Li Meili blinked her eyes open. It was a strange feeling, just suddenly existing, and though it was the second time she’d experienced it, Li Meili wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the feeling. At least she had memories, this time.

She’d tried to give herself a sense of continuity that stretched from her first creation all the way to the present, including the time she’d spent merged back into Yoshika. It was a decent compromise between just being a second Yoshika and completely isolating her existence from that of her creators. She also appreciated not having been dropped right back into the middle of the crisis she’d been experiencing earlier.

Not that she was entirely sure she was through with that, but it felt less immediate. The time she’d spent as Yoshika had created some distance from her previous instance. Hopefully that would be good enough to satisfy Pan Jiaying.

Li Meili glanced back at Yoshika, who continued meditating. They’d decided to take a passive role in whatever happened next and let Li Meili speak for herself. She knew that, of course, because she’d decided it. It was a bit comforting, having actual memories of herself as Yoshika rather than just the knowledge of her past existence. She wasn’t sure if that was enough to stave off the existential dread of her nature, but it would do for now.

Pan Jiaying stared from afar, letting Meili get her bearings. Her expression was unreadable, and Li Meili noted with irritation that the loss of her empathy was still as jarring as ever. Oh well—she didn’t have all of Yoshika’s power, and she was just going to have to live with it. Reading people’s emotions was probably cheating, anyway.

Li Meili approached awkwardly, not sure how to begin the conversation. She started to sit down in the grass next to Pan Jiaying only for the other girl to stand up instead. Pan Jiaying frowned, casting a glance towards Yoshika meditating at the top of the hill.

“Can we talk somewhere else? Away from them?”

Standing up and brushing herself off, Li Meili followed her gaze and shrugged.

“I guess. They’re me, though. Anything we talk about will find its way back to them eventually.”

“Just...give us the illusion of privacy? You didn’t have a problem with lying to me before.”

Li Meili furrowed her brows, but Pan Jiaying shook her head and grimaced before she could say anything.

“No, wait—I’m sorry! That’s not how I wanted to start this. Could you forget I said that?”

Li Meili blinked.

“Uh, it’s forgotten. Let’s go to the bottom of the hill, then.”

The pair descended the hill to a spot out of view of the crest, where they could still see the moonlit mountain in the distance. Even late at night, it was a beautiful sight. Li Meili tried to cast a privacy spell, only to blush when she realized that she couldn’t do it without a talisman. One appeared in her sleeve—presumably from Jia’s ring—confirming that Yoshika was watching them.

Li Meili cast the spell anyway, a thin gray film of essence snapping into place around them and causing the world to fall into unnatural silence.

“This should keep anyone from overhearing. I don’t think Yoshika can pierce it without just breaking it outright, which we’d be able to tell right away.”

Pan Jiaying nodded slowly, taking a seat in the grass and staring out at the mountain—her home. Li Meili sat next to her, and the silence stretched on awkwardly until Li Meili tried to break it.

“So—”

“Are you okay?”

Pan Jiaying’s interruption took Li Meili by surprise, and she had to take a moment to process it.

“Uh, fine, I think? We—I made a few adjustments and I’m feeling a little better about things. I’m sorry for breaking down like that before.”

Jiaying drew her knees up to her chest and grimaced.

“So you’re not the same after all. Just another construct made to mimic the old one—the Li Meili I knew is dead, isn’t she?”

Li Meili leaned back and looked up at the sky, considering the question seriously.

“I don’t think so. I’m as close to the same person as I possibly could be without being senselessly cruel to myself. I’d say that I’m as much the same Li Meili I was before as you are the same Pan Jiaying you were yesterday.”

Pan Jiaying hugged her knees tighter.

“I don’t know if that’s reassuring or not. A frightening amount has changed since yesterday.”

“It has, true. I’m very sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s probably for the better, I just... It’s too much all at once. One day I’m a glorified gardener trying my best to pretend I’m not being actively shunned by everyone around me, then the next I’ve got a cool new friend who’s actually teaching me useful things and is really nice and of course she turned out to actually be a fake made by some mysterious powerful foreign cultivators manipulating me for their own twisted agenda.”

Li Meili grimaced.

“Uh, I don’t know if I’m the person to vent to about that...”

Pan Jiaying huffed.

“I know that! You’re her or them or whatever, I get it. But they’re not the ones that broke me out of my self-delusion, you are. And before you say it’s the same thing, it’s not! I don’t know how to explain it, but you’re different. You are your own person, no matter what they tell you.”

“I know.”

“Just listen to—wait, what?”

Li Meili chuckled.

“Yeah, I—or they, I guess—figured it out pretty quickly. They fucked up in all kinds of ways when they made me—and I was their first attempt, by the way—but the big one is that the two of them are totally dependent on each other in ways that they didn’t even realize. I still have that, but I don’t have them, and it leaves me feeling...empty. Like I’m incomplete, somehow.”

“That’s really sad. And probably not very healthy for them, either.”

“Probably not, no. But they have better control over their emotions than I do, and plenty of time to figure it out. Even after doing some heavy thinking, I think I’m probably doomed to suffer another mental break if I don’t go back to being Yoshika once in a while.”

