Under the shade of a tavern awning in Xiaguan, at the foot of Snow Moon City—
"Brother, that person over there looks just like you." Long Kui's voice surfaced in Xiao Se's mind, bright with genuine surprise.
"They do look very alike," Xiao Se agreed, his gaze drifting unhurriedly across the street toward the tavern where the man in blue robes, the man in red, and the scholar with his pageboy had settled in.
He already had a reasonable idea of who each of them was.
The man in red was Lei Wujie — the second male lead of The Legend of the Young Swordsman, boisterous and earnest in roughly equal measure. The scholar was Li Fansong, inheritor of Zhao Yuzhen's swordsmanship lineage from Mount Qingcheng. The slightly round-faced pageboy at his side was Fei Xuan, inheritor of Zhao Yuzhen's Taoist arts. And the man in blue robes — the one whose face was an almost unsettling mirror of his own — was unquestionably Xiao Chuhe, sixth prince of Beili and the story's true protagonist. The one who would one day rename himself Xiao Se.
"That person has some hidden injuries," Long Kui continued, her soul power spreading outward in a careful, probing sweep. "His life isn't in danger, but several of his meridians are broken."
"Someone probably shattered them deliberately," Xiao Se said.
"Most likely." Long Kui let her attention drift from the question. "But speaking of which — why was it nighttime when we left our world, and it's daytime here?"
"Compared to the Dou Qi Continent, this is a smaller world," Xiao Se explained. "Time doesn't flow the same way here. My best estimate is that one day on our side equals roughly five days here."
He turned the numbers over as he said it.
Two years ago, in his own world's time, he had met Li Hanyi — and that encounter had taken place approximately ten years before the events of the Young Swordsman storyline were set to begin. Now Xiao Chuhe and Lei Wujie had arrived in Snow Moon City, which meant the story had been running for several months already. The math held.
One day to five.
"Brother met Li Hanyi two years ago on our side," Long Kui said slowly, working through the same calculation — and then her voice jumped an entire register. "That means she's been waiting for you for nearly ten years!"
"It does seem that way," Xiao Se agreed.
He didn't manage to keep the quiet satisfaction entirely out of his voice. If he had taken his time arriving — waited another few years — Li Hanyi would have been well into her forties. As it stood now, she was approaching thirty. Experienced, refined, fully grown into herself. In his entirely objective assessment, the timing was ideal.
Across the street, Li Fansong had settled comfortably into the conversation, and Lei Wujie was in his natural habitat — thoroughly engaged, wine cup in hand, absorbing Jianghu gossip with the dedication of a scholar at primary sources.
"Wait—" Lei Wujie nearly choked on his sip. "You're telling me that senior who defeated the Snow Moon Sword Immortal looks almost exactly like Xiao Se?"
Li Fansong nodded, pouring himself a cup with the unhurried ease of someone who had already processed this coincidence and moved to a state of calm acceptance. "My master, Zhao Yuzhen, keeps portraits of both the Snow Moon Sword Immortal and that senior in his study — painted when they were young. The resemblance to Brother Xiao is quite striking. Naturally, when we first saw him, we both assumed he might be the same person." He set down his cup. "But clearly that was a mistake. That senior disappeared nearly ten years ago, and Brother Xiao is not yet twenty. The numbers simply don't add up."
"Same face, same name—" Lei Wujie shook his head, pressing two fingers against his temple. "That is genuinely strange." His gaze wandered toward the window. "And there was another one — the boy in the black-and-gold robe I pointed out earlier, he looked almost identical to Xiao Se too—" He leaned forward to look. "Hm? Where did he go?"
He scanned the street in both directions. The awning across the way was empty. The black-robed youth was nowhere.
"Did Brother Lei see someone who resembled Brother Xiao?" Li Fansong asked, with quiet curiosity.
"Resembled is putting it mildly. They could have been the same person." Lei Wujie scratched the back of his head, then turned to Xiao Chuhe. "Xiao Se — did you see him? The one in the black robe?"
"I saw him," Xiao Chuhe said.
"Where did he go? I can't find him anywhere."
"He disappeared," Xiao Chuhe said, with the measured calm of someone reporting a weather event. "Vanished in an instant. Like smoke."
The pageboy Fei Xuan sat up straighter, his eyes going wide. "Like smoke? Could that be — the Misty Smoke Step? The Snow Moon Sword Immortal's lightness technique, first ranked under heaven?"
"Not impossible," Xiao Chuhe said, in the same unhurried tone.
He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. Once upon a time, the title of the world's foremost lightness technique had belonged to his own Cloud-Stepping Art. Then, ten years ago, Li Hanyi had appeared from nowhere, and a great many firsts had quietly changed hands. The top rank among the Five Great Sword Immortals. The foremost lightness skill. The foremost swordsmanship. All of it shifted, redistributed, credited to someone new.
The loss was, he reflected, genuinely inconvenient.
"I should have gone to challenge her myself when I had the chance," Lei Wujie announced, with a frustration that was mostly performative and slightly sincere. He knocked back the last of his wine, stood up, and vaulted out through the tavern window in a single fluid motion that drew several startled looks from passersby. He landed on the street below, took two running steps, then turned back and waved. "Xiao Se! I'm going to challenge the Ascending Heaven Pavilion. If you see that black-robed youth again — come find me!"
