Fate Unraveled

CHAPTER

2

UNDERSTAND

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Awareness came as gently as a sucker punch.

Eyes flew open to a brightening sky and then shut themselves just as quickly. Jieyuan jerked up halfway into a sitting position before lying back down. His head throbbed as if a jagged blade had been repeatedly rammed into it. Groaning, he fully turned his body over so that his back faced the sky, then pushed himself off the ground, slowly. Already he could feel the headache letting up, receding like water down a drain.

He pushed himself into a kneeling position, legs folded into themselves. There he stayed, taking slow and steady breaths, as he waited for the headache to pass.

“Jieyuan?”

A woman’s voice. Melodious, mellow, but strong and resonant.

He opened his eyes. A woman was standing in front of him. A beautiful one, so much so it beggared belief. Meiyao. Brown hair that cascaded in thick waves down her shoulders. Green eyes that neither jade nor emerald could hope to measure up to. A face straight out of a masterwork painting. A body with such unreasonable curves that they drew the eye despite the thick ruby robes draped over them, robes that would give any other woman a man’s straight lines.

After the couple of missions they’d had together, Jieyuan had thought he’d gotten used to the sight of her. But seeing her cast in the soft glow of the morning sun, framed by a crimson curtain of fatebloom blossoms above, had him staring, struck dumb, even if just for a moment. Then his gaze drifted past her, to where a man was standing. Impossibly tall, built like a fortress, marble skin cut into sharp lines like a statue chiseled to perfection and given life. Daojue. Handsome like Meiyao was beautiful, but cold where she was warm.

The two fit each other like gold and diamonds.

Jieyuan felt the sharp, biting burst of envy scorch him with uncomfortable familiarity. Then he noticed Meiyao was looking at him, expectant, and starting to frown. “I’m fine,” he said. Absently, he gathered some of his chroma using his soulforce and sent a burst of it to his cleansing ring. An unseen pulse of power issued out from the ring, and all the dirt and blood on his body and robes—anything he’d consider unclean—vanished, leaving him good as new. It left him with a refreshing, wakeful sensation, and he felt a bit more lively and clear-headed. “Just give me a moment.”

He stood up, taking a look around. The headache from before was already mostly gone. He was in the Fatebloom Woods. In a clearing. Last night’s events came to him. He’d seen a dust beacon, ran over, and then…

His eyes fell on the headless corpse on the other side of the glade, a bloodstained shroud half-wrapped around what remained of the neck. A head lay a few feet away from it, the bloody, gaping stump of the neck facing him, a gory jumble of dark red flesh and blood with a hint of white bone. He looked down and saw that his spear was by his feet, its blade darkened by dried blood.

“I arrived not long after everything was over.” Meiyao stepped up beside him, facing the same direction. “I got you away from the corpse, moved you over to this side.” Her gaze turned to him. “What happened, anyway? Daojue said you fell unconscious right after he vanished the Cultivator’s Agony in you.”

Jieyuan recalled the headache that had suddenly struck him, and the sheer confusion that had come along with it. That abrupt, overwhelming rush of memories and thoughts and ideas. “I’m not sure.”

Even as he said so, a name rose to the forefront of his mind. Just as with the headache, the confusion that had come over him last night was now mostly passed, but beneath the surface level of his mind occupied by his thoughts there was a chaotic simmer of memories.

Amyas.

Amyas Auclair.

That was the key to all of this, the one thing that linked everything together. And it was also the trigger. He could feel the weight of the thoughts and memories that had invaded his head last night, currently calm, simmering beneath awareness, but ready to explode into another raging, mind-shattering storm.

And it was a storm that he couldn’t afford to set off right now. It’d have to wait until he’d gone over last night’s matters with Daojue and Meiyao and figured out what to do about this whole situation. He felt keenly aware of the presence of Rongkai’s corpse just at the corner of his vision.

“Daojue filled me in on most of what happened last night,” Meiyao said. “Rongkai tracked him down, used a dust beacon infused with Cultivator’s Agony, then tried to use his realmskill to make him kill himself. Then you arrived, and together the two of you killed Rongkai.”

“That sounds about right,” Jieyuan said. He looked over to Daojue, who remained standing where he was, silently observing them. “How did that all come about, anyway? Some kind of feud with Rongkai?”

