[Young Master Xian]—❈—53:: Saying Goodbyes [III]

Yesterday was for saying goodbyes, today is for cleaning.

Since we’re certain we won’t be returning for a while, the house needs to be cleaned out and locked up.

Perishables from the kitchen need to be removed, certain items need to be packaged properly, and what few valuables remain in my vault after buying Xiuying’s contract need to be moved to a safer location than the vault of an empty house.

Finally, since the house will be unoccupied for who knows how long, the staff will need to be let go.

For the matter of the vault, the solution is simple, and with a letter to The Greater Wealth Company, six accountants show up to record and move everything in the vault to their own, I assume, much safer coffers.

Wherever I may be in the future, if I need any of those items, I need only contact them and pay the fee to have it delivered to me, or whoever I ask them to, personally.

Awfully convenient, to be honest.

After some conversation between the three of us, I decide to give the Sun Emperor manual to the accountants for safekeeping too.

Neither Meng Yi nor I had considered the idea yesterday, but Xiuying did today while Meng Yi was writing the letter to The Greater Wealth Company (to Meng Yi’s great embarrassment).

I was hesitant at first, but after being assured by both women that The Greater Wealth Company, apparently the number one accounting agency in The Continent, was the best option for protecting valuable—and secret—items, I agreed.

I mean, sure the charge for their protecting a noble rank cultivation manual is sizable, to say the least, but I must admit that, the relief I feel as they cart off the valuable items that they are now entirely responsible for, is more than worth it.

I suppose it makes sense now why companies like these even exist in a world with storage rings. Because, yes, you could just buy a storage ring and put all your valuables in there, but you now have to deal with the fact that you have all of your wealth in a ring on your finger.

Good luck sleeping.

My eyes now open to the utility of accountants, I decide to empty out my reward space of almost all its valuables, instructing them to pass the peasant rank cultivation circle on to the new Magistrate for his help with Xiuying’s contract.

While the items of my safe are valuable enough to require the services of accountants for storage, not everything is.

In fact, some things really only count as trash and need to be disposed of.

Like certain portraits hanging around the house.

“Are you sure?” Meng Yi asks, tone a little too flat, like she’s trying really hard to not have an opinion on the matter.

I stare at the larger-than-life portrait of the idiot, face smirking and pose flamboyant.

“Like I said, we need to take out the trash,” I say to Meng Yi.

“I don’t know, Qigang, these frames seem pricey,” Xiuying says, flicking a finger against the gaudy, golden frame that past me seems to have really liked, considering it’s all over the place.

I sigh.

“Fine, cut out the stupid pictures,” I say, “we’ll keep the frames in the vault.”

Later, when we watch the portraits burn in a giant pile outside, Meng Yi releases a breath, almost like she’s finally set down a heavy load.

I say nothing and simply let her enjoy the moment.

—❈—

“Thank you all for your loyalty and your service,” I say to the house staff, all assembled before me in the entrance hall. “You have all performed your duties with the grace and skill expected of Royal staff, and, for this, I promise that, in the event that I return, I shall look to you all first and foremost for employment.”

Meng Yi had advised me to say that (though the ‘royal staff’ line had been my idea), and from the way I see backs straighten and chests lift, I’m convinced once again that my manager knows her stuff.

It’s early evening now, and pretty much everything that needs to be done has been done: the house has been cleaned from top to bottom; all perishables have been donated to whoever among the house staff desires them; my vault has been cleared out of everything we consider valuable enough to remove; the furniture have been covered with dust sheets; even the garden, messed up from me ripping out all the trees before the whole thing with evil!Xian has now been regrown by me personally, the space now bursting with fruit trees from whatever seeds I could find on such short notice.

There’s literally nothing left to do with the house besides lock up and leave.

My thank you speech to them now done, the staff all bow to me as one.

“We honour our Young Master Xian and wish him greatness in all of his endeavours,” they proclaim.

The earnestness of their voices surprises me, but I recover, dipping my head shallowly to them in return.

Honestly, I rather wish they’d used all that earnestness to wish me peace and quiet in life instead.

To say that the current trajectory of my life bothers me, would be underselling just how unsettled my impending trip to The Capital is making me.

