It didn’t take them long to find lodgings in the city suitable for cultivators of their advancement. With the spirit stones they’d received for the sand beast parts, the price wasn’t anything to worry about either. They each had their own cultivation chamber, and the hostler even had a formation expert on hand to reconfigure the script to amplify the aspects guests required. He Yu emerged from his cultivation early the next morning as Jade Mountain Citadel began to awake.

  After a quick meal of qi fortified dumplings with the others, they set about to planning their next moves. Li Heng wanted to force their way in to the palace—a plan He Yu and the other unanimously overruled. Yan Shirong had the more sensible suggestion. Split up, and gather information.

  There was too much they simply didn’t know. Why would the guard act as if Tan Xiaoling didn’t even exist? He Yu didn’t think she was dead. If she’d fallen at the hands of her uncle upon her return to the Jade Kingdom, he thought the captain would have said as much.

  When he shared his reasoning with the others, Yan Shirong pointed out there might be some custom or taboo surrounding naming the dead. Li Heng didn’t think that made sense, and He Yu agreed. Regardless of whether such a taboo existed or not, it didn’t change their immediate goal.

  With the plan settled for the time being, He Yu headed out into the city with Chen Fei. Once they’d left the inn well behind them in the crowded streets of Jade Mountain Citadel, she pulled He Yu onto a less crowded side street.

  “I’m worried about her,” she said.

  “You don’t think something’s happened to her?” He Yu asked.

  “I don’t know. I think you’re right, though. She’s still alive. I think whatever was going on with the guard captain has to do with the succession dispute.”

  He Yu wasn’t surprised she knew about that. For their whole time in the outer sect, Chen Fei and Tan Xiaoling had lived together. They’d quickly struck up a friendship, and had remained close after moving into the inner sect. If anyone would know the details of Tan Xiaoling’s troubles, it would be Chen Fei.

  “Tan Xiaoling told me a bit about the problems with her uncle, but I’m not really up on the details,” He Yu said.

  “Well, the short of it comes from the fact she was of such low advancement.”

  “Surely that could have been fixed, right? I mean, she was the strongest outer disciple that joined with us. And you saw what she did during the tournament.” She’d simply crushed everyone she faced, was what she’d done. He Yu had been the only one to put up a fight, and she still beat him handily. Despite all the insights to his Way and his proclamations about never giving up, with the wisdom of time and hindsight he could admit the truth. He’d never stood a chance against her.

  “Eventually. But you know how cultivators are. Her uncle never would have given her the chance to grow strong enough if she’d stayed.”

  “So she left,” He Yu said.

  “Yeah, but that’s part of the problem,” Chen Fei said. “Based on what she told me, the people of the Jade Kingdom value strength and personal power above everything else. Makes sense if you think about it. I mean, look at what happened to us in the desert. Things are worse up in the mountains themselves. Between the White Desert and the Jade Mountain, this isn’t a land where the weak get to enjoy long lives. I think that’s a lot of the reason Xiaoling was the way she was, you know?”

  It made sense. He Yu had always vaguely known that Tan Xiaoling’s constant insistence that the Jade Kingdom was a harsh land full of harsh people was more than a simple platitude. If their journey across the White Desert was any hint of what the mountains held, this land was even harsher than he’d first imagined.

  “So succession disputes like the one Xiaoling and her uncle have are common,” Chen Fei continued. “Expected, really. This one is different, though.”

  “Different how?” he asked.

  “So her mother was a concubine. Tan Zihao never married. He also never had a second child.”

  “Does that matter?” He Yu asked. As far as he knew, any children born of the reigning emperor or empress in the Dragon Empire were eligible for the throne. Heirs were often selected based on talent and actual advancement. Although given the typical lifespans of cultivators, actual succession was exceedingly rare. The practice of naming an heir was more of a safeguard against crises more than a practical necessity.

  “Normally, the monarch would have many children. They would compete amongst themselves for resources and to advance the fastest. Once a clear strongest emerged, that child would be named heir. Any of the other children could challenge the named heir for their position, although that hardly ever happens. But Tan Zihao never took another concubine after Xiaoling was born. It’s happened before, according to her. Sometimes a monarch will only have one child, so they can invest all the resources at their disposal into that child’s advancement.”

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  “Alright,” He Yu said. “But what’s different this time?”

  “Tan Qingsheng. He’s much younger than Tan Zihao, by like hundreds of years. He’s only eighty or so years old. Practically a child in the eyes of cultivators of Tan Zihao’s advancement.”

  He Yu thought he saw what she was getting at. “So because he’s so young, he could challenge Tan Xiaoling’s right to the throne.”

  “Yeah. Also, because he was already at the Nascent Soul stage, there was no way Tan Xiaoling could stand up to him.”

  “Makes sense that she came south then.”

  “Problem is that made her look weak.”

  The shape of things fell into place. “So she all but renounced her claim by coming south to save her life.”

