V5C38: District of Souls

“… and this thing should be a spatial stabilisation point. It’s what you were looking for, correct?” the newly crowned, so to speak, Gang Matriarch said, presenting her with a node in the ground.

“It is, and it seems to have some traces of my energy already. I think my fight with Gang Shu Wen had led to some of my energy coming into contact with it,” Wei Yi said, walking up to the node, “You don’t want to request anything from me in exchange for this thing, right? Just to make sure that you haven’t come up with any plan alongside those guardians of yours.”

“Ignore those old things. With your help, I’m a moment from breaking through into the seventh realm, so they don’t have any valid reason to argue against me, nor do I have any reason to listen to them. They won’t attack me while I’m breaking through, either, so I’m safe to do what I want.”

“Alright, good. Had you done what they had asked you to, I would be extremely disappointed.”

It went without saying that the Ascendant had been paying attention to everything that the new Matriarch had been up to, especially when she was sealed into a more private space to converse with the guardians of the district. She was able to avoid their detection easily enough – her spiritual perception’s attribute made it incredibly simple – and learned that they were highly unhappy with the way in which Gang Xiu Ling had taken her new position, but that they were willing to permit her to remain so long as she did not act up and continued to follow tradition.

Of course, given that they were guardians, they didn’t have the right to command a Matriarch in such a manner, and in actuality they needed to beg her far more than command her. Their actions were concerning, so Wei Yi needed to help the new Matriarch out a little more to accelerate her cultivation progress. The moment that she exceeded their realm, and made use of some manuals that the Ascendant ended up sharing, the guardians would have no chance at all to oppose her.

Now that she confirmed that Gang Xiu Ling was intending to stay the course and remain on the side of the New Community, she would help her further by temporarily weakening the guardians if they even think about acting against her. She had the necessary methods for achieving this from her experience with medicinal refinement, poisons and the like, and with a little bit of Law-based tinkering she was ready to affect the guardians the very moment that she had a literal moment away from the attention of those around her, with her movement method permitting instantaneous movement back and forth at any time.

For now, though, she was focused on the spatial stabilisation node ahead of her. With her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, she reached out and held her palm above the node, directing a vast quantity of energy through it and down towards the node. Her Arm lost its structure for a brief moment, all of her planar energy surging through it and down into the node, followed right away by its activation.

She now had enough energy that little technique was actually needed to activate a spatial stabilisation node. A faint connection with the node was felt, as always, but there was little she could do with it.

“Was that it?”

“Yep, that was it. Of course, I can show off a little more, and provide you with some arbitrary theatrics, but I doubt that you want that, and I really don’t want to do that to myself, either. The point is that I have the node now, and that you will see me again sooner rather than later.”

“That gateway that you had mentioned, will it be something that people can come through right away?”

“Would there be a problem with that?”

“There may be some complications with it and the district’s people, so if it isn’t necessary, it’d be great if you didn’t just usher in tides of people.”

“Wasn’t planning on doing that in the first place, so don’t you worry. I’d prefer for most to stick around where they are most familiar with, and where they can do the most with their own abilities, and instead enable things like trade and exchanges of useful skills and techniques via the gateways,” Wei Yi explained.

“I and the people of the Gang District should be fine with that, since we aren’t like the Ju District… They did open up in the end, after you’d visited, didn’t they? Were those strange bolts you had fired at Shu Wen based on their methods?”

“To an extent, yes. Some of that was still my own energy and methods… Nonetheless, we can discuss all kinds of minor matters at a later time. For now, I need to get going, and I need to return to my territory as quickly as possible, while also doing as much as possible in every district I pass. In other words, I don’t quite have the time to spare for most casual chats just for now,” she said, her Arm having long returned to her side, resting there in a neutral manner, “Anything else before I depart? Do you need me to help you with something, or deal with some kind of dissident faction?”

“No, there are none of those apart from the guardians. Good luck.”

“Mhm. You too, Gang Xiu Ling. May we meet again, at a better time, with more achievements under our belts… not that either of us appear to wear one,” Wei Yi muttered her last words, gave a casual wave and vanished from the spot, pausing near the location of the guardians, and applying her solution to solve their threat.

