It was a part of the Sect that Hao had never been to, one to the west of the courtyard, whereas the Old Servants Hall was north.

  The wind was stiff, but he found the scenery nice.

  Here, flowers grew in set rows outside the footpath of hewn stone. Every dozen steps, a straggler with bright petals squeezed through the tight fit of the stone and shone up at him with a slight slouch from its efforts.

  The rest of the Sect was gray in relation.

  There was some gray here, a few pieces of it, but that enhanced the sight, the painting of it all. A gray-robed servant stood over a purple-petaled flower. Mud puddles turned into ponds, with white lotuses breaking through the brown to make themselves known.

  There were a few doors. Carved into mountainsides with ladders and stairs to reach them. Chambers for seclusion.

  Hao had a moment of thought on whether Senior Brother Lou Yi Shou was still in one. It had been a while since he had seen him. Not since the days of those first hunts, he was encroaching on his breakthrough then, and didn’t go to the secret Realm to pursue it—or so he told Hao and that girl he constantly had at his side.

  For many, if not most, sitting in a cave for such an important moment as a breakthrough may have been strange. For Hao, it was something that happened organically and seemed natural.

  The Servants he passed bowed into the grass as he walked by. Not because of his expression this time, he had his face in perfect order. They were just acting respectfully.

  “Fascinating how straightening your back from a slouch can change how the world sees you…” Hao said, speaking to one of many servants that he passed.

  The man’s face was no different from the Cultivators of this mountain.

  Blue eyes, black hair, like so many others. It made the world seem small, and the mountain he was on even smaller, and smaller yet, how little control those perceived as powerful had over their small sliver of this mountain.

  The slave-like servants and gods all looked the same. And just like him, an Islander, or the rabbits of the forest, demonic Green-horned Bulls, all, born the same.

  Beyond the maintained path, nature climbed. Abandoned places, perhaps once buildings of importance, were consumed, reclaimed by nature, and trees and bushes lifted their roofs and cracked the walls. Vines climbed back down in cascades.

  Inside one of the ruins, Hao spotted a group, all robed in grey and white, their faces bright with smiles as they warmed themselves with a small fire and like company. One spotted him, then they all did, and they all looked away.

  The further down the way he went, the quieter the servants, until they seemed like mutes and puppets, and the more ruins seemed to appear in this long-forgotten corner of the mountain.

  Finally, the end of the cliff to his right came into sight. Hao found his destination at the other end of a narrow dirt path that ascended a slight hill. At the end of that path, an open metal bar gate and walls of stone, not high, the place was not a compound, but would keep a person as easily as a dog, and beyond those walls, a building too small for the surrounding walls.

  It was nice, but normal. Unassuming, with two floors and more windows than walls, the windows weren’t sealed, but open to the wind and eye.

  Hao was up the path, and at the door before he noticed the people. They were people he thought. Blindfolded, their robes were just like the servant’s robes, but plain brown, like the burlap he left the island wearing.

  Their posture never shifted, not a twitch of their head or even ears. Instead, they relentlessly tended the yard’s grass on either side of the walkway to the door. Fingers caked with dirt, fingernails chipped.

  Hao pulled his eyes from them and struck the door three times. He didn’t have to knock for long. Someone was there swiftly to open the door. It wasn’t the person he expected, or anyone Hao knew.

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  An older man in a pristine white robe. They were servant robes, but so clean that they reminded him of another Sect’s attire. He showed his status with a bow. However, the bow didn’t dip low, stopping no lower than a simple tilt of the belly.

  “Where is Senior Taoyi?” Hao put on a smile.

  The man’s face tightened up into a flinch. The look on his face said he thought he did well to hide it, but not as well as he thought. His silence was a steady bastion, nearly.

  Hao could see right through him. The house was open throughout until it reached a narrow wall of solid wood, its only purpose should have been decoration. It was simpler in the rest of its layout. Stairs to the left, a door down the hall straight ahead, but it was that room on the right that held Hao’s attention.

