Mingtian sat on the roof of the library and watched the stars wheel by, that vast disk of heaven slowly turning overhead in its solemn revolution. A beautiful trick of perspective. He could feel it because he was it— each and every little star, those glimmering silver motes of dust affixed to the aegis of heaven’s embrace— the shine of those tiny teardrops. Pinpricks of light, each bleeding that radiance, blood his own— immortal and infinite and unquenchable. Young. In many ways, for all Aurelia felt like an old world from his grounded perspective, it was to the heavens a young soul, cast adrift in a vast and uncaring cosmos. It was the people of the realm who cared about the whole expanse of it, not the whole expanse of it which cared about the people— it watched on, cold and cool and ancient, and younger than him— and yet infinitely further removed than he was, then.

A cup of tea sat placidly in his hands, amber drink reflecting in placid inky darkness that blood-of-himself, stellar array. Wafts of steam lazily curled off its surface, swirling up into the gloom, carrying with them his thoughts on a successful task. Lily had graduated. Avyr had made it all the way through a school that had once shunned him, now loved him— he’d guided them like a good teacher, and now… it was done. The work was complete. It was finished.

It didn’t feel finished.

He sipped his tea.

It felt… nostalgic.

He leaned back, sighing softly and watching his breath catch on the steam and send it eddying off into the night’s far distance. “I know you’re there.” There was one thing so far yet unresolved— “you might as well come out. I even have more tea, if you want.”

“I know you don’t.” He summoned a cup of tea into his hands and watched with no small satisfaction as the newly-revealed Zhihu’s eyes widened in repressed surprise. “Fine, then. What type of tea is it?”

“Jasmine.”

“Ooh, Jasmine.” Whatever authority and honor a disciple of a great sect should comport themselves with, Zhihu ignored it readily enough as she settled down beside him, tucking her robe underneath her and shifting so smoothly to make sure the sword at her waist didn’t catch on anything. “I’m a fan. Too many people think that zhengshan xiaozhong is the best thing ever. Even people in the sect.”

“Should you be so easily speaking ill of your sect to an outsider?”

She shrugged, and sipped at his tea. “Probably not, but we’re not the Empire of Nine— actually, where did you get this tea? It’s great!” The Celestial Realm, but she didn’t need to know that. Nor did she need to know how annoying it had been to brew just jasmine tea, and not some heavenly treasure version. “Anyways. I’ll be fine. You…”

“You know,” he stared, then paused, leaving the air open. Heavy between them, an almost physical thing— an ostensibly mortal and an outer disciple of the greatest sects on the greatest worlds of the entire realm. The difference in status between them was large enough to almost be comical. In both respects.

Zhihu gave him a long, hard look before glancing over at the academy building behind them, now silent with the coming of night. It would remain that way, more or less, for the rest of the summer months, just like it had last time. “I really do wonder how far your students will manage to go. The University program— for those who seek admittance into the sect, at least— is notoriously difficult. I remember being stressed out of my mind most of the time I was there, and I had a lot of backing that they won’t.”

It was a clear deflection, but he followed along. No use denying pleasant conversation when it was offered. “She’ll be fine. She’s tenacious like that.”

“And the cat?”

“Avyr…” he was convicted, as convicted as Lily, but… of a different, more temperate kind. It would not be unfair to say that of the two of them, glancing between their chosen paths, Lily had the greater potential. “He seeks the way of mysterious understanding. Anyone who underestimates him is bound to eventually come to a rude awakening.”

Zhihu hummed thoughtfully. “One can only hope, I guess… I’ve become rather attached to the both of them, and I’d like to see them succeed. I don’t think the Outer Elder will be quite as forgiving as I was, though.”

“Your kindness wasn’t entirely altruistic.”

“How did you know?” The untouched topic between them writhed, intangble and unreal and yet more pressing that a heavy stone— touched, by that one statement, even if only in glancing threatening to undo their whole game.

For a long moment, Mingtian was silent, merely sipping on his tea and looking anywhere but at the Foundation Establishment disciple beside him. Then, quietly… “how did you know?”

