"SHÉN ME?!"
Patriarch Shěn Qíngcāng's knees buckled as he stood in the opulent main hall of his estate. He stared, in horror and confusion, at the blood-stained hairpin. Lord Shen's assistant stood before Patriarch Shěn Qíngcāng pale, shaken, barely able to speak, but with his throat trembling, he forced it out anyway:
"Your son is our guest. The bride price has just been raised. We await your... improved offer."
The message was as elegant as it was terrifying. And the message was definitely received.
Patriarch Shěn, befuddled, paced the floor. This was not part of the plan. The Zuì Mèng Lóu was a business, a den of vice run by a mysterious woman. He had assumed she could be bought, threatened, or reasoned with. He had sent his son to clean up a loose end, not to be taken hostage.
"Just who is she?" he muttered to the silent room. His voice was a low growl of frustrated arrogance.
In his meticulous plotting to steal celestial power, his one, fatal lapse was his failure to investigate the woman who had taken in the orphaned girls. He had dismissed her as a mere brothel matron, a symptom of his clan's fatal flaw: they were an arrogant bunch, and not very thorough.
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Meanwhile, in a sunlit room high above the drama, the air was thick with the scent of medicinal herbs. Ju, the youngest of the Three Peonies, hummed a cheerful tune as she applied a final poultice to Yisha's wrist, the last of the qi-suppressing poison now neutralized.
On the other side of the room, the atmosphere was quieter, more charged. Li Wei sat behind Qianyi, his palms resting gently against her back as he transferred a steady, cool stream of his spiritual energy into her, mending the tears in her meridians.
"You're warm," he said in a whisper, his voice softer than she had ever heard it.
"The energy you're giving me is cold," she replied, her own voice barely a whisper. "It feels... soothing."
A comfortable silence settled between them, broken only by Yisha's dramatic sigh of relief as Ju finished her work and slipped out.
"QianQian," Li Wei began, the question he'd been burning to ask finally slipping out. "Why him? After a century, why did you choose that... peacock?"
Qianyi was quiet for a long moment. "He... remembered the little things," she said, a hint of naive embarrassment in her tone. "He knew I liked my tea steeped for exactly three breaths after the petals unfurled. He noticed the jade hairpin I wore only once and found one just like it a decade later. I thought... I thought that kind of attention meant he saw the real me."
It was a surprisingly shallow, human reason from a woman known for her strategic mind, a testament not to her foolishness, but to a deep, desire to be seen and cherished in the smallest of ways. Li Wei's hands stilled for a fraction of a second, his heart aching with the realization that his own steadfast, silent devotion had perhaps been too quiet for too long.
"I know how you like your tea steeped," Li Wei mumbled.
"What was that," Qianyi asked.
"I said, 'I know how you like your tea steeped.' So does ShaSha. You drink your tea that way because I drink my tea that way. Remember when we first met? You thought I was too pretentious to be, well, how I was but tried my tea and loved it," Li Wei blurted, frustrated.
"He knows how you like your tea steeped," he mocked, his cruelty subconsciously bubbling to the surface out of frustration. "You're smarter than that," he scolded. "He did absolutely nothing but use the same tricks our girls use on the patrons here. You've seen it a thousand times! You should have known better!"
Qianyi didn't respond. She sat in silence as a tear slowly left her eyes and gracefully slid down her face.
Li Wei felt her change in breathing and knew she was now crying and it was his fault.
"Wǒ—I just meant you deserve the best. You know you deserve the best. And he was nowhere close to being good enough for you," he said in a murmur, trying to comfort the broken-hearted girl.
Qianyi began to cry more intensely. Her breathing, uncontrollable.
"I know! I know! It's my fault," she yelled.
"No! It's not your fault," Li Wei shouted. He wanted to wrap his arms around Qianyi, but he stopped. And instead, he gently grabbed her shoulders.
"It's not your fault. Of course, it's not your fault. It's HIS fault for betraying your trust. And he will suffer for the rest of his life for it. I'll make sure of that."
Yisha stood in the archway of the room, listening, saying nothing. Just letting her two most precious persons have it out. After all, she knows both their secrets.
Watching their back and forth, Yisha conjured up the memory that was the bedrock upon which their entire lives were built.
They had been three scared, traumatized children. She, barely one-hundred years old and Qianyi, barely a hundred-twenty-five years old, had just lost their entire celestial village, their world reduced to the cold, dark inside the cave their parents hid them in.
The first thing they saw upon being rescued was a boy with hair as white as mourning robes and eyes as cold and lonely as winter. Li Wei. He was quiet, with an aura of a stillness that felt dangerous, and it frightened everyone away.
Everyone except them.
Yisha, even in her grief, had been unable to resist his mysterious aura. She and Qianyi had made it their mission to tease a smile onto his face, to pull him into their arguments, to force him to live. They were the sun and moon, determined to melt his eternal frost.
But it was on the the dusty streets of a Jianghu town that the three realized their bond. While Xuan Ling was away, a group of spoiled young masters, decided the three quiet, well-dressed "waifs" were easy targets.
They taunted. They shoved. And when Yisha was knocked onto the ground, the bullies unknowingly awakened a shared, cold fury—a language Yisha, Qianyi, and Li Wei did not know they shared until that very moment.
