*Drip*
Something cold drifted down from the sky onto my face. I looked up. A snowflake.
It was winter.
I pulled my robe tighter around me and hurried towards the apothecary. I didn't like the cold.
Yao Po's house wasn't far away, only a few more steps. I could see her now, taking care of a pregnant lady. When I reached, she was giving some herbs to her and telling her to stop working at the market
"Good morning, Healer Po."
She looked at me, having already escorted the pregnant lady out. "Is something the matter with your wounds?"
I shook my head, "I just came to ask you a question."
"The last time you came to ask me a question, you tried to kill yourself on a hunt." She sighed, "What do you want to ask this time?"
"Do you have anything for increasing memory?"
Yao Po laughed, "Do you think I'm an alchemist or a healer?" She beckoned me inside, "I don't have anything like that. Why?"
"Are you sure? I got access to a library, and–"
"A library? Since when? The only people who have libra—" She put a hand over her mouth. "A noble gave you access to his library? How?" Then, when the shock wore off, "What did you do?"
"Nothing." The last time I had told her I was hunting a spirit beast, she had done her best to convince me out of it. I wasn't telling her the truth now.
"Khan."
"Yes?"
"I won't help you kill yourself again, Khan, leave." She had suddenly gotten serious, "If you aren't going to tell me, then I have no business helping you." She went to open the door, "Last time was because you were going to hunt a spirit beast, a healer must not endanger her own clients."
Yao Po pointed out the door, "Leave."
My stomach dropped. I hadn't thought she'd take it this seriously. My hands hovered at my sides, unsure of what to do. It was my life. What did it matter to her? I sighed, "If I tell you, will you help me with the potion?"
She crossed her arms. "Go on, if it isn't as foolish as last time, then I'll help you."
"Azul was able to get me access to the Lady, Vespara's library, he owes me a favor," I tried to come up with something fast, "in exchange, I have to provide him animal skins, at half price for the next two weeks."
She cocked an eyebrow, "You aren't able to hunt. The overseer would have his guards flog you on sight if he knew you were on his fields."
'Damn it,' I had forgotten, she knew about my problems with the overseer.
"Tell me the truth, Khan,"
"I'm hunting a Celestial Mirror Leopard."
She threw her hands up in the air, "Khan," I wasn't sure if she was angry or frustrated, "I'm not helping you."
I scratched my neck. "Please," I didn't like the feeling, but I begged, "She's a noble lady. You know what will happen to me if I don't deliver the spirit beast."
She rushed outside, "Look," her hands jutted out the door forcefully, "It's winter. Do you know what that means?"
I shook my head.
Her eyes widened, "You don't know? And you want to hunt it?"
"That's why I want the potion, I'll be able to remember everything I learn in the library."
"Winter is when the spirit beast is strongest, Khan. This is a deathwish."
"Not getting it for her is the actual death wish."
She tightened her hands together, fighting the urge to hit me. "I don't have any potion like that, Khan. If I did, I'd give it away immediately." She took a seat. "Cultivators have hierarchies, things they are allowed not to do, selling an actual elixir to mortals is one of them."
Yao Po sighed, "I'd be dead if I had anything like that."
I got next to her, "You don't have anything you can do?" I bit my lips, "I have to make the most of this. I may never get a chance like this again."
She froze, her mouth open, but then she closed it again. A glance at the drawer, before quickly trying to hide it. But I knew what that drawer was. What it hid. I remembered from the time I was here getting healed from the previous spirit beast.
The healing elixir. The one with dreg qi.
"Can that help?"
"Khan!"
"It's only a question."
"You know what that does to cultivators. Are you in a hurry to die?"
I chose not to answer, she was right. "There's nothing you can do?"
"I have something."
I perked my head, "Yes?"
"It's not for memory. All it does is make you more aware. Maybe that might help."
###
Huo Feng's eyes darted between Hung Zhen and Hung Lee.
One calm, composed, and willing to talk things out. The other was frantically screaming at him to pick a side.
He was standing between two dark assassins, and he didn't dare move. There'd be no escaping this one.
"What do you want?"
Hung Lee shouted out, "Unbind yourself from the Jiang Ling sword," but Huo Feng ignored him. He had been addressing Hung Zhen, preferring not to talk to the one who'd tried to have him killed because of a woman. "Give me your allegiance." Zhen said.
Hung Lee's face paled, "Kill him!" and his shadow servant moved to complete the order, but his cousin, was too fast. Giving out a counter order as well.
The two assassins clashed. With Hung Lee's servant being pushed back by a few inches. Hung Zhen, with his hands behind his back, said, "What do you want? Hmm? Serve me, and I'll give you riches beyond what you've ever imagined."
In Hung Zhen's mind, this was a simple matter, give the peasant boy some gold and qi stones, and he would be fine. Putting up his life for things that meant nothing.
"I don't want gold."
Hung Zhen and his cousin both blinked. "What do you want?"
Huo Feng looked around. For some reason, they were the only people there. "I want a spar." He turned to Hung Lee. "With him. To the death."
"Done."
"Hah! You think a backwater fool like you can fight me? Were did you–" but then Hung Lee looked at the treasured sword in its scabbard.
"No! That's cheating, I won't–"
Hung Zhen threw a paper fan at his cousins mouth, which stopped the talking for a while, "Is that all?"
"The city lord and the grounds elder of the sect. I want them both dead."
Hung Zhen went wide-eyed at that, but quickly calmed himself, "As long as you give me your allegiance. You will get it." A bit curious, he asked, "Why do you want the grounds elder?"
"He took my mother."