Chapter 81: CRYSTAL BLOOD

CHAPTER

81

CRYSTAL BLOOD

YUNZHU

—∞—

Yunzhu wasn’t happy.

Yunzhu was, in fact… She tilted her head as she looked inside her, trying to place the emotion. They weren’t easy things, emotions. They often got away from her and did their own things, and it fell onto Yunzhu to pick up the pieces afterward.

But this time around Yunzhu felt she had it figured out.

Aggrieved.

Yes. That was what she felt. Aggrieved.

She smiled, satisfied. But then she remembered she was aggrieved, so she dropped the smile and put on a frown instead. There.

She stared very aggrievedly at the Violet Dome from where she floated, near the treetops but making sure not to touch the trees. They didn’t like her, and the feeling was very much mutual.

She didn’t like this whole stupid forest, in fact. And she really didn’t like the Viridian Dome. She didn’t like the way it looked, and she liked even less the way it felt—like rot in reverse. Like dead life, clinging on way past its time.

But now that it was standing between her and her darlings, she didn’t just dislike it. She hated it. And Yunzhu did not mean that lightly.

Of course, the Viridian Dome wasn’t the only one to blame for this whole awful mess.

Yunzhu didn’t normally disagree with the Voices. They’d always been with her, and they were usually very helpful. But sometimes they just mumbled nonsense and left her to figure things out on her own. She loved them, she really did—but vague advice was barely advice at all. And right now? She was feeling very under-advised.

“I don’t get it,” Yunzhu said. “Why did I have to let them go?”

Blood said, patiencepatiencepatiencepatiencepatience.

Crystal said, dangerdangerdangerdangerdangerdanger.

“That doesn’t help at all,” Yunzhu said, feeling even more aggrieved.

Patience. That was what Blood always whispered whenever she saw Meiyao and Daojue. It baffled her—no, mystified her, yes, that was the word—because Blood only ever preached patience when it came to them.

With everyone else—anyone who wasn’t kin, at least—it was taketaketaketaketaketake.

Crystal wasn’t any better. Most of the time, it didn’t even care about Daojue and Meiyao, letting Blood do all the whispering. But today? Today it had piped up the moment she’d tried to intervene—and it still wouldn’t shut up about this danger.

But where was the danger? Was it trying to say that the forest was dangerous? If so, then she didn’t need the Voices to know that. That was why she was so aggrieved in the first place. Because she knew she couldn’t go inside the Dome and get her darlings back.

“But they’re coming back, right?” Yunzhu asked. Because if she had just lost them for good, then she wouldn’t just be aggrieved. She would be very, very angry.

Blood said, yesyesyesyesyesyesyes.

Crystal said, yesyesyesyesyesyesyes.

“Well, all right then.” Yunzhu still wasn’t happy—no, sir, she wasn’t, thank you very much—but she was…

She frowned.

She was… She prodded at the emotion. It wasn’t satisfaction, which was warmer. It wasn’t joy, which was brighter. It was a bit more… peaceful?

Blood said, appeasedappeasedappeased.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” Yunzhu said. Blood could be such a dear, sometimes.

But yes. She was appeased. She still didn’t know why she had to wait—Blood could be not a dear at all, sometimes—but she could wait. She could.

But it would be hard. So very hard. She had already been so patient. Already held herself back for so long.

At least before, she could watch them—while she waited for whatever it was Blood had in mind.

She liked to think of it like Father’s wines—that she was leaving them to age until they were perfect. She’d even started to enjoy it, lately. It was fun, watching them improve, grow stronger—and grow all the riper, richer, and sweeter for it.

But now? Now she wouldn’t even get to see them anymore.

Not for a long, long while.

Heavens, she had some very difficult days ahead of her, didn’t she?

There was Jieyuan, too. She’d never really cared for him, but that had changed earlier today.

She didn’t know what he’d done, but when his veins and his eyes started glowing gold—especially his veins—well, she’d just barely managed to stop herself from going over and taking a—

Oh dear. Yunzhu felt something rise inside her. An emotion she didn’t need to think about. She knew this one very well. She knew it best.

She licked her lips. Heavens, she was parched. Not just parched—she was burning.

