Tian still had a little time before bed. Tian knew what would help him sleep- telling Hong that he had broken through to Level Six before her. It had been worryingly close. Hong said she could break through any day now, and from what Tian could feel of her vital energy, she wasn’t lying. She generally cultivated next to him on the back patio of the hospital. It was fairly quiet (the doctors treating noise in their break area as an offense second only to making more work for them) and comparatively private.

More importantly, it was free. Cultivation chambers on the base provided an optimal cultivation environment, but they cost both spirit crystals and merit points to rent. Hong could afford it, but Tian knew she would much sooner keep the money in her pocket.

“Tsk. Silly little sister. Don’t you know sometimes you must invest to accumulate?” Tian shook his head in a very older-brother way. Then he pulled out Three Lives of the Ocean Striding Murong Family, checked that he remembered the saying properly, and, reassured, tidied himself up for a good gloat.

“This is because I was born before you. Once ahead, always ahead. Not to worry. I will take excellent care of you.” Tian quickly walked towards the Disciplinary Squad offices to ask where he could find his wayward little sister. Who, despite his recent growth spurt, remained a full hands-width taller than him.

He was going to ignore that detail.

She wasn’t at the Squad’s office, but they directed him towards the depot warehouses, where he was again directed (this time by people he knew from visiting Auntie Wu) to a small brick shed around back.

“She said she needed somewhere that could stand up to a lot of heat but was private. We usually stow flammable or explosive reagents in there, if we have any in stock. And we don’t right now. Quartermaster Wu gave her approval.” The warehouse worker explained.

Tian made his way to the shed. It was a quite small building. You certainly couldn’t fit more than one person and plenty of shelves in there. He couldn’t imagine what she was doing in there. It sounded like some kind of crafting, but if that was the case, Hong could have rented the space from a crafter. Besides, she had never mentioned crafting at all. If anything, she was a martial arts nut. She often said that everything was about money, but Tian was sure she didn’t all-the-way believe it.

The shed had a talisman pasted over the door. Nothing complicated, just a simple barrier that would stop a casual push but wouldn’t hold up to real force. They were used to seal boxes a lot. Tian saw them used on medicine shipments in the hospital all the time. It seemed Hong didn’t want to be disturbed.

Tian let his eyes half close, and reached out with Counter Jumper. His skin picked up strong prickles of fire qi, as though it was nibbling at him. There was earth qi there too, though no metal. She was cultivating, and based on the intensity, she was in the middle of something important. Tian smiled, put his back to the door and started meditating. He could wait. He was good at waiting. Sister Hong’s experiment was still ongoing. It might help her if there was a source of wood qi nearby.

It was rather quiet here. The warehouse was noisy, the rest of the depot was damned noisy with people moving in and out every hour of the day. But this little corner was calm. A good meditation spot. He wouldn’t want to be in a little box like Hong, but it was worth remembering. “Free” was a very tempting price, after all.

Tian watched the sun set. The qi behind him was steadily building. Hong would be quite a while longer, it seemed. It was alright. It was an opportunity to train Counter Jumper, focusing on sensing vital energy and qi instead of ground vibrations or hearing. Not that he was skipping over things like sight and sound, it’s just… there was so much. The world was telling him so much, and it took so much effort to sort through everything. It got easier with practice, of course, but that took time.

Tian smiled softly as he stood outside the door to Hong’s cultivation chamber. He had only ever measured time in monsoon seasons, and his age was a guesstimate at best. He had time. And if he was wrong about that? Then he would try again in the next lifetime. But for now, he would keep cheerfully busy, bettering himself.

The qi moved with the breeze, hot and heavy with the lingering desert air. The base defenses screened out the worst of it, and the buildings stopped practically all the rest. Most cultivators wanted pure qi, free of elemental taint. It was universally usable, and even if your cultivation art leaned towards a particular element, too much of it might destabilize your energy circulation.

Tian and Hong were quite fortunate that way- Tian’s art was very steady, and while he didn’t know what Hong’s cultivation art was like, it was clearly perfectly suited for the Redstone Wastes. The shed didn’t feel well shielded to Tian. It was a bare twenty feet from the wall of the Depot. From what he was sensing, Hong was pulling in a bare trickle of the elemental qi along with the purified stuff. A remarkably well thought out cultivation spot.

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Breathing in and out, steadily feeling the qi. Feeling the furnace of Hong’s cultivation, and the faint tremors of the wall behind them. The great barrier of the base shimmering and flexing with each passing breeze. He started to feel a little tingle along the edges of his skin, a faint prickling sensation. He focused on it, trying to identify what it could be. It was slightly familiar, but very faint.

