The next morning, Mingzu City was surprisingly polite. That's how Yuzhen knew the whole setup had worked. Nobody pointed, and nobody laughed within earshot. When he stepped out of the Bia estate and onto the main street leading to the inner market, greetings came from everywhere, smooth, proper, and half-hearted. "Young Master Bia." "Out for a walk?" "You look well today." He'd nod when necessary and say nothing otherwise.
Beside him, the Bia guard assigned to follow at a distance kept his face blank. The guy was there to protect him, not to hover, but the line between the two was blurrier than people liked to admit. Every glance that landed on Yuzhen also swept over the guard, then moved on. The city had learned its lesson. Or at least, the part of it that feared the Bia Family had.
The market was already buzzing. Spirit herbs hung drying in bundles outside medicine stalls. Talismans pinned under polished glass gleamed faintly in the light. A blacksmith's hammer rang from the next street over, a steady, rhythmic beat. Mingzu felt the same as it always did in the morning – busy, greedy, awake.
Yuzhen used to love this part of the city. When he was younger, people smiled too openly when they saw him. Elders from minor branches would call him over just to ask about his cultivation. Shopkeepers tried to press rare fruits or spirit sweets into his hands. It had been a bit much, even then. Embarrassing, sometimes. Easy to make fun of in hindsight. Now, he would have welcomed that embarrassment.
A carriage wheel splashed through a shallow gutter as he passed a silk stall. Two girls by the embroidery shop lowered their heads and whispered behind their sleeves, not quite fast enough. "Is he really still planning to go to Cangyuan Sect?" "That's what Xu Yansheng said yesterday." "Then he must be out of his mind." Yuzhen kept walking.
At the next corner, the street widened around a circular pavilion built over a lotus pond too small to really be called one. Several younger cultivators were gathered there with teacups, half talking, half showing off. He recognized most of them. Not friends. Not enemies. Just the sort of people who orbited the same city and the same rumors without ever really getting involved. The moment he came into view, the conversation shifted. Not stopped. Shifted. That was always worse.
A young man from one of the lesser clans stood up first. "Young Master Bia." Yuzhen knew his name if he bothered to recall it. He didn't. "Mm." The others stood up more slowly. One bowed. One smiled too widely. One looked caught between politeness and curiosity. Then came the voice he'd expected sooner or later. "I didn't think you'd come out again this quickly."
Yu Chengxiu leaned against one of the pavilion pillars, teacup in hand, dressed in pale blue with the relaxed composure of someone who preferred observing to participating. Third young master of the Yu Family. Triple spiritual roots. Smart enough not to start fights he couldn't win. Yuzhen stopped at the steps but didn't go up. "Should I have waited for your permission?"
A burst of laughter escaped one of the boys before he caught himself. Yu Chengxiu's smile shifted, subtly. "No," he said. "I was just surprised. Most people would want some peace and quiet after yesterday." "Then I'm disappointing you twice in two days." That earned a real laugh this time, quickly stifled.
Yu Chengxiu set down his cup. "You misunderstand me. I'm impressed." "No, you aren't." For the first time, the air in the pavilion grew tense. The others looked between them and said nothing. No one wanted to be the fool who stepped into that space. Yu Chengxiu pushed off the pillar. "And if I say I am?"
Yuzhen looked at him properly then. The Yu Family boy had good eyes. Calm ones. Observant. The kind of person who collected details to use later. Yuzhen had never disliked him for that. In another life, under different circumstances, they might have even managed some civility. But not today. "Then I'll know your talent lies in adapting quickly," Yuzhen said.
That hit home. Not hard. Just enough. One of the boys in the back nearly choked on his tea. Yu Chengxiu held Yuzhen's gaze for a long moment, then laughed under his breath and sat back down. "Fair enough." The tension eased, quietly, but it broke.
Yuzhen could have left then. He should have. Instead, his eyes drifted to the stone table in the center of the pavilion. A spirit-testing chessboard. Not rare, not particularly valuable. A common tool for younger cultivators wanting to compare precision and control without openly challenging each other to a fight. Threads of spiritual energy guided carved pieces across a formation-marked board; the first to lose control lost the round. Once, he'd been very good at it.
