Alice

Three thumps.

How annoying. Alice strummed at her guqin lightly, playing a scale. The exaggerated sleeves of her sect robes drifted over the instrument as she pressed her wrists against each string after she played it. Her hearing had grown sensitive enough that loose notes hanging in the air clashed against the ones that followed them.

It was no use. When the arrays were active, there was always an echo in the room.

More thumping.

Alice wove her Story into her forefinger, ignoring the urge to retch as usual, and struck at the topmost string. It was a quick, violent motion, but the bead of qi lost its aggression as it passed into the supple but strong weave of twisted silk and gained direction from the note she'd played.

She could understand how a cultivator like Uncle Jiang might use his own guqin as a weapon, but at the moment, Alice would have a far better chance of winning a fight if she'd used the guqin to club someone over the head instead.

Still, the note carried enough qi to drift through the air lazily. She'd hoped that sound would carry her qi at the speed of, well, sound, when she'd first given the exercise a try, but of course something as mundane as air resistance would decide to show its face when Alice was casting magic. In actuality, she wasn't even sure if that had anything to do with it at all, but it was her best guess.

When her qi came into contact with the doorframe, the array dropped and the incessant echo of previously played notes ended.

Unfortunately, the noises from outside came flooding in.

The thumping increased in volume and now they were accompanied by the wails of the most annoying resident of the house.

"Senior Sister Mulan!"

Alice snickered. The fake name would never not be funny to her.

The banging continued. "Senior sister!"

"Daoist Chow is not available at the moment. Please leave your message after the tone!" Alice chirped, then strummed an appropriately mournful minor chord on her guqin.

"What?"

Of course, the only person who could get the joke was hundreds of miles away. Alice scowled. "What do you want, Feiyan?"

"Poor Feiyan is in terrible trouble again and only her wise, well-learned sect sister can help!"

Alice severely doubted that. "Are you too busy to get a snack from Earth Peak again?" She sighed and stood up, stretching.

"No, but that's also a problem I had, before the gallant gentleman Leng Qitai of the Leng family came to my rescue just a moment ago!"

Alice wished she could roll her eyes hard enough for them to get stuck that way. "Then what do you want from me?" She paced over to the door and threw it open with a bang so she could stare at Feiyan flatly.

"Feiyan needs her talented sister to help her gain proficiency in the practical applications of the Skybound Scripture in guided material transformations!"

Alice would have bet anything she owned Feiyan had no idea what the words exiting her mouth meant. "I don't even cultivate that," she said, walking past Feiyan. Kanhu was changing around his deck for what must have been the fiftieth time since they'd met. She sat down across from him. "Ever think that if you spend all your time playing card games, you'll neither become a Great Man nor find any Great Scriptures?"

"Who spat in your tea this morning?" Kanhu didn't even look up.

Alice examined the cards Kanhu had replaced from his previous list. "If you cut three of your fire qi sources, how are you going to reliably cast Seek Tomorrow's Fate on turn two?"

"I could always-" Kanhu squinted and then cursed. "This game is garbage."

"See how helpful you are?" Feiyan cried out, still standing at her doorway. "Please help me too!"

Alice looked up at Feiyan and folded her arms. "Can't you see the difference? I actually know something about that." She gestured at the cards with a thumb.

"I wish I had that sort of confidence," said Kanhu.

After a slight pause, Feiyan burst into tears. "It's all over for me if you don't help," she whimpered. "I'm going to bring shame to my family," Feiyan stopped, "which isn't really relevant," she corrected slowly, as if the words were poison.

Alice was irritated. "If it doesn't matter-"

"I'll bring shame to this fantastic gathering of novice disciples!"

"Don't associate me with your failures," came Kanhu's voice behind Alice.

"I'll never advance and then I'll be kicked out of the Sect and then I'll be assassinated and my corpse will be thrown to the dogs and they're going to chew up my face!" Feiyan ended in a short scream.

Alice decided to humor her. "Why do you think you'll be kicked out of the sect?"

"Because Fairy Guan is coming at sundown to test Feiyan’s proficiency on the practical applications of the Skybound Scripture in guided material transformations!"

Unfortunately, that sounded like a direct quote. Alice sighed. "Did Fairy Guan say that you'd be removed from the sect if you failed?"

"She strongly implied it!"

Alright, there would likely be no hard consequences whatsoever. Unfortunately, given the attitudes of the other disciples in the sect regarding the Peak Masters, it was indeed likely that Feiyan would be given fewer chances to prove herself.

"What are material transformations?" Alice asked. She was already filled with deep regret for trying to help.

"When things come into contact with qi and something about them changes!" Feiyan rattled off proudly.

Alice bit back a scream. "I'm sure if you asked a crowd of people without any cultivation most of them would arrive at that answer," she snapped. "What are the material transformations in the Skybound Scripture?"

"Oh," said Feiyan, instantly lost.

"Don't you read from your scroll every single day?" Kanhu piped up, sounding as perplexed as Alice felt.

"Yeah, but I'm positive material transformations don't ever show up, not even once."

