Oftentimes you’ll come across a clan of the Clear Sky Empire with just one child, and that’s just how it should be.

Forget fostering competition between siblings, forget equal distribution of resources, forget the over-abundance of self-righteous paper tigers that tote feigned superiority over their peers because they’re some fortieth-in-line bastard to the City Lord.

Put in your eyes, readers.

What I’d propose is restraint.

Oh sure, we’ve got the usual methods of dumping unwanted bastards, embarrassments to the clan or potential threats to the inheritance of your darling little son.

The shadow sects, the [Demon]-tides, imprisonment in a [Mystic Realm], none are really better than the other, are they?

Problem is, any of these and we don’t know the bastards are dead. Did they truly die? Did they pass initiation? Has a [Demon] sucked dry their Qi and embalmed their empty skulls to use for incense?

Hopefully, but we can’t say once they’re there. Can we?

Why have I written this? Well, instead of perpetuating this landscape of arrogant young mistresses and masters, how about you educate the ones you already have? Better yet, next time you have a burning desire for yang energy- women, go sit on something cold.

Maybe that way they’ll be less bastards about, and maybe that way, I’ll be able to leave the scroll hall with my tomes unmuddied by the perceived slight of one of you.

- “The Righteous Counter to Procreation,” - Author Unknown A foolish, former disciple of the Clouded Serpent Sect

Fu took a lungful of air, but it was lacking. Circumstance, or the Heavens, had allowed him to navigate much of [Autumn’s Tyranny] in the past. But he struggled now, near a week into its growth.

Cold sweat and the ache of his muscles were relieved in no part by the suffocation of [Air Qi], untouchable to him. There to be felt, but unable to be accessed. But one could not move forward if they did not leave the shore.

And the sufferance of complaint was a treacherous shore indeed.

“Are you well, Hushi?” he asked.

The octopus’s body was, as ever, limber, and showed no obvious pains from their morning’s training. He, as a [Spirit Beast], did not follow the [Stifling Streams Revolutions] or [Wind Phantom Strides], despite how each teal arm reflected a chain in their own right. His practice was movement, and interactions with Qi, boltering, suppression, [Intent].

But here he impressed his thoughts to the [Dao], aligning with Fu’s own.

They adopted their lotus position, and gazed from their usual perch above the Clouded Court Squad’s building. “Brother,” he asked, one eye open. “Are we to ponder, or to ruminate?”

Hushi wobbled, as if shrugging.

Their gaze went inward- further, as their breathing regulated. Draws of stifling air, unpleasantly mortal in taste.

He traced his [Dantian], and [Channels]. Upwards, and along, taking finger’s breadths at a time until the circuit was known to him. A calming exercise, nothing more.

Fu then searched for his [Dao].

This- Well, he pondered on their location. But he found no golden characters inscribed on his [Dantian],

Are the [Dao] a thing to be confined?

Absent talk had revealed certain things, topics to be weighed against idle speech and idiom, wisdom and culture. Shaping the [Dao]. The shape of one’s [Dao]. Separate things, perhaps, riddled with meaning.

Adhrit’s words on understanding, and his warnings of shared insight.

For a fisherman, such things appeared as a bag of eels.

His own question faded. The [Dao] were not a thing to be searched for, but a thing to know without asking.

Then, it is not what I know of a thing. But how I know it to be.

A tension released in his limbs, one he had not realised to be mounting. Thus, his shoulders sagged, and his rear sunk lower to the roof in comfort. Small breaths followed, undirected, and a true rhythm was found.

The scene of his first [Dao Treasure] flocked back in moments. Of the nameless cultivator, and her astral-sailing [Spirit Whale]. Of how she put a palm to the firmament, weeping as stars folded in her palm.

He was there, formless, in this starscape. Untethered by all but his mind at the rear of such majesty he could not fathom. Fu whispered an apology, knowing she could not hear. “It is too profound, master cultivator,” he sounded without lips. “The stars of the sky have little use, when I have three beneath the Heavens.”

A comforting warmth set upon his forehead then. Even as the scene reduced to rid itself of constellations and vaunted hues, simplifying, to show his mountaintop.