Pan Jiaying sighed.

“You said that name earlier, too. Is that her real name? The one you’re modeled after.”

Li Meili winced. She’d forgotten about that.

“Not quite. It’s the name for both of them, when they’re together. It’s based on their real names which...I should probably not tell you until I know you’re definitely not going to tell anyone else.”

“I swore on the emperor’s name, didn’t I? Even if I hadn’t already made my mind up about leaving, your secret would be safe with me. Though I don’t know why you expect anyone to care about the names of some random foreigners.”

“We made some pretty powerful enemies back at that academy. I’d prefer to avoid letting them know we’re in Qin for as long as possible.”

“Hm.”

Pan Jiaying shrugged and leaned back, staring up at the night sky in silence. Li Meili followed her gaze, looking up at the pale glow of the full moon illuminating the countryside around them. She wasn’t sure what to say, but the silence felt a bit more comfortable than before. It was Pan Jiaying who ended up speaking first.

“Your hair is kinda like the moon, don’t you think?”

Li Meili blinked.

“What?”

“The other you, I mean. With the cute ears. I’ve never seen hair like that—is it common among beastkin? Oh! I mean half-spirits, sorry.”

“Y-you think they’re cute? I—or, I guess she—was born with it, so I guess I’ve grown accustomed to it, but no. White hair is pretty rare, even in Goryeo. I’m not sure how I feel about having it compared to the moon, though. We’ve got a bit of a history.”

Pan Jiaying looked askance at her.

“With the moon?”

Meili blushed.

“Kind of. Not the literal moon—just...the symbol of it. It brings back painful memories, even if we’re friends now.”

“Friends with the moon. You really do live a strange life, don’t you.”

“Oh, shut up! I’ve never met a cultivator that wasn’t some flavor of strange. I think you have to be, to pursue this kind of life. I’ve been so caught up in it that without Li Zhen to remind me what normal is, I might forget entirely.”

Pan Jiaying hummed thoughtfully and lay back on the grass.

“I guess that’s true. Though I never thought it was that strange of me to not want a life of rice planting.”

“I’m sure you’re strange in other ways.”

She snorted, but didn’t offer a retort. After a moment, Li Meili sighed.

“This is nice and all, but wasn’t there something you wanted to talk to me about?”

Pan Jiaying shook her head.

“Not really, no. I just wanted to talk to you as a person. Without you trying to get anything out of me or vice versa. I wanted to know who you are when you aren’t trying to play a role. Just...friends talking. I’ve never had that before.”

Li Meili lay down in the grass next to Pan Jiaying, gazing up at the stars together.

“I’m sorry for misrepresenting myself. It was cruel of me to toy with you like that.”

Pan Jiaying shook her head.

“No, it really wasn’t. You came to our sect on a mission, and I just happened to be there. You were kinder to me than you had any reason to be, and it was me who set my expectations too high.”

“Let’s just agree that we were both wrong, then.”

“Nah.”

Li Meili blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“Yoshika made you to serve a purpose, and you served it. All you did was try to be as kind as possible along the way. You’re a good friend, Li Meili, especially for someone I only just met. It was my mistake to expect something more out of such a short meeting, and Yoshika’s to experiment with a technique that they understood so poorly. Maybe Luo Mingyu’s for picking a fight. But you? You’re blameless in all this.”

“I don’t think I can agree with that. I made those choices myself, both as Yoshika and as Li Meili.”

Pan Jiaying shook her head.

“You’re not responsible for the choices Yoshika makes. You don’t have any agency in them. Yoshika’s the one who lied to me, but you’re the one who helped me. I’m still upset with Yoshika, but I have nothing but gratitude for you. The more I think about it, the more sure I am. I’ll steal the ginseng for you—and for Li Zhen. Then Yoshika can teach me how to be a proper cultivator.”

Li Meili giggled.

“So Yoshika gets all of the blame and none of the credit for my deeds? That seems terribly unfair.”

Pan Jiaying picked a bit of grass and flicked it into the air.

“Hmph! Too bad! She should have thought of that before crossing me! Let her pay the price while we reap the rewards. I want to be selfish for once.”

“About that...are you sure this is safe? I don’t want you to risk getting hurt, and your family...Luo Mingyu seemed concerned about his, didn’t he?”

Pan Jiaying sighed.

“It’s definitely not safe. It’s a risk I’m choosing to take. If I get caught the punishment will be...harsh. Maybe even death, I don’t know. The risk is mine, though. Luo Mingyu’s concerns are overzealous. Maybe there are others among the inner disciples who would try to use his family to gain leverage over him, but the sect masters wouldn’t stand for it.”

“If you say so. I just really hope you’re not wrong.”

“Stop trying to talk me out of it!”

She stood up and dusted herself off, offering a hand to Li Meili.

“Just promise me that you won’t disappear again, okay? That you’ll at least try living. We may have only known each other for a day, but you’re my friend, Li Meili. I don’t want you getting hurt, either.”

Li Meili took Pan Jiaying’s hand and rose to her feet, smiling.

“I’ll do my best.”