Chapter Text
The Shijie Imperative
Chapter Seventeen: A Matter of Strategy
Beauty was many things in Zhù Beiye’s second life. Tool, weapon, and curse. Blessing, gift, and concealment.
But most of all, Zhù Beiye had found that beauty was a trap.
Her shizun’s beauty, like that of Hallmistress Chen, hid a cunning and impressive mind alongside a vicious tongue. Zhangmen-shibo’s beauty concealed his icy and calculating nature. Her own heart-shaped face and large eyes belied the fact that she was growing to become one of the most capable cultivators of her generation.
Beauty, in the world of Scum Villain, was a trap. It hid the most deadly demonic plants behind vibrant colors and frills. It graced the most lethal of demons with heavenly faces.
Above all, in her second life, beauty could not be trusted.
As a result, when Zhù Beiye strode out of a tunnel following the pull of her qi and into a gorgeous iced-over crystal cathedral cave perhaps the size of the underground lotus lake beneath Qiong Ding peak, she was instantly wary of what type of trap it might hold or danger its lovely visage concealed from the naked eye.
Pulling Xuan Su from its sheath on her back, she held it at ready as she stepped lightly out onto the white crystalline sand that made up the floor of the cavern, making it almost halfway before she felt the first tremors underfoot and cursed, swinging Xuan Su wide in an arc behind her as she turned and dodged out of the way of the lunging strike of the first hit.
Frost wyrms. She recognized them at once, for how unique their appearance was as soon as she focused on the creature behind the attack. More than a dozen of the sinuous wyrms with a circumference as round as a human and a quartet of wide jaws sprang up around her, summoned by the ever-so-slight feel of her booted feet upon the icy sand of their home.
Their white and silver exterior was more a carapace than skin, armor plating that even juveniles like the ones surrounding her and that had her dancing around their strikes while having to feel for a surprise attack from underneath her, were almost impenetrable.
Physical damage was useless against all but the youngest frost wyrms, not strong juveniles like the ones she faced.
Qi was the only way to kill them, either an attack that hit their open mouths when they attacked or managed to slide through the collar that separated the main portion of their body from their rudimentary central nervous system.
Fucking frost wyrms, making their nest in the caverns beneath the high steppes: because, of course they were, why should escaping the caverns be easy?
A sword sign had Xuan Su floating in mid-air, Zhù Beiye leaping in a front-flip to avoid a strike from one of the juvenile wyrms to land on the width of the blade and avoid giving away her position to the flailing creatures. Blind, without eyes to see, frost wyrms instead relied upon a combination of qi-sense and vibrations to target both predators and prey alike. Small mercies, given that having to rely on qi-based attacks hindered her severely with how tired she was from the previous fights that night.
(Now day. The cavern was lit up from refracted light. Dawn must have broken while she was fighting her way past demonic insects post-fall.)
Cracking her neck and shaking out her hands, Beiye directed Xuan Su in evasive maneuvers as while the wyrms couldn’t target or find her as easily once she was airborne, they could still sense the qi of her and her sword.
With a mental sigh, Beiye flew up high overhead as she studied the juvenile wyrms and the exit from the crystal cavern before she realized there was nothing for it: she had to fight them with the way they were clustered around the exit she needed with how her qi was pinging at her. A double-edged sword, most likely. The wyrms drawn to the archway because of the breeze and fresh air brushing against their scales while Beiye needed to get around them or kill them to escape the cavern.
That the proctors of the Immortal Alliance Conference had bothered to seed the foreign insects in the caverns was the only positive that Beiye was taking out of the situation: they didn’t believe the wyrms so dangerous that seeding other demonic creatures in the caverns would’ve been seen as a waste of time and effort.
Hope, however minor, that she would be able to escape the wyrms rather than having to backtrack and find another exit from the steppe caverns.
