Huo Feng, immediately grabbed the scroll and hid it in his arms, crouching down into the ground so he'd smother any light that the scroll might emit.
He waited for about enough time to let an incense stick burn. Slowly, he removed the scroll from between his bosom. No light.
He sighed in relief, and looked around, he had already made sure all his windows were covered and his door was barricaded with all the heavy stuff in his sect dwelling, but still, he wanted to be sure.
When he had done all that, he sat down, cross-legged. It was time to see what the scroll had to say.
He opened it with gentle hands, as if he were holding on to a sick baby, made of glass. The unfurled scroll was hard to read in the dim light, even for a cultivator such as him, but he didn't mind.
In the world of cultivation, a little bit of discomfort for massive gain was a rare deal, and he would take it with open arms.
"One Man Into The Tiger, Fights Against The World!" Even as he said it, he could feel the profundities in the name. It imposed its essence on the area surrounding him, making him focus only on the manual.
He immediately started to read it.
"This manual has been created by the magnificent, ever generous, dashing…" It was atleast 15 lines of the author praising himself, before getting into the actual cultivation manual, which was a diagram of all his meridians, with words, and harshly drawn scratches on the paper.
"To cultivate this manual, you must give up attachments, only seeking the dao, and the completion of your cultivation."
Huo Feng read on, then when he finished, he placed the scroll on his lap beside him, trying not to look at the manual.
The manual didn't only ask him to get rid of all emotional attachements, he must constantly be fighting to experience any actual break through.
If he chose to use this manual, his only hope of advancement would be through battle!
He thought back, dragging his bloody, caloused hands over his face and hair, he tried to remember that fateful day with his mom, the curve of his father's back as he pretended to be ok.
The filthy looks he'd seen some of the older men give his sisters.
Hung Lee.
He picked up the manual.
He balled his hands into fists, he was fighting himself over a decision he knew he would make. Finally, he took a deep breath, picked up the manual, and started to do as it said, aligning his cultivation style with it.
Hung Lee paced around his manor, as someone with connections, he didn't have to stay in those filthy pigstys the sect called housing, for the outer disciples.
He was waiting for something. He'd been waiting for the better part of the day.
A cloaked man, with dark skin, entered through the window, he moved like a boat gliding across a lake.
The cloaked man knelt, "My lord, the boy has been in his accommodations since he got back. He hasn't left once."
Hung Lee turned around to face him, not daring to show fear, they were his grandfather's servants after all, even if his grandfather let them order these low level servants around, at the end of the year, they would still report back to him.
There was no way Hung Lee would let himself look weak in that man's eyes.
Hung Lee coughed, using it to mask the clearing of his throat, the cloaked man's eyes and head were down, but somehow he still got the feeling that the man was watching him.
Hmmm, "So what do you think? Is he hiding something?" Hung Lee asked so, he could look thoughtful, as if he considered all sides of an argument before moving forward.
"He was recently injured. Severely. If he's not dead, he may just be recuperating."
Hung Lee smiled, reveling in the opportunity to show his superior intelligence. These…men, were just tools, brainwashed from infancy to be weapons, and ears on the ground.
"Is that it? But did you notice anything? Any fluctuation of qi?"
"My lord, the only qi fluctuations I could sense where that of the healing pill…"
Hung Lee thought to himself, 'That damn bastard, he lied to me!', he closed his fist around the edge of his robe, making sure to not show any change in his facial expressions, he still felt like the cloaked man was watching him.
"...not only that, but in the dead of night, I could feel essence." The man finished his sentence.
Hung Lee's eyes went wide. Forgetting the man he had gotten angry at only just then. "Does anyone else know?"
"Not to my knowledge my lord, I was watching and it didn't seem like anyone else was paying attention to him."
"Good, make sure not to tell grandfather about this."
The cloaked man kept quiet, refusing to respond. Hung Lee sighed, 'Well, it was worth a try.'