After that, she disappeared from the district’s borders, reappearing at the northern edge. Her destination from here was the Xin District, for it had a high likelihood of being beneficial to her, so it was best to head off to the north-west in order to get there as quickly as possible.

Within the Xin District, she was seeking to locate an expert on the matter of souls, for her soul had gained a unique property that, unlike the nature of her spiritual perception, she was unable to comprehend in full. The study of the soul was an incredibly niche one, so for her to have experienced any kind of changes to it in the first place was a rather impressive fact. The archives of the Gang District, the oldest remaining city from before the time of Yi City and its Master, lacked any detail on it, and none of the southern and northern districts she had visited so far had anything to comment on regarding the soul, so the Xin and Ling Districts were the only ones she could hope on to have something for her to learn about and study.

Depending on what they could tell her, she had the potential to greatly advance her path, and in the event that she was completely overestimating the potential of the soul, she could at the very least secure her mind against outside influences. The odd immunity to the influence of Primordial Earth, or whatever had influenced the Bao District, was not guaranteed to extend to all things, or even to all entities of a Primordial nature.

She was consistently growing in every regard other than her mental resistance to abnormal influences, especially with the addition of the stable Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, so it would be a bad idea to skip the Xin District.

There was also the matter of the Yi City Web, which she was attempting to link up to her existing territory. She suspected that the Shun, Gang and Wu Districts were linked together, but it was hard to guarantee such a thing, and so it was significantly safer and easier to secure as many potential paths for the channels to flow through in order to combine the entirety of her territory. If the Wu District did not connect with the Gang District, then the Bao, Gang, Ru and Qiang Districts would remain separate from the network that started with the Chao District at the north and ended with the Shun or Wu District at the south.

It was hard to know how she would be received, though. Her deeds at the south should slowly begin to reach the ears of those further north, especially each time that she did something as excessive as tapping into the ancestral array of a district to debate the current Patriarch, and word from the north was also getting more plentiful the further north she went.

She did not know much regarding the typical philosophy and beliefs of the Xin District’s people, despite the relative proximity between it and the Yi District combined with the relative openness of the two districts when compared to something like the Ju District. As such, making any educated guesses regarding their nature was also rather difficult, and it was even more complicated when the matter of the War of Ascendancy was taken into account. It had affected the north greatly, and it was likely that the Central Plains and the Southern Tundra were also impacted to a certain extent.

There should still be Great Family members somewhere at the south, at least those of the third and second generations, but the Central Plains are where Testament was supposed to be, and that is where the focus of the Greats should be. Hence, they would need to focus greatly on keeping their existing territory and preventing intruders from the Ascendant’s Arbiters from doing anything to harm their plans any further than they already have.

Perhaps there had even been some battles while she was away, resulting in people fleeing certain areas, and rushing to others for various reasons.

‘I should just stop guessing and go in there, shouldn’t I?’ Wei Yi thought as she paused some distance from the district, looking upon its walls and gates. Unlike some of the previous locations she had visited, it did not look significantly different from the standard architecture of the Western Continent – if the Yi District’s style could be described as such – and so there was little for her to note or comment on.

Without much effort, she crossed the cold hills on her way to the district, where snow had begun to thin out to the point of only falling in sufficient quantities to mildly annoy. After falling, it would even melt at times, resulting in the overall air being grey and dull to look at.

That was likely why the guards weren’t particularly happy with their position, looking extremely grim. In a more upbeat district, someone like this might have experienced a series of terrible events without any positives occurring in the meanwhile, perhaps losing a few significant figures in their lives one after another, but from a brief glance at their outward thoughts, this did not appear to be the case at all. Rather, the grey nature of their surroundings had seeped into their faces, and a few recent stresses in the district had made their expressions worse.

What those were, she couldn’t determine from afar, and without a greater length of time.

Even without that, it was quite clear that she should not make too much of a disturbance upon entry, as she would otherwise aggravate the guards, who, although their realm was low and thus not capable of competing against her or the majority of the truly powerful figures in the Planar Continents as a whole, could still lead to her not being permitted easy and lawful entry into the district, which was ideal for peaceful relations with the Patriarch and guardians inside.

