Limitless Cultivation System: From Trash to Immortal

By the next morning the Silent Peak was the only quiet thing left in the sect.

Everywhere else had lost its mind. Xuan came down from his pavilion into a courtyard that had been a sleepy backwater two days ago and now ran like a worksite at full sprint: disciples up ladders stringing lanterns, disciples on their knees scrubbing two years of neglect out of the flagstones, disciples hauling rolled banners taller than they were.

Someone had already relacquered the main gate’s lintel, and the reek of fresh varnish was losing a slow war with the reek of fresh paint. Three days to turn a sect that had spent two years bleeding into somewhere a Frostmoon heir would put her name to, and the whole place had decided to manage it by panicking in unison.

He found the two architects of the chaos in the forecourt, at a table drowning under lists.

Madam Yu had a brush in one hand, a tally sheet in the other, and the look of a general who’s just learned her supply lines are shorter than her war. "Forty bolts of the blue, not thirty," she was saying, eyes down. "If we’re matching Frostmoon’s colors at the signing, we need to match them properly. We don’t want to run short halfway down the east wall and patch it with something that almost matches. Almost matching is worse than not bothering."

"We also don’t own forty bolts of anything in the whole province," said Madam Lin Hua, who was holding a second list and a piece of candied fruit she’d clearly lifted off a tray meant for guests.

"Which is why I’m sending a dozen disciples down to the town at first light. Cloth, the good wine, the tall lanterns, and anything in the market that looks expensive and survives the road up." She put the fruit in her mouth. "And before you ask, yes, we can pay for it. I went over the ledger twice this morning out of pure disbelief."

Yu set her brush down. "Send someone who can haggle, and someone who won’t let the merchants spot a sect crest and triple every price on sight." She tapped a line on her sheet. "And have them bring back twice the lamp oil they think we need. We’re lighting the whole east approach, not only the hall. I want Frostmoon cresting that road at dusk to find us lit up like we never once went dark."

Lin Hua slid her a sideways look, amused. "You’ve gone soft. That was almost romantic."

"It’s a strategy," Yu said, picking the brush back up. "If it turns out pretty as well, no harm done."

A small voice from under the table said, "Can I go to the town?"

Yueyue had been cross-legged in the table’s shadow the whole time, arranging a wooden bear and a wooden tiger into what looked like a tense border negotiation. She peered up, hopeful.

"You cannot," said Lin Hua. "The town is full of people who’d faint right off their stools if a sect lord’s daughter wandered into their fish market. Stay where your mother can see you."

Xuan crouched down to bear-and-tiger height. "Who’s winning?"

"The bear." Yueyue had the certainty of the very young. "He’s bigger."

"Sound military doctrine." He tapped the tiger’s tiny head. "Keep the tiger away from anything with an edge and you’ll be fine."

He left them to their war of bolts and lanterns and cut toward the practice yards, where his own people waited and the din finally thinned enough to hear himself think.

[ So. ] Mira had been sitting on this since he woke; he could feel it. [ Your father-in-law gets here in two days. ]

’He’s not my father-in-law.’

[ Not yet at least. A man riding several hundred miles for the express purpose of looking you over and deciding whether his whole house ties itself to yours, through you, for good. ] A bright little pause. [ How are we feeling about that? ]

’We’re feeling like the mine had nicer company.’

[ The mine had fewer people you needed to charm. ] She was enjoying this far past what was decent. [ Have you actually thought about what you’ll say to her? Su Qingyue. First time you saw her you were hiding behind a pillar, and she caught you anyway, and she made you talk about it to your face. That’s your entire romantic record with the woman. ]

’It went well. We had a rapport.’

[ You had a rapport because she runs colder than you do and found you a novelty. ] The tease in her voice eased a degree. [ For what it’s worth, my read hasn’t changed, Xuan. She put the marriage on the table herself, nerves or no nerves. A woman with no interest doesn’t bare her own neck first. You’ve got better odds here than you keep giving yourself. ]

"Comforting," he muttered. "I’ll have it carved on something."

He’d reached the edge of the yard, half his head already sorting the next two days into things he could steer and things he couldn’t, when Mira’s voice dropped off the teasing register completely.

[ While we’re stacking things on your plate. ] Every gram of play went out of her. [ Han Ying’s close. He’s come down out of the southwest passes, and at the pace the centipede’s driving him he reaches the Blood Fang sect inside two days. Likely less. ]

That stopped him where he stood.

He’d folded an elder into a man-shaped puppet and aimed it at the enemy’s heart, and somewhere in the churn of mines and breakthroughs and overclocked disciples he’d half-shelved it under problems for later.

Later had shown up. In two days, give or take, he’d have working eyes inside the Blood Fang sect, the dogs his father swore answered to the Second Prince, for the first time ever. Live. Whatever they were stockpiling, scheming, burying, he’d watch it unfold through Han Ying’s borrowed face.

[ The timing’s almost a joke. ] Mira, dry as bone. [ Han Ying walks through Blood Fang’s gate at about the same hour Su Qingyue walks through yours. You’ll be bowing to your bride’s father with one face and casing an enemy fortress with the back of your skull. ]

’I’ll be doing two fronts.’ He looked out over the yard, at the banners climbing the poles and the last of the smoke-stains scrubbing away, and felt the coming days lock into a shape with no slack on either side of it.

[ Welcome to management. ] Mira said.