Mingtian really would have preferred to be doing anything else but attending a party at the school. Like, actually, surely there had to be a better use of his time than listening to Yuxan speak on and on and on at length about… it needn’t even be said, other than a brief mention of how gratuitously self-aggrandizing the whole thing was. You’d think that their precinct academy was an immortal ascension tier sect with how much effort the principal put into talking it up.

At least it was a party in truth, and not a party disguised as a meeting. Small mercies for that. For one, Lexi got to attend, and her glower managed to keep even the most dedicated of his enemies— which was to say basically only Kaihe— away from him. They had free food too, which was… well, it wasn’t the best stuff he’d ever had, but maybe it was unfair to compare mortal fare to the sort of stuff they served to Peak-Divines in the heavenly realm. Yuxan certainly tried his best… to make the school look good, that was.

Sighing, he leaned back against the auditorium wall, lazily scanning over everyone in attendance. The spring festival was clearly a big deal for the people of East Saffron. He swirled his drink a little, not even looking over to Lexi as he talked— voice low enough not to be overheard. “They must have put a lot of resources into this.”

Lexi raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think Yuxan had the teachers set everything up?”

“I would’ve known if he’d tried to pull that. Again.” Lexi snorted. “He’s had us organize the decorations for a few student events, and I think he gets me involved every time because he wants me to get bored and sneak formations in. Prestige and all, you’re aware.” Of course, he was well petty enough to stick to moral means. It was a small pleasure of his, to see Yuxan try and be subtly disapproving towards him without being disapproving towards him… The man was going to be so upset when he quit, wasn’t he? “I think he hired a public company for this.” The decorations were just too… professional to be anything else.

Lexi’s gaze flitted from lantern to lantern, banner to banner, to the glittering streamers and tassels and ribbons hanging limply in the still air, amidst the music and tumbling, seething crowd of teachers and guests. “I can see that. Wasteful, but I can see that.” Guxi was in there, somewhere, though she hadn’t yet shown her face. Maybe that was because Zhihu was somewhere down there too.

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He chuckled. “Lan ‘Wasteful’ Yuxan, that’s him.” The celebration was extravagant even for him

, though… which, Mingtian couldn’t help but imagine, pointed to something deeper. “I wonder what it is that’s driven him to be this… flamboyant. I don’t suppose he does this every year?”

“No. No, he doesn’t.” Lexi sipped at her drink— something nonalcoholic, unlike his own wine. He’d gotten a dirty look for that earlier in the evening— fair enough he supposed, given Lexi had no idea that his constitution would prevent him from even getting tipsy off mere mortal-grade wine. “This school year is… exemplary, in a lot of ways, though I’m sure you of all people are well aware of that.”

“My class is not particularly noteworthy.”

“Except for the fact that it is.” She kept speaking, not letting him get a word in edgewise— “you give yourself too little credit. Even knowing your intentions, I still sometimes find it ridiculous— you have a skill with formations. Maybe not more than a sect cultivator with their secret techniques and insular practices and power— power, most of all— but with a mere mortal’s means, inkbrush and paper and knowledge? You’re probably rune for rune the best formations master I’ve ever met.”

He shrugged. “So it goes.” When you were secretly an Immortal Sovereign in disguise, that was. “It can’t just be me, though.”

“It’s possible.” Even Lexi sounded unconvinced at that, though. “It’s more than that, though. Things are afoot. Great things, so far beyond us that we’ve got no influence over them in the slightest. The Empire of Nine Sunlights has once again been stirred to its baleful action, and the whole world turns under the pivot of that watchful beast…”

She sighed, and Mingtian very purposefully tried not to react to that. Who could have known that blowing up an entire moon over an inhabited planet would have widespread political ramifications? How should he have been expected to know that? Totally unfair.