I have unironically contemplated faking my death at least three times in the last two days, and if I had more time, I probably would have attempted it.

Before Meng Yi undoubtedly talked me out of it, anyway.

I sigh.

With the thanks given, the staff exit, heading down the path to town, their shoulders laden with foodstuffs and pockets fat with a generous severance pay (a concept that, I was unsettled to learn, did not exist in this world).

 I watch the servants until the last of them vanish from sight, then I turn to the house.

I sigh again. “Let’s lock up,” I say.

I didn’t live at the Manor for long, but in the short time that I did, it was home.

True, every room and hallway was hunted by the memory of Qigang, his stupid face staring down from those obnoxiously large pictures (the sight of which being consumed by flames I will forever cherish), but it was home.

It is really the only home I’ve ever known.

Since my acceptance of who, and what, I am, doing away with the fiction of my being an isekai victim, some of Qigang’s memories have settled back into place.

Not much, of course. It will never be, both because I’m only a small part of him, and because of how little that small part had wanted to do with him.

Those few memories though are enough for me to know, Qigang never had a home. He never had a place where he felt wanted, or appreciated.

His mother was barely ever there, his immediate older sister, Zexi, was a gaping asshole to him, his friends were shallow sycophants, and his enemies were too many to count.

It would be enough to feel sympathy for him if I didn’t know that at least half of it was his own fault.

Shallow sycophants were the only kind of people who could tolerate his company, and he liked having them around because they stroked his giant ego.

Many of his enemies he wronged in the first place.

He demanded respect and power he never bothered to earn, and then envied those who actually earned it.

The simple truth is, Qigang spent too much of his time in The Capital burning bridges he never even built to begin with.

And the more the circumstances of his actions caught up with him, the more unpleasant he got, feeling that the world was against him.

Yeah, no shit, dum-dum.

And that’s where I’d headed back to.

Heaven help me.

Weiju’s skyship, The Azure Lance, is a sizable, yacht looking boat that, as the name implies, flies through the sky.

It is far from the first skyship I’ve ever seen. The colossal one belonging to the Suppression Division still hangs in the sky many li away, many smaller ships sailing to and from it, the whole group parked much closer to the slowly shrinking mass of Wild Qi far off in the mountains than I would have expected anyone to be comfortable with.

With Xiuying, Meng Yi, and myself included, there’s nine of us aboard the vessel, the rest being Pan Cai, Weiju herself, her qi signatureless second-in-command whose name turns out to be Lin Jian, and three uniformed individuals at the peak of Foundation Realm whose names are never offered.

Both the uniforms and the banner flying above the ship bear an insignia of a gold circle with a pair of crisscrossed swords to all four cardinal points of it. In the middle are the characters for “BORDER PATROL” written in silver.

The three uniformed cultivators address Weiju as Captain Xian.

“You’re with Border Patrol?” I ask Weiju as we board the ship and she nods.

I look around at the obviously military vessel with its crisp, efficient design.

“Is it okay for us to be using a government vessel for what is essentially a personal trip?” I ask, curious.

Weiju shrugs. “Not much personal about it,” she says, tossing a careless “lift off” over her shoulder before walking off.

“Yes, Captain,” the three… sailors? Airmen? I don’t really know what to call them, say, before rushing to obey.

The Azure Lance lifts slowly, climbing steadily into the sky, and Meng Yi, Xiuying and I all rush to the guardrail to watch the manor fall away.

“This is incredible,” Meng Yi breathes, face flushed with excitement, a few loose strands of her hair tossing in the wind.

Xiuying spits hair out of her mouth. “Yeah,” she says, “incredible.”

Meng Yi and I look at her, and we burst out laughing.

Ordinarily, Xiuying’s hair looks like that of a person who took a leaf blower to the face at full blast; wild and loose with strands sticking every which way. With the wind now properly in her hair though, she’s gone from looking like she took a leaf blower to the face, to looking like she’s taking a leaf blower to the face.

“You’re going to need to do something about that h…” my voice fades away.

I’ve always seen it whenever I stepped outside, the mass of Wild Qi reaching up into the sky so far away, but from the ground it had always looked not too bad.

