When Li Chi visited the Immortal Crane Divine Palace, he observed many young women. Their clothing, though predominantly white, did not follow any single style.

The hairstyles of these young women also differed from those of young women everywhere else in Dachu.

In other parts of the country, both men and women followed conventions for hair: what age a man should bind his topknot, what age a girl should undergo the hairpin ceremony.

Li Chi had already sensed that the ethos of this place was what Master Li had once referred to as freedom — and if he were to lay eyes on Shen Ruzan, he would surely be even more astonished.

In the outside world, you would never see a hairstyle like Shen Ruzan’s — hair cut short at the shoulder. In any place governed by the constraints of society, she would have attracted pointing fingers and whispered comments. But not here.

Because the founding patriarch of the Immortal Crane Divine Palace had once left behind, among her other legacies, a comprehensive guide to beautiful hairstyles…

“Sister.”

Shen Ruzan called out, then noticed Xiahou Qing standing beside Shen Rujun. Her eyes went from a smiling squint to very wide indeed.

“Senior Sister?!”

She had heard voices nearby but not caught the name Xiahou Qing clearly. Now, suddenly recognizing the senior sister she had not seen in so many years, her excitement overflowed.

“Junior Sister.”

Xiahou Qing smiled and called out.

Shen Ruzan came over and took Xiahou Qing’s hands, studying her carefully from head to toe. It took quite a while before she gathered her composure.

Back then, their master had wanted to select two from among the three of them — one to serve as sect leader, one to go out as a worldly emissary.

The three of them had the strongest aptitude among their generation, and their abilities appeared roughly equal.

In truth, their master had already made her choice: the position of sect leader must go to Xiahou Qing beyond doubt, for her medical arts were the finest.

But choosing who would go out into the world was a harder question, because it was not a light burden to bear — a lone young woman going out into the unfamiliar world, with unpredictable dangers at every turn.

Since the Immortal Crane Divine Palace had first begun sending emissaries into the world, nearly half had never returned. They all understood, in their way, that some among that half had likely met their end.

On the day their master was to name who would be the worldly emissary, Shen Rujun arrived at her master’s door early and waited — yet her younger sister was nowhere to be seen.

Then their master opened the door and let her in, and only then told her: Shen Ruzan had already left the Immortal Crane Divine Palace to travel the world.

Shen Ruzan had secretly gone to their master the night before, and pleaded long and hard for the chance to be the worldly emissary in her sister’s place.

The two were near equals in learning, but Shen Ruzan was stronger in martial arts — and so their master had ultimately agreed.

She had been barely in her teens that year. A month after she left the Immortal Crane Divine Palace, Xiahou Qing also walked out from Yun-yin Mountain for her own period of worldly training.

Each year, Shen Ruzan returned as promised. In ten years she brought back twenty-six orphaned and suffering young girls.

The other two emissaries, by comparison, brought back only one each year.

When her ten years were up, she came to Peach Blossom Cove on her own. She knew that her sister, having inherited the position of sect leader, might have been willing to bend the rules to keep her at the Immortal Crane Divine Palace.

But she would never let her sister carry the name of someone who defied sect rules and treated members unfairly.

Yet even in Peach Blossom Cove she was different from the others — because she went out every year, sometimes for three to five months, sometimes for nearly ten.

Each time she returned, she brought back no small number of gifts for the others at Peach Blossom Cove, many of them costly and rare.

When everyone asked where she got the money, she only smiled and said nothing.

She gave no explanation, and so the others stopped asking. The women of the Immortal Crane Divine Palace were exceptionally close and trusted each other without reservation — a quality unheard of in outside sects.

So they thought no more of where Shen Ruzan’s money came from. Besides, Shen Ruzan was sparing with words.

She wore a loose, comfortable outfit — coarse hemp cloth in an off-white color, made by her own hands, nothing precious about it.

Yet on her wrist she wore a jade bracelet; any person with a discerning eye who caught sight of it would surely have been startled. The quality of that jade was worth a small fortune.

After Shen Rujun and Madam Xiahou explained their purpose, everyone in Peach Blossom Cove fell silent. If they had been willing to remain in the outside world, they would not have returned to Yun-yin Mountain.

“I’ll go.”

Shen Ruzan saw the hesitation on the faces around her. Where there was hesitation, there was unwillingness.

“I go out every year anyway.”

She said it lightly. The other women looked at her with grateful eyes; she showed no reaction.

“Will you go alone?”

Shen Rujun asked, a note of worry in her voice.

“I alone am enough.”

Shen Ruzan smiled — a smile that even her sister, the sect leader, could not have worn. The confidence it carried was entirely her own.

When a woman is that beautiful, that poised, and that confident, the height she occupies is beyond the reach of most men in the world.

Shen Rujun couldn’t quite understand why, after ten years of worldly wandering, her younger sister’s entire bearing had been so transformed.

“No need to persuade anyone else. Just tell me when we leave.”

Shen Ruzan smiled, eyes gently narrowed — the loveliest crescent moon imaginable.

—

At this very moment, Li Chi and Tang Pidi were still sitting at the edge of Mirror Lake reading those two slim volumes. Twenty or thirty pages, and the two of them had now turned them over several times.

The first pass had been fast. But from the second read onward, they slowed more with each turn; every sentence demanded long reflection.

No one knew how much time had passed. The sky was already growing dark. Li Chi let out a long breath and felt — how could this day have been so short? He hadn’t read for very long, hadn’t thought for very long — and yet the sky was already nearly dark.

“Let’s go back. We can read by lamplight.”

Li Chi said to Tang Pidi.

Tang Pidi didn’t respond. Li Chi reached out and patted him on the shoulder; Tang Pidi came back to himself, looked up at Li Chi, and repeated the same four words several times over.