“No,” Daojue said, impassive. He didn’t add anything to that. Not that Jieyuan had expected him to.

Daojue was hardly the type to volunteer information. Or to speak anything beyond what was strictly necessary. If even that. “But do you have any idea why Rongkai would try and kill you?” Jieyuan pressed.

Daojue fixed him with one of his undecipherable, stony stares. It lasted so long that Jieyuan thought that his question would go unanswered, but Daojue eventually broke the building silence. “Qingshi is involved.”

“Qingshi,” Jieyuan repeated, confused. “As in, Dajinzhi Qingshi? The prime disciple?”

Jieyuan knew Qingshi, even if only by name. He doubted there was anyone in the Gleaming Stone Sect who didn’t, and one of the first things that Jieyuan had done after being inducted into the sect was go looking for rumors to get a feel for the lay of the land. Qingshi was considered by many the strongest prime disciple of the sect, and his master, Luoyefen Taishou, was the head of the Justice Bureau, making him the most influential of the sect’s prime elders. He hadn’t heard about any scandals involving either of them. Both had spotless reputations. But Jieyuan couldn’t see Daojue lying or even claiming something he wasn’t absolutely certain about.

“Yes,” Daojue confirmed.

Jieyuan glanced at Meiyao. She wore a frown but didn’t look all that surprised or skeptical. That gave some credence to Daojue’s words. Jieyuan had heard she was close friends with Liangshibai Yunzhu, the daughter of Elder Taishou, Qingshi’s master. And Yunzhu, in turn, was rumored to be close with Qingshi. Lovers-close. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume Meiyao knew Qingshi through Yunzhu, that she’d at least met Qingshi before, so her lack of surprise at Daojue’s accusation was telling.

And Meiyao had grown up in the Inner Court. She’d know its chips and cracks better than most. It hadn’t taken Jieyuan long after joining the sect to find out just who exactly Linzushen Meiyao was, but he still had to remind himself at times that she was royalty in all but name. That she was the daughter of the sect leader of the Gleaming Stone Sect, even if rumor had it the two had a falling out and had been estranged for a while now.

“All right, then. And how exactly is Qingshi involved?” Jieyuan asked. “Wait, no. How do you even know he’s involved, anyway? Did Rongkai tell you something?”

Daojue gave him another drawn-out stare, but this time no answer came even after a long while. Jieyuan hadn’t interacted much with Daojue over the past few months—only as much as the missions they went on together required, really—but he’d already cottoned onto Daojue’s unique approach to speaking. Or rather, not speaking, like he was so far above you he didn’t need to explain himself.

Seeing no answer was forthcoming, Jieyuan searched his memories again. The biggest question here was why exactly Qingshi would want Daojue dead. He recalled hearing that Qingshi’s master, Elder Taishou, had offered multiple times to apprentice Daojue. Maybe that had to do with it. Maybe Qingshi had taken exception to his master’s interest in another disciple and decided to do something about it. Qingshi’s reputation didn’t suggest he was capable of arranging murder over something as petty as that, but Jieyuan knew better than to underestimate envy and jealousy. He knew first-hand just how powerful they could be, just how far they could compel you to go.

As quickly as that idea took shape inside his head, though, Jieyuan found it unraveling, falling apart. Because even if Qingshi’s master had shown an interest in Daojue and offered to apprentice him a couple of times, Daojue had turned down all those offers. Anyone could tell that Daojue had no intention of staying in the sect, that he’d be accepting the scouting offer he’d no doubt get in the Radiant Gold Summit. Whereas Qingshi, who had accepted Elder Taishou’s offer of apprenticeship, would be sticking around. Qingshi had even already refused recruitment in the Summit once, five years ago. So even if Qingshi was jealous of his master’s interest in Daojue, even if he felt that Daojue was a threat to his position, all he needed to do was wait a little while, and Daojue would be out of his hair, out of sight and out of mind.

“Let’s shelve the Qingshi issue for now, then,” Jieyuan said. He didn’t bother pressing Daojue for an answer. He reckoned he’d have an easier time getting a merchant to swear off backroom dealings. Daojue’s alignment was as clear as Jieyuan’s own. Only in a Metalsoul did you see such a lovely marriage of apathy and obstinacy. “What do we do? Our leader for the mission is dead, and by this time we should’ve already been nearing the sect.”

