glittered just below the surface. They had to dig through the entire pile of wood in search of it, but Qian Shanyi wouldn't have dared leave without it.

Its sibling was surely already in the capital. That idea filled her with a heavy sense of melancholy - she didn't know which section of the imperial palace was dedicated to handling tribunal records, but in the unlikely case that Fang Jiugui had some crucial contacts there, her location might have just been blown. Sadly, there wasn't much she could have done about that.

At least there wasn't anything incriminating on the chip itself. After she figured out how to use it - by pressing it to her forehead and channeling her spiritual energy into it - she got a view of the tribunal world fragment as if she was gazing down from those crimson eyes, and could hear the words that had been spoken. She was a little worried that it might show Linghui Mei transforming, but the recording ended just as they were thrown out, and the blinding light of Lei Kou's imploding core had made it impossible to see much else.

She took some time to note down exactly what was said, mostly for her own personal use. Now that the man was well and truly dead, and she didn't need to worry about any more of his plots, she had to admit that a certain vindictive, spiteful part of hers enjoyed seeing him die in agony. She wasn't entirely sure how comfortable she was with that particular realization, but she still watched it happen more than a dozen times before the door to their cabin opened, and Wang Yonghao stepped through.

He looked worse for wear. It was well past what counted as "midnight" in these parts, and he still hadn't had a single wink of sleep. He stopped in the doors, sharing a long look with Qian Shanyi, before closing it behind him with a sigh.

"How did you sleep?" he said, leaning against the door from the inside. He didn't look her in the eyes, far too preoccupied with the shape of his own boots.

They hadn't really gotten a chance to talk after they returned to the sandpiercer - only a few short words here and there.

"Like a celestial right after a genocide," Qian Shanyi said, sliding the crystal chip back into her pocket. She put one hand behind her head, to prop herself up. "Why?"

The crystal chip was supposed to be handed off to the local authorities, though she wasn't entirely sure who specifically. Probably the ministry of justice, or maybe the censorate. She'd think about it later.

Wang Yonghao rubbed his face. "You didn't even think about it?"

"About what?" Qian Shanyi said, frowning slightly in confusion. "Our arrival? It should be fine enough. Though I'll need to write a report…"

The chip could only record the tribunal. The rest of what she did, of what she saw, would have to go on paper, alongside another PIL-13 form, to keep them quiet about her real identity.

"No, it's -" Wang Yonghao sighed again, before giving her a pitiful glance. "Shanyi, you just murdered a man."

"I did?"

"Of course you did."

"In my sleep?" Qian Shanyi smirked. "Even I didn't know my powers stretched that far."

Wang Yonghao gave her a look that almost made her regret tweaking his whiskers. "I am talking about Lei Kou," he clarified, passing his fingers through his hair. "Don't you… I don't know, want to talk about that? You never killed anyone before, did you?"

"Oh, that," Qian Shanyi said, snapping her fingers as if she only just remembered. "Hardly murder when you do it to a demon beast, now is it? Please be more specific next time."

"Stop joking," Wang Yonghao pleaded. His fingers closed on the doorframe, and clutched it so tightly that they went white. "You know he wasn't a demon beast."

Qian Shanyi scoffed. Wherever he wanted this conversation to head, she could already see it would be immeasurably annoying. "A rabbit is more of a person than that trash could have ever hoped to be!" she said. "He was exactly that, no more than a wild demon beast, and I dealt with him like one!"

"How could you say that?" Wang Yonghao said, stepping closer to her. "Does this - does this not matter at all to you? You had to kill him, of course you had to, but he was a person, and now he isn't -"

"So-called Lei Kou was nothing!" Qian Shanyi spat out, jumping to her feet. "He was less than nothing! Why should I waste precious minutes of my life thinking of some trash that I've tossed into the garbage?!"

"Because he was a person!" Wang Yonghao shouted, his lips twisting into a grimace, and tears beginning to well up in his eyes. "Is that all it takes, for you? They violate an edict, and they become a beast?"

"An edict?" Qian Shanyi snarled. "An edict?! It's not 'an' edict, it is THE edict! The one fucking edict that stands above all others!"

She stepped over to him, and grabbed him by the lapels of his robes. "Either behave like a human, or be slaughtered like a mad dog. It's that fucking simple."

Wang Yonghao didn't resist, and she pushed him away, onto his bed. He fell down on it as if his strings were cut, his hands flopping down onto his knees.

Qian Shanyi stepped away from him. She didn't want to even be near the idiot. "What insanity possessed you to question me on this?!"

Lei Kou's face came back to her mind. The disgust on it, as he waved his hand and shattered Zhou Xiaoyan's life.

"Do you disagree, fellow cultivator Wang?" she continued, feeling the rage bubbling over. "Should I have coddled that subhuman worm, listened to more of his insipid ramblings that could not even deign to distinguish human beings from flies?! Do you think I should concern myself with the fates of pests like him, ones that squirm beneath the fingernails of our empire, spreading rot and misery in their wake?"

Wang Yonghao covered his face with his hands, shaking slightly. "No, I - I just -"

"Just what?"

"Well what does that make me, huh?" he burst out, and finally looked directly at her. Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks and into the collar of his robes.

"What?"

"Me!" Wang Yonghao continued, hitting himself in the chest so hard it echoed across their small room. "Am I also trash?! Am I a worm?!"

Qian Shanyi pursed her lips and crossed her hands on her chest, leaning up against the window. "Did you get hit in the head this morning? You aren't making any sense."

"Lei Kou was only here because of me!" Wang Yonghao said. "So when he kills someone - am I not at fault, huh?! When I walk into a city, do I not put everyone in danger, huh?! Should you slaughter me where I stand for it?!"

"Don't be ridiculous." Qian Shanyi said, cutting him off with her hand. "That is not even remotely comparable -"

"Why not?!" Wang Yonghao cut her off in turn. "If a cultivator releases a demon beast in the middle of the city, they are at fault, right? Right?! Well, my luck brought Lei Kou here! So it's my fault!"

Qian Shanyi kept her stare level, giving her breathing a moment to level out, and trying to think through what Wang Yonghao was saying. It seemed he did not seek to defend Lei Kou's abominable actions, at the very least. She didn't even consider how personally he might take it; and though she was far too infuriated to pointlessly apologize, there was no need to fuel the fires of this conflict any further.

"It is nobody's fault but Lei Kou's, and he already got punished for his acts," she finally said. "Forget about it."

"How can I forget?" Wang Yonghao said, covering his face again. "Where I go, death follows. So what's the difference between me and a demonic cultivator?"

"They choose to slaughter. You do not," Qian Shanyi said, knowing that the argument was weak. Wang Yonghao needed something else, but at the moment, she couldn't think of anything better to say. "It's pointless to blame yourself for Heavenly manipulations."

Wang Yonghao shook his head, trying, and failing, to wipe the tears from his eyes. "You don't understand it. You just don't. You didn't have to… listen to the screams -"

Qian Shanyi winced slightly. She left Wang Yonghao to take care of Zhou Xiaoyan when she left with Linghui Mei to deliver justice to Lei Kou. She almost broke having to listen to the woman for a couple minutes - he had to endure it for far longer.

Perhaps she was in no position to judge him.

Linghui Mei stirred slightly in her bed. Their argument had probably woken her a long time ago, but she must have still pretended to sleep, to not get in between them.

"Well," Qian Shanyi said, stepping away from the window. "We'll be waiting on repairs for at least a day. Open up your inner world. Perhaps a proper bath would help relax our tensions."

Washing away the sweat and dirt was easy enough. Washing away the blood they felt was dripping from their hands… That would take far longer.

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