Book 3: Chapter 35: Where Patriarchs Should Not Be |
The patriarchs filed out one by one.
Guo gathered his ledgers with the reverence of a man handling sacred texts, tucking them under his arm and bowing three times before clearing the doorway. Liang's beard-stroking continued uninterrupted as he shuffled past, already murmuring to himself about recruitment projections and the logistics of a three-hour endurance test that would hospitalise half his remaining students. Fen cracked one final knuckle at the threshold, a parting shot that echoed off the stone walls, and then vanished into the corridor. Sho's shovel-hands found the doorframe and gripped it for a moment as though he wanted to say something, thought better of it, and released the wood with a sigh that carried the weight of a man who had just been told his entire understanding of the world was insufficient.
Patriarch Duan had been the first out.
He'd risen from his chair before Jun finished dismissing them, bowed once with a speed that cracked his lower back audibly, and then strode through the door with the energy of a man forty years younger who had somewhere important to be and someone important to see. His half-closed eyes were still fully open. The smile hadn't faded through out the entire meeting.
Jun watched the last of them disappear and the door swung shut.
She stayed in the quiet that followed and let it sink in.
The maps stared at her from every wall containing information about troop positions, territory lines, supply routes, training schedules, patrol rotations, recruitment projections, and a dozen other things she had never been taught to manage, trained to understand, or prepared for in any capacity whatsoever. Her Ancestor had taught her how to strike and not be struck.
How to fight, survive, endure, and protect the person standing behind her.
He had not taught her how to run a war council that was preparing for an all out war with a Demon that also happened to be her sister…
Jun hadn’t been taught how to set recruitment thresholds, evaluate cultivation ceilings, balance logistics against combat readiness, or sit in a chair for four hours straight while people talked at her about numbers, percentages, projections that made her eyes cross and her temples throb.
Jun put her forehead against the wood and let her arms hang at her sides. Sword clattering against the chair leg.
The She-Devil stirred with with the same intensity it always carried.
“Duty calls upon you. Don’t you dare shy away even an inch.” The She-Devil’s voice echoed in her mind.
Jun ignored her.
She isn’t the one with a thousand seven hundred and thirty-three cultivators who wake up every morning, stand in formation, and punch the air because I told them to. Because I showed them a one-two combination that my Ancestor taught me in a broken courtyard two years ago and they decided that was enough to restructure their entire lives around.
What am I doing?
What am I actually doing?
Her forehead pressed harder against the wood.
I'm sixteen. I should be cultivating, studying the Dao, strengthening my foundation, sparring with Shui, and annoying Ancestor until he teaches us something new. I should be baking terrible cakes that taste like ash and pretending they're getting better. I should be doing anything other than sitting at the head of a table telling ninety-three-year-old men what to do with their lives.
“Hmph… Sounds like the perfect position to prepare you for greatness. Never doubt my master,” the She-Devil said.
A hand landed on her shoulder and patted it.
Wu Xui’s presence made the struggle easier, but not by that much. "You'll get over it. It's like starting a new technique or kata. It'll take some time before you get used to it."
Jun lifted her head an inch off the table. "Katas don't make my brain leak out of my ears."
Wu Xui laughed.
Jun's forehead returned to the wood with a groan.
Wu Xui squeezed her shoulder once and let go. "Get up. We're going home. You need food, sleep, and at least two hours of not thinking about troop numbers or you're going to snap and start punching things."
"I might punch things anyway."
"Punch to your hearts content once Patriarch gets you back to training."
Jun peeled herself off the table. Her body protested in ways that not even a thousand katas had made it scream. Her head swam for a second and body almost refused to stand. It took a pulse of Qi through her body to jolt it awake and keep it steady. She shook her head one more time just in case.
She grabbed her sword from where it leaned against the chair and strapped it to her hip.
"Let's go."
They stepped out of the compound and into the evening air.
Cultivator Row had settled into its twilight rhythm. The training yards were empty, packed earth still bearing the impressions of hundreds of feet that had drilled there since dawn. Lanterns flickered to life along the eaves of buildings, casting pools of warm light across the wide streets. A few disciples lingered near doorways, talking in low voices, some of them still rolling their wrists and flexing their fingers from the day's drilling.
Every single one of them bowed when Jun passed.
She kept her eyes forward and her pace steady.
The pale green banners caught the lantern light and threw faint shadows across the stone. They hung from every eave, pole, building, gap between alleyways, and available surface that could support cloth. The Jian with its white tassel repeated endlessly down the length of the street.
Jun's stomach clenched at the sight of them.
Ancestor walks this road toward the shop. He has to have seen them by now and noticed. There's no way he hasn't noticed. He notices everything. He noticed a hidden master disguised as a beggar from a hilltop half a mile away. He noticed Zhong Da’s nature and Wu Xui with him when they first arrived and I thought they were evil. He notices when Ta Rae's branches move a quarter inch toward his tea cup.
He knows.
He has to know.
So why hasn't he said anything? Why hasn’t he come and grabbed me and Shui by the ear and dragged us home? Is he fine with what’s happening?
These questions had been eating at her for days. Gnawing at the edges of her thoughts during all the events and moments when her attention had been required even when Wu Xui had tried to reassure her. There was no way her Ancestor was not fully aware of what was happening. He had sensed when Da Ruis had been in trouble against the Dragon Calamity he backhanded. Watched when she was fighting Shao Yating and helped her from a distance without her ever noticing.
The idea that he'd missed an entire two paramilitary organisations operating under his nose? With one bearing his technique and flying banners with a sword that looked suspiciously like the one strapped to her hip—
The thought was impossible.
Which meant he knew and was choosing not to act.