She turned around to look at what she had brought with her. Floating on her cloudcraft, wrapped in soft, pretty red silk, was Cousin Yongyi. Now, she and Cousin Yongyi had never really gotten along—she had no idea why, but he always seemed to hate her, and that hurt her, it really did—but he was still her second-favorite blood cousin. Blood and Crystal really liked him too. She couldn’t have just let him die.

But—well, she had saved him, hadn’t she? That deserved a little reward, didn’t it?

She floated closer until she was just above him. Reaching out, she brushed the hair from his forehead, then traced one of the many, many cuts on him—already healing, already scarring, the pill she’d fed him working wonders—down to his mouth, and then another to his neck. Her finger stopped in the middle, just beside the throat.

She focused on the lovely little throb of the artery beneath her fingertip. And she saw it, in her mind’s eye. Thick, rich blood, running, coursing, crimson, delicious—

Just… just a little taste. A little bite.

She lowered her head, slowly, eagerly—very eagerly—let her lips brush the lovely, pale skin of his neck, and over the flecks of dried blood already there, sucking them into her mouth, delighting in the crystalline edge to it, the serpentine note—

She broke the skin with her teeth, broke the artery, and blood rushed into her mouth—

Just… a little… taste—

—stopstopstopstopstop.

Yunzhu jerked her head away, her heart racing. She blinked, staring down at Yongyi. He was pale. Really, really pale. She sucked on her tongue, feeling the heavy, metallic tang of blood—and the exquisite aftertaste of the Liangshibai bloodright, like a crystalline serpent slithering around her mouth. Then she patted her stomach, and felt the liquid swishing inside her.

Oh dear. That had been close. Too close.

“Thank you,” she said to Blood. If it hadn’t snapped her out of it, Yongyi would—Heavens, she didn’t even want to imagine it.

And to think she’d needed Blood to keep her in check. Oh, the irony. The shame. Father would laugh himself silly when she told him—she just knew it.

She reached into her pouch, took out another pill, pried her cousin’s lips apart, and used a bit of physicalized chroma to force it down his throat. She watched him closely. When some color returned to his skin, she sighed with relief.

That was all good and well—but she was still feeling a little… peckish.

The Thirst, as Father liked to say, wasn’t easily sated.

She’d thought her control was very good, but… it had been so long since she’d tasted blood as good as Yongyi’s. She’d have to ask Father for some of his prime stock once she was back in the sect.

But that wouldn’t be enough. She needed something now. It was too dangerous to stay around Yongyi otherwise.

She moved away from her cousin and stared down at the two redsouls who had chased her darlings away. The man and the woman. They were still there. Arguing. On the verge of fighting.

She’d already planned to do something about them—they were partly to blame for this whole mess, after all.

And now that the Thirst had struck, she might as well drain two veins with one bite.

She doubted their blood would be any good, but if she drained them dry, it should at least fill her up.

Father always said quality over quantity—and she agreed. Her Thirst agreed.

But sometimes… Sometimes you had to make sacrifices.

—∞—

Yunzhu returned to Radiant Gold City with a full, swirling stomach and a smile on her face. She flew just below the clouds, slow enough to let her cloudcraft keep up—it wouldn’t do to leave Cousin Yongyi behind—and stared down at the city from high above.

The pesky blue flames were gone—and with them, over half the city. But mostly the mundane parts of it. Most of the brightgold buildings were still standing even if a little charred, and so were most of the establishments owned by cultivators, which had their own protections.

Of course, those were Redsoul protections, and the flames had been Orangesoul, so they wouldn’t have mattered, but the goal, from what Yunzhu had gathered, had never been to destroy the city. Just serve as a diversion. The Restless Flame Sect orangesouls knew what they were doing.

The cabal building that had suffered the most was the Radiant Gold Palace. About half of it was gone, reduced to little more than a smoking crater. But Yunzhu suspected the one to blame was the Howling Lightning Sect envoy. That seemed more like her. Unnecessary, obnoxious.

The woman was probably dead, but she’d search later, just in case, to make sure of it. She didn’t like it when others eyed what was hers. No, sir, she did not.

