The headquarters of the Heavenly Talisman Sect lay at the eastern end of the city, down a narrow alley lined with old scholar trees. Their branches and leaves blotted out the sky and sun, and the moment you stepped inside, the air felt several degrees cooler. At the end of the alley stood a three-courtyard residence. A wooden plaque hung above the entrance, bearing the six neat characters: “Heavenly Talisman Sect Capital Headquarters.” Every stroke was so precise it practically screamed obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“We’re here.” Wu Wei drew a deep breath, looking like a man on his way to the execution grounds.
Chen Yu sized up the entrance. The gate stood half open, and a round-faced fat man sat on the threshold with a talisman paper in his hand, drawing ripples of water across it. He worked so quickly that the tip of his brush was almost impossible to see, but every time he finished a sheet, he would frown and shake his head, crumple it into a ball, and toss it into the bamboo basket by his feet. The basket was already full, and more than a dozen crumpled papers lay scattered on the ground.
“Fourth Senior Brother!” Wu Wei called.
The fat man jerked his head up. His round face first showed surprise, then split into a huge grin. He tossed aside his brush, sprang off the threshold, and came charging over in three quick strides. Grabbing Wu Wei by the shoulders, he shook him hard. “Little Six! You’re finally back! You got Third Senior Sister’s letter, right? She said she’d arrive in a day, and today’s the last day! If you didn’t come back, Little Five and I were going to have to collect your corpse!”
He spoke as fast as a machine gun, every word brimming with urgency. This was Zhao Yuan—he always acted one beat faster than he thought.
“I got it,” Wu Wei said bitterly. “It blew up at the city gate.”
“Blew up?” Zhao Yuan stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Hahahaha! You managed to trigger Third Senior Sister’s silence talisman too? Did you run your mouth again?”
“Don’t remind me.” Wu Wei waved a hand.
Only then did Zhao Yuan notice Chen Yu and Tangbao behind Wu Wei. His gaze swept over the brass lantern in Chen Yu’s hand, then shifted to Tangbao, and his eyes lit up. “Oh? And who’s this?”
“My friend, Chen Yu,” Wu Wei introduced him. “We met on the road.”
“Friend? A good friend!” Zhao Yuan immediately thrust out his hand, as enthusiastic as if they’d known each other for ten years. “I’m Zhao Yuan, Fourth Senior Brother of the Heavenly Talisman Sect. You can call me Little Four! Where are you from? What do you do? What do you cultivate? Have you ever seen any interesting spirit creatures?”
Before Chen Yu could answer, Zhao Yuan had already turned toward the courtyard and shouted, “Little Five! Little Five! Little Six is back! He brought a friend too!”
There was no response from inside for quite a while.
Zhao Yuan shouted again. Only then did a muffled voice drift out. “…Yeah.”
A moment later, a tall, skinny young man ambled slowly out of the courtyard. His face was slightly flushed, and his eyes were hazy. He still had a wine gourd in his hand, and he walked as if he might plant roots in the ground at any moment.
“Li Yan, Fifth Senior Brother of the Heavenly Talisman Sect.” He nodded at Chen Yu, speaking even more slowly than usual, with half a beat between every word. “…Welcome.”
Tangbao leaned over to sniff the smell of alcohol on him, snorted loudly, then backed away two steps with an expression of utter disgust.
“Don’t judge,” Li Yan said slowly, looking down at Tangbao. “…It’s good wine.”
“It’s not even afternoon, and you’re already drinking?” Wu Wei asked helplessly.
“…Waiting for you.” Li Yan blinked. “…Bored.”
Zhao Yuan cut in from the side. “He got drunk last night. This morning, I dug him out of the flower bed in the back courtyard. He’d buried half of himself and was muttering something about ‘sleeping together with the earth.’”
“That was… cultivation.” Li Yan didn’t so much as blink.
“Were you practicing earth escape or grave digging?” Wu Wei’s mouth twitched.
Chen Yu suppressed a laugh and was just about to say something when he suddenly sensed a razor-sharp aura descending from the sky. Cold and keen, it was like a freshly drawn blade cleaving through the lazy air of the alley.