As she neared, one guard raised his hand and stopped her a few steps away from him, with the other guards getting nearer while he said, “Hold it. Are you one of the Yi District lot? Provide the pass.”

“You are mistaken. My name is Wei Yi-”

“Your name could be, uh, Kong Shi Meng, or something like that, but if you’re from there, then you better provide a pass.”

“- and what I was going to say is that I am not ‘one of the Yi District lot’, whatever you mean. I have never been here before, and I have not received a pass, and I wouldn’t be able to produce one out of the air even with the best spatial storage method,” the Ascendant finished speaking.

“You sure?” a second guard muttered, sharing a glance with the others, “Do we have any records of everyone who came in from the Yi District?”

“Why would we? There are thousands of those people…”

They went silent as they plunged into thought, and Wei Yi was forced to stand there for quite a long while, waiting for a single one of them to arrive at any conclusion, even at the worst one in existence. If they just refused her entry, that would be workable, since she could simply enter the district through her fourth realm movement method and then reach out to one of the district’s leaders as quickly as possible to amend the situation. Otherwise, leaving or trying to enter in front of several guards would just make things unnecessarily complicated for her, as they would believe that she was some kind of criminal, liar, or worse.

Again, minimizing trouble was the goal, although there was a certain limit to how long she would endure certain matters simply because they’d take more time than they’d save.

It was fortunate that she did not need to wait too long, as a superior of the guards finally arrived at the scene, unprompted by any of them but very curious to figure out what it was that they were standing around for. He took one moment to guess at the situation.

“Red hair, but not someone fleeing from the Yi District? I get that right?”

“You did. It would have been great if they had done so just as quickly,” Wei Yi said, “I did try to tell them.”

“With the situation at the northern side, we’ve had to accept quite a few people from the Yi District. To make sure that they didn’t run around without any restraint, there’s a temporary system of passes to make it clearer where they came from, what they’re doing, and why they might be unable to provide certain details and forms of identification that those who arrived normally are able to,” the superior guard – in both meanings of the term – explained briefly, “If this is your first time here, then I can take care of things. Otherwise, you should know how this works, and what you need to show them.”

“It is my first time at the Xin District. The places I’ve been to before didn’t bother too much with identification, but I suppose that your district chooses to do things slightly differently to what is normal in Yi City at the moment.”

“That’s one way to put it. Come on through, don’t hold up the gates,” the man said, waving her through and leading her to an empty spot by the side of the main road while answering, “Even if you’re not too familiar with our practises, you should know that we, as a district, focus greatly on people and, more importantly, their souls. We consider it vital to be aware of them, and so most will carry details regarding scans of their soul. It works to prove their identity, and informs us of their nature.”

“Souls are that significant to human behaviour?”

“Not entirely. We know of a few abnormalities that can affect behaviour, and a few that affect only the soul, and some that seem to affect the body, but the first purpose is generally why we insist on soul scans. If you’re not going to remain here for long, and if you don’t intend to go back and forth from the district, you don’t need to bother with it.”

“Noted,” she replied, with them arriving at the quiet spot by this point, “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened at the Yi District? It should be standing strong, still, shouldn’t it?”

The guard sighed, “That thing… War of Ascendancy, some call it. It riled up a faction called the Great Families, and they got a little more protective of their lands than before. They used to hold a great degree of influence in every district, but after a few battles with these Ascendant’s Arbiters, they were forced to focus on only a few places. I think they’re holding onto the Yi, Ning, Chu and Chen Districts most fervently, as the Ping, Ju, Luo, Bai and Chao Districts are held by the Arbiters. The Jiang District, and the Lan District, have not done much for either side, and the Shi, Fu and Huang Districts are out of the way, so they haven’t gotten into any battles or skirmishes either.”

“Does that mean that the Yi District has been attacked, or is it simply that the situation there has made it difficult for some to remain there without greatly risking their lives? Otherwise, I see no reason for them to flee – or for the Xin District to accept them.”

“The latter, or so I’ve heard. You can ask one of the people from the Yi District, if you want. They’re all still wearing their traditional robes and garments, so red and silver are the colours that you need to be watching out for. Some have attempted to make a living here, and there is no issue with you patronising their stores and businesses, just make sure to remind them that the rules here can differ, and that they shouldn’t get in the way of existing businesses, at least not as directly as setting up shop right in front of them.”

