— The Emperor's Imperial Record, Entry No. 34 —
Huo Feng sprang up and leaped over the sword, tackling the scroll to the ground.
He hid it between his torso and the floor so he'd smother all the light that the scroll was emitting. When the time for an incense stick to burn had passed, he carefully removed the scroll from between his bosom.
No light.
He sighed in relief and looked around. Earlier, he'd already barricaded his doors and made sure all the windows were covered using every heavy thing in his sect dwelling, but still, he wanted to be certain.
When he had done all that, he sat, cross-legged. It was time to see what was in the scroll.
Huo Feng opened it with gentle hands, like it were made of soft, silken glass. The unfurled scroll was hard to read in the dim light, even for a cultivator such as him, but he didn't mind.
In the cultivation world, a little bit of discomfort for massive gain was a deal that Huo Feng didn't mind snatching.
"Ninefold Battle Servant Codex"
Even as he said it, he could feel the profundities in the name. It imposed its essence on the area surrounding him, and the atmosphere of the room turned darker.
The tangy scent of metal clanged through his nose, pressing onto his mind, making him focus only on the manual.
He immediately started to read it.
"This is the personal follower technique of the Ten Swords Battle Maniac, known throughout the continent as The Silken Haired Battle Maniac(whose magnificence causes even queens and princesses to swoon), it is meant only for those prepared to become slaves to the way of the sword.
To cultivate this manual, you must give up all worldly attachments, only seeking the dao and the completion of your cultivation. Like a servant serves his master.
Throwing away every earthly attachment and familial love for the caress of the sword.…" Huo Feng stopped. Confused.
The next 15 lines were of the cultivator praising himself before getting into the actual cultivation manual, which was a diagram of all the body's spirit conduits, explained with words, and harshly drawn scratches on the paper.
As if a madman had cut them right into the scroll with his sword.
When he finished reading, Huo Feng placed the scroll on his lap beside him, trying not to look at the manual.
The scroll didn't only ask him to get rid of all emotional attachments.
It also demanded constant battle.
If he chose to use this manual, he would have to constantly fight. Kill. To experience any actual breakthrough.
Huo Feng dragged his bloody, calloused hands over his face and through his hair, welcoming the thoughts of that fateful day with his mother, the curve of his father's back as he pretended to be fine.
The filthy looks he'd seen some of the older men give his sisters.
Hung Lee.
He picked up the manual.
…and started to do as it said, aligning his cultivation style with it.
###
Hung Lee paced around his manor. As someone with connections, he didn't have to stay in those filthy pigsties the sect called housing, for the outer disciples.
He was waiting for something. In fact, he'd been waiting for the better part of the day.
A cloaked man with dark skin entered through the window. He moved like a boat gliding across water.
The cloaked man knelt, "My lord, the boy has been in his accommodations since he got back. Not leaving even once."
Hung Lee turned around to face him, not daring to show fear; they were his grandfather's servants after all, even if his grandfather let them order these low-level servants around, at the end of the year, they would still report back to him.
There was no way Hung Lee would let himself look weak in that man's eyes.
Hung Lee coughed, using it to mask the clearing of his throat. The cloaked man's eyes and head were down, but somehow he still got the feeling that the man was watching him.
Hmmm, "So what do you think? Is he hiding something?" Hung Lee asked, pacing. 'He must be. That peasant is always out. Either training or buying herbs.' He looked to the cloaked man.
"He was recently injured. Severely. If he's not dead, he may just be recuperating."
Hung Lee's lower lip twitched, but then he recovered, turning it into a smile, "Is that it?" He skittled closer, "But did you notice anything? Any fluctuation of qi?" The noble boy stopped himself, realising he was acting out of character, he put his hands behind his back, taking the pose of some of his teachers back in the city, *Ahem*
'Of course you noticed something. He has the Jiang Ling sword.'
He looked at the servant on the ground, the hairs on the back of his neck erect. But even with how much he feared them, he couldn't help the feelings of contempt. These…men were just tools, brainwashed from infancy to be weapons. Ears on the ground.
"My lord, the only qi fluctuations I could sense were that of the healing pill…"
Hung Lee thought to himself, 'That damn bastard, he said that the Mudfoot filth had the Jiang Ling sword!' he closed his fist around the edge of his robe, making sure to not show any change in his facial expressions, every little act would be recorded.
The cloaked man wasn't just a servant.
"...not only that, but in the dead of night, I could feel essence." The man finished his sentence.
Hung Lee's eyes went wide. 'I knew it. When have I ever been wrong?' Forgetting the man he had gotten angry at only just then. "Does anyone else know?" The veins on his hands expanded as his grip on his clothes tightened.
