[Young Master Xian]—❈—51:: Saying Goodbyes [I]

Being bathed by Meng Yi isn’t a new thing, but being bathed by her after she kissed me is.

I seem to be the only one with thoughts going in that direction though, because Meng Yi is obviously appreciating my body in a manner that has very little to do with sex, and much more to do with gratitude.

Like she’s simply grateful that I came back to her in one piece. And remembering how The Sun Emperor had looked before we recovered, and how amazing my recovery seems to have been, I’m starting to suspect that my current physical condition is a massive improvement from what it had been before I woke in bed with Meng Yi.

When she takes my right hand in hers, spending more time staring at it than she does cleaning it, I ask, “How bad was it?”

Without looking up, she answers, “This hand was a withered husk. Like a dead tree branch misshapen just enough to be mistaken for a hand.”

She turns the hand around as she speaks, running her thumb over it in a gentle caress.

“The Sun Emperor’s right hand had been like that too,” I say, ignoring the electricity shooting up to my spine from her touch.

Meng Yi looks up at me now. “He was corrupted too?”

I nod. “Not just him. His palace, the forests, his army, everything was tainted and corrupted. Even the sun dimmed.”

Meng Yi shoots me a puzzled frown. “The Sun Emperor has an army?”

I nod.

“How does that work?” she asks.

“I have no idea. And when I asked him his response was ‘I’m an Emperor, Qigang’,” I say in a high and mighty tone of voice that sounds nothing like The Emperor.

Meng Yi smiles. It passes quickly.

Her gaze dips, returning to my hand she still holds in both of hers.

“I was scared, Qigang,” she says, and it’s as though the words are a tight cord that wrap around my heart.

I swallow.

“I tried not to be,” she says, “but I was.”

I take her hands in mine, noticing once again, and doing my best to ignore, the missing finger of her left hand.

“I was scared too,” I admit.

Her eyes come back up to meet mine.

“That was a wretched day, wasn’t it?” she asks.

“The absolute worst,” I agree.

We smile together.

“Come on,” I say after a moment, “let’s finish here so we can see to Xiuying’s contract.”

Meng Yi nods, and I sit back as she starts on the time-consuming task of washing my way too long hair.

—❈—

Xiuying’s current salary is ten thousand gold a year.

Her contract, meanwhile, costs ten million, two more than the overinflated amount I paid for the beast rank manual I bought at The Auction. And I can’t quite figure if that’s a fair price or not.

Meng Yi thinks it is.

As I understand it, the value of a soldier’s contract rises as their cultivation does, so essentially, I’ve bought a peasant rank cultivator in the third layer of Sprouting phase with all the years of martial skill Xiuying possesses, for only ten million gold.

Looked at that way, it’s a rather fair price.

The thought makes me sick.

There are many miscellaneous fees involved in buying Xiuying’s contract, all of it amounting to almost a hundred thousand gold.

The new Magistrate, Mo De, waives them all. He also fast-tracks the process, finalizing in hours what would normally take days, if not weeks.

Unlike I’d thought coming in, buying Xiuying’s contract doesn’t make it null and void, it simply makes me the owner of it now. Of her rights.

I’m not a government though, and I have no legal right to own an army (though the rule has so many loopholes it’s practically Swiss cheese), so Magistrate Mo has to edit the wording in certain clauses, but the end result is the same; for all intents and purposes, I own Xiuying. Body and cultivation.

Basically, I own a slave.

I mean, sure, I pay her a salary, one double what she made with The Army, and I’ve added a clause to the contract enabling her to renegotiate that salary at will, as well as a clause stipulating that I—and, to an extent, the Xian Clan entire—is responsible for her wellbeing, and a final clause empowering her to leave at will…

Okay, fine, maybe it’s not slavery, but it could easily have been.

I could easily have not added any of those clauses. In fact, I could have made the contract much worse. And that isn’t right.

No one should be able to just buy a person.

Even with all the waived fees, ten million is a lot of gold, but thankfully, I have just enough liquid assets (as the rich people say) to make the purchase.

I’m broke now though. Sort of. I think. Money gets weird when you’re wealthy.

For his incredible help, I decide to thank The Magistrate with a gift.

After conferring with Meng Yi in private, we both agree that the peasant rank Cultivation Circle in my reward space would make an excellent gift for the beast rank Magistrate, and it’s only now that we both notice the absence of an item that I’d barely had for a day before my little adventure with my past self and a Wild Qi storm.

My sage rank storage ring, the one that I’d gotten as a reward for the beast rank storage ring I bought at The Auction, the same one I’d been wearing when I jumped into the aforementioned storm of Wild Qi which broke the sky; it’s gone.

I wore the ring on my right forefinger, but since that hand was a “withered husk,” as Meng Yi put it, it's more than safe to assume that the ring is very lost. Most likely corrupted beyond recognizability.

The loss of the ring is... not a terrible blow, but a bad one, all the same.

The only things I had in there were the purchases from The Auction, including the beast rank storage ring I’d intended to give to Meng Yi.

The only thing of truly great value I had in there was Meng Yi’s manual, the Path of The Crystal Web.

If she was past weaving phase, it wouldn’t matter, but she’s still only in the first layer. She needs that manual to cultivate.

“I don’t need it,” Meng Yi corrects. “Having the manual is a big help, true, but it is only necessary to start on the path of the method. Beyond that, it is simply a resource to aid you on your journey.”

“Uh-huh,” I say dubiously, suspicious that she’s trying to downplay how damaging this could be.