“I get the feeling that wasn’t a random example.”

“Some of the Yi District people were rather eager to sell various goods, so a bunch gathered together and set up market stalls a step in front of stalls selling the exact same types of items. Even without thinking about any of the rules, that’s just a dick thing to do, full stop, no question about it, and they should have known.”

“Got it. Thank you for your time, and for saving me a great deal of time that the guards at the gate might have otherwise taken from me.”

“Sure thing. Don’t cause trouble,” the guard said, turning around and departing quickly.

She nodded in response, then turned inward, facing the centre of the district through many layers of structures. From her position, she couldn’t see anyone beside a few locals, going about their day without much care for her or anything at a grand scale, and it was hard to imagine that just a little further north, something had forced the people of a district to flee it, heading towards the nearest safest place.

It was a rather unusual thing for the entirety of Yi City’s history, as the closest thing to have happened previously would be the loss of the Lan District’s leaders, and the general decline of the Lan family, which had caused the Jiang District to step in and take over. Some saw it as them being opportunistic and greedy, others were glad that the district was preserved due to its value and usefulness, and some thought that it was better for the Jiang District to be in charge than the Ze or Wu Districts, both of which were known to be slightly obsessed with perfection and martial arts, to the extent of some labelling them as completely and utterly mad in that regard. That wasn’t quite a fair way to put it, but it would be rather difficult for most to match their standards.

On a more significant matter for the moment, she spent just a little while to consider what she was going to do regarding the situation of the Yi District’s people in the Xin District. She was not going to correct the problem itself, as that would require far more than she was willing to spare, regardless of the resource, but she could choose either to speak with the refugees, or to avoid them.

Chances of finding someone she knew among those that fled were rather low, of course. There were a lot of people in the Yi District, and she had become familiar with only a few, and there were even fewer that she had any interest in speaking with. Chances were that many remained in the district, their lives being affected to only a minor degree, if at all, whereas some that did leave could have easily headed to the Shun or Ze Districts, which were, reportedly, still relatively neutral in the War of Ascendancy.

It was hard to be sure not only of that, but also whether it would be beneficial for her to even do so. Her identity was no longer the same, and she had put in a great deal of effort to distance herself from it.

To simply rush back into such a thing would be rather odd, and rather unhelpful to her overall goals. The whole point of furthering her knowledge of Law was to eventually overcome the world and attempt to impose some form of justice upon everything beneath her, allowing her to overcome the limitations of being someone in the world that she would improve and never stronger than all other things. By overcoming the will of the heavens, she could ensure that her form of justice is present.

One of the keys to her plan would be to separate herself from the world, and bringing herself into contact with more people that she still held a significant emotional attachment to would endanger that.

‘I suppose that it might just be best to go around anyone I can, and find the local Patriarch as quickly as I can to get out of here. Dealing with the Yi District just wouldn’t be very straightforward, nor particularly helpful,’ Wei Yi concluded, moving on from her spot and heading in the direction of the Ancestral Hall, where the Patriarch was likely to reside.

To further reduce the likelihood of interruption, she decided to make use of a few movement methods to skip certain emptier streets and irrelevant locations, hoping to get to her destination as quickly as she could. There were few things in the district that truly interested her, after all, as the stores, market stalls, traders, craftsmen and so on that could be found in any district that she had been in so far, and could likely be seen further out, too, provided that those territories were relatively safe to live in and did not have a completely different culture, like certain outer nations were.

Even the best laid plans don’t always work out, though, and this was not a well-thought-out plan.

The issue came about when, after one of her quick warps across a street, she froze involuntarily, her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow flaring up with a hidden crimson at the sight.

“Here you go, miss. If you ever want more of my services, I am free at any time, and I will be sure to get your measurements again to make sure that your efforts to get a better figure don’t go to waste!” a familiar voice said with the same odd degree of excitement and positive energy that always seemed outright impossible in certain circumstances where Wei Yi… no, Yi Wei could not remain calm.