  Taoyi was sitting respectfully. His legs were under him on the floor on the right side of the table. A pot of glistening blue in his hand, which he didn’t pour for himself. He poured deliberately for the person on the other side of the table.

  The second person was against that decorative wall, nearly out of sight. It seemed his demand for dominance in that room with Taoyi left him leaning forward on the table, his cup held high for a refill.

  The Fourth Elder, someone hard not to recognize. The First Elder’s right hand, even if not for that, Hao would find it hard to call the man pleasant in any way. Even now, the way he gripped the side of the Taoyi was sitting on, leaned forward, grinning, holding the small teacup to his face, waiting for a refill.

  Worst of all, he shared the name Mo. When the name Mo Bangcai is brought up alongside the Fourth Elder, usually the word nephew is floated around. Others say that their blood relations are more direct. The terms illegitimate and son seemed to find each other in a sentence in a few tales spun around the two.

  Is the Fourth Elder the one after Meiqi and Peiqi… Hao could believe it; it was well known that most of the Elders had stagnated in Cultivation. The Drifting Stream didn’t have the wealth and resources of its past, and the desperation for progress would be easy to believe.

  That didn’t change the fact that if the lecher touched Meiqi, he would skin him like a rabbit in front of his son.

  The Fourth Elder sipped his cup and leaned back, his figure blocked by the decorative wall he sat against.

  Hao tried to crane his neck. The servant stood in the doorway, ensuring that he couldn’t look in any further, his feet sliding just to put his face, which was growing uglier by the second, in the way.

  “Aren’t you going to tell Senior Taoyi I am here?”

  The man just stared at him, lips sealed, pressed tightly together.

  Hao placed his foot down with a little extra force. Not to be extreme or seen as rude, but loud enough to attract attention.

  Taoyi turned his head. His posture, which spoke of his great comfort, turned to a slouch, while his fawning expression melted like snow in summer. Upon making eye contact with Hao, the expression that fled quickly returned.

  The servant glanced back at his master. His face lost all color, matching the robe that rested on his shoulders. He took a step to the side as Taoyi stood. His back, hips, and neck all folded down.

  “Leave us…” Taoyi said. His footsteps on the wood floor echoed on the walls, whereas whatever he just said to the Fourth Elder came from his lips with no volume at all.

  He paused as if searching. “Young—friend… Ah! Young Friend Hao, it has been a while,” he said.

  Hao had walked by every person in the sect as he made his way here, like they were dust, like that didn’t exist, like the Sect around him didn’t exist. To stand there. To look the man in the eye who planned to sell the people who, in his heart, belong around his fire.

  The best way to protect them, and himself, was to kill the man in front of him, and the one sitting at that table. Instead, he had to stand and smile. While the fake smile of the Rotund man, Taoyi, grew.

  Hao opened his mouth, flashing his teeth in a smile. “Senior Taoyi, it has indeed been a long time. I hope I am not disturbing you, especially during such an important time.” Hao’s words dripped with honey, each word slow and warm. His lips hide his heart.

  Taoyi reached out, placed a hand on Hao’s shoulder, and struck it twice as he chuckled. “Young Friend, you do not need to worry. You are welcome, but it is a rather awkward time.” Taoyi’s voice dropped to a somber declaration, a gold coin appeared in his hand, and any tension in his posture vanished.

  “I see, so that is the case then,” Hao said, his head shaking as his expression changed to disappointment, a mask easy to fit. “But I’m afraid I will have to bother Senior and make my visit quick.”

  Hao’s eyes bounced between Taoyi and the Servant, their expressions opposite, but Hao had a feeling they felt the same way as he spoke.

  “You retrieved some servants recently. They had been working for me for a while and should have been for a while longer. A mother and her daughter are both at least a dozen years older than I. You called them your descendants. Senior.”

  Taoyi kept his face steady, impressively so, with a few twitches in his cheeks. His servant, however, made his back as straight as an arrow and pulled at his robe tight like a cold chill struck him.

  Of course, Hao didn’t miss it. Meiqi had taught him what to look for months ago, before he knew how to kill a man. “I will have to insist… Even though your business will be more important than the business of a disciple.”