The healing pill ran its course and my organs rebelled. Where before I’d felt energized, fast, almost bursting with energy, now my stomach roiled with nausea and I hurt as if I were in the throes of a deep winter flu. The kind that kills you. I struggled to keep it off my face and out of my movements as I dropped onto a bench for dinner. I only had rice and a bit of broth and seasoning; everything else smelled spicy and threatened to send my stomach into outright rebellion. I told myself it was fine. I’d be absolutely fine once I got through the meal.

  So, predictably, Ju Jing immediately asked, “Is something wrong?”

  Which, in turn, made Zhuzhu turn and pay more attention to me than to his bowl of dinner. “Another challenge so soon?” It was colored with indignation and he looked about ready to start a fight.

  “I’m fine. No other challenges! It was just a hard practice. Brother Jian felt that winning a fight meant I could be pushed harder. I’m exhausted.” It had the benefit of being at least twenty percent true. Every part of me ached, and I didn’t think it was all the qi backlash.

  Just...eighty percent of it. Zhuzhu grabbed a piece of meat with his chopsticks and lifted it to his mouth. Then stopped. “You need more exercise if training exhausts you.”

  My eyes were locked on that dangling strip of meat. At the sect, they cooked just about everything rare, seared on the outside but still glistening and barely cooked on the inside. I didn’t know if it was because cultivators should be too tough for food poisoning or if the quality of the meat they got was just such that they didn’t fear parasites. Normally, I was a fan of the meat, tender and juicy with a heat-crusted exterior. But right now, looking at that glistening hunk of flesh, moist and about to drip, my guts made a sound that sent Ju Jing’s eyebrows skyward.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth and staggered to my feet, heading away from the pavilion and the smells of rich, horrible food. I leaned against a wall and focused on my breathing. If I could dampen the pain of a cut or a broken arm with proper breathing, it had to be able to work on an uneasy stomach.

  In. Out. In. Out. Follow the pulse of the mountain. Reach down to the earth and up to the heavens. Find that stable, strong place between. The sounds from my guts quieted, the roiling of my stomach set more at ease. But not gone entirely. There was something wrong inside of me.

  “Zhou Hou?”

  I stiffened at Ju Jing’s voice. I hadn’t even heard him approach. I turned, putting my back to the wall. For support more than wariness. He was standing well out of reach, hands clasped carefully before him, his expression concerned even with the closed eyes and averted face.

  “It’s alright. I’m fine,” I said, with another steadying breath. “You didn’t have to check on me.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I didn’t. Should we go to the healer?”

  “No!” It rocked him back on his heels, just a little. I winced. “I mean, it’s not—a small imbalance of my internals. Nothing to bother the healer about. I can sleep it off.”

  “Mm.” It was the smallest of noises, and yet it held such a world of skepticism that I found myself stung by it.

  “What are you hming about? I’m not so weak that a little rest won’t fix me up.”

  He smiled. “No doubt. I was just somewhat doubtful about how much rest you would get.” A pause. “You promised to go drinking with your friend. He believes that you are trying to ‘get out of it’ again, and is a touch...irate. I assured him your distress was sincere, but…”

  “Oh, ruined gods.” I dragged my fingers down my face, resisting the urge to claw into the flesh in my frustration. Drinking on this stomach was the worst possible thing I could imagine. But Ju Jing was right. I had promised. One of the very few, maybe the only, promise I’d made to Zhuzhu or any other disciple. It was a minor promise, but still—honor was an ideal I couldn’t ignore. If I broke the small promises, then no one would trust me when I made the big ones.

  And since there were probably going to be promises that I absolutely had to break in my path to vengeance, I needed people to trust me as long as I could manage. Ju Jing still stood, quiet and nonjudgmental. Or, if he was judging, he was very good at keeping it off of his face. “Would you like me to make an excuse for you?”

  Yes, please. Tell them I died. But I said, “No, it’s okay. I’m really not that—it’ll be fine. Maybe the alcohol will even settle my stomach.” Now his expression showed skepticism, and I laughed weakly. “I can dream, right?”

