“You will spar Zexi,” our mother says casually. “Now. Step aside, everyone.”
There is that moment of silence that always comes after someone spontaneously makes a random decision like ‘my two children will fight right here right now on the front lawn’, and we all simply stare at Xian Qi as though expecting her to suddenly laugh and call the whole thing a joke.
She doesn...
2025-07-24 10:34:03 +0000 UTC View PostHere are some fun facts about The Capital: first, its actual name is Rising Phoenix City, but everyone calls it The Capital, so much so that even some of the people who live there don’t know its actual name; second, while not the largest, or most populous, city on The Continent, it is the city with the largest cultivator population, with a little more than a third of its two million ...
2025-07-21 15:36:47 +0000 UTC View PostYesterday was for saying goodbyes, today is for cleaning.
Since we’re certain we won’t be returning for a while, the house needs to be cleaned out and locked up.
Perishables from the kitchen need to be removed, certain items need to be packaged properly, and what few valuables remain in my vault after buying Xiuying’s contract need to be moved to a safer location than the vaul...
2025-07-19 16:50:57 +0000 UTC View Post“I know I asked for private,” I say, staring around the windowless room, “but isn’t this a bit much?”
Despite the lack of a window, the room is comfortable, airconditioned through some means I can’t discern, and tastefully designed.
Frankly, it’s perfect for a small group of people to discuss highly sensitive matters over a meal.
The hallway leading up to it had ...
2025-07-12 18:41:20 +0000 UTC View PostBeing 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 ho...
2025-07-09 12:08:59 +0000 UTC View PostThe doctor Meng Yi went to get, Doctor Lei, turns out to be a woman. A woman who seems personally offended by my good health.
Not in the ‘I wish you were dead’ way, thankfully, but more in the ‘you are making me question and doubt everything I know and that’s really pissing me off’ way.
She runs her numerous checks on me with a scowl on her face, muttering and grumbling un...
2025-07-01 16:43:22 +0000 UTC View PostThank you all for your patience through this trying time.
You are incredible each of you.
Enjoy the chapter.
—❈——❈——❈—
—❈——❈——❈—
Xian Weiju
Of the seven Xian children, Xian Qigang was the loser with aspirations far too great for his talent, and Xian ...
2025-06-25 19:52:49 +0000 UTC View PostHello, everyone.
So, it is done. it is finished. The burial has been seen to with all the 'i's crossed and the 't's dotted.
I'm... not okay. I don't think. But I am grateful. Both for the fact that it is behind me now, but mostly for how fortunate I've been to have a community that's supported me as you have.
I say thi...
2025-05-28 18:52:28 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone.
So, things are progressing steadily, the burial has been set for the 24th of this month. Which is good.
Thank you all so much for all the support. Truly. It's been much more than I dared to hope for.
Seriously, thank you.
—❈——❈—
—❈——❈—
Xian Qiga...
2025-04-30 14:32:30 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, story time.
So, I've never been close to my father. He was always too stern. Too distant. His presence felt suffocating.
He wasn't a good father. He wasn't a good husband either. And the older I got the more I came to understand how unhappy he made my mother.
As some of you here already know, not too long ago, it came out that he'd been cheating for almost twenty years. ...
2025-04-02 19:41:43 +0000 UTC View PostXian Weiju turned back to Meng Yi. “Where are you?” she asked.
—❈—
“I’m at Young Master Qigang’s manor, in Silver Springs,” Meng Yi said.
The Young Mistress turned to the man behind her again, and though she said nothing, the man understood her desire.
Something like a compass, though significantly more complicated, appeared in his hand.
He activa...
2025-04-01 17:10:40 +0000 UTC View PostMeng Yi
After her search group had been slaughtered by Old Xian’s corrupted abominations, Meng Yi had been carried to the portal by birds, and it had taken them hours of flying to get there.
Pan Cai ran the distance in mere minutes.
While her movement technique was only a beast rank, the woman’s peasant rank Qi Realm cultivation powered it to heights that ...
2025-03-21 15:43:26 +0000 UTC View PostA/N:: every now and then, my mind betrays me. And suddenly it's like there's this other person in my head.
The things he tells me are not very nice, but he says them like he's my friend, so even though I don't want to listen, I hear him.
I would tell my loved ones about this person, but they wouldn't really get it. Or maybe that's him tellin...
2025-03-12 17:15:09 +0000 UTC View PostSo I commissioned an artist to make a poster, and after almost completely ignoring everything I said and failing to send me sketches before committing to the finished work, she sent me this.
Suffice to say, I am unhappy with the end result, but unfortunately, I have paid and she does not do the refunding.
Ergo, here I am. If you guys say you like this, then I'll use it. If you don't...
2025-02-08 10:50:31 +0000 UTC View PostI'm sorry for ghosting, but my brain refuses to write book two until I'm done with one, ergo, I'll be working on preparing that for publication, after which book two will begin.
I understand that this is an inconvenience, but I ask that you bear with me and I thank you for your patience.
PS: for those who are wondering, book one goes on Amazon March 1st. Whoo!
2025-02-06 19:56:51 +0000 UTC View PostPan Cai
There was an old saying; ‘Send a bird to pluck a mango, send a frog to catch a fish, and send a man to do both.’