For a second-sign redsoul, the Fatebloom Woods were only a few hours’ journey from the Gleaming Stone Sect on foot if they set a brisk pace, and they should’ve started on their way back today at daybreak.

“The sect will notice our absence soon and send an elder over,” Meiyao said. She glanced up at the sky, past the red canopy of interweaving treetops. “I’d say we have about an hour or so before that happens.”

Jieyuan nodded toward the corpse. “And what do we do about that?”

“Hmmm? Nothing.” Meiyao looked amused. “What? Did you think killing Rongkai would get you and Daojue in trouble with the sect?”

“Well, yes? I mean, he was an inner disciple.” Back in the sect, in the Outer Court, inner disciples were universally viewed with a healthy dose of respect and dread. Outer disciples for the most part were little more than glorified servants of the sect. Inner disciples were the true disciples—the ones the sect actively raised, the ones who’d go on to become elders. If an inner disciple murdered an outer disciple, they would probably get a slap on the wrist at the worst. The same couldn’t be said about the reverse.

Meiyao scoffed. “Rongkai was an unapprenticed inner disciple, and just a third-sign redsoul at that. If you and Daojue were average outer disciples, then yes, you’d be right to worry, but you aren’t. You two are guaranteed to be scouted in the Radiant Gold Summit two months from now, even if you’re just outer disciples. I’d say that in the sect’s eyes the three of us are worth about as much as core disciples, if not even more so.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “There’s no doubt what the outcome of this will be. An elder will come, you and Daojue will tell them what happened, and that’ll be the end of it. If anything, they’ll offer to take us back to the sect on their cloudcraft to save us the time.”

“If you say so.” Jieyuan let the matter lie. Meiyao would know better about such things than he did. “What about Qingshi?”

Meiyao didn’t answer immediately. She frowned. “Even… Even if he did have something to do with this, it doesn’t matter. Not at this point, at least.” She gave Daojue a nod. “I wouldn’t mention him if I were you. An accusation like that, if you don’t have any proof, would complicate things. It’d be troublesome even if you did have proof. Qingshi’s no Rongkai. He actually matters.”

“I won’t,” Daojue said, promptly and simply.

Even though Daojue said no more, even though he showed no outward reaction, Jieyuan could guess what he was thinking. Daojue wanted to handle this matter on his own terms. In his place, Jieyuan would’ve wanted the same. Matters of revenge required a personal touch, a hands-on approach. Hands-on-the-spear, hands-on-the-throat, or however else you felt like doling out retribution.

“Then that leaves only one matter.” Meiyao reached into a pocket on the side of her robes and produced something small and violet. She tossed it to Jieyuan.

Jieyuan caught it. Frowning, he raised the little object to his eyes, and it glistened between his metal-covered fingers. It was a little thing, prism-shaped, about the size of a thumbnail. As he had his fullgauntlets on, he couldn’t comment on its texture, but the look of it—uniform, smooth, and opaque, like color given shape and form—was the same as that of physicalized chroma.

He knew of something that was supposed to look like that, of a miniature chroma prism even smaller than a shard. But that couldn’t be right. Because the color of what he was holding right now was violet. A rich, deep violet. Tenth-shade violet. Meaning it was made from tenth-density violet chroma. Meaning that what he was holding was a violet skill seed, the physicalized form of a violet realmskill.

“It was on Rongkai’s chest, under his clothes,” Meiyao said. “Based on what Daojue said, I assumed Rongkai had used a realmskill to paralyze him, so he’d have left behind a skill seed with his passing. And he did. Except…”

“It’s violet,” Jieyuan finished for her. “This is a violet skill seed.”

And that was ludicrous.

Red skill seeds were already plenty rare in a Redsoul sect. Violet skill seeds were five realms above it. Something like this had no business being here—being on this island, even. The highest-realm cabal in Incandescent Serenity Island, the Incandescent Serenity Sect, was just a Yellowsoul sect. Jieyuan didn’t have a perfect grasp on chromal economics yet, but if the worth of a skill seed was proportional to its realm, then what he had in his hand was worth more than their entire island—than all of its cabals combined—and then some more. It might be worth multiple Yellowsoul islands, even.

He forced himself to look away from the skill seed and saw that Meiyao was staring at it like it was a puzzle she couldn’t quite solve.

“Just… How?” Jieyuan said.

