Chapter 72: LOOK BEHIND

CHAPTER

72

LOOK BEHIND

JIEYUAN

—∞—

A hand fell on Jieyuan’s shoulder.

He turned.

Meiyao stood right next to him, facing him, one eyebrow raised, full lips pressed into a thin line. He might’ve said she looked amused, in a prickly sort of way—if it weren’t for her gaze.

It was deep, unreadable. He could pick out something lying behind her green eyes, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

“I hope I’m not interrupting something,” she said, and there was no mistaking the dryness in her tone, “but unless you’d rather start up some rumors, I’d stop batting eyes at the pretty boy over yonder.”

Jieyuan’s mind ground to a halt. He blinked at her as his thoughts played catch-up. “What?”

Maeva said nothing, just kept her unreadable gaze fixed on him. Then she glanced to the side—over at Daojue, who’d already turned around. Eyes on Jieyuan again, Meiyao snorted, murmured something under her breath, then shook her head gently. “Never mind.”

Before he could react, she hooked her arm around his—though it wasn’t as if he’d have avoided her hold, had he managed to react—before she started dragging him away.

Jieyuan let her lead, matching her steps—and doing his best not to notice the softness pressing into his arm.

Meiyao was facing firmly forward, not looking at him anymore. His eyes flitted from her, to Daojue, then back to her. He thought back to her words.

You couldn’t have his upbringing and grow up dense. Heavens, he’d even had lessons on seduction. Any tool was a tool, as his old man used to say—and he spoke from experience. Before marrying his father, Jieyuan’s mother had been the heir to a rival merchant family. A family that had been absorbed by the Haoyujin through his parents’ marriage.

Laughter bubbled up his throat. But before it could spill out his mouth, another thought occurred to him. The laughter fizzled out, as a hot, fuzzy shot of warmth ran through him.

A different emotion took control of his face. He did his best to contain it, but his lips were determined to quirk upward. Finally he allowed himself a smirk. He didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. It was either that, or give in to the full-on, face-splitting manic grin that wanted out.

Meiyao’s misunderstanding was of little importance. Her reaction to it, though.

Now that was something.

Meiyao only let go of his arm when they were back in their usual place by the edge of the floor, a good distance from everyone else.

Everyone else except for Yongyi, who’d been standing there waiting for them. He was smiling, yellow eyes gleaming with clear amusement.

Though Meiyao had let go, she kept well within arm’s reach.

Yongyi looked between the two of them—then focused on him, face suddenly growing serious, yellow eyes narrowing. “So, I’d like my win back.”

Jieyuan blinked—then figured out where this was going. He played along. “You do?”

“You lost,” Yongyi said. “We agreed you’d win the whole thing. I demand a refund.”

Jieyuan scoffed, then gave a sharp nod over to where Daojue was standing. “Beat him first, and we’ll talk.”

Yongyi tried to hold on, but failed, a smile breaking out on his face. He laughed. “I think I’ll pass, thank you.” But then he gave Jieyuan a deep, long look—and this Jieyuan was pretty sure he wasn’t faking it. “Seriously, though—what in the Heavens was that duel? Not even Daojue, but you. You were holding out on me.”

“Rot that.” Meiyao stepped in between him and Yongyi, casually shoving her brother out of the way, and glared up at Jieyuan. “You held out on me. I can’t believe you held back on our duel.”

“You know what they say.” Jieyuan shrugged. “You save the best for last.” Seeing the darkening look on the half-siblings’ faces—Meiyao’s in particular—he quickly amended. “But I didn’t hold back. Not against either of you. The thing with soulforce is something I just figured out yesterday.”

Both Meiyao and Yongyi just stared at him in response.

It was Yongyi who broke away first. “The worst part is I believe you,” he said—though his words didn’t quite match his expression. “You owe me a rematch, then.”

Meiyao’s gaze lingered on Jieyuan a while longer. It felt like she was seeing through him. Unlike her brother, Meiyao knew about Absolute Will Command, and though she didn’t know about the Fatebloom Heart, not exactly, she did know he’d gotten something from the fatebloom Woods. Something that gave him unusual powers.