While she observed Beiye took a moment to toss back more lotus seeds and yang-rich water to bolster her qi reserves before - metaphorically - kicking loose of the normal restraints she used on her qi to keep it from being too noticeable. Qi could be as individual as a fingerprint or ear shape. Running around with hers loose to be observed by anyone with means was not her idea of wise action.
As a result, only someone who got their hands on her to test her qi with their own would actually know how deep her qi reserves ran, or the nature of her spiritual roots.
Out of the corner of her eye, when the wyrms shifted just so to let her have a clear view of the center of the cavern, she noted a crystal formation that served as a mirror point for the ice and crystals magnifying and refracting the light from the outside down into the cavern - as well as how that light was continuing to brighten, semi-confirming the time for her - but more importantly the flowers clinging to it.
Huh.
How about that?
Looks like she’d found the Frostfire Orchids after all - only they were growing in the caverns below ground, not along the cliff edges as she’d thought.
Well now she was definitely killing the wyrms so she could harvest those, and if her qi sense was right, she had a way to do it that wouldn’t end up with her becoming so much paste-o’-disciple in the depths of the caverns.
If she’d wanted to, she could figure out another way - probably.
But why bother, when weaponizing the oncoming major Breakthrough - and the accompanying Heavenly Tribulation - was such an elegant solution to her current problem of waning qi and a dozen qi-vulnerable targets at hand?
At least the frost wyrms looked like juveniles and not babies, so she shouldn’t have to worry about a mature Frost Wyrm Matron to deal with on top of the younger and smaller wyrms.
Hopefully.
Probably.
(With the way her luck had been since waking up in a new body and life, she wasn’t counting on it.)
Taking a break, Beiye started circulating her qi even as she snapped up her warfans and began setting off waves of qi attacks laced with cutting wind or sizzling lighting, targeting the vulnerable collar of the wyrms’ carapace.
Even with putting her full strength behind the qi attacks, it took more than a single blow to take down a wyrm as she had to split her focus between strikes and dodges, though the smaller and more precise she could make her attacks the less of them she needed whereas the larger and more sweeping attacks injured the wyrms but not as severely.
All the while her qi circled and spiraled and dove in on itself, coiling tighter and tighter even as she used it, waiting for the spring back and breakthrough that would summon the heavenly tribulation that if successfully survived would elevate her to the ranks of unaging and long-lived cultivators.
Though not true immortality, that was the another stage altogether with the youthful unaging and longevity of having perfect control of body and qi in harmony came first. A second-stage cultivator could still die of old age. It just took centuries instead of decades. It was the third stage where true immortality kicked in, whereby a cultivator could be killed (usually only under extreme circumstances) but would never die by ordinary means such as old age or illness or even a normally-fatal wound.
About half of the juvenile wyrms were down when she finally started to feel the burning in her meridians that she remembered from the cold pond and landed - as lightly as she could manage - on the top of the crystal spire, lashing out with a livid blast of qi from Xuan Su, and then she let the breakthrough take her as she reached for the power that she felt hovering just beyond her grasp. Dangling tauntingly at the tips of her metaphorical fingers. A little more. A little more…
There.
C’mon, you bastards. She mentally dared the Heavens even as she burned from the inside out. Burned cold with yin-fire and darkness, but burned nonetheless. Where’s your outrage over a mere mortal defying your laws? C’mon. Do it. Try and smite me. Haven’t killed me yet, let’s give it another shot.
Yue Qi sucked in a startled breath as the livid qi of his dajie doubled down with an almost audible roar, Shang Bo’s knees buckling and sending him crashing to the ground at the sheer weight of it.
Then it wasn’t just the An Ding disciple falling to his knees as the very caves around them trembled under an onslaught that was far too powerful and vicious even for dajie to produce.
“Shang-shidi, Mu-shidi.” Yue Qi snapped even as he regained his feet and braced using his qi to hold him steady on the shaking ground, finally catching up to Mu-shidi’s breakneck pace through the caves. “Barrier arrays.”