Which was worse, because that meant he was waiting for something.
Jun wasn’t sure whether that waiting was for her to come and explain everything. Stand before him like a criminal walking to their execution, or if he approved of this all.
“Don’t attempt to reason the grand thoughts of my Master. He is beyond your meager little considerations.” The She-Devil’s statement only made Jun more worried.
They walked in silence for a few blocks. The streets emptied further as they moved away from the main compound and toward the residential section where the Hu Clan's temporary home sat behind its courtyard walls. The sounds of the city faded into the background hum of distant voices, creaking wood, the same illegal stall was now being chased by guards, and the occasional bark of the same dog that had opinions about the same dojo master every single night without fail.
Same dog with the same opinions.
Jun's pace slowed as exhaustion settled deeper into her bones. Her feet dragged and shoulders dropped. The sword at her hip felt heavier than it had any right to be.
Wu Xui matched her pace without comment.
They rounded the corner past the herbalist with the cracked sign. Straight past the few smaller dojos that had been absorbed into the Green Grass Blades Sector and now stood empty, their courtyards dark and their banners replaced. Right at the intersection where someone had carved the character for "patience" into the wall.
Jun's eyes lingered on that character for a beat longer than usual.
Patience… Right. I'll add that to the list of things I'm running out of.
The final stretch of road opened before them. It was a quieter stretch of Cultivator Row. The buildings pulled back and the sky widened overhead, stars beginning to prick through the deepening blue. Their courtyard wall appeared at the end of the road, solid and familiar, the gate closed, a faint glow of lantern light visible above the wall's edge.
She took a deep breath and felt the world fall into place.
Ancestor was home with his tea brewed. The special one that he rarely brought out and wafted the scent far and wide.
She could hear Shui’s laughter above her as she ran across the roofs with her gang and hoodlums running across the street trying to keep up with her. Nine shadows passed over the rooftops… likely her elite forces keeping up. The old man that was like her shadow ran up to Jun, bowed because he recognized her, and returned to running after the group and shouting for them to slow down.
Jun's chest loosened by a fraction.
"Lady Jun?"
She stopped mid-stride.
Patriarch Duan stood three paces behind her. “Do you know those young men?”
His arms cradled a wooden box wrapped in cloth. The box was lacquered dark red with gold clasps, the kind of container used for presenting gifts of significance. A set of ceramics, based on the careful way he held it, one hand beneath and one hand steadying the top. His fully open eyes crinkled at the edges and the smile from the meeting room hadn't dimmed by a single degree.
Jun blinked at him. "Patriarch Duan?"
"Our Lady Jun." He bowed, shallow enough to protect the box but deep enough to show respect. "Just heading toward the invitation. The path is along this road."
Jun nodded and turned to continue walking.
Wu Xui fell back into step beside her, though Jun caught the older woman's eyes keeping track of Patriarch Duan with a sharpness that hadn't been there a moment ago.
Their footsteps echoed together down the narrowing road. Three sets of boots on stone…
Except Patriarch Duan never took a detour or went along another direction.
Jun glanced over her shoulder.
Duan followed at a comfortable distance. His eyes swept the buildings and the quiet residential stretch with the appreciative gaze of someone seeing a neighbourhood for the first time and finding it pleasant. The gift box sat secure in his arms and smile going strong.
Jun faced forward as she took the final turn to the home they had.
The road dead-ended at the courtyard wall. Their gate stood before her, the latch glinting in the lantern light that spilled over the top. She could hear Ta Rae's branches rustling on the other side. The faint clink of ceramic on ceramic. The low murmur of her Ancestor's voice saying something to the tree that she couldn't quite make out but included axes and being patient.
This was… home.
She felt all her nerves slowly ease away and tension vanish–
Jun stopped before the gateway and turned to her left…
Patriarch Duan stopped beside her.
He looked at the gate, then down at his gift box. Then at Jun. Then at the gate again. His smile flickered for the first time since the meeting room, replaced by a furrow between his brows that deepened as the seconds stretched. His fingers adjusted their grip on the lacquered box and head tilted to one side, then the other, the motion of a man trying to fit two pieces of a puzzle together that he'd assumed belonged to different sets entirely.
"Why didn't you tell me you had been invited as well, Lady Jun? I would have brought a gift for your sake as well!" Patriarch Duan tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow.
"I wasn't invited–"
Patriarch Duan’s hand shook and the ceramic clattered.
"–this is my home."
His smile vanished as he paled and he let out a nervous chuckle. “Y-You must be j-joking, Lady Jun. I met a random old man… that… had no… Qi at all.”
Jun closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Her Ancestor had never been able to find a tea drinking partner. The stories and anger that rolled off him with every failure made the air vibrate in terrifying ways.
She doubted this would be any different.
“Listen here,” Jun said without opening her eyes. “Do what I tell you and you’ll survive.”
“Survive?” Patriarch Duan squeaked.
“Yeah. Survive… Did you by chance bring tea or sweets?”
He shook his head.
“Good.”
“Jun!” Shui landed beside her, appearing out of thin air.
Jun turned to her little sister and accepted the massive hug she knew was coming. “It’s good to see you, Shui. Haven't been causing to much trouble have we?”
“Never! I am the nicest, sweetest, kindest, least trouble making person in the whole world–”
Shui froze as she peeked from beside Jun’s arm, staring at Patriarch Duan.
“Who’s he?”
“He’s here to tea,” Jun said.
“Oof,” Shui winced. “D-Does he know?”
Jun shook her head. “Ancestor has already invited him for tea..”
Patriarch Duan stood there and gulped audibly. He had made a massive mistake and was about to pay for it dearly.