After delivering his message, Dae saw Jia off with a promise to meet again in Songdo as soon as he was able. Joining her sisters in their wagon, Jia wasn’t sure how to feel about her newfound status as a landlord. She’d assumed that Dae had simply faked the paperwork, and the news that she actually did own a real house and that people were living in it came as a shock. She was looking forward to meeting Eui’s parents, though. Eui, on the other hand, had been a nervous wreck ever since she’d heard the news.

It was a new side of her to Jia. Without room in the wagon to pace about as she usually would when agitated, Eui had instead elected to hold her tail in front of her and fiddle with it nervously—something Jia had never seen her do before.

“What do I say to them? It’s been so long, and I caused them so much trouble. Are they even going to want to see me? I’m not ready for this!”

Before Jia could offer any words of support, Jung looked up from where she had been fussing over Narae as the girl fidgeted in her lap.

“Miss An—”

“Just Eui is fine—you’re practically my sister-in-law.”

Jung smiled warmly and nodded in acknowledgement.

“Eui, speaking as a mother, there is absolutely no circumstance in which I would be unhappy to be reunited with my child. I’m certain your parents miss you as dearly as you miss them. I understand that your circumstances are...complicated, but if you believe they loved you, then you can only trust that they will understand.”

Eui scowled and looked away.

“I ruined their lives, Jung. I became a killer, brought the wrath of two noble families down on them, and I wasn’t even there to atone for what I’d brought down on them. They’d have every right to shun me.”

Jung shook her head.

“Nonsense. None of that matters, honey. I can’t speak for all mothers, but my love for Narae is unconditional. No matter what kind of trouble she gets into—or brings upon me—I’ll never stop loving her.”

She grabbed one of Narae’s stubby little horns in each hand and wobbled her head playfully.

“Not that I’m inviting you to get into trouble, you little hellion!”

Narae giggled and pushed her mother’s hands away as Jung returned her attention to Eui with a serious expression.

“Your relationship is a little strange, so perhaps I’m wrong, but is the same not true of you and Heian?”

That gave Eui pause, and she turned to meet Jia’s eyes with an uncertain expression.

“I—I think it is? Jia and I...well, we tend to kind of end up sharing our emotions. We don’t always feel the same way, but if she loves something strongly enough, usually I will as well, and vice versa. That’s part of why I feel so close to you even though we’ve only known each other for such a short time.”

Jung tilted her head curiously.

“And? What has that got to do with it? Do you love your daughter or not?”

Eui frowned.

“Of course I do! I just...don’t know how much of that comes from me, and how much is Jia.”

“Does it matter? I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of cultivation, but your feelings are your own, regardless of where they come from. If Heian brought calamity upon you, would you still love her?”

Jung’s words were a challenge, for all that they were said without malice. Eui clutched her tail to her chest defensively.

“Yes! I don’t even need to think of it hypothetically, she basically already has.”

Jia nodded solemnly—that was true. It wasn’t an immediate concern, but one of their ultimate goals was to assist Heian in creating her own body—a process that the world they lived in would reject violently, since it was a crucial step in a spirit's natural evolution towards godhood. Nevertheless, Jia and Eui accepted it as simply a part of who she was, and would do everything to prepare for when that happened. Jung took the comment in stride, gesturing vaguely towards Jia and Eui.

“Then there you have it. I’m sure your parents will be overjoyed to see you—I’d love to meet them myself. After all, their daughter saved my life—I need to thank them properly.”

Eui blushed a bit, waving her hands in urgent demurral.

“That was Jia as much as it was me, I was just helping her.”

“It was your technique, wasn’t it? And last I checked it was you who handles my daily treatments—you don’t seem to need Jia for that.”

“W-well, true. But the treatments aren’t as intense as that first one was—I couldn’t have done that one alone. Actually—I know you’ve been told about us, but maybe it’s time we introduced you to Yoshika properly.”

Jia nodded in agreement.

“It’s one thing to hear about it, but we’ve never really spoken to you as her.”

Jung raised an eyebrow as she glanced between Jia and Eui.

“Yes you have. Just after the surgery, and a few times since—did you think I wouldn’t notice? When Heian had trouble with that strange talisman of hers the two of you spoke in chorus.”

Jia paused.

“Wait, what? Okay, yes we did a few times—and I guess I kind of forgot about the thing with Heian, but aside from that time how could you tell?”

Jung stared back at her incredulously.

“Jia, sweetheart, I might not know much about cultivation, but I know people. Of course I would notice when my precious little sister occasionally becomes an entirely different person.”

Jia frowned a bit.

“We don’t become a different person. Yoshika is still me.”

“But she’s not just you, nor is she just Eui. Trust me when I say that it’s enough that I can tell the difference, and I am certain I’m not the only one.”