“Rongkai must’ve come across it at some point by chance,” Meiyao said, though she didn’t sound or look sure. “Other than through some ridiculous stroke of luck, I can’t see how he could’ve gotten his hands on something like that.”

Jieyuan couldn’t think of any other possibilities either, but he wasn’t thinking all that straight right now. He was still busy trying to come to terms with the sheer magnitude of what he had between his fingers. He felt like he was holding all the world’s gold. “So what do we do about it?”

“You and Daojue dealt with Rongkai, so it makes sense for it to go to one of you. I already asked Daojue, and he isn’t interested. So it’s yours.”

“Mine?” Jieyuan blinked, bewildered. Then he stared up at Daojue, uncomprehending. “Wait. You passed up on it?”

Daojue remained silent, but met and held his gaze evenly. In Daojue speak, that was a yes.

“What— Why— Do you already have a realmskill?” If Jieyuan’s old man could see him right now, he’d be in for some furious strangling, with his old man screaming at him that when fortune gave you a wink and a smirk, you stayed quiet, thanked the Heavens, and only later let yourself wonder what the catch was.

But still. Not interested. That was what Meiyao said Daojue’s reaction to the violet skill seed had been. Not interested? Not interested?

Silence met his question. Daojue looked away—not shiftily, not like he had something to hide, but naturally, like the conversation was over. It wasn’t even like Daojue was pretending he hadn’t heard him, like he was feigning obliviousness. It was hearing the question, acknowledging it, and simply deciding not to answer.

Jieyuan paid Daojue’s charming manners no mind. “Well. All right.” He’d never heard any rumors about Daojue already having a realmskill of his own, but in light of everything, it was safe to assume he did. That still wouldn’t be enough to explain Daojue’s lack of interest in the skill seed, though. Daojue was sure to reach Orangesoul eventually, and he’d be able to assimilate another realmskill then. And that was assuming he didn’t trade the violet skill seed away or sell it for a fortune.

Meiyao’s lack of greed was just as baffling. It hardly mattered that reason dictated it should go to either him or Daojue for killing Rongkai, as she’d put it. This was the kind of thing entire cabals went to war over. In the first place, she’d said she was the one who found the skill seed. Most people, he was sure, would’ve hidden it and pretended to have come up empty, that Rongkai hadn’t had a realmskill after all or that if he had had one for some reason it hadn’t appeared after his death.

“Of course,” Meiyao went on to say, “you two shouldn’t mention Rongkai’s use of his realmskill yesterday. That’s not one of the sect’s realmskills, so the elder might ask to take a look, and there’s no way of telling what would happen if they saw it was a violet skill seed.”

“Right.” Jieyuan had a pretty good idea of what would happen. The normal, expected, perfectly reasonable reaction would be for the elder to kill them on the spot, take the skill seed, and make a run for it.

Daojue didn’t reply, but he wasn’t looking away anymore, so at least he was listening.

“Then all that’s left is to wait,” Meiyao said. She gave them both a brief nod, then walked a few steps over to the nearest tree and sat under its shade, back to the trunk, closing her eyes.

Jieyuan made for the tree beside hers, while Daojue headed for the next one over. Meiyao and Daojue would no doubt use the time to cultivate. Jieyuan normally would have done the same, but there was something else he needed to do first. He set aside the matter of the skill seed and Meiyao’s and Daojue’s reactions to it. Right now, he had a much more pressing concern. Unscrambling his mind.

Jieyuan felt for the chroma imbuing his soul, the cluster of pulsing, infinitesimally small red particles, and then grasped it with his soulforce, fully stilling them. The chroma ceased pulsing, its rhythm killed, and its pent-up power spread out around him in the form of stilled-space, encompassing his body and everything he had on him.

He didn’t know how long this would take, but the sooner he got this over with, the better, and this way he could reduce the time taken in plain-space to a quarter of it.

Bracing himself, Jieyuan recalled the name that had come to him last night.

Amyas Auclair.

As he focused on the name, he felt the swirl of memories that had come to him last night broiling, rising, filling up his awareness. The headache returned, but it was more of a quiet, irritant drone now, and there was none of that overwhelming, rampant confusion from before. Steadying his breath, establishing control, Jieyuan concentrated on the first of the memories swimming in the sea of his mind, like plucking a fish out of a running river.