Tangbao’s ears shot straight up.
Zhao Yuan’s smile froze instantly.
The wine gourd in Li Yan’s hand smacked onto the ground. Wine splashed everywhere, but he didn’t even bend to pick it up. His whole body stood rigid, as if he’d been immobilized.
Wu Wei’s face went deathly pale.
A streak of golden light tore across the sky with a shrill sonic boom, plunging straight toward the bluestone square in front of the headquarters. The instant it struck the ground, the flagstones exploded and rubble flew everywhere. A sword mark half a zhang deep extended from the center of the square to the entrance, stopping with perfect precision three inches in front of Wu Wei’s feet.
When the dust cleared, a figure stood at the end of the sword mark.
She was a young woman in her early twenties, not particularly tall, dressed in a sharply tailored blue-gray Daoist robe. A golden belt was fastened around her waist, with a metal talisman token hanging from it that reflected a cold gleam in the sunlight. Her features were not especially delicate: high brow bones, a sharply defined jawline, and a pair of narrow, bright eyes like two thin blades that had yet to be sheathed.
Her right hand was held in a loose grip, golden spiritual light lingering on her fingertips. The golden sword aura that had cleaved through the square moments ago had been launched by her from a distance.
Han Susu had arrived.
The square fell utterly silent. Even Tangbao tucked his head behind Chen Yu, leaving only two eyes peeking out.
Han Susu’s gaze swept over everyone before finally landing on Wu Wei. She didn’t speak right away. Instead, she slowly walked over, each step landing on the sword mark. The soles of her boots crushed the rubble with a faint, brittle crunch.
“Wu Wei.” She finally spoke.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but every word rang like metal striking metal—clear and sharp.
“T-Third Senior Sister…” Wu Wei’s voice seemed to squeeze out from between his teeth.
“Three months.” Han Susu stopped in front of him and looked down from above. “You snuck down the mountain for three months. Sect Rule Seventeen: disciples below the Spirit Condensation Stage may not descend the mountain to train without permission. Sect Rule Twenty-Three: anyone who leaves the mountain for more than seven days without reporting it receives a major demerit. Sect Rule Thirty-One—”
As she spoke, she reached out and straightened Wu Wei’s crooked collar.
“—anyone who leaves the mountain without permission and refuses to respond to sect communications shall be treated as a deserter and may be apprehended directly by the Enforcement Hall.”
Her hand moved from his collar to the top of his head, smoothing his wind-tousled hair back. The motion was so practiced it was as if she’d done it a thousand times.
“Do you know what those three rules add up to?”
“…What?” Wu Wei asked, steeling himself.
“Broken legs.” Han Susu said it without expression as she pressed down a fold that had flipped up on his Daoist robe.
Wu Wei swallowed.
Han Susu looked at him for another two seconds, then suddenly reached out and pinched his cheek—not too hard, not too gently. “You’ve lost weight.”
There was the faintest trace of concern in her voice, but it vanished in an instant, quick as a flash of reflected steel.
The next second, she let go and turned toward Zhao Yuan and Li Yan, her gaze instantly transforming into an ice blade.
“Zhao Yuan.”
“Here!” Zhao Yuan instinctively snapped to attention, the smile vanishing completely from his round face.
“You were responsible for supervising Little Six’s daily whereabouts. He snuck down the mountain for three months. When did you discover it?”
“…T-the third day.” Zhao Yuan’s voice grew smaller and smaller.
“The third day.” Han Susu repeated it, her tone terrifyingly calm. “What did you do after three days?”
“I…I went looking near Spirit Fox Valley…”
“You searched for three months without finding him, but you did make seventeen new friends and traded with the people from Ten Thousand Meals Tower for a cookbook.” The corners of Han Susu’s mouth lifted slightly, but the smile was more frightening than no smile at all. “Zhao Yuan, were you looking for a person or socializing?”
Zhao Yuan opened and closed his mouth, unable to say a word.
Han Susu’s gaze shifted to Li Yan. “Li Yan.”
“…Here.” Li Yan spoke even more slowly than usual.
