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CHAPTER 3: Easing the Pain
"Sister, have you had a good look?"
The boy's tentative voice brought Chu Li back to herself. Her index finger was still tilted under his chin.
She'd come over to check his injuries. Somehow she'd completely forgotten to do that.
She withdrew her hand and cleared her throat with what she hoped was enough composure to disguise the lapse.
There was a bit of mud on the boy's cheek. She brushed it away with her sleeve, then carefully parted the damp hair at his forehead to get a better look.
Not a single wound. Not even a bruise.
That face was entirely flawless.
"I've looked carefully. There's nothing visibly wrong with your face." Chu Li frowned slightly. "But if you say it hurts, something must be off. Once we're back at the sect, I'll have someone take a proper look at you."
"Back at the sect?" The boy looked blank. "Which sect?"
It occurred to her that she'd never introduced herself. "The Hehuan Sect, on Qiyi Mountain."
The boy drew the words out slowly, as though testing the shape of them. "He... huan Sect?"
"You've never heard of the Hehuan Sect?" Chu Li blinked at him, genuinely startled.
The Hehuan Sect's name rang through the entire cultivation world. Even children of three had heard of it. And yet this boy was looking at her as though she'd said something in a foreign language.
He really was something else.
If it had been anyone less scrupulous who'd found him today, he'd have been taken apart without even understanding what was happening.
Chu Li cleared her throat and launched into a proper explanation. "The Hehuan Sect is one of the most renowned cultivation sects in the southwest. The membership is primarily female, and our most specialised method of cultivation is..."
The words died on her tongue the moment she looked at those guileless eyes blinked up at her.
She had no idea why she suddenly felt reluctant to say it out loud. As though saying it plainly would shatter whatever impression she'd managed to make.
She pressed her knuckles to her lips, thought for a moment, and tried again. "The Hehuan Sect has always done things its own way. From the top of the sect to the bottom, we cultivate through the harmonisation of yin and yang."
Harmonisation of yin and yang sounded considerably more refined than dual cultivation, she decided.
The boy nodded slowly, appearing to accept this without protest. Then, after a brief pause, he tilted his head and asked, "Sister, are you feeling unwell?"
"Me?" She'd been patting her own chest to settle her nerves, and his question caught her completely off guard. "I'm fine. Perfectly fine."
The boy dropped his gaze. "But you've been clearing your throat since a little while ago."
Chu Li blinked, then composed herself with great dignity. "That wasn't throat-clearing. That was... my qi rising from general good spirits at seeing you, nothing more."
"Your good spirits are because of me?" The boy's lips parted slightly. Whatever was moving behind his eyes was impossible to read, shifting like cloud cover over still water. "But everyone dislikes me. I thought you would too."
"Nonsense. Who would dare dislike you?" The duck was not going to fly away from her grasp now. Chu Li crouched down so she was level with him, looked him straight in the eye, and told him very clearly, "The way I see it, your bone structure is extraordinary and your spiritual roots are exceptional. If you cultivate alongside me, there's every chance you and I might ascend together someday."
"Sister is so kind to me, but I don't know anything about cultivation." The boy lowered his head and wrapped his arms slowly around himself. His pale, slender fingers picked at the torn blue fabric at his shoulder, one loose thread at a time. He looked, in that moment, terribly fragile. "If I followed Sister back to the Hehuan Sect, I'd only be a burden."
Three Sisters in a row, and Chu Li's head was starting to swim. She dug her nails into her palm to keep herself focused. "How would you be a burden? If you don't come with me and something happens to you out here in this world full of dangers, I'll be the one who can't eat and can't sleep for worrying."
The boy looked up at last. His long lashes stirred like a slow fan, searching her face for something. "Really?"
"As real as it gets." She tucked a damp strand of hair back behind his ear and noted with quiet satisfaction the faint pink that crept up to the tip of it. "Besides, the Hehuan Sect doesn't require you to know anything. You just have to come back with me. Everything else will take care of itself."
A cultivation partner was a cultivation partner, after all. Their purpose was to complement another's practice. The less they knew going in, the simpler things tended to be. And she was already being exceptionally charitable: rescuing him from this miserable situation, giving him a roof over his head, food and lodging included. That was practically sainthood.
The rain was easing. Chu Li closed the umbrella and cast a quick technique to draw the moisture from both their robes. "So. Will you come with me?"
