No one seemed exactly sure what to do, so they stood there watching the body as the blood spread across the darkwood floor, until finally the mustached elder shook his head and made a decision.

  "Get it out of my sight," he ordered, snapping his fingers to the guards and gesticulating at what had been Librarian Zhu. It was an odd contrast, considering his behavior when Lady Jin had been present, but no one seemed to question it or to take offense at him taking on the authority to do so.

  Wu Hao hadn't ever really seen anyone take a body away for burial before, even if he'd seen plenty of dead. Several of the guards - no patches, so they were under Shan Guoxi's command in theory - came in and held a quick, muttered discussion, before finally one of them stepped forward and began to channel his qi.

  He was a second-grade martial artist with notes of camellias in his qi and a faint tinge of red, but otherwise he wasn't particularly notable. Qi pooled from his saber into an almost liquid edge that dripped from his saber, and the guard barked an order at the men beside him, who cast the same technique.

  When the two others had started the same technique, they kept one hand on their sabers and placed the other on the first guard's shoulders, funnelling their qi through him. The first guard held the saber with two hands, raised it above Librarian Zhu's head, and let the qi drop from the edge of his saber.

  It landed onto Librarian Zhu's heart and sizzled with apparent heat, eating through the cloth and the skin and the bone. The bubbling liquid splashed harmlessly against the floor and spread out in a puddle from there, lapping up all of the blood. An acrid, burning scent entered Wu Hao's nose that wasn't at all qi-related, and he wasn't the only one whose nose crinkled in distaste.

  After a minute or so of carefully distributing the qi everywhere, there remained little trace of the body except a few pieces of money, a sealed pot of black, decent-quality ink, and Librarian Zhu's saber.

  The money disappeared into the guards' pockets for their own use - Wu Hao presumed - while the ink was handed to the mustached elder, and the saber was gathered and swathed in cloth and taken away by one guard, who held it at arms' length.

  "What're they going to do with it?" Wu Hao asked.

  "Reforge it," Jin Qilong said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's an exile's saber now," Jin Qilong explained. "It's the saber he got when he joined the Jin clan. He was cast out of the Jin clan the moment he lost the trial by combat, so it's not really his saber anymore, but neither can we hand it to someone else. That would just be wrong. It'll be handed to the clan's blacksmiths and they'll make something new with it."

  "Another saber?" Wu Hao asked.

  "No," Jin Qilong said. His tone was solemn. "Anything except a saber. When we forge sabers - which we don't really do for people outside the clan, by the way - we make them from swords and other weapons we've taken from our enemies. An exile's blade is kind of... tainted, in a way. Being a saber's an honor it doesn't really deserve."

  "Huh," Wu Hao said. "I see."

  He didn't, but whatever. He'd just been slightly curious, really.

  "Mine was made from the swords of men my father killed in duels," Jin Qilong added. "He sought them out, days before becoming a Sovereign, and kept them all in his personal spatial storage tool."

  Wu Hao grunted.

  "Sounds like he has high hopes."

  "Yes," Jin Qilong said, and hung his head. "Unfortunately."

  Unsure what to say to that, Wu Hao made a noise that might've been sympathetic, and then looked for anything else to talk about. Mostly, though, it seemed that people were beginning to disperse now that the body was gone. The sombre atmosphere still hung over the room, and people seemingly couldn't wait to be gone.

  They followed the flood of people glad to escape the elder's room, then hung around outside for a while, not sure where else to go. The training was done, they wouldn't be allowed in the cultivation chambers today, and the library was out, obviously - it'd feel weird to be there right now, and Wu Hao honestly didn't know how to feel about the entire thing.

  Yes, Librarian Zhu was dead, and since the trial had concluded with his death, he'd been judged guilty of stealing. Considering Wu Hao had been the actual thief, he should've felt some relief, but while there was something like relief that he did feel, it was also a reminder that - if he'd tried to do things differently - it might have been his own head on the chopping block.

  But in thinking about Librarian Zhu, he'd been reminded him of another question, actually.

  "So who becomes head librarian of the branch now?"

  Jin Qilong broke from his own reverie. "One of the assistants. There's a few that we've seen, working in the library. They'll need to get tested for their competency with arrays, their strength, and all that sort of thing, too. If no one passes the tests... well, probably Mother will have someone come over from another branch, I guess? Usually librarians retire in peace. They don't tend to fight much."

  "So what happens with the books?" Wu Hao asked.

  "They're just kept on the shelves," Jin Qilong said. "Why - wait."

  He stared at Wu Hao, who stared impassively back, and then Jin Qilong let out a groan that was louder than he'd intended it to be, because he clapped his hand in front of his mouth. The other boy concentrated, qi bleeding out of his pores as his core came to life, and then fed into a thin bubble that popped around them. A long spike contained from one of the walls of the bubble, linking back to Jin Qilong so he could keep feeding it some qi.

  "I've insulated us," Jin Qilong said. "So that we're not overheard. It's better to whisper now, though, it makes it less qi consuming..."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "Okay," Wu Hao said, lowering his volume slightly.

  "Please tell me you're not going to try and grab more stuff," Jin Qilong whispered urgently.

  Wu Hao tilted his head. "Why not?"