"Not to my knowledge, my lord, I was watching, and it didn't seem like anyone else was paying attention to him."
"Good, make sure not to tell grandfather about this."
The cloaked man kept quiet, refusing to respond. Hung Lee sighed, 'Bastards! You tell Grandfather everything.' He turned away from the assassin, 'Damned shadow servants.'
He froze, adjusting his tunic. 'Did he hear?'
"You may leave."Hung Lee hurriedly dismissed the man, and the shadow servant slinked away, but Hung Lee kept up the act. 'Of course he heard. That's how Grandfather trained them.'
Pretending he was a stone-cold tactician, he looked out of the corner of his eye at a shadow in the darkness.
Was it his shadow servant? Hung Lee didn't know. As long as the man was with him, he'd always be scared of the dark.
For all that he could get the cloaked man to do his bidding, he was his grandfather's slave first.
###
Lady Vespara gazed down, with thin greying hair and a tight face, like someone had stretched the skin back towards her neck. She wore a long-sleeved robe, occasionally pulling it back up whenever it showed her sagging skin.
The noble lady sat on a throne-like chair at the front of the room on a raised platform, with three long steps leading up to it.
She looked down at Azul, all her features angled slightly downward from a mixture of habit and the unforgiving passage of time.
Azul bowed when he saw her. Nobles liked to emphasize the difference between them and their lessers, especially when the difference between them and cultivators was so pronounced.
"My lady, Vespara, an honor to meet you," He said. It was customary to greet first when talking to a noble, otherwise they might think you saw yourself as more than you were. Or worse, as equals.
She tapped a long, jeweled fingernail against the gold band that lay around her thin neck — a soft Click. Click. Click that echoed like dripping water, then fiddled with the many rings that dressed her fingers.
Azul continued to stand there, waiting, unsure if he was supposed to speak.
After a while, sweat gathered on his brow, the tension pulled in his belly and at the base of his chest, like a badly stretched hide, before she deigned to speak. Not bothering to respond to his earlier greeting.
"I heard you could fetch me the skin of a Celestial Mirror Leopard." She spoke as if her words were law.
"My lady," Azul scratched his head, trying to figure out what to say, "I…about the leopard–"
"I hope you are not about to let me down," she hummed, her tone a curious purring sound, sweet as poison. She smiled, a tight-lipped monstrosity, like she was stretching her lips horizontally across her face. "It would be a shame to find out a peasant lied to my butler about something I so dearly desire. That would be…inconvenient."
Azul broke out into cold sweats, the back of his robe, above his waist, immediately becoming wet.
He cleared his throat, not knowing what to say. "My lady…Celestial Mirror Leopards…now is not the time for them…it is not yet winter—"
"Do you think me stupid?"
Azul immediately dropped down to his knees, cowering with his hands covering his neck and the base of his head. "N-no,"
"You believe me to be an imbecile? Hmmm?" She sounded almost tired now, her voice coming to a slow drawl, "I know when those beasts will migrate to the city. I am asking if you can get it." Suddenly, her voice sharpened, "Stand up."
Azul stood up and looked at her. "Do not look at me."
Immediately, he dropped his head down, almost breaking his neck in the process.
"My lady, I can get you whatever you want. I'll find a way. I'll speak to my hunters and trappers." Now, Azul's voice was trembling, "It's just, you have to wait for the winter to arrive…" he paused, waiting for her response.
She looked down at him, or rather, his scalp, as his head was bowed. Drawing out the silence, "See to it that you do not disappoint me, I want that beast skin by mid-winter."
Azul cursed her in his heart. 'Damned woman, a Celestial Mirror Leopard, just because the cultivators will not get it for you, you come abuse me.'
"Do you disagree?" Azul flinched out of his thoughts when he heard the noble lady call out. "Of course not, my lady." He shuffled his feet, and scratched his head, contemplating whether to ask a question, "but, my lady, I am a mere tanner, I would have to get one of my hunters to—"
She waved him off. She was like a cat with her mannerisms, only concerned about the things that interested her, "I don't mind how you get me that beast skin, as long as you get it." She glanced at the man who had let Azul in, he took it as his cue to escort the poor tanner out.
Azul left quietly, waiting till he was well outside her estate before he started cursing the noble lady. They hadn't even bothered to carriage him back home.
"Cruel old hag! The day I gain coin and become a noble, I'll…"
While he was ranting and making promises he was not sure he could keep, there was Khan, and now, he was about to have a conversation, and the words to come that would shape the course of his life far, far into the future.