Yu Chengxiu noticed where he was looking. "A round?" The pavilion fell silent again. One of the lesser-clan boys stared at him like he'd lost his mind. Another fixed his gaze firmly on the pond. No one in Mingzu needed to be told what made the invitation cruel. Yuzhen's foundation was ruined. Precision was exactly what he no longer had.
Yu Chengxiu seemed to realize how it sounded a heartbeat too late. "If you don't want to—" "I'll play." The words left his mouth before he'd fully decided on them. The silence that followed felt different now. Sharper. Expectant. Yu Chengxiu's eyebrows lifted. "You're sure?"
No. But he was more sure of this than of turning around and walking away while they all watched. Yuzhen stepped into the pavilion and sat across from him. The stone bench felt cool through his robes. Up close, he could see the game was already set. Twelve black pieces. Twelve white. Small, polished, ordinary. His hand didn't shake when he reached for the board. That was something.
Yu Chengxiu sat opposite him with less ease than before. "Just one round," he said. "How merciful." Their fingers touched the edges of the board together. The formation lit up. White mist rose in thin streams from the carved lines. Around them, the market chatter seemed to fade further away. Yuzhen took a breath and sent the first thread of spiritual power into the nearest white piece. It moved. Smoothly.
A murmur went around the pavilion. He ignored it. Across from him, Yu Chengxiu's black piece slid to intercept. Calm. Clean. Deliberate. Yuzhen moved again. Second piece. Third. For four exchanges, nothing went wrong. The old instinct was still there, buried deeper than he wanted to admit. He saw the paths. Saw the pressure points. Saw the shape of the board as a whole before his opponent committed.
Then he reached for the fifth move. Pain shot through his meridians so suddenly his vision blurred. The white piece jerked, shuddered, and split in half with a sharp crack. The formation light collapsed. No one spoke. Yuzhen kept his fingers where they were for one impossible beat, staring at the broken stone. Then he withdrew his hand.
The pavilion felt too quiet. He was aware of everything at once—the startled stillness of the others, the guard at the foot of the steps taking one step forward and then stopping, Yu Chengxiu sitting very still across from him as if any movement would worsen the insult. Yuzhen looked down at his palm. The spiritual backlash had cut it. Just a little. A line of red welled up at the base of his thumb. Ridiculous. He hadn't even managed five moves.
"I—" Yu Chengxiu started, and then wisely stopped. Yuzhen stood. The stone bench scraped once against the floor. Loud in the silence. "My mistake," he said. No one answered. He stepped down from the pavilion before any of them could recover enough to offer sympathy. That, more than pity itself, would have ruined his morning.
Behind him, Yu Chengxiu called, "Yuzhen." He didn't turn. The street ahead blurred at the edges, but he kept walking, one step, then another, past stalls and startled faces and a woman pulling her child closer without thinking. The cut on his palm stung. He closed his hand around it. At the end of the lane, he turned sharply into a narrow side street between a wine shop and an apothecary and stopped only when the noise of the market dulled. Then he leaned one hand against the wall. Breathing suddenly seemed harder than it should have been. Not from pain. From humiliation. It had been one board. One stupid board. A game children played to boast over tea. And he had failed in front of half the inner market like an overconfident fool who had forgotten what body he lived in now.
Footsteps entered the alley behind him. Too light to be the guard. Too quick to be a random passerby. Yuzhen straightened before the person reached him. Xu Qingli came around the corner, still holding a folded fan, her expression sharper than yesterday and far less amused. "You really have terrible timing," she said. Yuzhen stared at her. She looked at the blood on his hand, then at his face, and clicked her tongue. "And your taste in company is worse," she added. "If you're going to embarrass yourself, at least do it somewhere less public."
For one brief, absurd second, he nearly laughed. Instead, he said, "Did your brother send you to enjoy the view?" "My brother is still busy being offended that you answered him better than he answered you." She stepped closer before he could stop her and caught his wrist. Yuzhen's first instinct was to pull away. Her grip was stronger than it looked. Xu Qingli unfolded her fan with one flick, not to fan herself but to hide the movement of her other hand as she pressed something cool into his palm. A pill vial. Small. Warm from her sleeve. Not marked with any family seal. "Don't look at me like that," she said quietly. "It's not poison." Then, after one glance toward the alley mouth: "And if you insist on going back out there, at least wipe the blood off first. Someone's coming."