The market road into Azure Cloud City ran three hours from Thunder Village on foot, past terraced fields and a low stone bridge rebuilt so many times that nobody remembered which version had been the original. Chu Yan made the walk twice a month, as he always did — this time with a sack of dried millet slung over one shoulder, and Wei Feng grumbling beside him about being dragged along "for moral support," a phrase he repeated some nine times within the first hour alone.
"You said I'd be begging to join your sect within a week," Wei Feng said, kicking a stone down the road. "It has been four days. I have begged nothing."
"The week isn't up yet."
"You're recruiting me through attrition."
"I prefer to call it patient strategy."
"You prefer whatever sounds less pathetic."
Chu Yan let that pass, mostly because they had just crested the low hill that put Azure Cloud City into view — walls the color of old jade, banners snapping above the eastern gate, the noise of a real city rolling out to greet them, louder and busier than Thunder Village could ever hope to be. Even after eighteen years of the same view, something in his chest still straightened a little at the sight of it.
[Ding.]
[Location updated: Azure Cloud City, outer district.][New Contribution Point opportunities detected: hidden or side quests may trigger based on local events.]
"Ominous," Chu Yan murmured.
"What?"
"Nothing. Talking to myself."
"You do that constantly now. It's genuinely unsettling."
They made it as far as the millet exchange near the market square before trouble found them, since trouble in market towns had an uncanny talent for finding anyone who looked, even slightly, out of place.
"Watch where you're walking, dirt farmer."
The voice belonged to a young man of perhaps twenty, dressed in robes dyed a deep, costly blue with silver thread at the collar — the unmistakable colors of the Azure Cloud Sect, the city's resident sixth-rate power and, by local reputation, some six times prouder of itself than its actual standing warranted. Two similarly dressed companions flanked him, all three radiating the practiced arrogance of young men who had never once had to carry their own water.
Wei Feng, whose shoulder had brushed the young man's sleeve in the crowd, opened his mouth to apologize on reflex.
Chu Yan got there first.
"My friend," he said, stepping smoothly between them with a smile that could have charmed silver out of a miser, "walked directly past you without incident. If your sleeve happened to find his shoulder, I would gently suggest the fault lies with your sleeve's trajectory, not his."
The market noise around them dimmed slightly, the particular hush of a crowd sensing a show about to begin.
The young man's eyes narrowed. "Do you know who I am?"
"No," Chu Yan admitted, "and given that you had to ask, I suspect you aren't entirely certain either."
A ripple of poorly concealed laughter moved through the nearest onlookers. One of the young man's companions choked on it outright.
"I am Feng Lie," the young man said, color rising in his face, "outer disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect, third rank in this year's inner disciple trials. And you are—" his gaze swept over Chu Yan's plain farm robes, dismissive and complete in under a second, "—nobody worth my time."
"Chu Yan," he offered anyway, with a small, theatrical bow. "Founder, current sole master, and — as of a few days ago, still recruiting — first disciple of the Heavenly Origin Sect. You may not have heard of us yet."
"I have not," Feng Lie said flatly, "because you don't exist."
"We're new," Chu Yan allowed. "Give it time."
[Ding.]
[Side Quest triggered: Do not let the Azure Cloud Sect's arrogance go unanswered. 0/1.]
[System suggestion: this quest may be completed through words alone, or through demonstration. Host is advised that demonstration carries risk given the current gap in cultivation.]
Noted, Chu Yan thought back, entirely too pleased with himself to feel the caution the system was so plainly trying to instill.
Feng Lie stepped closer, close enough that Wei Feng's hand drifted instinctively toward nothing in particular, since he carried no weapon and had never before needed one. "A sect of two farmers," Feng Lie said, pitching his voice to carry, "claiming founder status in the middle of my market. Do you have any idea how many nameless little sects rise and collapse in Azure Cloud City every single year?"
"No," Chu Yan said. "But I suspect you'll remember this particular one."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a prediction." Chu Yan's smile did not waver. "I have great confidence in my predictions."