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“As perceptive as ever— cutting straight to the heart of the matter. You must understand, Mingtian… as much as you are a truly incredible formations master, you aren’t very subtle. Even if I scanned you as thoroughly as I could, I’d fail to find anything, wouldn’t I?” Of course she would. His veils and seals had been crafted by an Immortal Sovereign. “I thought as much. You didn’t need to show your cultivation to make it obvious you’re a cultivator, though.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I did some digging. On every aspect of your persona… it holds to a surface level glance, at least. Your documents are official enough. The seals are correct, and to a mortal you would be just that— an enigmatic but otherwise harmless traveler from the main continent, with enough skills to make a good librarian and some formation knowledge as the icing on the cake. But it’s not just some formations knowledge, and you’re not just some random mortal.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“Also, you’re homeless.” He winced. Right… “I can see the records, and you live nowhere. It’s bizarre, and the discrepancies don’t end there. You couldn’t possibly pay for the spiritual materials you gave to Lily, and the sect doesn’t report most of them being sold on the open market. You have way too much lunar cold iron.”

He pulled out the cube from his ring and held it out to Zhihu. “You can have some if you want.”

The outer disciple just glared at him. “You won’t be able to distract me with a bribe.” Then she snatched the cube off his hands anyways. “That’s another thing. You’re not even hiding it anymore, but from careful observation I could see when you’d do impossible things like— like making lunar cold iron appear from nothing. It all adds up— the bank records, the strange acquisitions, the silenced assassin, the thousand outer little things that just don’t make sense

— what are you, Leng Mingtian?”

“Mortal.”

“You’re as mortal as I am.”

“Exactly.”

She rolled her eyes, chuckling softly. “Don’t leave me out to dry like this. I put a lot of effort into figuring you out, so won’t you at least tell me this much?”

“I’m secretly an immortal descended from the highest heaven to take a break from the pointlessness of it all by pretending to be a mortal librarian in a no-name city in a random minor realm.”

Zhihu pouted. “At least pretend to give me an honest answer.”

“Why would I tell you the truth?”

“Because I could… I…” she frowned. “That’s a good question, actually.”

“I’m not really as checkmated as you think I am.” He chuckled, then— without unbinding his veils, deftly manipulated a thread of qi into an ephemeral little pseudo-technique to warm up his tea. To Zhihu, the whole thing probably looked like pure, absurd nonsense, and by the appropriately flabbergasted expression on her face, he’d clearly succeeded. “It does explain why you broke into my room, though. I was wondering why you did that.”

“What! How’d you know that was me?”

He swirled the tea in his cup and took another long sip. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the stealthy stealther who snuck into my office and the outer sect disciple who specializes in stealth techniques are the same person. Besides, did you really think that the formations you found were every formation I had?”

“That’s…” then, she laughed, a crystal sound so brightly— “well played. Well played indeed, Mingtian the Mortal. I don’t take it you’d be willing to take a job working for the sect?”

He didn’t respond for a long second. It was tempting, in many respects. Being in a sect, an unremarkable and overlooked and hidden master… it was what he envisioned when he thought of the role. To have that opportunity dangled in front of him… he would not lie and say he wasn’t enticed by it. It would be a simple thing, really— to just say yes, and to slip into the sect as just one more face amongst the elite masses…

Except. He thought back— to Janus, and all his flaws, and all his friendship. The jade that represented that, still sitting in his ring. To Mimi and Lexi and— to Lily and Avyr and the people who knew them, to the students he’d barely gotten a chance to know and to the Precinct he’d just barely started to feel the vastness of, so small, so large in its flung-together web of interrelation. People and people and people— so many faces, so many souls, alive and together—

“I think,” he said quietly, staring up at that far flung heaven above him, at the faint mist curling and swirling and flowing and flying— to sky, to her, to himself— “I’m going to stay here for a while yet. I’m not finished.” Said the immortal, the mortal, the balanced between half hopes and half dreams, and half wonder so steadily replacing that age old apathy—

“See you around, then,” responded the disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect, standing, and— with only the barest whisper of qi, she disappeared.

She took the tea, too.