“What is that, shixiong?” Wei Huan murmured, sharing a concerned look with Qin Long as their two best defensive assets worked to protect them, encasing them in an orb of qi barriers - just in case shijie managed to bring down the caves around them. “Do you think she’s really…?”
“My spirit stones would be on her major breakthrough kicking off.” Mu Zhenzhen wagered grimly, even as he and his An Ding counterpoint moved to take point and rear guard, the others taking care to remain within the protective arrays fueled by their qi. “Heavenly Officials are not constrained by location like even a peerless immortal would be. Shijie’s Heavenly Tribulation very well could bring the caves down around us, if she doesn’t direct the divine lightning into herself.”
Foolish child, foolish child. Far away, on the viewing platform, Peak Lord Lu both cursed that relentless cunning that had first drawn his eye to a’Ye, and blessed it. It was beyond reckless, the gamble she’d chosen to make.
And yet…
And yet.
He, like every other Peak Lord or Sect Leader, knew what the odds were of his prized cabbage of a student surviving without some form of intervention.
Clever, insufferably idiotic little thing that she was, a’Ye must have noted those odds as well, and chosen to make her own luck.
Though whether for good or ill, as always with the contrary child, hinged on whether or not she would survive to vex him once more.
“Deng-shidi.” He spoke so softly that even a peak lord nearing ascension would have trouble overhearing him, unless they were right at his side as was the case with his least troublesome martial sibling. “When she returns…”
When.
It had to be when.
He refused to consider any other outcome.
“This Tribulation will push her into innate self-healing, shixiong.” Peak Lord Deng reassured - or attempted to - his Qing Jing counterpart. “We will examine her, of course, but the risk is not so great with this Tribulation as with others.” He smirked a little, taking in the pinched look on his martial brother’s face that was hidden from view by his fan, Deng Rongru only able to witness it due to his positioning at Lu Rongzhu’s side. “Especially if shizhi actually dodges a few of the strikes this time, instead of taking them head-on.”
Lu Rongzhu snorted softly. As if his clever, vicious little beasty would bother as soon as she recovered from the Breakthrough and the purple divine lightning began to rain down. If anything, she would dance among it, using the gods’ anger to her own advantage to fry the wyrms like impertinent demons on the Cang Qiong barrier arrays.
Foolish, reckless, impossible child.
She was the strangest combination of exhausted beyond all reason and exhilarated - like pushing beyond mere tiredness into a state where she knew she’d been awake too long but she’d missed the cut-off to actually be able to sleep and now might be awake for days as a result - when she felt as much as heard the seething, pure qi of clouds of divine wrath begin to gather above her.
The ceiling of the cavern grew dark despite the light pouring down through the refracting crystalline structures all around, tangling and jangling against her own qi that she had flooded the cathedral cave with to confuse and disorient the half-dozen remaining frost wyrms.
Two more had died as a result of her doing so, lost to their own as the creatures could no longer tell the difference between friend or foe with how total the taste and even touch of her qi was as it hung heavy in the air.
On another day, she might’ve managed the trick but not for long before she would’ve had to rein her qi back inside her body in order to prevent falling to qi-exhaustion in a matter of moments.
Especially given the sheer scope of the cavern around her, which was as large - if not larger - was the lotus lake cathedral in the Ling Xi caves she estimated.
Which it would have to be if it served as a home for towering frost wyrms to rise mostly out of the ground in search of land-walking prey instead of remaining subterranean throughout their lifespan. Land-walking, or even aerial, prey wasn’t a standard part of a frost wyrm diet, but that was what made them such a pain in the ass besides their thick armoring against physical blows. They didn’t need to surface at all. They could live out their lives entirely submerged within the soil.
Instead, they were ravenous fucking assholes who would pop up when they felt and/or sensed prey in the world above despite it not being necessary to their survival.
Dicks.
