Zhang Minyan peered at Hui. “Come to think of it, I don’t recognize you. Are you new in the sect?”

“Ah? Yes! I just… was recruited as a peak lord,” Hui said, nodding.

“Hmm… oh, right. That Outer-Peak nonsense. I was against it, you know,” Zhang Minyan informed Hui, squinting slightly.

“Oh?” Hui asked.

“Hmm. Expanding our sect? But why? We have plenty of manpower in the Inner Peaks. All our powerful disciples are in the Inner Peaks. Adding Outer Peaks, all it’s going to do is dilute the sect’s essential teachings with more unnecessarily complicated arts. We used to be a focused sect. A sect with a goal. Life qi, exorcisms, helping out the other sects and providing balance to the smaller sects. Now… who knows what that Gui Delun is doing while I’m trapped in here? At least I have the chains to communicate to the rest of the sect, but…” She sighed and shook her head.

“Gui Delun just held a recruitment drive for peak lords,” Hui explained. He paused, then lowered his head slightly. “Myself among them.”

Zhang Minyan waved her hand. “Obviously. I’m more curious as to his long-term goal. Consolidating the Southern Sect Conference is but one step toward… what?”

“Towards… taking over All-Heavens Sect?” Hui suggested.

“And then what?” Zhang Minyan asked. “Does he want to compete with the largest sects on the continent? Or maybe conquer them? He’s made strange moves lately.”

“Conquer… the largest sects?” Hui asked.

Zhang Minyan waved her hand. “There is a large sect in each cardinal direction. In the South, it’s All-Heavens, but three other sects exist of greater power in the North, East, and West. Of the four cardinal directions, the Southern Sect Conference is the weakest, and correspondingly, All-Heavens is the weakest. Even now, with his recruitment drive and suppression of the Southern Sect Conference, that remains true. Comparing our current strength to the strength of the other three cardinal sects, we still fall far short.”

Hui blinked. “So… why does he think he can fight those other sects?”

“Not fight. Conquer.” Zhang Minyan shrugged. “I don’t know. Our sect’s specialty is exorcism. The only way we could possibly overcome the other sects in might is if they fought undead.”

Hui frowned. Fight… undead? Yes, there is that hidden peak full of death cultivators and ghouls, but Jin Xian—sorry, Fang Hua, said it limited the growth of the undead. If anyone would know if the peak limited undead’s growth or not, it would be an undead. If they wanted to overrun the other three cardinal sects with undead, they wouldn’t want to limit the undead’s growth.

Death qi is corrosive and infectious. I can see Gui Delun attempting something with that… but what? And wouldn’t he have a stock of death qi somewhere? I haven’t noticed anything. True, it was hard to notice the death cultivator peak in the first place, so it’s possible he’s hiding something somewhere… I’ll have to look. I wouldn’t put it past Gui Delun, but I certainly feel like I’d be able to see traces.

“Well. Maybe he’s planning to act after he takes over the sect,” Zhang Minyan said casually.

Hui started. “Eh?”

Zhang Minyan laughed, raising an eyebrow at Hui. “Did you think I didn’t know that man’s ambitions? I might look small, but I haven’t lost my wisdom. I’ve watched that man climb the ranks for centuries, his eyes locked on domination. At first, I thought he was just another ambitious young child. And when it became clear he was serious… it was already too late.”

“It’s never too late,” Hui said firmly, nodding.

“Oh, you would say that, wouldn’t you,” Zhang Minyan said, squinting slightly at Hui.

“Eh? Senior, I don’t understand,” Hui said, playing dumb.

Zhang Minyan gave him a look. “Oh, so you just happened to land on my peak by coincidence, this peak that’s been closed off for a century, the peak of the one woman who still stands against that damned Gui Delun?”

Hui put his hands up. “This small disciple is innocent. Coincidences happen, Senior. I really did get assaulted by two fellow disciples and just happened to land here!”

The two old foxes looked at one another, eyes narrowed and false smiles on their faces. Zhang Minyan chuckled, shaking her head as she turned away. “Hmm. Coincidences do happen.”

Hui glanced over his shoulder at the over-boiling furnace. I’ll trust Zhang Minyan here, since I don’t know much about pills… but is it really that dangerous, on the verge of exploding and taking out half the Inner Peaks? I’d be quite happy if it was, but for someone who drove everyone out and sealed herself in with the cauldron, Zhang Minyan seems quite… how should I say it? Er, ‘casual’ about this whole endeavor.

A sly old fox like her, would she really be locked up for a century minding a pot and doing nothing else? I wonder… how much of what she told me about that furnace is really true, and how much is she simply acting like it’s true?

But why act like it’s true? Is she fooling Gui Delun? Zhang Minyan… she has an angle, here. A plan of her own. I need to figure out what it is, and soon, if I’m going to pitch her against Gui Delun.