Faint prickles, getting stronger. Like something gently tapping at his skin with individual, and quite stiff, hairs. It reminded him of… gu. Of curses and gu. He focused on the feeling. It was coming from straight ahead. The warehouse. And it was getting closer. Tian opened his eyes slightly. Nothing. Even with Counter Jumper running, he didn’t see anything. He closed his eyes again.

The curse energy was closer now. Much closer. Close enough that he could get a feel of where it was. There was an area roughly the size of a dog in front of him that seemed to radiate prickles. Tian reached up to scratch his head, leaning back against the shed. His hand flicked down sharply, but his hand was empty.

There was a sudden muffled screech, and the sand in front of him twisted. Shimmering like a heat haze. He launched forward, whipping his rope dart around and smashing down on the haze. Blood, black and steaming, sprayed across the sands. The stink was unreal, almost burning his sinuses as the head of the rope dart came back towards him. He made sure it didn’t pass over him. The blood was etching holes in the dirt.

It looked like either a cut down centipede or a stretched out tailless scorpion. He could see twisting patterns running the length of the body. A seamless network of curves and flickering lines, until they were smashed apart by the heavy head of the rope dart. Tian had a momentary flash- the whole thing looked like a sort of paper talisman. Except somehow, the inscription on it was written in the pigment in the insect’s shell.

The gu was shifting around frantically. It tried to run away, but it kept swinging back towards the shed. It wasn’t very fast or particularly agile. It had been designed for stealth and little else, it seemed.

“Enchanted and compelled. Or it’s being directly puppeted. Either way, I can see it now.”

Tian smashed it again, and a third time. It stopped moving. He hit it a fourth time, just to be sure. Tian tried his luck summoning the dart back to his hand. Not a wiggle. Again. He snorted and carefully pulled the dart out. There was very little blood on it. A quick flick, and there was none. He still carefully wiped it with a rag from his storage ring. It would be silly to let it get ruined out of laziness. He ran his energy through the dart, cycling Imperial Heavenly Swallows. Not a hint of damage.

Sister Li did good work.

It seemed Sister Hong had invited enmity from someone. Tian wondered if there wasn’t something nasty around the back patio of the Hospital. He rather doubted it. The doctors liked to rest out there too, and many of them were at the Heavenly Person Level.

The smart thing to do would be to raise the alarm. But it might affect Sister Hong’s breakthrough. He could feel the growing speed of the qi pouring in. She was building up to something. Such breakthroughs, if his senior brothers were to be believed, relied as much on fortune and timing as prior accumulation. Once the moment was lost, it might be lost forever.

But it would be monumentally irresponsible to not alert the depot to infiltrating gu. There was clearly a gap in the defenses, and he really didn’t want to see any of his brothers dying. Sighing, he cupped his hands around his mouth and inhaled deeply. Then slowly exhaled and lowered his hands.

The gu came from the direction of the warehouse. Auntie Wu was the Quartermaster. If it came from the warehouse, she would be held responsible, even if it wasn’t her fault. Tian dithered for a moment, quickly checked for any more gu qi, then rushed into the warehouse. Auntie Wu was in her office, but an officious clerk informed him sternly that she was unavailable.

“Is there someone in there with her?”

“I don’t see how that is any-”

“Then she is available. And needed. Immediately. So get her. Or I will go through you, get her, and then deliver myself to the Disciplinary Squad while writing the apology letter to the hospital for making them more work.”

“You dare!”

Tian looked calmly into the blustering clerks’ eyes. “I do. Do you?”

Auntie Wu came out a few seconds later, her face like a thundercloud. “Surnamed Tian, I may have allowed some excessive familiarity. I will be sure to not make that mistake again.”

“True Disciple may hang me from the rafters for a beating should she wish, but before she does, I would urgently and strongly encourage her to look around back of her warehouse.”

Auntie Wu frowned at him, then vanished. Tian barely caught the blur as she left the warehouse floor. It seemed she cultivated a light body art. He never did find out how far her cultivation had reached. Given that she had studied under Senior Sister Bai, he had always assumed she was in the first level of the Heavenly Person realm, but being the Quartermaster for a front line base was a heavy responsibility. She could be stronger than he thought.

“We are back on friendly terms. You haven’t sounded the alarm?” She appeared in front of him again. Her face was quite calm, but he could hear the creak of tendons in the fists he was sure she was clenching behind her back.

“I did. I told the nearest True Disciple, as the nearest Disciplinary Squad member was indisposed.”

She grinned fiercely. “Our West Town Outer Court really does make heroes with brains. I assume you were acting as Hong’s Dao Protector. Go resume your post. I have it from here. Expect the Disciplinary Squad in a few minutes, and cooperate with them.”

Tian bowed, and did just that. Taking only a moment to fix the clerk with a look before he left.

Putting Tian’s auntie and sister in danger? The little coward was courting death!