  “You can.” His foot tapped on the stones of the ground, three rapid little motions, before he added, “Do you think I might be welcome to come along?”

  “Uh...Zhuzhu will be ecstatic. He’s been trying—but why? You’ve said no just as many times as I have.” I stood up straight, told my stomach to behave. “I can take care of myself, Ju Jing.”

  “You can.” The most unsettling thing about talking with Ju Jing was how he never bothered to turn his face towards who he was speaking to. If anything, he was more interested in keeping his ear turned closer, to hear every word. So his face was mostly in profile, illuminated only by mist-shrouded lamps. “It may surprise you to learn that I don’t have many people within our cohort who enjoy spending time with me, and who I enjoy spending time with, in turn.”

  “Zhuzhu desperately wants to make friends with you,” I pointed out.

  Ju Jing’s smile tilted on his face, became sharp. It reminded me all too much of when I’d seen him wield his art. His voice was dry as he replied, “Perhaps that day will come. But what I was getting at, Zhou Hou, is that while an invitation to drink with Zhuzhu is flattering, an invitation to drink with you is one I’m more likely to accept.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “What, really?” Yes, he’d talked of friends, false and otherwise, and I’d used the word myself. But Ju Jing just didn’t seem attached to anything. Certainly not to me.

  “Yes, really.” It was patient, but the light caught his mouth just right to let me see him press his lips together. “But if that’s not something you’d enjoy, then I’m just as happy to sit out.”

  “No, not at all. It’d be—actually, that sounds fine. I enjoy your company. I just don’t like drinking,” I admitted.

  “I find it is easier to make an early excuse when you are not the only one leaving. In the troupe, when nobles and merchants hosted us for entertainments, we would arrange signals to allow ourselves to slip out in twos and threes when we needed to.”

  His tone was so fond, even regretful, that I had to wonder why he had left them. By his own admission, they were his family, and yet he’d taken up the path of cultivation. Even if he succeeded, he would eventually lose them to age and the distance that cultivators inevitably put between themselves and mere mortals. I didn’t ask. It wasn’t the time or the place, and it would only invite questions in return. I offered what I could, instead.

  A careful bow, making sure to start talking when I was bent, so that he would pick up the change in height. “Why don’t you come drinking with us, Ju Jing? You’d be welcome company for me and I know Zhuzhu won’t mind.”

  His head tilted, following the sound of my voice. His smile was restrained but it lost its edge. “I accept the kind invitation. Are you ready to return?”

  I poked gingerly at my stomach. It gurgled sullenly. “...as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

  Which was how I showed up the next morning at weapons practice not just feverish and aching from qi sickness, but also so hungover that every single drop of sunlight that made it through the sect’s perpetual fog had turned into a dagger aimed without mercy at my eyes.

  I was also late; by the time I made my way carefully into the courtyard, both Jian and Kai were already there. My vision was a little blurred, but I couldn’t help but notice Kai’s little hiss of irritation. He reached into his robes and tossed something at Jian. The Inner Disciple caught it with barely a movement of his hand and whatever it was disappeared into his robes. He looked pleased with himself, but his voice was cool as he said, “We were about to start without you.”

  “I’m surprised you came at all,” Kai muttered. It was rough with scorn. “I understand you were busy last night.”

  “I don’t miss practice.” It was what I had told myself even as every muscle in my body screamed in protest at my demand to wake up and start moving. I’d chanted it with every step, even as those steps jostled my aching head and intensified the headache. Despite several rinsings, my mouth remained sour from the booze.

  I hadn’t intended to drink as much as I did. But it turned out that cultivators’ wine, even the quality that they would share with the lowliest of their members, was both much better and much more potent than anything I’d been used to drinking with my family back at our village. And the warmth that the alcohol had spread through me had made it easier to relax. To laugh with Zhuzhu, Ju Jing, and several other disciples. I even remember finding my own illness pretty funny after a few cups. Nothing had hurt and everyone had been much more clever than I’d previously thought them to be. Except Ju Jing, who always seemed frighteningly sharp. It had been a surprisingly good evening.

