Schedule Update
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From now on, the release schedule here will be daily.
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They arrived in the capital at mid-morning in a four-door sedan, coming in on the eastern expressway. Ren paid the toll without stopping the engine, window down, mask on, the attendant handing back change without comment.
The city announced itself gradually. Outer districts first, residential blocks and warehouse rows with gate barriers visible on the horizon. Then the middle ring, where traditional Qintaran courtyard architecture sat between modern towers, curved tile roofs and carved wooden eaves against glass and steel. Then the inner city, where everything was tall and lit and moving.
Lily had her window down and her head partly out, which Ren told her to stop twice before giving up.
"That one," Martinez said from the back seat, pointing at a tower with a traditional roof sitting on its upper floors. "Is that a hotel?"
"Office building," Ren said.
"What about that one."
"Also offices."
"That one with the red."
"That's the Dao Guild headquarters."
Martinez stared at it as the car carried them past. Forty floors of glass and steel with a full traditional curved roof sitting on top, dark stone and gold trim, the peak curved upward at the edges.
"It looks like someone put a temple on top of a skyscraper," Lily said, back inside the window now.
"That's exactly what they did," Ren said.
She considered this. "I like it."
Ren found parking two blocks from the central district, a covered lot beside a commercial building. He cut the engine and sat for a moment before getting out.
He knew this area. He had walked these streets in a different body, a different life, when he was still Nox and the city still felt like enemy territory. The buildings were exactly where he remembered them. The scholar trees on the main boulevard had grown taller. Everything else was the same.
"Big brother Ghost," Lily said quietly, standing beside the car. "Have you been here before?"
"Yes."
"It feels like you know it."
"I do."
She watched his face for a moment. Then she looked at the boulevard.
The main boulevard ran straight from the lot entrance toward the central district, four lanes in each direction with a raised median planted with scholar trees, their canopies meeting overhead and dappling the morning light on the pavement below. On both sides, buildings old and new stood together without apology. A glass residential tower next to a two-story teahouse with paper lanterns strung across its frontage. A department store beside a temple gate, red pillars and all, incense smoke from inside drifting out through the open doors and across the pavement.
"It's beautiful," Lily said.
It was. Ren had not thought of it that way before, because the last time he was here he was running from two Legendary-rank hunters and the city had been more of an obstacle course than a view. But she was right.
"There's a market district three blocks north," he said. "Real food. We'll go after I check us in."
Martinez's attention shifted immediately from the skyline to this new priority. "What food."
"Qintaran. The proper kind."
"What's the proper kind."
"You'll know when you eat it."
The hotel was two blocks from the central transit hub, mid-range, clean, one that asked for registration and did not look too closely at it. Ren paid for three nights, took two room keys, and gave one to Martinez with specific instructions: he was in charge of the door, the window locks, and making sure Lily ate something before nine in the morning because she had a habit of skipping breakfast when she was interested in other things.
Martinez accepted this responsibility with both hands.
"Where are you going?" Lily asked.
"I have something to take care of."
"Is it dangerous?"
Ren looked at her. "No."
"You're wearing the mask."
"I always wear the mask."
She looked at him for a moment, clearly aware she was not getting the full picture. Then she nodded and went inside.
Ren stood in the hotel corridor for a moment after the door closed.
First things first, he thought. Brother Lu.
.
.
.
Lu Changcheng was in excellent spirits.
He had been in excellent spirits since approximately six hours ago, when the tribulation concluded and the world system had made its announcement, and he had stood in the wreckage of the cultivation space with his robes destroyed and his sword arm still humming and thought: well. That is done.
He was now in his private bath, large and hot, drawn by his household staff before he even asked.
He whistled something tuneless, stretched his arms above his head, and watched the steam rise.
Legendary rank, he thought. Immortal Lu Changcheng. The title has a weight to it.
He considered what it meant for Qintara. The balance would shift. It had already shifted. Every faction in the country would be recalibrating their positions tonight, running numbers, sending messages, reconsidering agreements they had thought settled. The Royalist faction would be concerned. The Religious faction, which had Gregory Hood and his causality strings, would be very concerned. The Bureau would be sending reports.
Good. Let them recalibrate. The country needed it.
He tilted his head back against the bath's edge and looked at the ceiling.
His thoughts drifted to Ren Hector.
He sighed.
"He knows by now," he said to the steam. "The announcement was not exactly subtle. He heard it wherever he is." A pause. "He cannot come back yet. He is still in his training period, still building whatever he is building out there. He knows I know that."
He frowned slightly.
"The world system was excessive, incidentally," he said, to no one. "The announcement did not need to echo across every populated territory simultaneously. A regional notification would have sufficed. Some of us prefer discretion."
The steam did not respond.
He stayed in the bath until the water cooled, then got out, wrapped a towel around his shoulders, and walked to the bathroom mirror. His hair was down, wet, hanging past his collarbone. He ran his fingers through it once to clear the worst of the tangles.
Legendary rank, he thought again, looking at his own reflection.
He still looked like himself. He was not sure what he had expected. Some visible mark of the threshold he had crossed, perhaps. The mirror showed him the same face it always had, slightly older than he felt, tired in a way that came from carrying large things for a long time.
He picked up the towel from his shoulders and slung it over one arm. He reached for the light switch and turned it on.
.
.
.
The bedroom was dark when he entered. He reached for the light.
The light came on.
There was a man sitting on his bed.
Leather armor, dark. Raven black hair, slightly longer than Lu remembered, loose around the jaw. No mask. A face Lu Changcheng had not seen in months, sharp and angular, eyes wide, caught entirely off guard.
Ren had not expected the light to come on yet. The towel hit the floor.
Both of them screamed.
"AGHHHHHHHH"
"AGHHHHHHHH"
Ren scrambled backward on the bed. Lu Changcheng grabbed the nearest object, which was a decorative vase, and held it in front of himself with both hands. It was not a large vase. Lu Changcheng's little johnson was out in the open wind.
"PUT SOMETHING ON," Ren said, at significant volume.
"YOU ARE IN MY BEDROOM," Lu Changcheng said, at equal volume.
"I WAS WAITING—"
"WHY ARE YOU IN MY—"
"I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO JUST WALK IN LIKE—"
"IT IS MY ROOM—"
Lu Changcheng located the towel on the floor behind him, reached back without turning around, and wrapped it around his waist with the dignity of a man pretending the last thirty seconds had not occurred. He set the vase down.
Ren had his hand over his eyes. He lowered it slowly.
They looked at each other.
"This is the second time," Ren said.
Lu Changcheng straightened his robe from the door hook and put it on, tying the sash with focused precision. "I beg your pardon."
"The first time I came to find you, you'd just come out of the bath as well. In Qintara."
"That was a different situation."
"You were also not wearing anything that time."
"I had a towel."
"You dropped it."
Lu Changcheng turned to face him fully. "Why are you always come to me when I'm naked or half naked." He pointed at Ren. "What the fuck. Are you gay or something."