Except for your tail, Cha Ming muttered.
Wait, how did you know that? Sun Wukong said. He coughed in embarrassment. I fixed that problem aeons ago. It won’t be an issue.
“I take it you have a plan?” Cha Ming asked Wang Jun.
“Yes, as a matter a fact, I do,” Wang Jun said. “I don’t know who exactly is working there, as many people are running interference, but I have it on good authority that our family is helping the South develop a special weapon in the Shattered Lands. I want you to pose as a spiritual blacksmith and somehow enter our Wang family. Then, I want you to use this identity to sow conflict and discord between our family and the various factions in Bastion, the capital city of the Ji Kingdom.”
He summoned a black folder and placed it in front of Cha Ming. Cha Ming perused its contents, then summoned Grandmist flames to annihilate the papers after memorizing them.
“All right, I’ll do it,” Cha Ming said. Then he noticed something in the information he’d just read. “The most concentrated source of gold energy on the plane? High possibility of forming Gold Source Marrow?”
“You’re welcome,” Wang Jun said. “You can look for the Gold Source Marrow while sowing chaos in the South. Besides, I heard that whatever they’re building, it’s Zhou Li’s pet project. He cares a lot about its success.”
“Then I can’t let it go as planned,” Cha Ming said. He held up his cup of tea. “To our success.”
“To our success,” Wang Jun said. They clinked cups and drank. “Now, let’s stop talking business. Let’s talk about life, adventure, and the future.”
They switched to wine, and the rest of the evening was a blur.
Chapter 3: Shadow Fate Redemption
“How much did I drink?” Wang Jun muttered, looking around blearily, his memories returning to him. He closed his eyes and circulated his qi, purging the alcohol from his system. Dozens of bottles littered the floor, some of them weaker immortal wine, others god-slaying whisky, a potent drink from Haijing City.
I let myself get carried away, he thought, shaking his head. He summoned a portal in the shadows. Then, on second thought, closed it. Instead of going back to the Jade Bamboo Pavilion, he slunk through the shadows of the Red Dust Pavilion, carefully skirting around the few customers that had trickled in and the mistresses entertaining them.
In one room, he saw dozens of sixteen-year-old girls. Each of them was a talent in one art or another and had above-average cultivation talent. They laughed and sang as they learned instruments and learned to kindle each other’s emotions.
They all look happy, Wang Jun thought as he watched them practice. They all want to be here. Though many of them bore signs of past poverty, very little of it remained. This stood in stark contrast to the tale of horror and blood Hong Xin had told him about. Many of her sisters had died undergoing cruel training, freezing their hearts and emotions as quickly as humanly possible.
After spectating for a short while, Wang Jun walked through several walls before arriving in the larder, where he grabbed a piece of sausage to eat. Then, he walked into the kitchen. The cooks were busy preparing dish after dish of spirit-infused food for the evening crowd. Spirit chefs worked in tandem with mortals to cook delicacies common people could only dream of. They didn’t see him as he walked, sampling easy-to-nab goods. The ache in his stomach from all the drinking eased with every bite he took.
He shifted again, this time appearing in a shadow behind the curtains in Hong Xin’s office. She was busy looking over ledgers. She looked up briefly as he entered, surprising Wang Jun. Could she spot him, despite being hidden from everyone else?
“You can come out now,” Hong Xin said. She smiled as Wang Jun walked out from behind him, shaking his head in disappointment.
“How did you know I was there?” Wang Jun asked.
“Women’s intuition,” Hong Xin said. “That, and you walked out from your hiding place to confirm it. It turns out I’m right about half the time.”
“A very useful trick,” Wang Jun said. “I should try it one day.”
She chuckled but continued looking over the document in her hands. She stamped it as reviewed and put it off to the side. “You try your best not to stand out. Sometimes that’s just as telling as doing the opposite. The essence of blending in is drawing just enough attention to seem normal but too little to seem unimportant, is it not?”
“True,” Wang Jun said from beside her. She jumped at his sudden teleportation but took it in stride.
“That’s new,” Hong Xin said, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ve been learning much from my master,” Wang Jun admitted. “There are limits to mortality, but certain rules can be bent or ignored entirely if you know the secret.”
Hong Xin sighed. She lifted her hand to Wang Jun’s long white-blond hair and ran her fingers down it. As she did so, he stroked her cheek and pressed a soft kiss on her outstretched lips. “Why the spying?” Hong Xin asked.
“What, I’m not allowed to come watch you work?” Wang Jun said. “I’m wounded. Now tell me, what’s bothering my fair lady?”
Hong Xin hesitated, then tapped a stack of papers. “We have a few dozen sisters from the old administration remaining in the city. They were each attached to various noble households, but recently, they founded their own organization—the Icy Heart Pavilion.”
Wang Jun nodded.
“They offer services that calm the mind and soothe heart demons. They also gather information like we do here. In addition, they also train their members for combat. Many of them are versatile bodyguards. It’s eating into our bottom line, and they aren’t being even slightly unethical.
“Furthermore,” she said, summoning a pile of jade slips, “from what I’ve gathered from