The boy's cheeks went faintly pink. He nodded, firmly. "I'll... do whatever Sister says."
Chu Li beamed. "Wonderful. I'll open a transport array."
The array settled, and Qiyi Mountain came into view.
The last of the evening light stretched across the sky in long bands of red and gold. A line of cranes beat their wings through the burning clouds on the horizon, white against the blaze.
When Chu Li turned back, the great vermillion gates of the Hehuan Sect stood close ahead, the two characters of the sect's name carved across them, two robed female disciples standing guard on either side.
She rolled her shoulders out, easing the slight vertigo that always followed teleportation, then gestured forward and looked back at the boy. "Past those gates is Hehuan Sect territory."
The boy was sitting on the ground, eyes moving slowly over his surroundings.
The unfamiliar setting had clearly made him more tense. He had both hands planted behind him, bracing to stand, but the moment he put weight on them his fingers curled tight and his brow drew together hard.
Chu Li went to him at once, bent down, and drew one of his arms across her shoulders. "Can you walk a bit?"
"...Yes." He pressed his lips together until a thin line of red appeared at the edge, then let her help him to his feet.
Even with his back slightly curved, he stood half a head taller than her. But leaning against her like this, she could feel exactly how little of him there was to lean on.
He shook with every step, as though each one was landing on the edge of a blade. He didn't make a sound.
They were almost to the gates when he finally gave out. His footing slipped, he lurched sideways, and suddenly he was falling into her, one hand grabbing at her shoulder in blind instinct and pulling the gauze wrap clean off.
He stumbled over his apologies, voice unravelling. "Sister, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, but it hurts so much, I really..."
Chu Li was too busy worrying about him to think about the gauze. She patted his back, trying to find something steadying to say, when a voice cut across from nearby, dripping with mock sweetness.
"Well, well. Isn't that Senior Sister Chu? What wind blew you back here?"
Chu Li looked up, frowning.
The speaker was a female disciple in a rose-pink ruqun layered under a dark red gauze robe, the colours reserved for early Foundation Establishment disciples. There was a small red mole at the corner of her mouth. Chu Li recognised it immediately.
Qin Yuxi. The one who had always had a particular dislike for the original Chu Li's habits, and vice versa. She'd joined the Hehuan Sect less than a year ago and had already cycled through ten cultivation partners in her rush to reach Foundation Establishment. The original Chu Li had mocked her for it in public, calling her indiscriminate, and the grudge had stuck ever since.
Chu Li gave her a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Junior Sister Qin, you've dressed so prettily. Did you come out here especially to welcome me?"
Qin Yuxi flicked open a red and gold round fan and strolled a slow circle around Chu Li and the boy, taking her time. "Didn't Senior Sister Chu keep saying she was going to reel in a big catch? Here you've only been gone a few days, and you come back with a beggar?"
"Who I bring back is my business, not yours." Chu Li gave her a flat look. "And he's not a beggar. His clothes are a little torn, he's had a rough time of it, a change of robes and a wash and he'll be perfectly presentable."
She started guiding the boy toward the gate, but two threads of spiritual energy snapped across from the guards on either side, cutting them off at the ankles.
"I knew you'd say that." Qin Yuxi tipped her head, lazily studying the threads of spiritual light coiled around Chu Li's feet. "But Senior Sister Chu, have you forgotten the sect's rules? You can't just bring a stranger in without sending word ahead. This isn't your personal backyard."
"Since when has the Hehuan Sect had that rule? Do I need your permission to bring someone home?"
"It's not up to me." Qin Yuxi tapped the closed fan against her palm. "You've been away from the sect these past few days, Senior Sister. I imagine you missed the messenger."
Chu Li thought back to the contents of her storage bracelet. There had been no communication jade slip. The original must have left it behind somewhere.
Not good. She kept her expression easy. "Then why don't you tell me what the sect's been sending word about?"
Qin Yuxi ran one finger along the pattern on her fan and sighed with extravagant feeling. "Only that strange phenomena have been appearing over the Demon Realm, and unrest is expected. Every major sect has tightened its protocols. Never mind strangers of unknown origin: even returning disciples need to be cleared before they're let back in."
"Cleared?" Chu Li had no memory of this from the novel at all. "And how do I know you're not just settling a personal score?"
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