  Chen Fei nodded. “And I’ll bet Tan Qingsheng wasn’t simply sitting on his hands while she was gone, either. He knew she’d come back eventually. While the Jade Kingdom produces strong cultivators, Xiaoling is a once-in-a-generation talent even by the standards of her home. He’d have known that he would have to deal with her, eventually.”

  “So if she was still at the Golden Core stage when she returned, she wouldn’t yet be able to challenge Tan Qingsheng directly,” he said.

  It seemed they had two questions to answer now. The most important one remained finding out what happened to Tan Xiaoling. The second was to determine what exactly Tan Qingsheng had been up to during Tan Xiaoling’s time in the sect. And in the fifteen years since her return.

  He Yu and Chen Fei quickly agreed their best course of action would be to find out more about Tan Qingsheng. A discreet question here or there about Tan Xiaoling wouldn’t hurt, but learning the extent of what her uncle had been up to seemed to be the best route to figuring out what happened in her absence. They set about to wandering the city and asking their questions. As it turned out, people were more than happy to talk about the great Tan Qingsheng.

  Over the past twenty years, he’d become something of a hero to the people of Jade Mountain Citadel and the surrounding settlements. He’d built the foundations of his reputation with frequent excursions into the surrounding lands. Whether he came to the aid of settlements dealing with attacks from beasts of spirits, or routing bandits from the valleys of the Jade Mountains, Tan Qingsheng had always ensured he did so visibly. As more and more people of the Jade Kingdom witnessed his exploits, they talked. The more people talked, the more his reputation grew.

  Tan Qingsheng also made a show of bestowing vast amounts of advancement resources on the cultivators of the settlements he defended. His stated reason for this was always to help those experts better aid those who depended upon him. While gifting such vast wealth certainly did what Tan Qingsheng claimed it would, nobody was foolish enough to think that was the only reason he’d done it. But neither was anybody willing to turn down such wealth, even if it was simply to buy their goodwill.

  In the first years after Tan Xiaoling went south, Tan Qingsheng had worked hard to push her from the people’s memory. His efforts had mostly worked. To the people of the Jade Kingdom, Tan Qingsheng was everything an heir should be. Visibly strong, an active defender of the kingdom itself, and magnanimous to its people. By contrast, Tan Xiaoling was simply absent.

  They did, however, find one potential lead about what might have happened to Tan Xiaoling. As the day and the shadows grew long, He Yu and Chen Fei stopped at a food stand for a quick snack. Although the stand dealt only in mortal fare, Chen Fei insisted they stop, since the smell was irresistible. The steamed buns stuffed with red bean paste did smell amazing, and since mortal wealth was meaningless to him, He Yu was more than happy to join her.

  “The princess. I remember hearing something about her,” the stand owner said after Chen Fei had brought the conversation around to what they were really after. The owner was an older man, nearing the end of his mortal lifespan. His face was lined with age, but he ran the food stand with the energy of a man of only half his years. “A lot of people were upset when she left, you know. She was popular, if only because she showed such promise.”

  “But fifteen years ago,” Chen Fei said around a mouthful of steamed dough and bean paste.

  “Ah, when she returned,” the stand owner said. “Couldn’t say what happened exactly. There wasn’t a battle or anything. People would have remembered that. Tan Qingsheng denounced her to anyone who would listen, and with his reputation, that turned out to be most people. The talk stopped soon after, so if I were to guess, she fled the city again.”

  “My thanks, uncle,” He Yu said as he put down another coin for a second steamed bun.

  The owner was more than happy to keep talking, but they quickly found he’d little else of use to say. At least now they had something. If only that something was the barest whisper of a hint, it was better than what they’d had before. They poked around the city for a little while longer. Even with the stand owner’s speculation to follow up on, they learned nothing else of value. As night fell, they headed back to their rooms to meet up with Li Heng and Yan Shirong.

  “Better than what we got,” Li Heng said over a jar of wine once they’d all finished filling each other in about the day’s questioning.

  During their own tour of the city, Li Heng and Yan Shirong hadn’t learned much other than what most people of Jade Mountain Citadel were willing to freely share. Tan Qingsheng was popular. He’d made a name for himself. And although no official declaration had ever been issued, he was considered the heir presumptive by mostly everyone in the city.

  Yan Shirong sat silently, wearing a pensive expression. He Yu left him to it. No doubt he was sorting through everything they’d learned—what little of it there was—in an attempt to glean something useful for their next steps.

  Li Heng’s frustration was understandable. His relationship with Tan Xiaoling had been somewhat of an open secret back in the sect. He Yu didn’t know how much they’d shared about her situation with respect to her uncle, but He Yu could tell he was worried about her.

  “One thing that seems to be fairly obvious,” He Yu said in an attempt to lift Li Heng’s spirits, “is that she didn’t do battle with her uncle. At least nowhere near the city. That means there’s a good chance she’s out there somewhere, right?”

  Li Heng kept staring into his wine. “I hope you’re right,” was all he said.