For a moment, it seemed Feng Lie might escalate past words entirely — his hand twitched toward the short blade at his hip, and the crowd around them held its breath in the specific way crowds do just before something regrettable happens. Then, from somewhere behind the assembled Azure Cloud disciples, a new voice cut through, dry and entirely unimpressed by all of it.
"Feng Lie. Lower your hand before you embarrass the sect any further than you already have this month."
The crowd parted slightly for a woman who could not have been more than a year or two older than Chu Yan, dressed in the same blue robes but wearing them as though they were simply clothes rather than a proclamation. Her hair was tied back with brisk practicality, a plain sword hung at her hip that had clearly seen genuine use, and her expression suggested she had watched this exact scene unfold roughly a hundred times before, and found it tedious on the hundred-and-first.
Feng Lie's spine went rigid. "Senior Sister Mu. This does not concern you."
"It concerns me the moment my junior brother draws steel over a disagreement in a market square." She did not so much as glance at him; her attention settled instead on Chu Yan with an assessing, unhurried curiosity entirely unlike Feng Lie's dismissal — as though she were actually looking, rather than deciding in advance what she expected to see. "Heavenly Origin Sect," she repeated, testing the shape of it. "Founder and sole disciple, was it?"
"Founder and first disciple," Chu Yan corrected, with a nod toward Wei Feng. "The second is still finalizing his contract negotiations."
"I am not—" Wei Feng began.
"He's finalizing them very enthusiastically," Chu Yan said, speaking over him.
Something that might, in poor lighting, have been mistaken for the beginning of a smile crossed the woman's face before she smoothed it away. "Mu Wan," she said. "Inner disciple, Azure Cloud Sect." Her gaze flicked to Feng Lie, cool and final. "Apologize. Then walk away. You have training within the hour, and I would rather not explain to Elder Song why you're late because you picked a fight with a farmer in the millet market."
"He's not merely a farmer, he's clearly—"
"He's clearly not worth your time, by your own words five minutes ago," Mu Wan said. "Choose one story and remain consistent with it."
Feng Lie's jaw worked, caught between fury and the plain fact that he had, indeed, said exactly that. He settled for a short, stiff nod in Chu Yan's general direction that fell well short of an actual apology, then turned on his heel and stalked off, his two companions trailing after him with the visible relief of men who had been quietly hoping this would not come to blows.
[Ding.]
[Side Quest complete: Do not let the Azure Cloud Sect's arrogance go unanswered.][Reward: 8 Contribution Points, +5 Reputation (Azure Cloud City, minor).]
Chu Yan allowed himself one small, private grin at the notification before turning his attention back to Mu Wan, who was watching him with an expression that had shifted from assessment toward something closer to genuine interest.
"Heavenly Origin Sect," she said again. "I've never once heard the name."
"You will," Chu Yan said. "That's rather the entire plan."
"A large plan, for a man standing in a millet market with one disciple who is, by his own account, still under negotiation."
"Large plans have to begin somewhere." He inclined his head, genuinely grateful beneath the theater. "Thank you, regardless. That could have gone considerably worse."
"It could have," Mu Wan agreed. "Feng Lie is mostly noise, but he dislikes losing face in public, and he tends toward spite afterward." Something considering flickered behind her eyes. "Keep your distance from Azure Cloud Sect disciples for a while — at least until your sect amounts to more than two people and a market-square reputation."
"Duly noted," Chu Yan said. "Though I have to say, for someone advising caution, you didn't seem especially worried about the outcome yourself."
"I wasn't worried about you," Mu Wan said, already turning to follow her junior brother. "I was worried about the mess it would make of my afternoon."
She left before he could think of a reply worth giving, which Wei Feng, once she was well out of earshot, found immensely funny.
"She has no idea how to talk to you," Wei Feng said, delighted. "I like her already."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've got that look."
"I don't have a look."
"You have several looks, Chu Yan, and that was a new one." Wei Feng slung the millet sack back over his shoulder, grinning now from ear to ear. "Come along, Sect Founder. Let's get home before you start a war with an entire sect over market etiquette."