FEW MOMENTS AGO —

The swords hummed a clean, cutting note through the late afternoon sky.

Seven of them sliced through the pale blue above the pine canopy, their riders standing atop the polished blades with the casual ease of people who had made this commute a hundred times. The Manhattan City orthodox disciples of the Azure Cloud Spire sect returned from their hunt in a loose formation, their white and silver robes catching the wind, sleeves billowing behind them like the wings of cranes.

They were all women, save for one.

Six of them, gorgeous in the way that only women who cultivated body-tempering arts every morning at dawn could be — skin luminous, hair glossy, figures carved by years of spiritual energy circulating through developing bodies into something frankly unfair. They laughed and bickered with the easy comfort of sisters, their voices rising and dipping through the cool mountain air.

"Suyin, it is really getting harder to pretend we do not notice," called Meiren from the sword on the far left, her long black ponytail whipping behind her as she grinned. Her oval face was radiant, her round dark eyes bright with mischief. The sect uniform clung well to her generous frame, the silver sash at her waist pulled snugly around hips that curved outward with a natural heaviness that made the men in the lower city stare and forget where they were going.

Suyin, riding at the center of the group, let out a deliberate, flat exhale through her nose.

She was a woman that the heavens had clearly been in a good mood assembling. Her face carried a soft, girlish prettiness at odds with the sharp intelligence behind her dark eyes. The sect robe did little to hide the full, round weight of her chest, the twin mounds pressing firmly against her inner robe with every gentle shift of her balance on the sword. Her lower body was generously proportioned — wide hips, thick thighs built from years of cultivation stances, a plush backside that the tight sash of her outer robe only made more prominent by cinching her waist above it.

She crossed her arms.

"I do not know what you are talking about," she said flatly.

The other five women erupted. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"Oh, SURE," howled Liufen, slapping her own thigh. She was the tallest of the group, willowy except for a chest so heavy she had complained to her master once about the center-of-gravity problems it created during sword forms. She was not joking. "Because a young man has simply been conveniently passing through every forest, every canyon road, and every spiritual mountain path we have used for the last two weeks."

"Coincidence," Suyin said.

"He appeared at the spirit beast market."

"I like shopping."

"He appeared at the hot springs retreat."

"He likes —"

"Suyin." Meiren’s voice dropped to a tone of absolute theatrical patience. "He appeared at the hot springs. The ’women only’ hot springs. He climbed the outer wall."

A beat of silence floated through the mountain air, broken only by the clean cutting hum of seven swords through open sky.

Suyin’s jaw tightened. A very small, very contained smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. She killed it immediately.

"I did not invite him."

"No, but you saw him over the wall and you did not report him to the inner sect elder," Liufen pointed out.

"I was conserving spiritual energy."

The group dissolved into laughter again. The swords dipped and wobbled slightly as their riders lost composure, filling the mountain sky above the pine forest with the bright, unrestrained sound of young women who found their friend absolutely, hopelessly transparent.

Suyin stared ahead, her arms tighter across her chest now.

She was not smiling. She was absolutely not smiling.

’’’

Then a figure rose from below the canopy line.

He shot upward on a narrow wooden sword, the cheap kind sold in the outer city markets — practical, unadorned, honest. His robes were clean but plain, white with light blue trim that marked him as the outer disciple of a minor affiliated sect. His face was young, good-looking in a soft, open way, with warm brown eyes and a nervous energy that lived in his hands, which kept adjusting and readjusting his grip on the front edge of his flying sword.

He pulled level with the group, shooting Suyin a grin that tried extremely hard to be smooth and landed somewhere in the vicinity of completely charming despite itself.

"Oh, Suyin! You were here! What a surprise, haha —"

"Wei Jiushan," Suyin said, with the tone of a woman confronting a particularly beloved and foolish cat she had discovered sitting inside the pot she was trying to cook with.

Wei Jiushan’s grin widened. The nervous energy in his hands doubled. He cleared his throat.

"I was in the area. Passing through. The Jade Stone Pass is — there is a very scenic overlook I was planning to —"

"You followed us," Meiren said pleasantly.

Wei Jiushan opened his mouth.

He closed it.

He opened it again.

"...The overlook IS very scenic," he said with enormous dignity.

The women started laughing again.

Suyin’s gaze slid sideways, watching him. He was glancing between her and the others with that deer-caught-in-a-spirit-trap expression she had catalogued and quietly stored away over these past weeks. He had a good face when he was embarrassed. The tips of his ears went pink.

"Jiu," she said, her voice softening despite her best efforts.

His eyes locked onto hers immediately. Alert. Hopeful.

She studied him for a moment.

"What are you actually doing here?"

He took a breath. His hands stopped fidgeting. Something shifted behind his warm eyes — the nervous boy peeling back to reveal something quieter and more honest underneath.

"The Ascending Summit Competition," he said. "Registration opens in forty days."

Everyone knew about the Ascending Summit. Every orthodox sect in the eastern territories knew. A grueling multi-stage cultivation tournament — combat, formation-breaking, endurance trials — where the top twenty competitors earned access to the Celestial Archive vault, a prize of spiritual resources that could launch a cultivator’s progression by decades. More importantly, competitors registered as Dao Companion pairs fought in a protected bracket. The mutual resonance of paired cultivation could compound power exponentially if the compatibility was genuine.

Wei Jiushan’s hands steadied on his sword edge.

"I want to register as your partner, Suyin," he said. "The Dao Companion bracket. I want us to compete together. We could — I know my current level is not — I have been training every day for four months and I broke through to the fifth layer last week and I —" He stopped himself, jaw working. Then, quieter, "I want to get strong with you. That is all."

The mountain air sat between them.

Suyin stared at him.

From behind her, very quietly, Liufen made a soft cooing sound that she stifled immediately when Suyin’s elbow snapped backward in her general direction.

Suyin looked back at the group.

Meiren shrugged, her heavy chest rolling with the movement, and gave a smile of pure, unhelpful delight.

Liufen mimed being shot through the heart.

The third woman, little Fenxu with her gap-toothed grin, actually mouthed the words ’you are SO lucky’ while pointing aggressively at Wei Jiushan.

Suyin turned back around. Something warm and stubborn had settled in her chest and was refusing to leave regardless of how reasonable her expression remained.

She looked at Wei Jiushan — at the pink tips of his ears, his honest brown eyes, his plain outer-city sword, his completely transparent four-month campaign of absolutely terrible covert observation.

She started to laugh.

It came out of her before she could catch it, bright and genuine, her head dropping for a moment as her shoulders shook.

Wei Jiushan’s expression transformed into complete, radiant relief.

"Come here," she said, and she grabbed his hand.

"Wait —" His voice pitched upward. "Are you — here? In front of everyone —?"