That was true. Dae had noticed the earlier switch before she’d even said anything, and back at the academy, Yan Yue had also learned to quickly tell whether she was speaking to Jia, Eui, or Yoshika. Jia sighed.

“I guess—as long as you remember that when you’re talking to Yoshika, you’re still talking to me.”

Eui nodded in agreement.

“And me. It takes a bit of effort to wrap your head around, but both of us are Yoshika.”

Narae furrowed her brows in confusion, but Jung nodded.

“Good enough for me. No need for introductions then—we’ve already met.”

Jung’s understanding filled Jia with an indescribable warmth. It meant a lot to her that her friends and family were so accepting of her unusual nature. Jia’s thoughts were interrupted by little Narae tugging at the hem of her robes.

“Big Sis Jia, can Heian come out and play?”

Jia met Narae’s pleading face with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry honey, no. Heian’s really tired, and she’s still sleeping.”

In fact, they hadn’t heard so much as a peep from Heian since she’d returned to their soulscape that morning. She’d spent a lot of time manifested over the last week, and spent much of that time working on her magic. The incident with the talisman had also taken quite a lot out of her, and Jia suspected that Heian was in dire need of more essence to recover. Lee Jung caught the disappointment in Narae’s face and patted her gently on the head.

“Let her rest, Narae. Besides, I don’t want you running around outside of the wagon—it’s not safe. You still have meditation to do, don’t you? Why don’t we work on it together?”

Narae agreed with minimal grumbling, and soon mother and daughter were both quietly meditating side by side. Narae had made excellent progress, and Jia suspected that even without using the awakening stone, her little sister was likely to make good on the boast that she’d awaken before they arrived in the capital. Jung, on the other hand, was mostly just going through the motions to support her daughter. Privately, Jung had confessed to Jia that no matter how she tried, she had been unable to achieve that feeling of floating detachment from her body or sense the labyrinth of qi within her soul.

It worried Jia that her big sister seemed so utterly incapable of cultivation, but she was determined to find a solution one day. In the meantime, she took the opportunity to snuggle up alongside Eui and do some meditation of her own.

“Keep going! If you have the breath to spare complaining, then you’re not pushing hard enough!”

In response to Rika’s shout, Ja Yun groaned incomprehensibly and picked up her pace a tiny fraction. Jia and Eui had joined them for physical training, and the three of them were puzzling over Ja Yun’s relatively slow awakening as they did some light sparring.

“I don’t get it. She’s doing everything right as far as I can tell, but even Eun-eun didn’t take this long to awaken.”

Eui ducked under a kick as she listened to Rika’s complaints, mechanically following up with a series of quick strikes that Rika parried easily. The movements were more of an improvised choreography than a real fight—just practice for the most fundamental aspects of moving with their ki. It was easy enough that Eui could keep up a conversation at the same time.

“Maybe there’s not enough essence in the air? The wilderness is pretty good, but it’s nothing compared to the academy’s mana gathering formation.”

Rika nodded in acknowledgement as she hopped over a swipe from Eui’s tail, twisting her body in mid-air to counterattack.

“True—but it’s been weeks, and it’s not like she doesn’t have the mana to spare, being a mage.”

Eui blocked Rika’s aerial kick and attempted to throw her to the ground, only for Rika to grab an invisible handhold and right herself to land neatly on her feet.

“Tsk, cheater. Ja Yun’s pretty close to peak houtian, but it’s not as simple as just pulling from the foundation of one discipline to build another. The mana in her aura is already a part of her—already been defined.”

Rika paused her follow-up and frowned.

“Wait—hold on, how do you know?”

Eui raised an eyebrow curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do you know you can’t just pull essence from one foundation to construct another? If you’re trying to unify your cultivation anyway, you’d want to balance the three out, right?”

Eui frowned, and from where she’d been watching off to the side, Jia’s ears perked up.

“That’s a good point, actually! We’ve been assuming for years that you had to either build the three disciplines up to equilibrium or start from scratch in order to unify your cultivation, but what if it’s possible to use what you’ve already got instead of wasting it like that?”

The three girls all turned to look at Ja Yun, sweating and panting miserably as she ran tight circles around Jia’s wagon. Captain Sagong had insisted that they stay within sight of the caravan on this leg of the trip—apparently still mad about the trouble they’d caused in Yangye—so they were keeping their training much closer. The result was that Ja Yun ended up sprinting in a somewhat silly looking spiral around the wagon as it trundled along, occasionally suffering amused looks from her former military comrades. Rika grinned broadly as they watched her flush with embarrassment under all the scrutiny.

“Well, we’ve got a pretty good test subject, don’t we? Let’s find out!”