Meiyao understood his situation better than anyone alive.

But instead of pressing the issue, she shot Yongyi a glare and said, “Get in line.” She turned back to Jieyuan. “We’re fighting as soon as we’re back in the palace.” It wasn’t a request—her tone left no room for discussion.

Normally, he’d have been all for it. But this time around…

“Can’t do,” Jieyuan said. “I just used up over a third of my soulprism. And I’ll probably need all the chroma I can spare in the coming days, given…”

He trailed off, letting his frown say the rest.

Meiyao caught on immediately. She sneaked a glance to the side—over to where Palace Head Yongyi was standing with the other elders. Yongyi also tensed up, visibly.

Ah. Jieyuan hadn’t been sure whether he was also in the loop, but suspected he’d been told, if not by the palace head, then by Meiyao. Now he had confirmation. They were all on the same page, then.

“Any news on that front?” he asked, quietly. He hadn’t really had time to ask before now. The duel had occupied all his thoughts.

“Not really,” Meiyao said. “Yiming went to the Mysterious Night House last night. They didn’t know much—only confirmed that there have been some unusual stirrings in the Xiyunfeng Clan lately. But Yiming’s brought in some other Liangshibai elders—Yuyan, Wanxin, my grandfather. Everyone above suspicion. They’re making preparations.”

“And the envoy?” Jieyuan asked. “Does she know?”

“I’m not sure,” Meiyao said. She looked across the floor, over to the envoy, and so did Jieyuan.

Envoy Guodan and Sovereign Aoxin were standing close together—closer than usual. The two seemed to be talking. “

“But if he hasn’t already,” Meiyao carried on, “I’m pretty sure he’ll be telling her today. There’s not much time left. That aside…”

Meiyao leaned in even closer. Close enough he could feel her breath on his face, smell her scent. She smelled fresh and alive, like wildflowers. They stood almost eye to eye—she couldn’t be more than three inches shorter than him. “Be careful.” Her voice was soft. “You might have given away too much today.”

Jieyuan caught some motion in the distance and focused on it. Past Meiyao, on the other side of the floor, Envoy Guodan had fully turned to their side. And she wasn’t looking at Daojue this time. No—the orangesoul was staring straight at him.

There was nothing threatening about her look. If anything, she looked thoughtful. But Jieyuan went still all the same—and stayed that way until the envoy turned back to Sovereign Aoxin.

It didn’t last more than a second or so, but Meiyao had looked back at the same time as he’d noticed the envoy’s glance, and she’d caught all of it. As Meiyao turned back to him, he saw that she now looked uneasy. Troubled.

“You’ve just drawn a lot of attention, Jieyuan,” she continued, softly. “Maybe even more than Daojue. Everything else so far, you could probably explain away. But it’s not supposed to be possible for a fourth-sign redsoul to use soulforce like that. If you haven’t already, start thinking of an excuse. Because the questions will come.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

That was no empty reassurance. Maeva was nothing if not thorough. Yesterday, they’d considered just about all possible ramifications of what he’d do today. He didn’t need to worry much about the other elders—they couldn’t really touch him anymore, not when he’d been all but scouted by the Howling Lighting Sect already—but the same couldn’t be said about Envoy Guodan. And even if she didn’t try to get to the bottom of it, once he reported his duels back to the higher-ups of the Howling Lightning Sect, they’d certainly like to know more.

He’d kept quiet about his realmskill so far, but that was mostly because of the circumstances he’d gotten it in. He’d gotten it from the inner disciple Yikongwei Rongkai, back in the Fatebloom Woods, and he hadn’t wanted anyone looking further into Rongkai’s matters to figure out where Rongkai had gotten the realmskill from.

