Chapter 88: TALK OF BLOOD

CHAPTER

88

TALK OF BLOOD

JIEYUAN

—∞—

“I— There are some things—” Meiyao bit her lip, frowning. “I’ve never liked keeping secrets. Not from people I care about. It always felt… wrong. Because if I keep something from someone, it means I don’t trust them. And that isn’t right— Because, I mean— If I care about them—”

She took a deep breath and fell silent. She looked uncomfortable. Frustrated, even, like she couldn’t quite line up the words. There was something else, too—a slight tension, a wariness, in the way she held herself. In the way she looked at him. A sort of uncertainty.

Jieyuan waited, giving her time to settle herself.

Meanwhile, he turned her words over in his head. That thing about secrets—how keeping one meant you didn’t trust someone. He didn’t quite share her view. Maybe that was upbringing—hers shaped by duty and principle, his by margin and leverage. She came from a world where honor still held weight. He came from one where trust was just another kind of currency—spent when needed, never given for free. He could easily think of a dozen reasons to keep a secret from someone, none of which had anything to do with trust.

Still, this was hardly the moment to argue philosophy.

When a minute had passed and Meiyao still hadn’t spoken, though, Jieyuan figured she could use a little nudge.

“Someone you care for?” he offered, brow just barely lifted, tone a touch too dry.

That did the trick.

She snapped right out of it and shot him a glare. “Don’t push it.”

But her eyes lost that pinched edge, lighting up, and her lips twitched like she was fighting back a smile.

Then she lost the fight. A smirk slipped through. She shook her head and let out a breath that could’ve been a laugh.

“I’m making this too complicated. Let’s start over. First—tell me something.”

Her voice dropped low. Given the space she’d put between herself and Daojue, Jieyuan figured she didn’t want him overhearing. This next part especially.

“Do you know what a bloodright is?” she asked. “I know you were close with… with—”

The word caught. She stopped, swallowed. Then set her jaw.

“With Yongyi,” she finished, clipped and flat. Her expression made it clear she had no intention of talking about her half-brother. “Did he ever tell you anything?”

Bloodright. Jieyuan searched his thoughts. Nothing came up. He was pretty sure he’d never heard the term before. He could hazard a guess or two, though, given the context.

“I don’t think so, no.”

Meiyao nodded, like she’d expected it but had asked just in case.

“Then have you ever wondered why the Liangshibai look different?” she asked. “Why they have those gemstone eyes? Why they obsess over gems—and gleamstone, in particular?”

There was a pause, deliberate. Weighted. The kind that said she wasn’t done yet.

Then, slower now, more intent, she asked, “Why I look so different?”

He had. Of course he had. You couldn’t look at the Liangshibai—or at Meiyao—and not wonder what set them apart. The eyes alone were enough—bright and colored, when everyone else’s were pitch-black.

This wasn’t Earth, where people came in all colors and shades. It wasn’t even just about eyes. Meiyao was the first person he’d met whose hair wasn’t black. White skin, black eyes, black hair—that wasn’t just the average palette. It was the rule.

“I imagine it’s got something to do with your…” He fished for the word. One in the local tongue, at any rate. “Bloodline?”

“You’re on the right track,” Meiyao said. “But bloodline’s just your ancestry. What you inherit—that’s called a bloodright. What’s yours by right of blood.”

The way she said it sounded like a quote. Something passed down. Maybe even recited.

“Most people don’t have one. I only know of two. The Linzushen and Liangshibai bloodrights.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Well—three. There should also be a Tianzijun one.”

Jieyuan followed her gaze to Daojue, still seated where they’d left him, at the entrance of the pocket. Eyes closed. Meditating. Still as stone.

“The violet eyes,” Jieyuan said, more to himself than to her. He’d always wondered about their color.

And now, he couldn’t help but think back to what he’d seen when he’d used Fatebloom Sacrifice during the fight in front of the palace—the image that had surfaced beneath Daojue’s form. A man made of blood, silver-crowned, cloaked in violet.

Blood. Bloodright. Violet. Violet eyes.

Not just that. He’d gotten impressions like that—overlapping images—from the Liangshibai and from Meiyao. But not from any of the other cultivators there.

Daojue, Meiyao, the Liangshibai.

What did they have in common?

From the looks of it, a bloodright.

“Yes. But there’s more to it.” Meiyao drew closer, leaning in. “A bloodright’s made up of three things: expressions, reflections, and bloodskills.”

If Jieyuan hadn’t been interested before—and he had been, Meiyao was finally giving him answers to questions that had bothered him for a long time—he was now.

The word skill carried a special weight in cultivation. It was only used for conceptual powers—those that drew directly on Concepts themselves. Realmskill, gearskill, beastskill.

And now, apparently, bloodskill.

“The Liangshibai don’t talk about theirs openly. It’s not a taboo, exactly—they just keep it close. But they’ve studied theirs thoroughly. And so did the Linzushen, before they died out. My mother passed on everything she knew about both. She inherited all the Linzushen’s old records—and she was close to the Liangshibai, so she got a good look at their research, too. Both clans came to the same conclusions.”

She shifted slightly, brushing her fingers over her knee. Her gaze had gone distant—but not detached. More like she was halfway in the past, threading memory alongside the present.