The taijitu crawled slowly before him, in the waters of the [First Pool]. Fu found himself sitting at its shore, his thirst slaked and with no need to drink. “Our [Dao of Reach] comes first, Hushi,” he said, hearing his voice quake the very air. “We may be profound in our… ponderance of [Suffocation]- but until we can be no more, let us be men of [Reach] and reaching. Our shaded path will lead us there soon enough, no?”

Hushi affirmed this, showing once more his understanding of all things.

The warmth sprouting on his forehead felt as touch might . A finger of the [Dao], and on this he focused. “Were the [Dao] a fishwife, we might prevail. Or a wisdom that feels right to me.”

Reach.

His net had reach. His chain. His arm. Such things had length, and to reach was to extend further.

Simple thoughts.

But this had Fu truly ponder, for his Path was not. It demanded more, and equating [Reach] with a base increase to distance… Specks rose from the earth of his mountain. Golden things, and formless. Pleasant enough, yet a sense told him they were of no significance.

“To reach beyond [Reach],” he said, a chuckle in his chest. “It is no mystery why the daoists speak as they do. Words pass their lips that only they might understand.”

Hushi slackened, casting an eye towards his cultivator.

“Our reach is no longer simple, then. It is how we push towards our goal. To free our children, how we act to arrive where we must by the means that we must. So- Thus-” The warmth on his forehead grew to such an extent that Fu took off his douli.

Which had him smile, seeing Mei’s in hand. It tilted as Hushi slid within, and nestled with an ease far greater than with the Clouded Court’s black affair.

“Mei would make short work of this, for all she did was as floating clouds. Ease,” he mused. “And another meaning. Natural and fluid, where ours is blown aft and fro.”

To aid this point, Hushi swept the air above. The golden specks swayed in return, blown by motion and set adrift.

“I would be lost without your wisdom, brother,” he smiled. “Our path has us… is to reach through a sea of squalls, myriad, relentless, and we… we are a breeze, ever blowing to where we must go despite them. Where we will go, for such a breeze cannot vanish. Only sway, for a time.”

The [Dao] had him wake to an inscription of [Ink] and a gentle warmth.

But a voice beyond them stole his attention first. A fellow Disciple upon his knee, with one hand upon Fu’s shoulder. “Brother!” he exclaimed.

“Brother?” he returned, seeing a queer grin upon this man’s features. “Did I disturb your cultivation? This junior offers his apologies.”

“It is no junior that releases such Qi! Three streets ahead would have felt this!” he exclaimed. “Profundity lingers here, your insight must have been deep indeed. I would congratulate you, Brother.”

Fu accepted the words, and rose to bow. “Kind words, senior,” he said, defaulting to propriety where unknowns were concerned.

“A bottleneck suddenly undone, was it? I saw your approach, and your meditation has lasted less than the hour. Regardless, the Heavens smile on our Clouded Court Squads this day.” The man gave distance, and shared a kindness of smile Fu had not yet attributed to his fellows. “Once more brother, I congratulate you!”

Wasting no time but that needed to bow once more, Fu’s [Ink] was conjured.

“Perhaps… perhaps they do smile, Hushi,” Fu broke, intent on the sublimation his insight had afforded. A process so profound that he could do naught but stand and accept it.

🀨

The skyline of the Four Corners Prefecture was first to witness Fu’s increase in attributes, but not in any complexity of practice. Rather the adjustment to such profound gains were eschewed in favour of his squad’s summons, and their flight across the rooftops.

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Yet still, Fu held now, taking what he could. A hyper-extension of limb, to a contortion that had him balance upon four fingers. One full body rotation, three- next, a hooking of his toes where his weight shifted no more to any point of his mass. All this done with the ease of responsive muscles, instinctively holding him over the lip of this rain-slick, tiled rooftop. Again-

“When I’d asked after your true voice- this wasn’t a facet I’d expected,” called Zhu. Three strides away, nursing a jug of sweet-smelling wine.

Sense prevailed, and Fu’s indulgence ceased. Returning him to his seat beside the man, and Tansuai to his douli. “I have progressed,” he said. A curt reply, for he would share no more.