However, this was not another day. This was a day where she was tired, exhausted, and on the cusp of a major breakthrough and the resulting heavenly tribulation. (She wasn’t an idiot, Mu-shidi would not have been monitoring her so close without cause. Besides which: while she and her qi had had their ups-and-downs since she’d woken in this world, it was still a part of her and as a trained, if young, cultivator, one she knew well.) Not only could she afford to have her qi perfuse the cavern and fuck with the frost wyrms, it was exactly the right set of circumstances that would force her to push through her current limits and make the leap into the next stage of cultivation.
Sure, there were ways to allow it to happen naturally, slowly.
But, in her experience, nothing seemed to inspire change and movement quite like need or necessity.
Today, she needed her breakthrough, even if on the edges of her senses she was starting to pick up an anomaly that was both familiar and out of place.
So, when the first bolt struck as she rose to her feet from being laid out like an offering as her breakthrough tore and lashed through her meridians and dantian, filling her golden core with a fresh wave of ripe and powerful qi that burned like a winter sun, she laughed. Beiye tilted her head up, spread her arms, and laughed, smiling up at the heavens, taking the first strike head-on. Then another. Then another.
Until qi was sparking and bouncing off of and between her fingertips, snapping at the edges of her armor, singing the edges of her robes, and being drunk in by her weaponry.
Thanks for the assist, she sent an irreverent thought up to whatever heavenly official was in charge of watching over cultivators on the cusp of major breakthroughs, smirking viciously as sheer, pure, divine power flowed through her very veins and danced in her eyes.
Then, about halfway through her second Tribulation, she leapt down from where she’d made herself such a tempting - and stationary - target and began dancing quite literally. Jumping and twirling and spinning, her warfans once more in her hands as the lightning strikes continued to rain down. Bouncing off of one frost wyrm a split-second before it was seared alive by divine wrath. Flipping over another.
Beiye caught the edge of one bolt, absorbing it with Hǔzhǎo, her lightning-aligned fan, and then flinging it at the open maw of one of the last remaining frost wyrms.
Then she stood, panting, her head tilted back as with a mighty thump the last of the wyrms died leaving her alone, one fan dangling in her hand at her side and the other propped on her shoulder.
Taking the final strike of her second tribulation straight on, even as her martial brothers poured into the cavern, as Mu-shidi finally deemed it safe after counting each of the strikes aloud to ensure no one else was caught up in the wrath of heaven meant for Beiye to weather alone.
“Shijie!” They shouted in near-unison as her legs collapsed underneath her. Her body at last responded correctly to the trauma it had had no choice but to push through as the energy - and adrenaline - that had fueled it drained away.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Beiye almost sighed out the words as Mu-shidi rushed to her aid.
Her martial brother apparently wasn’t in any mood for her attempts at either saving face or sheer bullheadedness - with Beiye-shijie, it could honestly be either or some amalgamation of both - given the derisive scoff he made as he caught her by the shoulders before she could fall from her knees to the ground entirely.
“Shang Bo,” the healer snapped. “The treasure flowers,” he ordered clean-up even as he lowered shijie gently to the ground and began checking her over, knowing that he had a better chance at a thorough (and uninterrupted) exam if she wasn’t worried over lost opportunities. “Wei Huan, Yue Qi: the carcasses. Qin Long, find our exit.”
The other boys scattered like roaches avoiding the light - or their shidi/shixiong’s hard-to-rouse but infamous temper - to obey as Mu Zhenzhen focused on his work, finding himself watched out of amused dark blue eyes when he finally looked up from muttering and cursing over the state of his stubborn shijie.
Rather than take the bait that laid in wait in her expression, he instead started all-but-forcing qi stabilizers and soothers down her throat from the bag of emergency supplies his shifu had sent him into the conference with.
Mainly for just such an occasion as a “surprise” breakthrough/heavenly tribulation, though even Mu Zhenzhen doubted that Shifu anticipated exactly how such an instance might occur.