  "Are you mad?" Jin Qilong hissed. "Mother barely forgave you this time, do you really think you'll be that lucky twice?"

  "I'm not lucky," Wu Hao said in response. "I don't need luck. Besides, it depends on what I get, I think, if she'll forgive me or not. Do you want a book from the third floor or not? Because I think I could grab a few things."

  And if he died a few times, well, whatever. He did still need two more fragments of array knowledge. There were a few ideas that he'd had already, now that he knew how arrays worked. More knowledge couldn't hurt, and dying by array was relatively painless compared to the other ways he'd been killed. Better than the thought of actually having to study all this stuff.

  "The third floor?" Jin Qilong said, attracted by the idea momentarily. "Sure, I could really use a saber art that's aligned with - no, wait, no! No! Don't try to tempt me with high-end manuals!"

  Wu Hao shrugged. "Your loss."

  "No, your loss," Jin Qilong hissed. "You'd lose your life! It's not worth it, you'd get caught and then -"

  "Am I interrupting anything?" a cool, girlish voice broke in, and the thin bubble popped like it'd been pricked. Jin Qilong turned to the speaker, his voice abruptly dying off as he took her in.

  It was Yi Wei, whose arms were folded across her chest. She must've made her way out of the mass of people, Wu Hao thought: he couldn't have plucked her out of the crowd, but she was short anyway and he wasn't good enough of a sensor to be able to pick everyone he knew out of the crowd. If that was even possible at all.

  "We're discussing his win over Shan Kong," Jin Qilong said.

  Yi Wei raised an eyebrow. "Were you, young master?"

  "Can't we?" Wu Hao asked.

  "I'll join in, then," Yi Wei said. She took another step forward, as if literally pushing her way into the conversation. "You know what I was thinking earlier, during the council?"

  Wu Hao threw a glance at Jin Qilong, who glanced back.

  "No," Wu Hao said truthfully. "I've been told it's impossible for men to understand how women think."

  Old Qin had insisted on it a few times, he remembered.

  Jin Qilong hid a snort of laughter in a motion that was oddly similar to his mother, but Yi Wei didn't seem to find it funny.

  "I was thinking it's kind of odd," Yi Wei said, not quite casually. "Librarian Zhu reported several items stolen not long after you get here, and two days later you show up as a third-grade martial artist? Something that usually takes years to accomplish?"

  Wu Hao stared at her.

  "And?" he asked.

  "Because - and I don't know if you know this, but I think you do - usually it takes some resources to get where you are so quickly," she said. "So I'm wondering, where'd you find those?"

  Jin Qilong, looking a little frazzled, spoke quickly. "You can't seriously be saying -"

  "That Lady Jin killed Librarian Zhu to cover up the fact that she had resources stolen to give to her son?" Yi Wei interrupted. "Because I am."

  Wu Hao stared some more, feeling a faint amusement. She met his eyes at first, but then she broke eye contact first. If only she knew.

  "I don't understand," Wu Hao said.

  "How'd you get to becoming a third-grade martial artist, then?" she responded.

  "Talent," Wu Hao said blandly. "Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean I can't, right?"

  Jin Qilong winced, before trying to hide it with a nod. Yi Wei's scowl was something to see, and she moved in close enough that both of them could hear her whisper.

  "Listen, young master," she said quietly, threateningly. "You're pathetic enough. I don't care that some servant died, but to actually share resources with a random peasant? It's disgraceful. This is a new low, even for you."

  Jin Qilong flinched back, and he said nothing as she stormed off.

  "What a day," Jin Qilong muttered, more to himself than to Wu Hao. "Two duels and then this."

  He sighed.

  "I can beat her," Wu Hao said. His fingers flew to his saber, gripping it tightly. "I'll fix this. Where does she live?"

  "I'm afraid to ask," Jin Qilong said, tone back to uncertainty and those lingering doubts that seemed to infect his every moment. "Why do you want to know?"

  Wu Hao fingered his saber as he thought, but Jin Qilong's went wide when he saw.

  "No!" Jin Qilong said, louder and more forcefully than Wu Hao could remember him ever having spoken before. His eyes were wild. "No, no."

  He waved his hands frantically, as if he was trying to physically ward off the idea.

  "Why not?"

  "Because we're in this mess as a part of your last plan! Don't you realize that you nearly got killed maybe three times during the conversation with Mother? You seriously think you can pull that off again?"

  "Yeah," Wu Hao said, and meant it. "Probably."

  Jin Qilong hid his head in his hands. "You can't, okay? You showed talent and that's why you're still alive, for now. I seriously don't think she'd do the same again, no matter how talented you are. At that point, it'd just be like you were trying to show Mother that you thought she wasn't anything to worry about it, and she definitely is, so..."

  "I think that's the first time you've ever told me no," Wu Hao said. "Well done, young master."

  Another groan escaped Jin Qilong's lips. "Don't," he said. "Please just - don't. It's been an insane day. It's only three in the afternoon and I just want to hide my head under my pillow until the world starts making sense again."

  Wu Hao found himself smiling, oddly enough. The world, make sense? It hadn't, not for a long time, and he knew that it wouldn't magically fix itself.