“Impatient? No I’d think not. Else you’d have saved it for our off [Season],” Zhu frowned at the jug in his hand. “I’ve been here a span of days and already I look forward to it.”

Fu found himself curious. Not for knowledge of their break, for a granted period of free time during a disciple’s [Tyranny] was no news to any- and would come to pass in less than two weeks, but on Zhu’s arrival and origin.

If I ask, then he would ask a question in return. Am I enough now to surpass my ignorance?

He thought of the [Vestige] in the Clouded Archive.

A common thing, I am sure. Thus the answer is no.

The pair’s legs were slung to the fore of an open passage, dangling over a join between buildings whose shared roof led to an alley of mundane description. It too was covered beneath tiles, and well-chosen for the squad’s purpose .

Ding approached, now under the guise of a filthy urchin. If at full pelt.

His frame was that of a small, malnourished child, and he laboured in his run as he staggered beneath the pair’s legs.

It was two heartbeats later that a voice cried after him. Qi-laced, and delivered from the lungs of an enormous cultivator who now surged down the opposing street. “Thieving little bastard!”

Zhu sighed, put the jug to his lips, and shook his head all in one motion. “Much of the squad’s tactics favour Ding’s [Arts] over our own, no?”

The jug was passed to Fu, who likewise sipped. But here, he laughed loudly at no particular wording.

“You, vagrants,” shouted the man, stopping below their feet. “A boy fled here, did he not?”

“A boy?” sighed Zhu.

“You have seen him?”

Fu flashed a false smile. “Master cultivator, how could we answer with such dry throats?” he asked, rapping his knuckle upon the jug. Such outward antagonism had Fu cringe internally, but should reduce their suspicion.

“Brother!” again, sighed Zhu. “If it was the filthy one, then he’s passed below. Though by the Heavens there are many filthy ones in this hovel.”

Without exchanging gratitude, the disciple of Silkmoon Hall gave further chase.

🀨

Nineteen jugs of mortal-grade wine were set at the pair’s back by the time afternoon had begun to fade. Curiously, the quantity of half-sipped liquid had a small reaction with Fu’s [Hundred Immunities Fruit], though he was not of the opinion that Zhu held the goal of poisoning him.

“The worst outcome,” sighed Zhu, flitting his eyes to the opposing rooftop.

At a distance of fifty strides and through the light drumming of rain, Fu’s [Senses] still made their presence known. Five cultivators, not betrayed by breathing or by volume of step for these were silent things, but by the patter of rain atop their ashen douli.

A shimmer of greying fabric set their uniform apart from the black, unaffiliated style of the Clouded Court Squads, though there was a serpentine outlook from the [Spirit Beasts] that wound from shoulder to waist on each.

They saw Fu, and Fu saw them.

He sensed the [Air Qi] disturb from half the street’s distance, owed to the gifts bestowed by his [Dao] insight. But he feigned a blink in place of reaction. “Quan Ding!” he called to Zhu. “The wine, it has me see visions of the [Dao]! More!”

Unconvincingly, Zhu withheld the jug. Neither man truly compromised by such harmless alcohol. “Pay your tithe, fool. I’ll see you dry before I pay for another.”

The disturbance in [Air Qi] passed below them, entering the passage. All save for one, which settled by Fu’s left. It left a cultivator there with hand outstretched. “You pair-”

“Heavens fuck me sideways!” yelled Zhu. Both he and Fu scrambled so dramatically that they clattered into the row of jugs, and sent many crashing over the street below.

A growl sounded from the cultivator, but he calmed swiftly. “A teahouse named Tranquillity stands sixteen junctions east.” Ten, lesser grade spirit stones were dropped in Fu’s hand. “Go there, and tell the mistress there that her guests are not so forgetful as she had thought. Do this, and the payment will triple.”

“Ten spirit stones,” shook Fu. “This is-”

“I care little. Do this, now.” And with that, the cultivator fled inside.

An extension of his [Senses] marked his wait below, however, and Fu began a hasty, mortal scramble down the building’s facade. “Ten, Ding, ten!” he puffed.

Fu pelted down the street at a mundane pace, slipping into a sidestreet once he was well out of view.