She was a friend, an old one, who she had met when they were both nine, and who managed to remain friends even after Yi Wei appeared to have no ability in cultivation, relative to her peers, of course. When Yi Dongfang accidentally obtained a great technique and had intended to showcase it to the family, only to be removed and for his achievements to be passed onto an upper member of the family, she was one of the few to both be aware of the situation and remain far stronger than Yi Wei had, although the latter saw her as more and more of a strange pervert as time went on, for she could only vaguely understand what was meant by much of what the tailor said.

That had changed since then, although it was not Yi Wei that had gotten to benefit from the expanded range of knowledge that Wei Yi currently possessed. Perhaps if she had figured it out earlier, her response to receiving the Thunder Lord’s memories would be… less severe, and less impactful.

It would have helped her to understand herself and to deal with her own feelings far more effectively than she had ended up doing, and perhaps it would have led to an overall better situation. It was hard to know, as it could change a great deal simply as a result of her being aware of her own sexuality and not being as concerned about the mental influence of the Seventh of Meng. Perhaps there was indeed mental influence, and her mind had been permanently altered? She couldn’t be sure, even now.

However, whatever had been the case back then, and whatever she wanted to do now, she couldn’t get herself to move before the gaze of the tailor fell upon her, mostly by accident.

She was almost overlooked, except that the gleaming smile on Yi Kun’s face froze and her gaze couldn’t move on, as it normally would and as it should have in the moment. After all, the woman was talking to a customer at this very moment, and although she was hardly ever quiet about her fondness for other women from the moment that the notion bloomed within her mind, she was otherwise a very professional person that wouldn’t let herself be distracted by anything. Combining that with her general unshakable nature, she could generally be relied upon to remain calm and collected almost always.

“Ah… I-I’m sorry, there’s a… an old friend… um… p-please come again later,” Yi Kun managed.

Her customer raised an eyebrow, following the gaze of the tailor, resulting in the two looking upon Wei Yi for a brief while. The resemblance and the clear familial relation between the two must have made the statement provided more plausible, as the customer did not ask anything else and nodded, stepping away and quickly walking off.

Meanwhile, the two remained in place, looking towards one another with their faces frozen, their emotions hidden deep beneath the surface either out of sheer shock or the form that they took.

For Wei Yi, all of her major emotions had been put into the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, and it had already flared with crimson before Yi Kun even laid eyes upon her. To the tailor, what she saw was what she assumed her old friend to look like at most times, and it was most certainly a stunning image.

“Y-You… You’re Yi Wei, right? I’m… I’m not imagining things, am I?”

Her voice was quiet, extremely so, but the Ascendant had no difficulty in picking it up, nor would she have a difficult time directing her voice to the tailor to pick up from as far as a kilometre or two, provided that she didn’t have any significant obstacles in the way. Despite that, she could not think of what she could possibly say, nor did she have the drive to do so. Instead, she nodded, then shook her head and walked towards her.

“You are… not? What do you… Uh, no, you didn’t lose your voice, did you? You had such a nice voice, as I recall, so-”

“No, I have not lost my voice,” Wei Yi finally said, having gotten far closer in that time.

“O-Oh, you… I… I don’t even know what to say.”

“Then I’ll be first. I meant that I am who you think I am, but that the name isn’t in use any longer. I tend to go by Wei Yi now, and you might be aware of why. If you’re not sure, think to the time that the district was set on fire.”

“I know… Well, I suspected, but it made sense. I heard that you had returned, but half the district was aflame and I needed to rescue my things from the fire… By the time that I got around to searching for you, all I could find was a damaged street and Yi Yaling’s lifeless body, lying not far from there… Whatever had happened there, it had to have occurred while the Patriarch was aware of it, and he did nothing…”

“That’s why. Also, changing the ‘Wei’ from meaning small, to extraordinary, felt right, even if the words themselves weren’t at fault.”

“Well, that… no, it wouldn’t be right to joke like that…”

Even though she said that, she had glanced quite clearly at Wei Yi’s chest, making her intentions rather blatant. The Ascendant saw no problem with it, however, and just gestured over to the interior of what she presumed to be Yi Kun’s workplace.

“I think we should go inside and talk.”

“Yeah, that’d be best.”