She drifted down to the city, Yongyi behind her. She made sure to keep to the shadows, soulsense spread wide around her to ensure nobody would notice her. Father had been pretty clear about that. Nobody could know about her—about them. Not even Qingshi. Especially Qingshi, actually. Heavens, she couldn’t wait for the day when she could stop with all this silly secrecy.

She could just hear Father’s voice, saying, Soon, Yunzhu, soon.

It was just a little while later that she arrived at the Gleaming Stone Palace. Just looking at him brought a second, stronger surge of the Thirst, but she held it down. Being full helped. Yes, it really had been a good idea to drain those redsouls earlier.

Good job, me. She blushed. Why, thank you.

She giggled. Heavens, she could be so silly sometimes.

But—no. Focus.

Qingshi was standing by the palace entrance. He was the only one. Everybody else was lying. Dead, her soulsense informed her. She didn’t know for certain, but she suspected Qingshi had killed all the survivors—Liangshibai, Xiyunfeng, and Gleaming Nobles alike. That was just the kind of thing he’d do. He was such a thorough boy.

He was still hiding his realm, too. It was like when he’d had that little squabble with Daojue, back in the Gleamstone Forest. He was always testing himself—proving himself. He could be so silly. He didn’t need to do any of that—she would love him anyway. But she liked that about him, too.

And there was an upside to it. He’d even managed to fool Father, who still thought Qingshi was at Redsoul. Of course, from what she had figured out of Qingshi’s plans, he’d soon be coming out in the open, and that’d change. She wondered how Father would react—

No. Focus.

Qingshi was standing… in front of… Oh. Oh.

A strong, bitter pang of sorrow struck Yunzhu.

Sorrow. It wasn’t an emotion she felt often, but it was one hard to forget. Dark, choking, hollow. That was sorrow. She hated it.

Poor, poor Uncle Yiming.

Blood and Crystal shared in her pain, mourning the man.

Qingshi hadn’t been kind to him. She wouldn’t have even recognized the body if it weren’t for the yellow palace head robes only her uncle wore. The corpse was hanging from the entrance gate, a rope—Qingshi had probably prepared it ahead of time, he could be dramatic like that—tied around its neck in a noose. Softly swinging in the breeze.

Two empty, bloodied sockets stared out from where Uncle Yiming’s eyes should have been. The lower half of his robes was drenched in blood—the crotch a mangled, disgusting pulp.

Yunzhu winced. Qingshi could be a little extreme sometimes, he really could. Worst of all, she had a feeling that he’d had done all of that while her uncle was still alive.

She really, really wished all of this could’ve been avoided. But that hadn’t been an option. She knew Qingshi’s story. Father had personally looked into it, all those years ago, after she’d reported to him that Qingshi had the Liangshibai bloodright—and how absurdly strong it was. That had been before Qingshi had even joined the sect, back when she’d first come across him while wandering the city.

Yunzhu closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

She didn’t think Uncle Yiming was at fault for what happened to Qingshi. Not at all. If anything, it was Qingshi’s mother who was to blame for everything—and if Qingshi hadn’t already killed her, Yunzhu would’ve seen to it herself.

But she knew better than anyone how Qingshi thought. She wouldn’t have been able to change his mind on this.

Qingshi would give her anything, she was sure—anything and everything.

But not this.

It had come down to choosing between Uncle Yiming and Qingshi—and she had chosen the moment she first laid eyes on her estranged cousin.

She sighed, and opened her eyes again.

Qingshi hadn’t moved a muscle. He just stood there, staring at Uncle Yiming’s swaying corpse.

Poor, poor Uncle Yiming.

She was sad about the other Liangshibai, too—kin was kin—but Uncle Yiming’s loss hit the hardest, it really did.

But there was nothing she could do about it.

Yunzhu left Qingshi to it and floated away, Cousin Yongyi in tow. She needed to return to the sect and tell Father the news in person—not just about Qingshi and the Revolution, but also about what had happened with her darlings, and with Gleaming End.

She winced. Father wouldn’t mind the former. But the latter… he really wouldn’t take that well.

He’d been so excited about Daojue and the spear that—well, Yunzhu didn’t even want to think about how he’d react. That was not a conversation she was looking forward to.

No, sir, it wasn’t, thank you very much.