Luckily, it sounds like she’s no fan of Gui Delun… though I suppose that’s to be expected, when they’re in opposing factions.

Hui looked at Zhang Minyan. “Senior, you’ve been stuck in here so long. Don’t you get lonely?”

“Ha! Are you after my body? Don’t forget, I’m a wrinkly old lady on the inside,” Zhang Minyan said, waggling her finger.

Hui physically flinched. Ugh. I don’t want… I don’t want any of that. Neither half of that sounds good. It’s such a common trope in my old novels, and yet… and yet, now that I’m face to face with it, I just want to vomit.

“Well, there’s no need to be rude,” Zhang Minyan chided him, hurtling over to kick him in the shins.

Hui shook his head. “I just wondered, Senior, if you’re missing out on the world outside…”

“Of course I am! You think I want to be stuck here? But I can’t leave it alone. I can’t bear the possibility that it might go off,” Zhang Minyan said, shaking her head back at him.

This is going nowhere. Hui backed away. “Can I go take a look at the furnace? I don’t have much experience, but…”

“What are you going to do?” Zhang Minyan scoffed.

Hui put his hands out. “Maybe… maybe I can come up with something that others have overlooked.”

“What, you think you know better than the woman who’s been studying it for a century?” she said, cocking her eyebrows.

“No, no, not at all! It’s simply… maybe my untrained fresh eyes can spot a solution you’ve missed,” Hui tried. Well, if she refuses me again, though, I’ll take it as a sign that she isn’t really stuck here and leave it be.

Zhang Minyan shrugged. “Don’t touch anything, but feel free to look. Oh, but don’t get too close. I won’t save you from getting melted this time.”

Eh? Am I wrong? Maybe she really is stuck here… Well—I’ll take a look, anyways. Hui nodded and bowed shortly to Zhang Minyan, then flew off toward the furnace.

Zhang Minyan watched him over his shoulder as he flew away. She opened her hand. A scrap of black qi danced in her palm. Raising her eyebrows at Hui’s back, she slowly closed her hand again, smothering the qi. A small smile played over her lips. Quietly, she murmured to herself, “Things are about to get interesting again.”

Turning, she looked at the distant heights of the peak. Her eyes twinkled. Saying nothing she turned back to her barrier, continuing to inspect it fully.

Hui approached the furnace once more, though this time he remained a respectful distance from the flames. The furnace trembled. Deep cracks cut through its metal surface, though they didn’t appear to be growing to his eyes, or rather, they aren’t visibly growing at the moment. It may be they’re moving too slowly to see properly. After all, it’s been on the verge of exploding for a century, according to Zheng Minyan.

On closer inspection, rather than the multicolored flames being lit below the furnace, they vented from the bottom of the furnace, leaping out from within the metal receptacle. Strangely, they didn’t break through the cracks on the sides or on the top, as he’d expect flames to, but only escaped from the bottom. The furnace rested on the ground, tilted slightly to the side, so the flames could only escape from a narrow angle where its bottom was lifted off the ground.

Hui put a hand to his chin. If I get any closer, I’ll be burned up, especially with this body. Hmm… it does seem to be extremely dangerous, in an eventual sort of way. Though… rather than seeing it as a pending explosion, it might be better to understand it as similar to a nuclear core that’s gone unstable. It isn’t immediately dangerous, but it could go off at any moment and go completely critical. It can’t be moved elsewhere, and it is extremely dangerous and needs to be constantly monitored, but on any given day, it’s not that dangerous to pass by… at a safe distance, anyways.

I’m not seeing anything that would fix it, or resolve it. Well, if this is something that Gui Delun did to trap her here… or even something she did herself to remove herself from the equation, it would make a lot of sense if she—or whoever it is that set it off—made it something that would be an actual threat to her, and not something a fifth-realm cultivator like myself could resolve.

Or maybe it really is that the furnace is on the verge of explosion, no one is putting anything on, and she’s really protecting the sect from danger.

But then, if that’s true, why be so casual about it? No, no. That can’t be it. Hui sighed. I feel like I’m missing the corner pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I’ve got a handful of bits and bobs, and some of them fit together, but I have nowhere to start and no idea how they’re all going to fit together.

He sighed and stepped back, turning around the corner to put the sharp edge of the mountain’s bulk between him and the furnace. The sudden drop in temperature burst over his skin, instant relief. Hui wiped his brow and sighed. I still need to find Fen Long, the Patriarch. If he’s even still alive…

Actually, if anyone would know where he is… Hui turned around. “Senior…”

The sky behind him stretched, blue and empty. Hui blinked. Wasn’t she just going on about how she can’t leave? Where’d she go?