Following his father's murder, Wu Ling's mother returned to the life of a courtesan, disguising her young son as a girl to take refuge in the Bamboo Silk House, a women's only sect dedicated to the arts. Now, as his powers awaken, he'll find himself torn between protecting his family and the goals of powerful cultivators who see him as a means to an end. "Wu Ling, I've accepted a marriage proposal on your behalf," the bewitching Hall Master of the Bamboo Silk House declared. "When you enter the Inner Sect, you'll enter under the name 'Hua Qianhu', fiancee of a young lord of the Liang family." "Hall Master, that's impossible!" Wu Ling protested. "Even if you ignore my relationship with Meifeng, I might have dressed well enough to hide as a mortal woman but I could never..." "So you truly didn't realize what you were doing," the Hall Master said, a dark smile on her lips. "Little Ling, you're a natural-born Shapeshifter. I'll teach you what you need to know," she said, her features shifting until she looked like a mirror image of the stunned Wu Ling. "As long as you follow my arrangements and learn my techniques, it isn't impossible for you to reunite with Meifeng..." "But you should consider Young Lord Liang carefully," the Hall Master added. "His affection for you is genuine. Perhaps, one day, you'll even feel the same for him..."
"Brawler Su, it's Huang Yeyan," she said when the young woman's eyes snapped open and she drew a deep shuddering breath. "I'm afraid we don't have much time, I need you to drink this elixir," she explained, holding a small porcelain bottle up to Su Xiang's parched lips.
When Su Xiang drank the sweet, grassy-tasting elixir, it felt like the desiccated tissues of her mouth and throat absorbed half the liquid before it even reached her stomach. Energy surged into her withered muscles like a river flooding in heavy rains. Yue's whiskers twitched in anticipation when Su Xiang sat up straighter in bed and the fog of exhaustion cleared from her eyes. Within a dozen breaths, while the young Brawler still looked pale and drawn, a cold flame burned deep within her sapphire eyes that possessed a will to fight.
"Alch, Alchemist Huang," Su Xiang tried to greet only for her rough voice to catch and fail when she spoke.