Seeing my expression, Meng Yi tries to reassure me. “It’s true, Qigang. Remember that you yourself never needed to open the manual again after starting on the path of The Sun Emperor.”

This is true, but of course in my situation, I was literally practicing the higher rank of a method that I’d already spent years getting to the fifth layer of.

Meng Yi, on the other hand, is a first time cultivator.

She and I are not the same. Not even close.

Reading my thoughts from the expression on my face, Meng Yi shifts track. “Besides, there’s an advantage to this. You had no business being in possession of such a manual, and now there’s nothing to link back to you.”

Despite myself, her words ring true.

I sigh. “I suppose you’re ri...” I pause, realizing, as I say the words, that The Path of The Crystal Web isn’t the only manual I have no business being in possession of.

From the way Meng Yi’s eyes widen, I assume she’s realized it too.

I sigh again. Talk about a noble rank problem.

“Do you think there’s any way we can sneak that thing out of the vault and all the way to The Capital without anyone noticing?” I ask, half desperate.

Meng Yi shoots me a look that tells me exactly what she thinks of that idea.

“There are only two ways we’re getting that manual to The Capital without anyone knowing, Qigang, and that’s with a noble rank storage ring, or a sage rank containment box,” she says.

The storage ring option isn’t even worth considering. Those things are rather rare, even in the lower ranks; the idea of finding a noble rank one is just laughable.

I suppose I could find a beast rank one and roll for it though, but even then, I’ll be relying on luck. And, besides, while it’s easier than explaining a noble rank cultivation manual, a noble rank storage ring will cause its own issues.

Our only feasible option here is a containment box. Those are pretty common, especially in the lowest ranks, not to mention, rolling for sage rank is a lot more likely than rolling for noble.

“Where do we get the boxes?” I ask. “And do we have the money to pay for them? My rolling power won’t work unless I own the item.”

“You have enough money for some beast rank ones,” Meng Yi says. “Come.”

We finalize things with The Magistrate, me promising to send him some ‘tea’ as a thank you for his help, then Meng Yi, Xiuying and I all head to a place that I’ve actually visited with both women before: HONG’S CULTIVATION EMPORIUM.

Like last time, Hong Delan and his two attractive assistants are the ones tending to the fancy shop.

The last time I was here, all three had treated me with respect and some awkwardness, which made sense, considering what Delan and one of the girls had been doing in the back as we walked in, but this time, there is respect and awkwardness, true, but there’s also something else; awe.

This isn’t the only place either. Back in The Magistrate’s Office, out on the streets, where once people had stared at me with the wariness reserved for a particularly large dog, many now stare with open amazement.

I can’t say I care for it.

Although, I must admit that, picturing how much this must bite Qigang in whatever cursed afterlife he now resides, gives me more than a little bit of pleasure.

The three attendants bow as we walk in.

“Welcome to Hong’s Cultivation Emporium,” Delan says, from his place between the two women. “This one is Hong Delan, third born and second son of the Hong family. How may we serve you?”

“My Young Master requires containment boxes,” Meng Yi says. “Beast rank will suffice.”

“Of course, Manager Meng. If you will come this way,” Delan says, leading Meng Yi to the appropriate corner of the store.

Meng Yi follows, leaving Xiuying, myself, and one of the female attendants, behind.

The store looks fuller than the last time I was here, so I decide to some window shopping.

Xiuying follows behind me, while the attendant hangs back to give us some space.

As I stare at beautiful bracelet made of little, sapphire seashells, Xiuying says, “So, what was the deal with your evil double?”

I stare at her. “You don’t know?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No. Meng Yi said to ask you when you wake,” she says.

“Oh,” is the only response I can think of to that.

Xiuying watches me for a moment. “If it’s one of your many secrets,” she says, “then it’s fine. I don’t need to know.”

She sounds like she means it too. Like it changes nothing for her whether I choose to trust her with my secrets, secrets that I clearly trust Meng Yi with. And the worst part is, I believe her.

I believe that she will follow me regardless, even if I don’t trust her. I suspect that she will stand by me, maybe even through things that she really shouldn’t stand by me on.

“You’re right,” I say. “You don’t need to know—”

Xiuying looks at me, and I spot it, a faint trace of disappointment, quickly buried.

“—I want you to know.”

Her eyebrows climb. “You sure?” she asks.

I nod. “I’m sure,” I say. “When we’re done here, let’s find a nice, private place to talk.” I feel my stomach protest a bit, reminding me that I’d skipped breakfast this morning and my last actual meal was over a week ago. “Preferably, a nice, private place that also sells food,” I amend.

“I know a few,” Xiuying says.

Meng Yi buys five beast rank boxes, and, in the guise of ‘observing’ them, I roll for each one right there in the store.

1 – 500 (Beast Rank)

501 – 800 (Peasant Rank)

801 – 950 (Sage Rank)

951 – 999 (Noble Rank)

1000 (Divine Rank)

Roll: Yes || No

139, 747, 192, 728, 828.

Everyone (sans Meng Yi) stares at me oddly when I suddenly sigh in relief and mutter a heartfelt “Thank Heaven,” but you know what? I don’t think I mind too much.

—❈——❈—

—❈——❈—

Before starting this chapter, I realized that Xiuying still wasn't in on Qigang's secrets, which didn't really sit well with me considering she's literally sworn/signed her life to him.

Hence, this chapter was born.

In other, more disturbing, news, I find more and more that the place where my creative juices flow most smoothly is while sitting on the toilet.

This is, of course, a problem.

Thanks for reading.