As he grasped the memory, it flashed past in his mind’s eye as a brief instant of grounding realization. He didn’t so much as experience the memory as he remembered it. It settled into his conscious like slotting a piece into a great machine, perfectly falling into place.

It was a memory of a thirteen-year-old Amyas Auclair at school, sitting on a bench by the entrance gate, waiting for his sister, Maeva, to pick him up, wondering why she was taking so long, and then finding out later her boyfriend had had an accident.

Jieyuan frowned as he turned the memory over and around in his head, poking and prodding out. As natural as it felt, a great many things about the memory struck him as odd, if not outright alien. School? Boyfriend? He concentrated further on the memory until he could see the empty streets stretching past him in Amyas’s perspective, feel the hardness of the bench underneath, the chill of the afternoon air. Coloring his perception were Amyas’s feelings and thoughts, the latter in a language unlike anything else he’d ever heard before, a mishmash of utterly alien sounds, but one he was somehow perfectly fluent in.

Only growing more confused, Jieyuan pulled himself from the memory and let it fade away, then reached for another. This one was of an even younger Amyas, eleven years old now, bringing home his school report card to his parents and being summarily ignored while they discussed with his sister her grades. Jieyuan lingered on it for a moment. The envy that welled up inside Amyas at the sight of his parents so concerned with his sister felt awfully familiar to him. The biting, burning feel of it, the need to do better, to be better, it all rang painfully, vividly true.

Bringing himself back, Jieyuan moved to the next memory, this one of an even earlier time. Amyas, nine years old, visiting his grandparents with his parents and sisters, with more of his family gathered in his grandparents’ old, massive house than he’d ever seen before. Everyone crowding around his sister, asking her questions, praising her, while he hung to the side, forgotten, tongue-tied, bitter, resigned. Again, despite all the oddities surrounding the memories, all the things that didn’t make sense, Jieyuan felt perfectly at home inside Amyas’s skin, perfectly himself wearing Amyas’s perspective.

Jieyuan didn’t linger long in this particular memory, or in the ones that followed. He took them all in, assimilating them one after the other, flowing from one memory to the next. He’d leave all the thinking and pondering for later, forcing himself not to draw any conclusions until he was done and had the full picture to work with. Two months as a cultivator—of enduring the Pain and Communing with the Heavens—had done wonders to his control over his own mind.

Amyas Auclair came together inside his mind like a painting, each memory a brushstroke. Getting into rhythm, entire months of Amyas Auclair’s life went by in a flash, long stretches of time marked by only a handful or so of standout moments with the rest being more of an understated awareness of the happenings in that period.

And then he was taking in Amyas’s very last memory, and this one Jieyuan fully immersed himself in like he’d done with the first few memories. He was in Amyas’s bedroom. He could picture it all vividly in his mind’s eye. A square room with pastel white walls, a bed tucked into a corner with a large window on the wall beside it and a large bookcase filled with books across it, a small desk by the bookcase.

He was sitting on Amyas’s bed, back against the wall, a law school textbook propped on his bunched knees. Amyas’s phone was on the bed next to him, and he was glancing at it, expecting it to start ringing at any moment. Amyas’s sister Maeva had told him the day before she’d call around this time and that she’d have some big news to share. Amyas hadn’t known what the news would be, but Maeva wasn’t the type to blow things out of proportion. Big news meant big news. She was supposed to be at work, but he suspected that that was a lie and that she was at the hospital. She and her husband Qiyun had been trying for a baby for a while now, and he had a feeling that any moment now she’d be calling to tell him he was an uncle now.

But the call never came and Amyas never found out what the big news was, because that was where the memory ended. Amyas glancing at his phone, wondering and hoping and dreading. Amyas’s very last memory.

Jieyuan leaned back against the tree he sat under. With the last of Amyas’s memories assimilated, the headache vanished, and Jieyuan finally let himself consider Amyas Auclair in full.

A fatebloom blossom drifted down in front of him. He hadn’t stopped soul-stilling, so the flower’s descent was slow, drawn-out, as if it were underwater. He placed his hand under it, letting it land on the tip of his metal-wrapped fingers. Golden core, emerald stalk, and bloodred petals with little, vein-like lines of gold and green.