“Expressions,” she began, “are the bloodright’s influence over you. How they shape you. For the Linzushen, that means beauty. Great beauty. Lush beauty. Beauty that draws the eye, whether you want it to or not. My figure—well, you’d know. I’ve seen you stare.”

Jieyuan kept his eyes trained on her face and his mouth shut.

She laughed softly under her breath. “All Linzushen were like me. I’m said to be the mirror image of my mother—cut from the same vine. The men were much the same. Handsome. Powerfully built. Tall, too—both the men and the women. Brown hair’s another trait.”

She touched her arm lightly through the sleeve, almost absently. “But it goes beyond appearance. I’m much stronger, faster than I should be for my build. My body heals quicker, too.”

He’d noticed that. It wasn’t that Meiyao was built slight—not even close. She stood more than an inch over six feet, taller than most men he knew. And there was no such thing as the frailer sex, here. Not metaphorically—literally. Women here were just as strong, just as sturdy as men. They tended to be shorter, didn’t carry as much bulk—but what they lacked in size, they made up for in density. Denser bones, denser strength. Maeva had marveled at that more than once.

Meiyao probably weighed more than he did, even with him standing an inch or two taller. Bloodright or not, she would’ve outmatched him, physically—but not by as much as she actually did. Every time they sparred, he felt like he was trying to block a battering ram.

Jieyuan glanced back at Daojue. Someone else who, like Meiyao, had more power packed into his frame than made sense.

The thing about Daojue was that he looked a lot taller than he actually was. He was tall, but Jieyuan figured the height gap between them was the same as with Meiyao—two, maybe three inches, give or take. It was just that Daojue had this way of towering over people.

Like Meiyao, Daojue would’ve been naturally stronger than him—but not that much. He hit like he was eight feet tall and built to scale.

“…the Liangshibai, it’s their sharp builds, their angular features,” Meiyao was saying, and Jieyuan pulled his focus back to her. “But they’ve got it worse. Their bloodright also affects the mind. Aunt Wanxin told you about the Pull of the Valley, right?”

“She did.” And suddenly that particular conversation made a whole lot more sense.

Meiyao nodded. “The Linzushen bloodright doesn’t have anything like that. There are theories that ours was… well—” She shook her head. “That’s not the point. There’s something I haven’t mentioned yet. The eyes. Because they aren’t an expression, but a reflection. You know how the Liangshibai can turn their eyes mundane? So can I.”

Her eyes darkened—straight from the outside, a wave of black spreading inward, swallowing the green. Until they were entirely black—mundane.

Jieyuan blinked. He’d seen Yongyi do it—but he hadn’t imagined Meiyao could. Her eyes were green—a deep, vibrant green—but not unnatural. By this world’s standards, sure, but not by Earth’s. In his head, he’d always put them in a different category from the Liangshibai gemstone eyes.

He’d never really thought about what Meiyao would look like with mundane eyes, either. And now that he was seeing it… he had to stop himself from frowning. It looked wrong, somehow. Uncanny. Hard to explain—it was just eyes—but they didn’t sit right on her face. Maybe he’d just grown too used to the green.

A moment later, her eyes turned green again. The reverse of before—a ripple of color spreading outward from the pupil until they were back to normal. They looked brighter now, though that was probably just the contrast.

“Reflections are something you can control. They’re… a representation of the bloodright, in a way. A physical one. They also vary according the strength of the bloodright in someone. With the Liangshibai, it’s eye color—ruby, topaz, citrine, sapphire, emerald, amethyst. See, bloodright strength is tied to heavenly affinity. Why Yongyi has—had—” She caught herself, but her voice didn’t falter. “Never mind. You get the idea.”

“I do,” Jieyuan said. Then, more to keep things moving than anything else—keep her from lingering on Yongyi—he asked, “What about the Linzushen?”

Meiyao didn’t answer right away. Her gaze drifted slightly, like she was weighing something—then landed on him again, steady.

“Our eyes don’t change. It’s always this shade of green. We’ve got another reflection, but it’s not something I can show right now.” She gave him a long, unreadable look. Not guarded—more like she was weighing something, watching to see where it landed. “You might get to see it later.” Her tone had gone thoughtful, like she was speaking half to herself.

Then she flicked her hand, brushing the thought aside like it hadn’t meant anything. “The real heart of a bloodright, though, is in the bloodskills. They’re like realmskills, but simpler. Everyone with the same bloodright is born with the same set—but which ones you can use depends on the strength of your bloodright.”

She paused, glancing down as she plucked a strip of bark from her sleeve. The mist curled slow and low around them, and Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice how it clung to her—subtle, glowing, almost like a cloak thrown over her shoulders.

“The Linzushen bloodskills are tied to plants and beasts,” she said. “There are five first-order ones. Ones all Linzushen have.”

Jieyuan sat up straighter.

Everything so far had been interesting, sure—and honestly, Meiyao could’ve talked about the weather until the clouds rolled in, and he’d have stayed to hear what she thought of the rain.

But this was the mother lode. He’d known for a while she had unusual abilities—had seen enough to be sure of that much—but they’d always come piecemeal. Scattered impressions. Now, finally, he could start putting shape to them. Understanding where they came from, what they did, how they worked.

And with any luck, he might even get a sense of what bloodskills Daojue might have, too.