Beyond who it might happen to anyway, as Shijie seemed to take an almost unholy delight in contravening the expectations of those around her.
“You’ve almost been scoured from top to bottom by divine wrath, Shijie.” Mu Zhenzhen observed once he’d done enough that he didn’t think she was in imminent danger - anymore - of burning herself out from stem to stern due to overloaded meridians and a near-bursting core. “Beyond the minor injuries and core drain that have healed due to your breakthrough and a near-critical case of qi destabilization from taking another heavenly tribulation head-on. Fine is not how I would describe your state at the moment.”
If the watching collection of peak lords, sect leaders, and senior cultivators were still able to witness the events of the cavern, there would no doubt be questions regarding Zhu Beiye undergoing “another” tribulation head-on.
However, due to said-tribulation, the viewing crystals in the cavern had shorted out, leaving only the monitoring arrays in place - a fact which most heartily vexed the majority of the Cang Qiong delegation (and a few others who’d grown fond of Lu Rongzhu’s cunning little beastie) as they waited for the team to emerge back into observation range.
Which, fortunately for their collective nerves, happened faster than not.
“Done,” Shang Bo reported several minutes after his martial brothers had finished packing away the frost wyrm carcasses, Qin Long having had to come assist as the Frostfire Orchids had had a spontaneous bloom thanks to the influx of divine qi in the cave. Everywhere the lightning had hit, whether directly or secondary/tertiary spikes, new growth had erupted from the icy ground. Along with a few other specimens that he’d separated out for Zhen Zhong Peak or Shijie herself to identify, as natural flora and fauna, let alone spiritual/celestial/demonic species, tended to behave…odd if present in the area of effect of a heavenly tribulation. “All packed and ready to go.”
“Whatever might stand between us and the outside,” Mu Zhenzhen warned them even as he rose, helping steady their shijie on his way up. “Shijie will not be helping fight it.” His firm stare and words were as much for their stubborn martial sister as it was any of the other male disciples. “You need rest, Shijie, not more strain on your qi.”
“I have no intention of fighting anything else today, Mu-shidi.” Beiye quirked a sheepish smile at the healer. “Unless it is of dire need.”
“Let’s move.” Yue Qi urged them onward. “We all need rest and these caverns aren’t a safe place to camp.”
They had only just stepped towards the exit that Beiye had already guessed at and Qin Long easily located when the ground under their feet shook once more, Beiye cursing herself even as it happened.
She just had to tempt fate, didn’t she?
“Go. Now.” She nearly growled out the order as she shook off Mu-shidi’s hold and sprinted for the archway, her martial brothers on her heels.
None of them stopping until they had left behind the gloom of the caves for the clear cold northern noon sun.
“You lot can go back and fight whatever that was if you want.” She said as she bent over, panting and attempting to catch her breath from overexertion so soon after her breakthrough. “But given how my luck tends to run, I wouldn’t advise it.”
As the chances of it being a Frost Wyrm Matron, which were thrice the size and ten times as difficult to kill as a juvenile, were high given that she’d previously been thankful that none of them were present in the crystal cavern.
Her martial brothers all had to laugh at that, having gotten a thorough education in how Beiye’s personal brand of luck tended to swing wildly from absurdly lucky to near fatally ill-omened.
“Pass.” Shang Bo announced for all of them, as they slowly wound down from the post-stress euphoria and began searching for a place to make camp and sleep.
They still had another night and day before the Conference was complete, and while in theory all of them could stay awake and fighting for that long given their golden cores, with the state of shijie and the lack of imminent harm to anything but their potential reputations, there was no need to push.
Add in how feral Mu Zhenzhen might go if shijie wasn’t allowed to really rest after undergoing a breakthrough and heavenly tribulation mid-combat (and that was honestly some suicidally dangerous but shockingly effective strategy, Sis, really) and yeah.
Shang Bo wasn’t up to battling anything else for the moment except potential insomnia.