He was already running before anyone could respond.
Xiao Chuhe watched him go with the patient, slightly weary expression of a man who had known Lei Wujie long enough to have stopped being surprised by him. "What a simpleton," he said, with the fondness of someone who means it as a compliment but lacks the vocabulary to say so. He set down his cup, straightened, and turned to Li Fansong and Fei Xuan with a proper bow. "Shall we follow? And Daoist Fei Xuan — I'd like to ask you to read my fortune, if you're willing."
"Of course." Li Fansong rose, returning the gesture with an easy smile. "I was going to the Ascending Heaven Pavilion regardless."
Fei Xuan nodded his agreement, and the three of them — plus the donkey, who had opinions about none of this — made their way out into the street.
While the others moved toward the Ascending Heaven Pavilion, Xiao Se had found his own table.
He was seated opposite a middle-aged man with a carefully maintained mustache, at a tavern situated close to the Ascending Heaven Tower — close enough to hear the ambient noise of the city, far enough for a quiet conversation. The man across from him sat with the particular settled ease of someone accustomed to being the most formidable presence in any given room and had long since stopped needing to demonstrate it.
"I am Sikong Changfeng," the man said, with measured directness. "Third City Lord of Snow Moon City." His eyes moved over Xiao Se with the assessing quality of a lifetime martial artist taking involuntary stock of whatever he was looking at. "What brings you to our city?"
"I'm here to see someone," Xiao Se said pleasantly.
"Who?"
"Li Hanyi."
The guard standing at Sikong Changfeng's shoulder drew a sharp breath and opened his mouth.
Sikong Changfeng raised one hand without looking. The guard closed his mouth.
"Stand down," Sikong Changfeng said quietly.
"Yes, Third City Lord." The guard retreated a step, with the expression of a man who has been told to stand down and is finding it somewhat difficult.
Sikong Changfeng's gaze returned to Xiao Se. "What is your business with my second senior sister?"
"A promise," Xiao Se said simply. "I'm here to keep one."
A promise.
Something moved in Sikong Changfeng's expression — a flicker of recognition, too brief to read clearly, gone before it had properly arrived. His second senior sister. Who hadn't left Snow Moon City in ten years. Who had been waiting.
The silence that followed had a particular texture to it.
Then, from somewhere behind and above them, a voice rang out — clear, bright, carrying the natural carrying power of someone raised in a place where voices needed to travel.
"Father! What are you doing all the way out here?"
A pause.
"Oh — and Xiao Se! You've finally made it to Snow Moon City!" The warmth in the voice spiked upward. "Where's Lei Wujie?"
The owner of the voice appeared a moment later — a young woman in a blue floral-patterned dress, a black-and-gold spear resting across one shoulder with the comfortable familiarity of a natural extension of her arm, walking toward them with the uncomplicated energy of someone who is never quite still. This was Sikong Qianluo, daughter of the Gun Immortal, and she radiated the particular guileless confidence of someone who had grown up surrounded by extraordinary people and decided the response was enthusiasm rather than intimidation.
She was also, clearly, slightly confused.
"Qianluo." Sikong Changfeng spoke before she could sit down. "This gentleman is not the Xiao Se you're thinking of."
Sikong Qianluo stopped. "What do you mean, not the—" She set her spear down against the table, dropped into the empty seat between her father and the stranger, and looked at Xiao Se properly for the first time.
She looked at him for a moment. Then she looked at the middle distance, apparently accessing a mental image. Then she looked back at him.
"Oh," she said.
Xiao Se took a small sip of his wine. "You must be Sikong Qianluo — the Gun Immortal's daughter. Your father is right. I am Xiao Se, but I'm not the one you know."
Sikong Qianluo studied him with open, unguarded curiosity — the kind that didn't bother pretending to be anything else. "You really do look almost the same," she said. "Almost. You seem a little younger than him. But the resemblance is—" She shook her head slightly. "How does that even happen? Is that actually possible?"
The answer to that question was, mercifully, cut off by a sound from the direction of the Ascending Heaven Pavilion — a ripple of raised voices, sharp with collective surprise, carrying across the rooftops with the particular energy of a crowd that has just witnessed something worth talking about.
"Someone's trying to break into the Ascending Heaven Pavilion!"
"Two levels already — they've cleared two already!"
A flash of red blurred past on the street at the edge of Xiao Se's peripheral vision, moving toward the commotion at a speed that explained the urgency perfectly.
Xiao Se smiled into his cup and shifted his gaze slightly — looking past Sikong Changfeng, toward the street behind him.
"Miss Sikong," he said. "The Xiao Se you were asking about has arrived."
Sikong Qianluo turned. Her father turned.
Down the street, moving at the easy unhurried pace of people who have no particular interest in joining whatever commotion has just erupted ahead of them, came Xiao Chuhe — accompanied by Li Fansong, Fei Xuan, and a donkey that ambled alongside them with the dignified composure of an animal that had seen many cities and rated them all approximately equally.
(End of Chapter)
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