Amyas Auclair would’ve thought it a bizarrely colored cherry blossom. Flowers came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, even mundane ones, so Amyas wouldn’t have been too taken aback by the sight of it. But Amyas wouldn’t have believed if someone had told him that this flower had chromal properties—Amyas wouldn’t have even known what chromal was—and that it could be refined into chromal pills. Amyas Auclair had grown up in a different world, a world without chroma, without cultivators. A world entirely composed of mundanes. A world called Earth.

Somehow, though, Amyas Auclair was no stranger to Jieyuan. Rather, Amyas couldn’t be any more familiar to him. Even though they’d grown up in completely different worlds, even though they’d led completely different lives, Jieyuan could tell that he and Amyas were, impossibly, the same person. Amyas’s memories felt as true as his own, and the way they saw the world, the way they felt, their essence—it was all one and the same. Going through Amyas’s memories had been like peering through some bizarre looking-glass, a vivid showing of a could-have-been, of what his life would’ve been like if he’d been born on Earth rather than in the Chromajie.

Jieyuan let go of the fatebloom blossom, letting it drift down to the ground. He slowly exhaled, thoughts and ideas that before today would’ve seemed ludicrous now twisting and turning in his head. Before yesterday, Jieyuan had never even heard of planets or universes, and the closest thing he’d had to cosmology was the division of the Chromajie into the Firmament above, the Expanse below, and the Void beyond. He’d never heard about worlds other than the Chromajie—or about there being anything beyond the Chromajie, really. But there was plenty in Amyas’s memories about alternate realities, even if Amyas had known those mostly as something that belonged in fiction, and as far as Jieyuan could tell, that was what he was dealing with here. It could even be that he’d been Amyas in a previous life, that he was Amyas’s reincarnation. That, at least, was a concept Jieyuan had been familiar with even before getting Amyas’s memories. People died, and their souls were caught by the Silver Stream and cleansed by its current before being carried off into a new body.

Jieyuan combed through Amyas’s memories and his own recollections of the previous night for clues and answers. Nothing stood out. It was like going through a decade’s worth of half-assed ledgers. Too many possibilities, too many unknowns, too many uncertainties. He couldn’t tell anything for certain, because there just weren’t enough grounds for any measure of certainty. And so it was with frustration-fueled practicality and the looming threat of another headache that Jieyuan decided he didn’t care. That what exactly Amyas was in relation to him wasn’t important. That the similarities between the Chromajie and Earth weren’t important, either, or how closely the Chromajie resembled the setting of some fictional works from Earth. He could spend all day wondering about the nature of the Chromajie and what exactly its connection to Earth was, and he wouldn’t get anywhere. Dwelling on those matters any further wouldn’t serve any purpose.

There are more things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. The thought surfaced from the pool of Amyas’s memories, as naturally as if it’d come from Jieyuan’s own. It served him well enough. There was plenty Jieyuan didn’t know about the world—or worlds, as it was—and he had no problem with leaving it at that for now. Setting those matters aside, one thing stood out to him about this whole situation. One likely lead.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jieyuan observed Daojue. His teammate sat under the next tree over to his left, just at the edge of his soulsense. Jieyuan couldn’t see ambient chroma as it currently was, physically intangible, but it was perceptible to his soulsense. It flowed into Daojue’s body, disappearing into his soul—a red orb sitting at the center of Daojue’s chest, taking up most of his rib cage. Jieyuan was only half-seeing, perceiving color, volume, and shape on a chromal and spiritual level rather than a physical one.

Focusing on Daojue’s soul with his soulsense, Jieyuan felt its unique spiritual signature, its spirit-song. Like all soul spirit-songs, it was a marriage of sound and sight, melody and impression. Daojue’s was a steady, intense melody, resounding in a lofty mountain peak. The sight of it was diamond-clear and chisel-sharp in his mind’s eye, uncapped steel-gray zenith rising imperiously towards the Heavens as a wordless song rang, echoing, in cold, rigid patterns.

Jieyuan looked away and off into the blood-red canopy above. Daojue was part of the puzzle. Amyas’s memories had come to him right after Daojue had used a chromal pulse to vanish the Cultivator’s Agony working on him. Jieyuan would bet good, solid gold that was no coincidence.