Alice pinched the bridge of her nose. "Isn't that strange, given the Skyforge is just down the road?"

"What does the Skyforge have to do with material transformations?"

Alice and Kanhu exchanged glances.

"I hope you fail," chirped Kanhu, who went back to rearranging his cards.

Feiyan sniffed. "Poor Feiyan can't help that she wasn't born as bright as her fellow disciples, that's why she's asking for help!"

The door opened with a bang. Qitai swept into the living room balancing far too many glass bottles on a tray that was far too round. "I have tapioca tea and chicken skewers!" Qitai’s smile slid away as he looked around the room, from Feiyan's red eyes, to Alice's folded arms to Kanhu's incredulous sneer. "Stop bullying Feiyan," he said, to both of them.

Alice helped herself to some tea. "I assure you she'd be much more upset if it were intentional."

Qitai shook his head. “You’re better than that,” he said, shaking his head.

“It’s not my fault the truth upsets her.”

Normally, Qitai avoided any confrontation he could, but this time, he stood firm. "You need to stop taking out your anger on other people," he said. "Who stands to gain from this kind of attitude? No one progresses, and you don't even look like you feel better after going off."

She glared at him.

Qitai took a swig of tea, then placed it down on a table audibly. "Listen," he said, staring at the drink. "You have to get it in your head that no one can relate to you," he started, stumbling over his words. Alice knew he wasn't nervous - Qitai was actually trying to phrase his thoughts as politely as he could. "The expected result when it comes to cultivation and advancement is failure, whether you're the Sect Master, whether you're a Peak Master, whether you're an Elder, or whether you're someone like me."

He took a deep breath, through his nose. "You must know what it's looked like to the rest of us in the last two days. Things didn't go your way literally every time and you're angry about it. But if you compare yourself to anyone-"

"Not anyone," Alice muttered. Everyone knew who she was referring to.

Qitai took another swig of tea and slammed the glass onto the table. "The two of you are not the same person!" he all but shouted. "The two of you try to be joined at the hip but the fact is you're not. You don't even have the same foundations. If you push it too far, you'll end up like the freaky twins!" Alice had forgotten that the twins existed. They’d been pretty strange.

"There will come a tribulation, whether it's one of the primary meridians, or one of the extraordinary ones-" He paused. "I'm not a betting man, but I would put any amount of money on your success. It's so incredibly crazy, seeing someone who's just established their foundations and expecting them to Sever." He trailed off.

There was a moment of silence. Qitai took a light sip.

"My point," Qitai continued, "is that there will come a time when Brother Ji runs into a wall he didn't expect due to some quirk of scripture, bad luck or whatever reason you can think of. Would being unpleasant change his situation or would it just upset you?"

Just because he was right didn't mean Alice had to like it.

"There are so many lonely roads on the longest journey, why must we make the other ones less convenient with our words?"

"Profound," said Kanhu, as sarcastically as Alice had ever heard him say anything.

"That's how you know I didn't come up with it." Qitai turned to Feiyan. "Now what's the problem you're having?"

"Feiyan is having trouble understanding which parts of the Skybound Scripture count as material transformations!" she declared, sounding almost proud.

Qitai sat down with a frown. After a few seconds he shook his head. "Really?" And then he delivered to Alice and Kanhu that look of defeat they had both eagerly awaited from the moment Feiyan had opened her mouth.

Without further comment, he pulled out the bound stack of bamboo sticks and unfurled it.

“Okay, Feiyan is the victim of unfair criticism here,” the girl grumbled. “You can’t expect me to just know which passages of scripture correspond to-”

“You can,” said Alice, who was trying to be helpful but it was so tiring. “The way we describe the nature of qi and cultivation in generalist terms that are understood by anyone in a sect of any worth isn’t natural.”

“So if it’s not normal, how-”

“I said it’s not natural. The whole point is to normalize it in a way that can be understood by people studying different scriptures. It’s not a perfect system, because if you just think about it, scriptures are special because they’re exceptions to the rule.”

Now all three of her roommates looked confused.

“Think of it in two ways,” said Alice. “First, if you broke down every verse in the Skybound Scripture descriptively and listed all applications, all tricks and quirks and every derivative technique, where would that leave you?”

“In Earth Peak, in Master Feng’s office,” said Kanhu.

“Actually, it would,” said Alice, after a short think. “But that’s exactly what I meant. Look at it,” she said, pointing at the stack of bamboo sticks. “It’s a miracle. Contained within forty verses-”

“Forty three,” corrected Feiyan, to everyone else’s general displeasure.

“Are three martial scriptures, forging techniques, and countless array configurations,” said Alice, who had now progressed to being tired of getting angry at Feiyan.

“Medical practices, advice on botany and many things that are out of our immediate reach,” continued Qitai.

“Solutions for a loveless marriage, burial practices that are no longer observed and a flute score, though the last is likely a coincidence,” came a soft voice from the corner. “And maybe even advice on how to hide in plain sight.”

Alice really hoped the Peak Master had just arrived, but from the way the Silkworms had absolutely no reaction, Alice had the suspicion that she’d been in the room the entire time.

Alice hated Feiyan.