  And now I was paying the price. But I wouldn’t let it damage my cultivation. “I’m here, and ready to train.”

  As cheerful as ever, Jian said, “Excellent. I think we’re ready to start you on some of the more complex arts.” He watched my face change. His smile just widened. Sweetly, he added, “Something more vigorous, to match your increased skill.”

  Jian was a monster.

  It was the worst practice I’d suffered through, and that included the time when I was almost sure Kai was going to murder me. Neither of them eased up an inch on my pain-riddled body. Kai, in particular, seemed to take great joy in aiming for my head and my stomach, with every contact setting off a constellation of pain and/or nausea. I hadn’t cried since I buried my family, but by the time Jian took his leave of us, I was the closest I’d come since. As Jian’s footsteps retreated, I went from a bow to kneeling on the cobbles, then from kneeling to keeling over, folding down so that my forehead (hot, sticky, stinking of wine-sweat) came to rest on the stone. I didn’t even care that it was dirty. It was cool. I dimly remembered stories of cultivators who focused on arts of earth, who could command the earth to just reach out and pull them down into a dark, silent cocoon. Was this how one began such a path? Did understanding of the Dao of Earth begin with just wanting it to swallow you and hide your ridiculous self away from the world?

  It took the skitter of a wayward pebble to recognize that Kai was still there. Off to my left, if the pebble was a good indication. Not moving. I could picture him in my head, bald and black eyed, staring down at me.

  Even in my current condition it was enough to make me shiver and begin to stir, to try and sit up. “I’m fine.”

  His voice was cool. “My first teachers said that to regularly deceive others or yourself would cripple your cultivation. If they’re right, you’ve set yourself back years with the times you’ve used that phrase this morning alone.”

  I froze. Had Kai made a joke? Sure, it was at my expense, but in months, it was the first time I’d heard anything from the demon-blooded disciple except grudging politeness (to the Inner Disciples) and disdain or irritation (to everyone else). I forced myself back to a sitting posture to look at him and made my lips turn upwards. “I don’t know if it counts as deception if no one believes it.”

  Tch. I suppose I should have expected the click of tongue against teeth and the twist of his mouth. His expression was difficult to read, as it often was unless he was angry about something. Acerbic, he replied, “If no one believes it, then it’s a waste of breath you could be using to practice.”

  My knees had remembered that they were being pressed against stone, supporting the whole of my weight, and this was not something they found comfortable. “Thanks for the observation,” I muttered, and with a groan, I rose to my feet.

  Or tried to. Halfway up, my left leg, overstressed by practice and all the idiotic things I’d done to my body in the last couple of days, gave out. I toppled over with nothing but a sound that even I would categorize as pathetic.

  Kai’s hand shot out and grabbed my arm, keeping me from crashing back to the stone. His grip was not gentle; if not for the way his stance hadn’t shifted at all, I’d almost have read it as an attack. I scrambled to get my traitor foot back under me, and stood on my own two feet. He let go immediately. We stared at each other, and I had the distinct impression that he was as wary as I was, despite having far less reason to be.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He looked away. “It gets wearying to see you topple to the ground so often. Even if you always get up again. Be better. Don’t fall down in the first place.”

  I laughed. “Considering that it’s you who puts me on the ground most of those times? If you’re getting bored, you could go easier on me.”

  Flatly, he said, “No.” He turned and started walking away. “And you wouldn’t want me to. It’s the only interesting thing about you, Zhou Hou.”

  I opened my mouth.

  I closed it.

  I watched him until he disappeared.

  Only then was I able to mutter, “Gee, thanks.” And despite my best effort to infuse it with scorn, I felt a brief, bright warmth kindle somewhere in my chest. I was getting...fond of people. And it seemed like, just maybe, some of them were getting fond of me in return.

  How inconvenient.