“…”
Shen Yi looked at him calmly and held up one finger. “First — she’s your martial elder sister, not mine. I took advantage of a situation, yes, but it was a transaction both parties agreed to.”
Fang Heng’s eyes went wide.
“Second.” A second finger rose, and Shen Yi’s voice dropped slightly. “Tell your martial elder sister to come here yourself. I’m very curious whether she can draw a line at the courtyard gate.”
Both statements landed. Fang Heng stood there, expression blank.
The others — everyone except Li Muqing — found themselves looking slightly uncomfortable, some old memory resurfacing that they clearly would have preferred to leave buried.
That cramped little side room in Baiyun County. Lin martial-elder-sister in a man’s robe that wasn’t hers, moving busily back and forth, while this particular man stood by the table waiting to be served.
Given what they’d seen, what Shen Yi was saying probably wasn’t entirely false.
It just wasn’t likely to be about anything so dignified as cultivation ability.
“And finally.”
Shen Yi glanced toward the doorway, where the old woman had woken from the noise and was standing there gripping the frame with a slightly frightened expression. Something softened involuntarily in his voice.
“He started it.”
The old woman nodded earnestly. “I saw everything. Heng-er was out of line. You’re a good boy — just taught him a small lesson. That’s good for him. Better to learn it here than from someone out in the world.”
Li Xinhan and the others exchanged a quiet look.
She really thinks this was children squabbling. No visible injuries on either of them — and it hadn’t even properly started.
Still. Watching Fang Heng come out on the wrong end of something was a rarer sight than most.
“Thank you for these past few days.” Shen Yi inclined his head toward the old woman, turned, and walked out of the courtyard.
Li Xinhan saw that Fang Heng was standing very still with no apparent intention of intervening further, and exhaled. He led the others after Shen Yi.
Once they were a reasonable distance away, he still couldn’t work it out. “What just happened back there? Why did he suddenly retreat like that?”
Li Muqing drifted up from the rear, returned her short sword to its place, and said off-handedly: “Who knows. Maybe he moved too fast and pulled something.”
As she said it, she slid a curious look toward Shen Yi.
She’d never personally witnessed the General’s five techniques in action, but she’d heard them described. Of the five, the Meridian-Severing Dragon Capture was the one that looked least impressive from the outside.
Connecting that with Fang Heng’s expression and movements just now—
Her gaze drifted to the hand resting on the scabbard. Pale. Fingers well-formed. Genuinely rather nice.
“Sister — is this going to affect your relationship with him?” Li Xinhan rubbed his brow. “Father did personally select him as a prospective—”
“Prospective nothing.” Li Muqing cut him off without interest. “The moment things get complicated he invokes his martial elder sister. He’s still a child.”
The others had varying expressions. Li Xinhan’s shifted. “I didn’t ask you to come. If my own people hadn’t all stayed behind, I wouldn’t have.”
He glanced back at Shen Yi, turning something over.
Setting everything else aside — the calm Shen Yi had maintained in front of Fang Heng was beyond anything Li Xinhan could have managed in his place. That kind of character, from Baiyun County of all places, was genuinely difficult to account for.
“We’re leaving immediately. Do you need anything before we go?”
Shen Yi didn’t hedge. “I need a Jade Liquid Realm internal cultivation art.”
“He means—” Liu Xiujie clicked his tongue. “Li-head means things you can actually use right now. Weapons. Defensive gear. If you’re going out to kill demons, what are you going to do with a book?”
“If you’re willing to tie yourself to the Li family of Qingzhou, I can arrange it now.”
Li Xinhan stopped walking and said something that made the others visibly surprised. “Come as a family guardian. Or if there’s a match to be made — legitimate daughters are complicated, but any branch family daughter you find suitable, I can broker. Just say the word.”
Setting aside the second option — a Demon Suppression Commander marrying into the Li family’s branch wasn’t exactly an unequal match.
But guardian was a different matter entirely.
Unlike a hired protector, someone brought in as family guardian was considered part of the household — a lifelong commitment, in some ways closer than branch relatives.
The issue was that Shen Yi, however promising, however remarkably his comprehension ran, was currently at Threshold Realm Perfection.
Even if he crossed into Jade Liquid tomorrow, until he actually did — the probability of this changing anything was close to zero.
Cultivation looked simple from the outside. One more step. But there were practitioners who went to their graves with that foot still hanging in the air, never having taken it — and that was entirely normal.
“Why not a legitimate daughter?”
Li Muqing tilted her head with mild curiosity.
Li Xinhan’s eye twitched. “Because your situation is something Father needs to agree to. Not me.”
“Ha.” Li Muqing dropped her arm over Shen Yi’s shoulder and smiled. “Joking. Relax, friend.”
Shen Yi lifted her arm off and looked calmly at Li Xinhan. “What about the Division’s own techniques?”
“…”
Li Xinhan was mildly deflated. Even an offer that generous hadn’t moved him.
He explained patiently regardless. “You’re wearing the cloud-band robe, but strictly speaking you aren’t formally a Division member yet. The way things work here is different from outside. In a sect or a great family — a talented young practitioner is treated like something precious from the start.”
“Because the moment you join, you’re family. The stronger you become, the stronger they become. You’re one body.”
“Is it different in the Division?” Shen Yi genuinely hadn’t considered this before.
“Completely different.”
Li Muqing tossed her ponytail. “The Division has the court behind it. It doesn’t need to grow stronger for its own sake — it only needs Qingzhou stable. Demons and powerful martial practitioners are both things that can upset Qingzhou’s balance. Both are potential problems.”
“Of course, it needs enough force to keep everyone in line.”
“The condition is that you demonstrate you’re a blade that kills demons — not a parasite that eats up rare medicines and contributes nothing to Qingzhou.”
The beggar stepped forward and took the thread: “Plainly put — work first, eat later. At least when you show someone your cloud-band cuff, have enough accomplishments behind you to justify it.”
“And as a return on that investment—” he paused, “—what the Division offers exceeds the ceiling of anything any sect or family can match.”
“For example: breakthroughs into the Jade Liquid Realm are handled through the Thunder-Wind Solar-Fusion Scripture. It connects seamlessly with the Thunder-Wind Scripture — and across all of Qingzhou, counting even the ones in legend, you’d struggle to find three Jade Liquid internal arts that surpass it.”
He glanced at the Li siblings beside him and chose his words carefully. “The Li family is among the most established in Qingzhou. Their family art connects a hundred and twenty-six apertures. The Division’s internal art connects two hundred and seventy. More than double the cultivation efficiency, easily.”
“Hey!” Li Xinhan gave him a kick. “Very helpful of you.”
“…”
Shen Yi turned his eyes forward, and the hand on the scabbard tightened slightly.
(End of Chapter)