Book 3: Chapter 23: Missing Girls on the Way Home |
Yin Hu let the silence stretch as he drank.
His eyes drifted toward the courtyard gate. The lantern above it swayed in the breeze, casting shifting patterns across the stone path that led to the street beyond. It was empty with no footsteps or voices rushing toward them. No Shui crashing through the wall like a cannonball or Jun walking through the door with her sword strapped upon her hip and that look of quiet satisfaction she wore after a productive day.
Which he was hoping was the case. He hadn’t sent her out with Wu Xui to come back equally as bored as before.
The sun had been down for over two hours.
Where the hell are they?
He set the cup down harder than intended. The ceramic clinked against the table and Ta Rae flinched, pulling its branches back a full foot in every direction.
"Have either of you heard from the girls?"
Zhong Da's fingers found his pommel again. "Wu Xui sent word three hours ago that she and Lady Jun were visiting a dojo in the eastern section of Cultivator Row. She mentioned the patriarch of the establishment had been... persistent in his requests."
"Persistent how?"
Yin Hu frowned.
Three hours ago in the Eastern District of Cultivator Row? How long have they been there?
That was a lot of vague for a woman who tended to be precise about everything and vehemently so for her tolerance for haggling merchants.
"And Shui?"
Zhong Da's hand went still on the pommel.
Da Ruis's quill, which had been hovering over the ledger in preparation for the threshold discussion, lowered to the table.
Neither answered.
"Neither of you have heard from Shui." It came out flat.
"Lady Shui operates with a degree of... autonomy that makes tracking her movements difficult," Da Ruis offered.
"She's twelve."
Zhong Da rubbed the back of his neck. "She broke into the Liquid Core Realm recently and is a cultivator directly under your tutelage and resources, Patriarch. She could level half the city if she wanted."
"She's twelve."
Da Ruis closed his mouth.
Yin Hu stood up from the lounging chair. The Compendium slid off his lap and he caught it mid-fall, vanishing it into the rice bag with a flick of his wrist. His perception skill expanded outward in concentric rings, washing over the courtyard, the house, the street, the neighbouring buildings, Cultivator Row in its entirety, the western districts, the slums, the walls, the gates, and further still until the edges of his awareness brushed against the outer perimeter of the refugee camps.
They were the only two people he could sense ever since he had entered this world.
His theory about his perception skill had developed recently to match this expectation. Maybe he could only sense descendants of the Hu Clan?
The system might have gone wonky again and assumed he was actually their ancestor… Which wouldn’t have made him surprised at all. Yin Hu had rarely seen the thing work properly once unless it was for secondary and tertiary sources connected to him rather than ever working for himself. It made no sense why, but he had learned to live with it and use it to its fullest potential.
Jun's Qi signature pulsed in the eastern section just as he had been told.
She was fine and likely already hading back based on the direction of travel.
Shui's signature was—
Yin Hu blinked.
He pushed harder and swept the entire city a second time. Every district, alleyway, building, basement, rooftop, and every shadow that might conceal a girl with more power than sense and a hammer that had a Weapon Spirit the size of Kaiju.
It took a moment until he found her.
There she is. What is she doing?
Shui was in the western industrial district, near the river. Her Qi was muted, pulled tight against her core in a way that suggested she was deliberately suppressing it. She'd gotten better at that, much better, good enough that a casual sweep would have missed her entirely.
She was surrounded by... a lot of people.
What in the—
He cut the perception short before he could see more.
If he looked too closely, he'd have to act on whatever he found.
She's alive and healthy. Her Qi is stable. She's just... somewhere she shouldn't be, doing something she shouldn't be doing, surrounded by people she shouldn't be surrounded by. So, a normal day for Shui. The talking to I'm going to give her will be legendary.
Yin Hu sat back down.
"They'll get a talking to when they return," he said with a calm voice. The kind of calm that made Zhong Da's hand drift away from his pommel and fold into his lap where it couldn't accidentally draw a weapon in sympathetic panic.
Da Ruis picked up his quill. "Shall we continue with the threshold discussion while we wait?"
"Tomorrow. I'm done for today. Oh and Zhong Da?"
“Yes, Patriarch.”
“Go grab Shui. Or at least make sure she isn’t in trouble…”
Yin Hu sighed. His plan to teach them some form of independence was growing heavy on him already, but he had to stick to it.
He couldn’t have them fully reliant on him and others.
They needed to be their own people who could accomplish their own thing and protect themselves. Only to be supported and aided by the army of disciples and Hu Clan members he was planning on creating around them.
Both men recognized the dismissal. Zhong Da stood, bowed once, and left the courtyard through the doorway. Da Ruis gathered the ledgers, tucked them beneath his cloak, and faded into the shadows near the eastern wall where he'd taken to lurking during the night hours. The ghost didn't sleep, but he'd developed a habit of standing very still in dark corners and reviewing his notes until dawn.
The courtyard emptied.
Yin Hu leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The tea had gone from steaming to warm. He could hear Ta Rae's branches shifting. The slow, careful movements of a tree that thought it was being sneaky. A single thin branch extended from the canopy above him, descending with the patience of a glacier, angling toward his cup with surgical precision.
The tip of the branch dipped toward the surface of the tea.
"Ta Rae."
The branch froze. Every leaf on the tree went rigid.
"That’s my cup."
The branch retracted an inch, hovered for a second, and then crept forward once more. Slower this time, as though reduced speed somehow made it invisible.
Yin Hu opened one eye.
The branch was a hair's width from the tea's surface. A single leaf at its tip had curled into a tiny scoop, ready to steal a taste. The rest of the tree held perfectly still in a display of arboreal innocence that fooled absolutely no one.
"I will get the axe."
Every branch on the tree snapped upward simultaneously. Leaves rustled in a cascade that sounded remarkably like a child caught with their hand in a cookie jar trying to pretend they'd been reaching for something else entirely. The thin branch that had been hovering over his cup rocketed back into the canopy so fast it created a small gust of wind that rippled the surface of his tea.
Ta Rae's trunk shuddered once.
Then it extended a different branch. This one held the teapot. It poured Yin Hu a fresh cup with exaggerated care, set the pot down gently, and then retreated to a respectful distance, waiting. Leaves angled toward him in a posture that radiated contrition and the desperate hope that the axe would remain unsummoned.
Yin Hu stared at the tree.
The tree stared back with every leaf it had.
He picked up the fresh cup, took a long sip, and set it down. Then he poured Ta Rae a cup and placed it within reach.
The branches descended with reverent slowness. Wrapped around the cup, lifted it, and then drank.
No slurping this time.
Learning. Slowly. But learning never the less.
Yin Hu closed his eyes again and listened to the distant sounds of the city. Somewhere out there, his girls were doing things he'd rather not think about. Tomorrow he'd deal with the recruitment threshold, the missing bloodlines, the broken orb that might not actually be broken, and whatever fresh chaos Shui had manufactured in his absence. Which was likely a lot if he actually thought about the things she was capable of without supervision.
Tonight though?
He drank tea with a greedy Demonic Spirit Tree and waited for his family to come home.