But his business with the Fatebloom Woods was over, and enough time had passed. Nobody should dig too deeply. He also didn’t have to worry about anyone hunting him down for his realmskill—he wasn’t some lowly outer disciple anymore, and others would have no way of knowing that what he had was a Violetsoul realmskill. Everyone would assume it was a Redsoul one, and the people he did have to worry about wouldn’t be too interested in something like that.

He wouldn’t even have to reveal what Absolute Will Command really did. Given his use of it so far, he could pretend that all it did was split his mind, give him the ability to do several things at once. That’d be enough to explain his soulforce use. Even his ability to fight so well could be explained that way—he could claim his realmskill allowed him to split his attention between his own movements and tracking those of his opponent.

Taking things so far in the duel had been a calculated risk. And while he was nothing special at math, Maeva was—had been—a genius. She could calculate like no one else.

Meiyao gave him a searching look. She must’ve found something that reassured her, because she backed down, nodding. “Good.”

Yongyi, on the other hand, didn’t look nearly as reassured. Meiyao’s brother didn’t know nearly as much about Jieyuan’s circumstances as Meiyao did, and if that hadn’t been clear to him before, Jieyuan’s exchange with Meiyao just now should’ve made that glaringly obvious.

Yongyi looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t really get the chance as the sound of footsteps came closer. Jieyuan’s soulsense caught someone’s approach.

They turned.

A white-robed woman was sauntering easily over to them. In the entire summit, only one person wore that color.

“Meiyao, Yongyi,” Protector Wanxin said once she was close enough. “Yuyan would like a word with you two.”

Meiyao frowned slightly, looked past the protector—at her stepmother, probably—then said, “All right.”

She gave Jieyuan a nod, then got moving, Yongyi following suit.

She stopped, though, when she realized Protector Wanxin wasn’t going along with them. The protector had stayed put in front of Jieyuan.

“Aunt Wanxin?” Meiyao asked.

“I’ll be along shortly.” Protector Wanxin smiled, and waved a hand like she was shooing them. “I’d just like a little word with Jieyuan here first.”

Meiyao’s frown deepened. “What—”

“Relax, dear girl.” The protector’s smile turned sharp, teasing. “I’ll leave him in one piece. Gemstone’s promise.”

Meiyao looked like she’d tasted something sour, but she resumed walking, Yongyi with her. Jieyuan watched them go.

Because of that, he noticed Yunzhu.

She was standing with the other Liangshibai, where Meiyao and Yongyi were headed. But she wasn’t taking part in the conversations—she was staring at her mother.

Jieyuan didn’t know if it was his proximity to Protector Wanxin, or because Yunzhu had noticed him looking at her. Either way, she shifted her eyes over to him.

Earlier, Envoy Guodan’s gaze had unsettled Jieyuan. Not because of the stare itself—she’d looked thoughtful, not murderous or anything alarming—but because of the person behind it. Not even half an hour ago, the envoy had come very close to killing him in the middle of his duel with Daojue, if Huaxin’s warning at the time was to be believed.

The situation was the same with Yunzhu. There was nothing particularly awful about the way she looked at him—her gaze was curious, friendly, warm. In fact, there was nothing awful about Yunzhu at all, as far as appearances went. Yunzhu didn’t look much different from other Liangshibai women around her. The same angular lines, sharp chin, and fine features. All she really lacked were the Liangshibai gemstone eyes.

And yet as Yunzhu’s eyes bore into him, Jieyuan felt a shiver slither up his spine.

Like with Envoy Guodan, it wasn’t the look itself, but the person behind it that unsettled him. Except Yunzhu was no orangesoul who had almost murdered him, not like Envoy Guodan was. By all rights, his reaction to her should’ve been much tamer.

But it was the opposite.

When the envoy had looked at him, Jieyuan had gone still. When Yunzhu looked at him, his instincts screamed at him—to fight, to flee, to do something.

Then Yunzhu smiled—brightly, like a blood lily in full bloom.

Jieyuan forced a nod and polite expression in return.

Then he looked away, and did his best to ignore how Yunzhu’s gaze stayed on him and her mother. Quiet, watchful. Disturbing.