“And you?”
“…I looked too.”
“Where did you find him?”
Li Yan was silent for three seconds. “…In a hole.”
“You buried yourself.” Han Susu’s tone was a statement, not a question.
“…It was cultivation.”
“Cultivation.” Han Susu nodded. “Fine. Once we’re back, I’ll personally arrange your cultivation regimen. I guarantee you’ll get buried to your heart’s content.”
Li Yan’s expression finally changed.
After dealing with her two junior brothers, Han Susu drew a deep breath and turned toward Chen Yu.
Her gaze traveled from Chen Yu’s book chest to the brass lantern, then from the lantern to his face, finally stopping on his calm eyes. She narrowed her eyes slightly, the corners of her mouth curling into a dangerous arc.
“So you’re the one who’s been hanging around with my junior brother—”
“Third Senior Sister,” Chen Yu said.
His tone was perfectly even, almost casual, as if he were stating something utterly ordinary.
“You just scolded him nineteen times.”
Han Susu’s words came to a halt.
“You straightened his collar four times, brushed back his hair twice, smoothed one wrinkle, and pinched his cheek once to see whether he’d lost weight.” Chen Yu counted on his fingers, his tone serious. “Of those nineteen lines, three mentioned sect rules, but not a single one was really about sect rules.”
The square fell silent for a moment.
Zhao Yuan and Li Yan both turned toward Chen Yu, their eyes screaming, Are you insane? Wu Wei simply closed his eyes, looking like this was it, they were all completely screwed.
Han Susu stared at Chen Yu. The sharpness in her eyes slowly gathered, like a blade deciding the angle from which to cut.
Chen Yu met her gaze without backing down or provoking her. He merely added calmly, “Wu Wei told me on the road that Third Senior Sister was the fiercest.” He paused. “He didn’t say Third Senior Sister was the most worried about him. But I could tell.”
The air solidified for roughly three seconds.
Then the corner of Han Susu’s eye twitched faintly.
It wasn’t anger. It was the brief disarray of someone whose soft spot had been struck with pinpoint accuracy. She opened her mouth, seemingly about to say something sharp, but in the end she only snorted and turned her head away.
“…Smooth talker.”
Her voice was half a shade softer than before, its sharp edges seemingly worn down a little.
Tangbao poked his head out from behind Chen Yu. His bright black eyes looked from Han Susu to Chen Yu and back again. His ears turned, and he let out a soft “hee-haw.”
The meaning was unmistakable: Nice.
Han Susu looked down at Tangbao and frowned. “What’s with this donkey?”
“He’s mine,” Chen Yu said.
“Did I ask you?” Han Susu shot him a glare, but the killing intent in her tone had already faded by more than half. She turned back to Wu Wei and drew a deep breath, as if regaining the rhythm that had just been thrown off.
“Wu Wei, this person you brought back…” She paused, seemingly choosing her words. “…isn’t annoying.”
Coming from Han Susu, “isn’t annoying” was roughly equivalent to an ordinary person saying, “He’s actually pretty great.” Zhao Yuan and Li Yan exchanged a stunned look. Wu Wei, meanwhile, wore a completely baffled expression, having no idea what had just happened.
“All right, everyone inside.” Han Susu turned and walked into the courtyard, the metal talisman token at her waist swaying lightly with each step. “Zhao Yuan, go heat some water. Li Yan, dig up every jar of wine you’ve hidden underground in the back courtyard. Not one jar gets left behind. Wu Wei—”
She stopped without turning around.
“…Wash your face and change into clean clothes.”
Her tone was flat, as if she were mentioning something insignificant. But Wu Wei stood frozen in place, his eyes suddenly stinging.
He lowered his head and said quietly, “…Got it, Third Senior Sister.”
Carrying the brass lantern, Chen Yu entered the courtyard last. Tangbao followed beside him in tiny steps, his tail swishing back and forth, clearly eager for whatever excitement came next.
Chen Yu glanced back at the sword mark half a zhang deep in the square, then at Han Susu’s brisk retreating figure, and couldn’t help sighing inwardly.
This family was seriously badass.