Then, after a breath of time he used [Half Cloud Step] to flock straight back unnoticed.

Zhu met him in the passage, and both prowled inwards. An inner courtyard first, crate-littered and dingy, and then to the stone steps that descended into one of the building’s basements. With their [Senses] elevated they made short work of their passage, and entered the crucible of Ding’s planning.

A weathered refining array, splayed over the floor of an open warehouse. It held a cauldron at its centre, battered and destitute, and long-faded inscriptions were set about it- gathering more dust than what pathetic Qi absorption it might muster.

But what Fu held to note were the stores on three sides, their entrances blocked by dull metal barriers under a suspension of chains. Only one was open, hoisted by a disciple of Silkworm Hall to reveal the crippled figure of an urchin beyond.

With a nod, Fu separated, ascending to the rafters with silent practice. To his… admiration, Zhu had vanished in entirety.

Five were counted, yet I see only one.

In the underground gloom, he made out no others. Silkworm Hall were of the same breed as his Clouded Court Squads, and as such held their own [Qi Suppression Art]. It added complexity to the usual cultivator hunt.

Five strides across his current rafter, a cough sounded. One below, and resounding from behind the leftmost store’s barrier.

The visible Silkworm disciple supported his own barrier with one hand, and strained while gesturing to the noise’s source. A shadow descended within moments, and then a second. The store’s barrier shrieked upon opening, held by one as the other entered within.

“Senior,” came her call. “It is our brother. Gutted, but with signs of life.”

“Senior… sister,” groaned Ding’s unmistakable tone. “I…” What sounded next was a wetness that Fu could not see. He heard a muffled cry, and the withdrawal of a blade from flesh, masked by another sound.

Shrieking, once more, as Mohini’s [Art] blossomed. A darkened pit of shadow that had her hand emerge from within the floor. Jian-toting, and flashing, for it blurred through the second disciple’s tendons with haste.

Fresh blood spouted from the Silkworm’s ankles, heralding a weakness that had him crash to his knees.

And the barrer- atop him.

Such weight bisected him at the base of his spine, leaving a grim radius where his internals now spilled.

The Silkworm Hall’s senior roared in anger, and Qi flared in greying specks as he burst across the warehouse. But this light betrayed a sight ahead.

A glint upon a brace of knives, no more than an arm from Fu.

[Half Cloud Step].

Fu blurred across the beam to meet his unseen foe, and delivered a foot to the disciple’s face just as the first dagger was loosed. It flew impractically, but with a speed so profound that it whistled by his ear.

One set of the [Stifling Stream Revolutions] came, and his kicks met parrying wrists. An overhead, a hook, a sweep, and then a rotation. All were delivered out of order, and under the duress of creaking bones. For completing the full set would begin his [Bone Refinement], and swiftly bring about his end.

Her range is troublesome.

His foe had pinned each knife between her knuckles, enhancing what strikes she could pull beneath his barrage.

When her Qi burst forth-unsuppressed, Fu shed all illusions of stealth. Her guard, her [Prowess], was years above his own, and he could not breach it much as he could scarcely breach any who were well versed in the martial arts.

Thus, he conjured his chain from storage and burst into the air cowled with [Half Cloud Step]. He lashed out, and missed, embedding the hook into the eaves as he stepped, rebounding from a fresh conjuration of cloud to loop her completely.

But foreign strings rose from her Qi, [Dark], and severe. An [Art] that summoned threads to snake from her fingertips, and further to coat her blades.

She pivoted, and her brace soared in four directions. A mirror of his own intent, for she leapt in tandem- a lattice forming in her wake. Her own net to trap the air around them.

Fu sprung from another conjured cloud to avoid it, and grimaced as he felt his [Dantian’s] supply diminish. The warehouse blurred by with nauseating haste. A speed that he might not manage but a day ago.

Though now he yanked his length of chain, and the anchor went taught. With Heaven-defying momentum he flew beneath the beam, and arced to the opposing side. A knee, ready, and promptly delivered to the woman’s [Spirit Silkworm].

His attack splattered through the wound beast, and carried deeper in its cultivator’s chest to smash her over empty air. Limp, and gasping as she impacted the ground below.