The saying supposedly alluded to human ingenuity, but for Pan Cai, it had always been a reminder in picking the right person for a task, and sometimes, in the privacy of her head, the woman wondered if she was the only person who understood th...
2025-01-23 22:02:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun in my soul burns with a heat so intense it damn near steals my breath away.
I’ve never felt it like this before, so hot it borders on uncomfortable.
This is, without doubt, the work of the Ginde Pepper, and I find myself wondering, ‘if a peasant rank one can cause such a change, then what would a noble rank one, or even divine rank, be like?’
Setting the thought ...
2025-01-19 21:37:13 +0000 UTC View PostMy eyes open to a bright, blue sky.
For the first time since my first tango with one of Xian Qigang’s corrupted creatures a few minutes ago, my body is entirely free of pain, and it is that, more than the changes around me, that clues me in that this might not be real. Or, at least, physical.
I look around me, taking in the lush, sunlit forest I find myself in.
This is not X...
2025-01-17 17:09:08 +0000 UTC View PostXiuying
Xiuying booked it back to Qigang’s place, the doctor, Gu Chi, slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
She knew her shoulder wasn’t the most comfortable riding place, not at the pace she was moving and for a man as soft as the healer was, but the doctor bore the discomfort with quiet resolve. Xiuying was thankful for that. Whiners were the worst,...
2025-01-13 16:34:45 +0000 UTC View PostQigang, this is worse than we thought. I’m coming back to your house.
Deng Mu’s dead.
—❈—
I should have waited.
In hindsight, it’s so obvious.
All it would have taken are a few extra hours of waiting, and I would have received this note at home, and wouldn’t have sent Meng Yi and the others out with a threat like this out there.
<... 2025-01-05 20:23:32 +0000 UTC View PostSince we want to be part of the search and the last known people to go missing were headed towards the manor, Captain Quan Qiu suggests, to our agreement, that it would be best to meet up here.
In light of that, Meng Yi, Xiuying and I spend several tense minutes waiting for the Captain and her search party to arrive.
I’ve heard before that one of the hardest things to do in an eme...
2024-12-30 22:33:20 +0000 UTC View Post“—so I kicked her in the pussy,” Xiuying finishes her story with a casual shrug, drawing an expression of slack-jawed horror from me.
“By the way, tell your manager she’s not fooling anybody,” she adds.
I blink at the non sequitur, then look down at Meng Yi as my mind processes Xiuying’s words.
Meng Yi’s head is still on my lap, and I only notice now that the o...
2024-12-24 21:44:51 +0000 UTC View PostSilence reigns in the room for several minutes after Meng Yi returns to sleep, and I don’t know if it’s because Xiuying actually respects Meng Yi’s obvious need to sleep, or if it’s because she respects me enough to keep quiet because I told her to.
Considering the expression on her face though, I suspect it’s for a third reason; that reason being that she’s deliberating on ev...
2024-12-20 12:46:57 +0000 UTC View PostMeng Yi
Awareness began within. Her self. Her qi. Fuller, richer, greater, by factors so large that what she was now and what she’d been were so far apart as to not be comparable even by the most accommodating scale.
Meng Yi marvelled at it, utterly awed by the incredible metamorphosis her being had undergone.
She stood at the heart of a web, each o...
2024-12-15 18:14:01 +0000 UTC View PostOne of the many things about life on modern day Earth that too many people take for granted is just how many entertainment options there are readily available, even if you don’t have much money.
Between streaming services, social media, the steadily declining cable, games, and even e-books, anybody with a decent phone has access to millions of hours of entertainment without eve...
2024-12-14 19:48:32 +0000 UTC View Post“Sleep tight,” I say. “And seriously, sleep. I’ll be fine on my own for a few hours. I think I’ll do some reading.”
…with a breath that sound an awful lot like a sigh, I turn and head for the library.
—❈—
I’ve never been much of a reader, not even of fiction. I’ve always preferred watching my entertainment, rather than reading it or having it narrated t...
2024-12-11 16:46:34 +0000 UTC View PostI’m starting to feel bad for the rickshaw driver.
With the manor located as it is at the top of a cliff, the path up to it is, naturally, steep and winding. Walking it unencumbered would be a challenge for most, but running it, while pulling two people and a rickshaw… I hadn’t even known that was a feasible feat for a non-cultivator.
Feasible or not though, the rickshaw driver...
2024-12-08 12:21:17 +0000 UTC View PostHong Li rushes to me again as the auction ends.
“Honoured Customer,” he says, bowing, and my eyebrows climb at the new term of address. “Please, if you would follow me, so we can finalize the arrangements.”
“Sure,” I say, rising.
Meng Yi rises too, but then she staggers, looking faint for a brief moment.
I reach out and steady her.
“I’m okay,” she...
2024-12-03 20:43:32 +0000 UTC View PostThere are ten items on the list for today. The Ginde Pepper was number five.
“I’m guessing you want the manual for Meng Yi?” Xiuying asks, as item number six is brought up for sale.
Meng Yi and I look at each other, then back to her.
Xiuying rolls her eyes. “You said that you’d only bid for the Ginde Pepper and the manual,” she says. “I’m guessing it’s a meth...
2024-11-30 23:54:55 +0000 UTC View Post