Several hundred feet into the air, backlit by the fading evening light though…

I feel hands settle on my shoulders as Meng Yi and Xiuying come to stand on either side of me.

Something cold runs down my back, my mouth suddenly dry.

“I was inside that,” I say with a croaky voice.

“For almost half a day,” Xiuying says. “It was almost sunrise when they finally brought you out.”

I swallow, cold, and Meng Yi wraps her arms around my waist, pressing into my side.

“You came out,” Meng Yi says. “That’s what matters. You came out.”

“And if you hadn’t gone in,” Xiuying adds, “that—” she points at the inky, black mass in the distance “—would be all of Silver Springs. So, as someone who actually likes that little town, thank you, Qigang,” she says.

Almost an hour later, long enough that the Wild Qi and even Silver Springs has dipped into the horizon along with the sun, Lin Jian says, “Come, I’ll show you to your quarters.” Gesturing for the three of us and Pan Cai to follow.

Below decks, we reach a door quickly, and Lin Jian opens it to reveal a neat little room with a bed hung by taut cords strapped to the ceiling and floor.

“This is yours, Young Master Xian,” he says, and at Meng Yi’s direction, Xiuying brings in my luggage (which she’d practically forced me to let her carry) and sets it up in the appropriate space for it.

“How long will the journey take?” I ask Lin Jian.

“If the winds are fair, a day and a half,” he replies. “More likely two. Possibly three, if we encounter headwinds.”

“So, the ship needs wind?” I ask.

I’d seen the folded sails attached to the mast, but even so the idea seems strange to me. Like, seriously, they can make a ship fly, but they can’t give it propulsion?

“To an extent,” Lin Jian says. “This is a goose-class vessel. They aren’t very fast but their qi propulsors are exceptionally efficient. The trade-off is that they need wind power to supplement their lacking speed. Usually, goose-class vessels like The Azure Lance are used for long-distance patrols where speed isn’t a necessity.”

I make a face. “What if they encounter hostiles they need to chase or outrun?” I ask.

“That is why goose-class vessels are generally outfitted with at least two viper-class boats,” Lin Jian says.

“I’m guessing those are very fast over short distances,” I say.

Lin Jian nods.

“That doesn’t help the goose outrun a dangerous enemy though,” I point out.

“No,” Lin Jian agrees, “it doesn’t.” And that’s all he says.

Right.

My accommodations seen to, Lin Jian says to the others, “You three will bunk with the crew,” before leading them away.

Ah, so only ‘Young Master Xian’ gets private accommodations, huh? Understandable, I guess.

Though something tells me Lin Jian over there will not be slumming it down in the crew’s quarters either.

I feel a little bad for Meng Yi and Xiuying though, as well as those three sailors whose names I haven’t gotten yet. Sharing an enclosed living space with a Qi Realm cultivator with Pan Cai’s imposing aura can’t possibly be easy.

The journey ends up taking two days and change, leaving us spending three nights aboard the vessel, and after the novelty of flying wears off, it gets rather… dull.

Nothing much happens.

Weiju stays in the Captain’s cabin for almost the entire trip, and Pan Cai keeps to herself, sitting in the lotus position in quiet corners with her eyes closed.

She doesn’t actually cultivate, probably because her qi will inconvenience us weaker cultivators, but even so, no one wants to bother the powerful cultivator who seems to be meditating.

Meng Yi takes on cooking duties aboard the skyship for the duration of the trip, while Xiuying hits it off pretty quick with the three Airmen, as it turns out their rank is called.

They get rather weird the one time I come around though, so I give them their space.

On the morning of the third day, when the signs of civilization dotting the earth below begins to increase, and I spot a great city in the distance, I suck in a deep breath to ready myself as Meng Yi and Xiuying come to stand beside me.

Whatever comes, I’ll face it. With these two women by my side.

—❈——❈——❈—

—❈——❈——❈—

Thanks for reading.

I got a serious case of writer's block with this chapter, then today, when I decided to try again, despite waking up this morning feeling sleepy and miserable, after a hours everything just clicked, and next thing I know chapter's done.

So yay, I guess.

Take care.