“Maybe after we’ve rested.” Qin Long qualified, shooting a speculative glance back towards the caverns. “Unless we come across better prey in the interim.”
“Impressive.” The elderly cultivator-monk who served as Zhao Hua’s sect leader, Wu Wang, admitted, breaking the silence that had overtaken the watchers when they realized that the promising student of Qing Jing had once more found her way into life-threatening danger. This time alone. It was a somewhat reluctant admission, given the sheer irreverence that the child had clearly been showing the heavens, but it was voiced nonetheless to give credit where it was due. The girl, nearly blasphemous or not, was impressive. For her clever mind as much as her martial skills, at that. “Peak Lord Lu has trained his disciple well.”
“Thanking Wu-zhangmen.” Lu Rongzhu unbent enough now that his investment was out of imminent danger to accept the compliment graciously. Mu-shizhi was proving to be invaluable in keeping his impossible, clever, moronic little beasty alive if not necessarily in one piece as he hauled her out of the cavern and back into the view of the spiritual eagles. “Training the next Xuan Su sword is an honor that this peak lord does not take lightly.”
In the end, it was decided after everyone was rested and refreshed and true dark had once more fallen, that they would continue onward rather than return to the caverns in the hopes that maybe whatever-it-was both remained and was of a level that they could take down.
Especially with Mu Zhenzhen keeping a gimlet eye on his reckless shijie, who while recovered as well as could be hoped for under the circumstances, was far from fighting-fit.
Oh, Zhu Beiye would certainly be able to help and lay down damage in any fight, even as hindered as she currently was, but she was far from pristine condition - and all of her annoyingly protective shidis were aware of it thanks to Mu Zhenzhen taking no chances lest Peark Lord Lu rip out his intestines and use them to string his qin.
Thankfully whatever strange luck-based curse Zhu Beiye was afflicted with - and Mu Zhenzhen was going to appeal to Peak Lord Jin to see if she was in fact cursed despite all of Qian Cao’s results both past and present hadn’t shown anything - was in a lull as while they still had to fight through the remainder of the Conference, it was nothing like the harrowing hours in the caverns.
Or even the desperate fight against the leopard-hydra, for that matter.
Under Mu Zhenzhen’s watch, Beiye found herself mostly playing support though she still bagged a few kills regardless given the precision of her aim with her warfans.
Then at noon on the eighth day, twelve flares went up all over the Zhao Hua steppes, each hovering in place above a corresponding exit point.
They officially had until sunset to make their collective ways to an exit point, but any kills made during the egress process from the competition grounds would not count towards their points.
“Here,” Beiye dug into one of her qiankun bags and handed around one of her “special” lotus seeds to each of her teammates. “I don’t know about you, shixiong, shidis, but I’d rather fly out than try and run it.”
Given that all of them were tired, dirty, and running more on fumes than fuel, the qi replenisher was most welcome - even if Qin Long and Wei Huan gave her looks as they realized that she’d been munching on qi-pills in a tasty package ever since the leopard-hydra.
Ugh.
Strategists.
They were impossible, even when they weren’t insufferable like some of shijie’s peak-siblings.
Beiye knew that the only thing that kept her from being instantly pounced upon by either (or both) her shizun or Deng-shishu was the fact that as an event that included all of the Jianghu’s cultivation sects, neither would want to risk showing such a blatant weakness before someone like the Old Palace Master.
As soon as she and the rest of her team were escorted by disciples of the hosting sect to the medic tents designated for Cang Qiong’s participants, however…that was a different story entirely.
Worse, they’d apparently agreed to tag-team her, as no sooner had Deng-shishu finished inspecting Mu-shidi than her martial uncle had bustled over to where Beiye had been herded onto a cot by her shizun and sent his qi spiralling through Beiye’s meridians while shizun questioned her.
Her martial brothers, on the other hand, were watching the scene with far too much amusement, even as they were seen to by seniors from Qian Cao, and she would make them pay for every ounce of entertainment they gleaned from it.