All three of them—Meiyao, Jieyuan, and Daojue—had turned out to have fourth-order heavenly affinity, wildly unlikely and unprecedented as that may be, so for the past three months they’d had everyone’s eyes on them. It was Daojue that others focused on the most, though. Everything about Daojue stood out like gold among copper. Statue-perfect looks and violet eyes, mysterious origins nobody had a clue of, unmatched martial prowess. Some people had an air of mystery about them, but Daojue was shrouded by a thick, impenetrable fog of it, like some sort of enigma incarnate.

With all the mysteries that already surrounded Daojue, what was one more?

Reaching into his pocket, Jieyuan took hold of the skill seed. Its little sharp edges dug into the skin of his fingers. That was another thing. Daojue passing up on it? Just more fuel to the fire, just more gold to the business. It was hardly the case that Daojue was just being careful, that he was afraid of holding onto something that precious and the dangers that’d come with that. Daojue wasn’t the sort to fret over things like that. Daojue was sheer, unflinching confidence, the type that left no room for silly little things like caution and prudence. If Daojue said he wasn’t interested, Jieyuan reckoned it was safe to take that as the Heavens’ own truth.

Jieyuan rolled the skill seed around in his fingers as he sat up straighter. He was onto something here. He could feel it. Taste it. See it, almost, in the lines of the crimson blossoms and golden branches hanging far above. There was an opportunity here, dangling right before his eyes. Thinking only served a purpose insofar as it was a prelude to doing, so instead of racking his brain over things he could do nothing about, Jieyuan focused on how he could put to use what had happened and the things he now knew. All questions and doubts, all unknowns and uncertainties, set aside.

Eighteen years’ worth of memories didn’t just suddenly pop up in your head for no rhyme or reason, and Daojue was somehow part of it. It wasn’t just one mystery Jieyuan was dealing with. There was the Amyas Mystery, the mystery of how Amyas’s memories had ended up in his head and of what exactly Amyas was to him. Then there was the Daojue Mystery, the mystery of all the oddities surrounding Daojue, of his origins and abilities and violet eyes. And finally there was the mystery of how those two circumstances were related—of what role Daojue had played in him regaining Amyas’s memories—and of the connection between the Chromajie and Earth. Even Rongkai’s skill seed was part of it. The mystery of how everything tied into each other, like the strands making up a weave.

He recalled that one time he’d visited the Haoyujin textile mill, one of his family’s businesses, with the great wooden looms being operated by his family’s workers, rolls of yarn being unraveled into curtains of stretched strands and woven into fabric.

That image lingered in Jieyuan’s mind’s eye, shifting into something more, taking a different form. A weave… The Weave Mystery. The Amyas and Daojue Mysteries as strands, and the Weave Mystery as the sum of them, the strands woven together by some unseen loom.

And it was in that unseen loom, he realized, growing suddenly still, where the opportunity lay. The realization didn’t come like a shock, didn’t strike him like lightning, but came together inside like fog congealing into water, like a faint impression turning tangible. Like a foregone conclusion, like an unearthed truth.

Jieyuan let go of the skill seed, clenched his hands. A familiar fire started inside him. Yesterday, he’d wondered what he was doing wrong—why he’d yet to reach Daojue’s and Meiyao’s level—and what he could do to fix it. Or at least he’d been about to before he’d been interrupted by the sight of the dust beacon. Now, he might have just found a lead, even if he wasn’t clear on the details yet. Whatever had happened last night clearly involved powers beyond him, workings he couldn’t even begin wrapping his head around. He was caught up in something that might be beyond even the realm of violetsouls, who supposedly stood at the top of the world. He had to know more, to get further involved, to pursue this matter. Wherever it led was where he wanted to go.

Jieyuan glanced back at Daojue. His teammate was still meditating under the next tree over to his left, cultivating, just as he’d been when Jieyuan had last stolen a look at him, wholly unaware of the thoughts running through Jieyuan’s head, of the fire raging inside him.

Whatever was happening, whatever the Weave Mystery was, Jieyuan was certain Daojue was involved. If Jieyuan wasn’t already part of it, then he wanted in. Daojue was his one lead, and that meant Jieyuan would be sticking around his teammate for the foreseeable future.

Greatness lay ahead, almost within reach, tantalizing like glistening gold, and if it wouldn’t come to him, Jieyuan would go and seize it, take it by any means necessary. He’d make something of himself, something great, something for the ages.

And may the Heavens bear witness.