“Exquisitely, brilliantly precise.”

Li Chi asked: “At what passage?”

Tang Pidi said: “You’d never guess — what Gao Xining had in mind for training methods, Master Li formulated as well, in perfect agreement with her, as if they had arrived at the same conclusion without consulting each other.”

“What did Gao Xining have in mind?”

Li Chi asked at once.

Tang Pidi started — and then realized that Li Chi didn’t know. Li Chi generally left the military training side of things alone, because Tang Pidi had once said he didn’t like people interfering when he was drilling troops — so Li Chi stayed well clear, and rarely even went near.

Tang Pidi had spoken without thinking, and now quickly said: “Suddenly my stomach feels rather empty. Let’s go find something to eat.”

Li Chi blinked: “What was this training method Gao Xining had? How would she know anything about training methods?”

Tang Pidi quickened his pace, walking and talking without looking back: “She learned it at the academy.”

Li Chi said: “I was at the academy too.”

Tang Pidi was almost jogging now, head still turned away: “You were a regular academy student. She wasn’t — so she learned more than you.”

Li Chi raised a hand and scratched his hair. *Maybe Principal Gao taught her? Could the principal actually be a supremely disguised master?*

Tang Pidi was well past caring what Li Chi was thinking about, and broke into a trot.

And so Li Chi decided to go and ask Gao Xining. He looked around — she should be nearby.

Then he spotted, in another direction, Gao Xining pulling Xiahou Yili along at a run as well.

In truth, there wasn’t really anything to it — it was only that Gao Xining worried Li Chi might feel a little awkward inside, being a grown man who still needed to be looked after by a woman. He might find it embarrassing.

Li Chi called out in the direction Gao Xining had run: “You little thief — stop right there!”

Xiahou Yili was still running. But Gao Xining stopped dead — as though Li Chi had worked some magic on her, fixing her in place with an immobilizing spell.

Xiahou Yili was baffled. She looked at Gao Xining in pure disbelief, thinking: *what’s gotten into her? He calls and she just stops?*

“I… I’ll come back.”

Gao Xining lowered her head and walked toward Li Chi, and even when she reached him she didn’t dare look up, eyes fixed on her own feet.

“What did Old Tang mean by all that?”

Li Chi smiled: “Don’t stare at your feet. Your feet aren’t as nice-looking as mine.”

“Oh…”

Gao Xining raised her head to look at Li Chi and said in a very small voice: “I… I didn’t want to interfere in things you men were handling. I only wanted to…”

Li Chi smiled: “Let me guess. After Elder Brother Yu left Jizhou, he left behind a hundred men — and it was you who asked for them?”

Gao Xining: “Mm…”

Li Chi said: “Let me guess again. You gathered everyone to help train those hundred men, aiming to turn them into capable fighters in every respect?”

Gao Xining nodded again: “Mm…”

Li Chi raised his hand and lightly rapped Gao Xining on the head: “I did think something seemed off… for now we’ll keep it at a hundred. When the force is larger, I’ll select another group to come in. They won’t have to obey even my orders — but they must obey yours.”

Gao Xining’s eyes lit up. She looked at Li Chi. “You’re not upset that I overstepped?”

In truth, for a young woman of this age, there was often a trace of self-doubt buried inside — because women were never permitted to take part in important affairs.

They were allowed only to stand behind their men and handle the small, trivial, tedious things; and if they dared try to involve themselves, they were told they lacked sense, lacked virtue.

Li Chi said earnestly: “I’m entirely under your management. Doesn’t that make you quite impressive?”

Gao Xining grinned — then suddenly put on a stern expression. “Then why did you just hit me?”

Li Chi: “Er…”

Gao Xining said: “You have five breaths.”

Li Chi was gone in an instant.

Gao Xining began searching the ground around her, casting about here and there, thinking to herself: Yun-yin Mountain is lovely in every way — except it’s too clean. How is there not even a clod of dirt to be found anywhere?

—

Four days later.

They had been at Yun-yin Mountain for seven days now, and the time had come to leave and return to Jizhou. The whole party bid farewell to Shen Rujun and the others.

At that moment, Shen Ruzan arrived. She had the same unhurried, effortless air as always — changed into a different outfit, though still nothing costly.

Compared to the other young women of the Immortal Crane Divine Palace, her clothing had a rustic, pastoral quality — a wide hemp skirt, cut loose and flowing.

Yet at the waist it was gathered just so, drawing out every line of a slender waist. Her upper half wore a matching loose hemp short jacket.

The skirt had pockets too — she walked with both hands tucked into them, ambling forward with a touch of languid ease.

Her first glance fell on Dantai Qi in the distance. Her second glance went to Tang Pidi. Her third glance went to Li Chi.

Apparently finding nothing especially remarkable, she quickly moved her gaze away — but not long after, as though slightly curious, her eyes drifted back and rested on Li Chi’s face for a careful second look.

Li Chi hadn’t noticed. But Gao Xining had.

This young girl — normally utterly unafraid of beautiful young women drawing near to Li Chi — felt a sudden surge of enormous alertness.

Because she realized that this senior sister carried a bearing that simply defied description. Her face could not be called devastatingly beautiful in the conventional sense — yet somehow she simply *was* beautiful, with no accounting for why.

And there was a sense of pressure to it.

When the group departed from Yun-yin Mountain and the Immortal Crane Divine Palace, Gao Xining politely invited Shen Ruzan to ride in the carriage. Shen Ruzan shook her head, smiled lightly, and said: “I’ll take my own.”

Then, to everyone’s astonishment, from a distance, several mounted young women and one very fine carriage came forward.

They did not draw close — they waited at a distance. Shen Ruzan walked over in that same unhurried way, and those several young women immediately dismounted and bowed to her.

Everyone was at a loss.