Especially Yue Qi and Shang Bo, who looked far too smug at her predicament.
Peak Lord Lu stared down at his most impossible student as his shidi fussed over her, icy eyes taking in the entire scene over the edge of his fan. None of the participants yet knew the outcome of the competition. Only those masters of high enough rank and influence to have been present on the viewing platform knew the results of the competition, and all had taken the traditional vow of silence on the matter to hold their tongues until the official announcements and full results were revealed at the celebratory closing banquet the next day.
As a result, only the peak lords of Cang Qiong knew what the outcome of Zhu Beiye’s attempt to engender teamwork amongst her fellows had resulted in - or just how angry/impressed/irritated, etc. the other sects and their leaderships were about it.
Cang Qiong had swept the competition.
The highest rank another sect had managed as Huan Hua’s new darling, and she had only managed to break the top twenty as her initial impressive showing had started to wane alongside her stamina on the fifth day.
Zhao Hua and Tian Yi both had students in the top twenty-five, and a single rogue cultivator had broken through to take the twenty-sixth spot, but the top ranks of the competition?
All Cang Qiong, their sect standing as proud and undefeated as ever, their dominance as the top cultivation sect - despite disparagements over their “new” tactics on display during the first days - undeniable and more overwhelming than it had ever been before.
Peak Lord Lu was torn.
On the one hand: he was so incredibly proud of his stubborn little beasty.
She had, almost single-handedly, kicked all those stuck-up glory hounds right in their heavenly pillars with her performance and the success of her tactics.
On the other hand…
“Does this lord’s disciple have a latent, heretofore unseen death wish?” He hissed after she had finished answering Deng-shidi’s questions in regards to her health, qi-flow, and how she was handling the aftermath of her breakthrough/heavenly tribulation. “What possessed a’Ye to attempt to weaponize a heavenly tribulation?”
Now, Beiye, despite the accusation tossed at her by an irate shizun, was not, actually, stupid or suicidal.
Saying - I read it in a fanfic once and wanted to see if it would work - was not the sort of reply that would lead to her continued existence rather than being crushed under the unforgiving heel of a peerless immortal master.
Even if it was only half-true, with the rest made up of exhaustion, worry for her little brothers, and a genuine desire to put on a good enough show that everyone would leave her the fuck alone for a while once they returned to the sect.
“Begging shizun’s pardon, but this disciple had no way of knowing whether or not her shidis had followed her down into the caves, nor how far away they were if they had done so.” She answered crisply, once she’d downed the tonic shoved at her by an impatient Deng-shishu, who as usual took her antics almost as poorly as her shizun himself. “With no way to reach the exit, exhaustion setting in, and no safe place to rest,” that she didn’t shrug for punctuation was a result of far more effort than anyone would ever know. “This one decided that a swift and decisive victory was the most likely to yield a positive outcome - even if the means to achieve it were unorthodox.”
Well, Lu Rongzhu gave a mental sigh even as he waved the unrepentant little cretin off to join her cohort as Deng-shidi hadn’t found her to be in imminent danger of twisting, searing, or otherwise wrecking her meridians and qi development.
Simply in need of rest to recover from the strain to her body and qi.
Irritating, irreverent, impossible child.
He was so fucking proud of her and the bolstering she had done to Cang Qiong’s reputation.
Yes, not even a’Ye’s greatest detractors among the Cang Qiong peak lords could argue her advancement within their sect now.
Not after the show she’d put on and the face she’d gained for their sect.
Ha!
Zhu Beiye would be his successor.
After her showing, nothing else was acceptable, as she'd shown mastery of both spiritual and martial cultivation, impeccable strategy, clear leadership skills, and enough camradery with her fellow disciples to create a smooth transition and solid framework for the future of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.
Mei-shimei could take her complaints and choke on them.
If she kept whining like a child instead of an immortal master, Lu Rongzhu might even help her with that.