"You may leave."Hung Lee dismissed the man, and he slinked away, but Hung Lee knew, the man was still there, watching, somewhere.
For all that he could get the cloaked man to do his bidding, he was his grandfather's slave first.
Lady Vespara, an aging aristocrat, well past her prime, with thin greying hairs and a tight face from years of trying to prevent wrinkles from apearing.
She sat on a throne-like chair at the front of the room on a raised floor, with three long steps leading up to it. She looked down at Azul, as a matter of both disposition and due to her place atop the high chair. Her long, straight nose, angled as if to suck in better quality air from above.
Azul bowed when he saw her. Nobles liked to emphasize the difference between them and their lessers, especially when the difference between them and cultivators was so pronounced.
"My lady, Vespara, an honor to meet you." He said, it was customary to greet first when talking to a noble, otherwise they might think you saw yourself as more than you were. Or worse, as equals.
She made him wait for her response. Not out of spite, or some unfounded notion of pride. She just did not see him as someone worth addressing some amount of respect.
She tapped a long, jeweled fingernail against the gold band that lay around her thin neck — a soft click, click, click that echoed like dripping water.
Azul, stood there, head bowed low, his neck prickling from her gaze. He continued to stand there, waiting, not sure if he was supposed to speak.
Sweat gathered on Azul's brow, he shifted his weight, one foot to the next, but still nothing, the tension pulled in his belly and at the base of his chest, like a badly stretched hide, before she deigned to speak. Not bothering to respond to his earlier greeting.
"I heard you could grant me the skin of a Celestial Mirror Leopard." She spoke as if her words were law.
"My lady," Azul scratched his head, trying to figure out what to say, "I…about the leopard–"
"I hope you are not about to let me down," she hummed, her tone a weird purring sound, sweet as poision. She smiled, a tight-lipped monstrosity, like she was stretching her lips horizontally across her face. "It would be a shame to find out a peasant lied to my butler, about something I so dearly desire. That would be…inconvenient."
Azul broke out into cold sweats, the back of his robe, above his waist, immediately becoming wet.
He cleared his throat, not knowing what to say. "My lady…Celestial Mirror Leopards…now is not the time for them…it is not yet winter—"
"Do you believe I am stupid?"
Azul immediately dropped down to his knees, cowering with his hands covering his neck and the base of his head.
"You believe me to be an imbecile? Hmmm? I know when those beasts will migrate to the city. I am asking if you can get it. Standup"
Azul stood up and looked at her. "Do not look at me."
Immediately he dropped his head down, almost breaking his neck in the process.
"My lady, I can get you whatever you want, I'll find a way. I'll speak to my hunters and trappers." now, Azul's voice was trembling, "It's just, you have to wait for the winter to arrive, even if I could get you the moon…it would have to be at night first."
She looked down at him, or rather his scalp as his head was bowed. Drawing out the silence, "See to it that you do not disappoint me, I want that beast skin by mid winter."
Azul cursed her in his heart. 'Damned woman, a Celestial Mirror Leopard, just because the cultivators will not get it for you, you have to come and abuse me.'
"Do you disagree?" Azul snapped out of his reverie when he heard the noble lady call out. "Of course not my lady." He shuffled his feet, and scratched his head, contemplating whether to ask a question, "but, my lady, I am a mere tanner, I would have to get one of my hunters to—"
She waved him off. She was like a cat, with her mannerisms, only concerned about the things that interested her, "I don't mind how you get me that beast skin, as long as you get it." She glanced at the man who had let Azul in, he took it as his cue to escort the poor tanner out.
Azul, left quietly, waiting till he was well outside her estate before he started cursing the noblelady. They hadn't even bothered to carriage him back home.
"Cruel old hag! The day I gain coin and become a noble, I'll…"
While he was ranting and making promises he was not sure he could keep, there was Khan, and now, he was about to have a conversation, and the words to come would that would shape the course of his life.