He landed, and pried free his hook.

Silkworm Hall’s Senior snapped a kick into the woman’s side, clearing space so he might better defend against his assailants. Mohini there, crossing her jian against the man’s shorter variant with Zhu some few paces distant.

And Ding. Head bowed, stomach clutched. Fleeing.

Fled.

The dusty array inscriptions lightly crunched as Fu’s foot fell atop them, detritus among them. But he maintained his silence in his next blur, taking him behind the clash.

“A disciple of the Silkworm Hall, brought to this!” bellowed the Senior, a gurgle in his lungs. “I am shamed… But you shall not live to spread tale of it!”

[Dao] energy roiled from his next strike, driving Mohini in line with Zhu. It did not escape Fu how her eyes drove for the exit.

A force assailed Fu, with the Senior at its epicentre. A materialising, grey carpet that clawed up the warehouse walls to birth a canopy of threads. In each half-step of space hung a replica blade, lousy with golden characters.

“[Tenfold Silken Chamber]!” their foe intoned. Reverently. As though such a term was hallowed beyond belief.

Fu’s [Senses] screamed, and he brought his hook up with barely enough time to deflect one of the silken blades. It lunged for him, thrust as if a cultivator was on the far side. In the next step, another came, and the next, another.

Inescapable.

The blades punctured deep wherever his foot was placed, clean through stone.

He sprung back, impressing on Hushi to stay within the douli lest two skewers be made in place of one. It suffocated twenty paces on each side, and Fu danced at the periphery knowing it was the lesser of these perils.

Mohini flashed about the Senior, dispensing death by a thousand cuts. She had him well-bled, as evidenced by the bloody pollution by his feet. But she fared little better.

A [Core Formation] expert, there is little doubt.

Now, her ground was slipping. Her space was strewn with pistons of silk, incoming strikes and the negotiation around both.

The Vajra did not shout her own [Art]. Yet [Dark Qi] flocked all the same.

Inverted, Fu could only gape.

Her jian had scaled three times its length, wreathed in shadows. Drawn back, she telegraphed an overhead strike, and flooded the area with her [Killing Intent].

“[Eclipse Viper Sword Style],” the Silkworm Senior laughed. “Clouded Court Squad bastards! You complicate matters!” His own rage fuelled the surrounding [Dao], surging a crimson hue over the once golden characters.

But Mohini’s Bond struck first. From a darkened pool at their foe’s feet, it launched. Jaw wide, fangs suffused. The [Spirit Serpent] emerged to tear free a section of shoulder, and leave a chilling scream as it disappeared once more.

The [Tenfold Silken Chamber] warbled, and patches surfaced where the Senior’s control had lessened.

“Not yet,” he gasped. “Not yet!”

His remnant [Dao] coalesced behind him, flying by to leave Fu unscathed. Scraps, where sheets had hung before.

This haste- this proximity, was too great for Mohini to react and the collated blades forth flew as a wall,

Her motive showed darkly, surfacing by instinct in these final seconds.

[Dark Qi] frothed beneath Zhu’s heel, and tendrils grasped on as Mohini vaulted to his rear. She braced, and smiled, content with her shield.

More than theft and extortion. But true black bellied betrayal.

Fu’s anger was cold.

This cannot come to pass.

A draft, as ever, was present. [Autumnal], light, shallow and scarce. Fu’s [Air Qi] knew of it, his [Dao] resonated with it, and so, he touched it.

Intrinsically.

For what was a draft but a wayward breeze?

Fu stepped, and put himself among it. Gently arriving where it flowed in the space of heartbeat, and using Mohini’s surprise to plant a Qi-suffused foot into her chest. Dazed, she stumbled over Zhu.

A man, squat, and desperately pulling at his conjured bindings.

The blades tore first into her flesh, and secondly into Zhu’s crossed wrists. However, their comrade’s bones bore the full brunt, and held the silken weapons until they dissipated.

A thud sounded ahead, and then a series as the tattered chunks of Mohini’s body rained upon the floor.

Zhu dropped his guard, revealing the mess of his arms. He scoffed, yet did not address it further. “It’s a pleasure that we meet at last, friend Gao Fu.”