They didn't run. They fought back with an intelligent and synergetic coordination that was terrifying for their age. But they didn't stop at winning the fight. A dark, righteous delight ignited within them. They cornered their tormentors. Using Yisha's cleverness, Qianyi's strategy, and Li Wei's burgeoning power, they became predators and the running, frightened bullies were easy prey.
When Xuan Ling returned, she found the town a'buzz with the story of the three fierce, wild children about to be punished at the town's square.
Yisha recalled seeing Xuan Ling walk toward the stage. Her rage at their endangerment was a force of nature. Her footsteps, though delicate, somehow, summoned a force that shook the earth with each step, literally bringing all the onlookers to their knees and cemented, unable to move.
She nearly leveled the magistrate's office. But beneath her fury, a fierce was a proud satisfaction.
They were no longer just three orphans she had collected. They were a unit. A family. Forged in the destruction of their first home, and bound for life by a shared, unshakable code: ferocious loyalty to each other, and a delicious, creative cruelty towards anyone who threatened their own.
And over the course of a little over one-thousand years, Yisha watched Qianyi and Li Wei form another, more sacred bond—one they were both too afraid to speak, or perhaps, still didn't know or understand that "it" exists.
Yisha quietly left the room and walked around the pavilion, almost mindlessly, until she found herself outside, walking along the bustling main street. She longed for a little fun after the latest events.
Townspeople at their stalls and passersby all called out to greet the Youngest Miss.
"Youngest Miss! Over here! A fresh batch of sweet osmanthus cakes is ready!" called the elder woman from the pastry stall, waving a steaming tray.
"Xiao Yisha! Your smile is sunshine itself! Come, taste my new rice wine!" an old man beckoned from his shop door, his eyes crinkling.
"Miss Jia! This ribbon is the color of your spirit!" a silk merchant declared, holding up a bolt of brilliant, sun-gold silk.
Their warmth was a balm. A genuine, carefree smile broke across her face as she waved back, accepting a warm cake here, a candied hawthorn berry there. This was her home. These were her people.
And then, her eyes, alight with a returning mischief, landed on her target: a street performer, a swaggering young man who was using a simple, low-level illusion to make coins "vanish" and impress a growing crowd.
Yisha leaned against a post, finishing her cake. With a whisper and a flick of her fingers, she channeled a wisp of her power.
The performer reached into his sleeve to "produce" a coin, but instead, pulled out a fluttering, confused sparrow. The crowd gasped, then giggled. He tried again, and a small shower of peach blossoms erupted from his dǒu lì (bamboo hat).
The performer stared at his hands in comical shock, while the crowd, sensing a much better show, erupted in laughter and applause. Yisha caught his bewildered eye, winked, and tossed him a silver piece for his troubles before melting back into the crowd.
He grabbed his dǒu lì from the ground where it had fallen during his botched act. He tied it quickly onto his back, revealing long, sun-streaked brown hair tied back in a simple, functional braid. His features were sharp and handsome, his skin tanned a deep gold from a life spent outdoors, which highlighted the bright, intelligent curiosity in his gaze and the white flash of his smile.
"Wait!" he called out, his voice cutting through the street. He ducked and weaved through the crowd, his eyes scanning for a glimpse of the girl who moved like light itself. He had to find her. He needed to know who could wield magic not to humiliate, but to play, and who would pay a silver piece, a small fortune to him, for the privilege.
He finally caught a glimpse of her, a flash of sunlight and a cheerful smile, just as she slipped through the grand, intimidating entrance of the Zuì Mèng Lóu.
His heart sank, then raced with a complicated thrill. A courtesan. Of course. It explained her confidence, her beauty, her playful magic. It made her both more attainable and infinitely more distant.
He summoned his courage and approached the door, only to be blocked by two impassive guards whose mere presence felt like a wall.
"State your business," one said, as he eyed the young man's travel-worn clothes and simple bamboo hat.
"I'm… I'm looking for someone who just walked in here. A particular courtesan," he stammered, then gave a vivid description of the girl who had turned his magic into a masterpiece.
The two guards looked at each other. A muscle twitched in one's jaw. The other bit the inside of his cheek so hard he saw stars. They were valiantly holding in a tidal wave of laughter.
"Is that so?" the first guard finally managed, his voice strained. "Wait here."
He conferred with a senior guard, who smirked and gestured for the young man to follow. He was escorted inside and presented to the main floor hostess, a woman whose elegance was as sharp as a honed blade. The guard whispered the situation in her ear.
Her painted lips curved into a deeply amused smile. "But of course," she said, her voice a silken purr. "We aim to please. I will send for her immediately." It was too delicious an opportunity to pass up.
Yisha had just made her way back to Qianyi's room. Qianyi was resting, and Li Wei sat vigil at her bedside, his posture rigid with concern. Yisha opened her mouth to tell them about her outing.
Before she could utter a word, a junior attendant slipped into the room, bowed, and delivered the message with poorly concealed glee.
"Young Mistress Yisha, there is… a young man asking for you at the main reception. He followed you from the market. He is, ah… looking for you." The attendant's composure broke for a second. "He is looking for you, the courtesan."
The silence in the room was absolute for one single, suspended second.
Then, it was shattered simultaneously by two voices, one a roar of pure, protective fury, the other a shriek of indignant disbelief.
"SHÉN ME?!"
Li Wei was on his feet in an instant, the air around him cracking with a sudden, deadly frost.
Yisha's hands flew to her hips, her eyes wide with outrage and a spark of utterly incredulous laughter.
"He thinks I'm a what?!"