Secrets Of The Metal Sect

After about three ke later, a little over thirty minutes, Jin Hufa had enough of his waiting and stomped his foot like a child.

"How long will he sleep?" Jin Hufa demanded with an imperious tone that made Liu Liangzhe's hackles raise. He ignored the boy and continued to stroke Shu Xiaolin's hair as he slept. It seemed to soothe the boy, to have someone there and clearly watching over him. Only the heavens know how he had been sleeping on his lonesome, or if he had been sleeping at all due to the fear of being snatched away or harmed while he rested.

"Give him until--" he peered at the sky and hummed softly-- "Shenshi and I'll wake him. He's been walking for quite a way, he's tired himself out." While Hufa huffed and scoffed for a moment, throwing spouts of air all over the place in his discontentment, Jin Baohu sat beside Liu Liangzhe and watched Xiaolin with a soft smile.

"I have a younger sister. She's no bigger than him," Jin Baohu said, almost like they were whispering conspiracies. "I don't like waking her whenever she naps either. He looks like a little bunny." Liu Liangzhe just nodded, thinking about his birth name, about his parents apparently thinking he looked the same way. Tuzhe, his birth name, meant rabbit, which were symbols of cautiousness and vigilance among many others -- none of them would be something Tuzhe was audacious enough to describe himself as, but he had been called quite a few things by many people that may have meant he lived up to his namesake, and not all of it was related to his past lover either.

As a sudden proclaimed expert, Liu Liangzhe had to admit that while curled up on his lap, there was something bunny-like about Shu Xiaolin.

"I will cherish this image for years to come," he admitted with a smile. "Thank you, Jin-gongzi."

"Can we please get going already?" Jin Hufa asked with another huff. Liu Liangzhe wanted to tell him that huffing in such a vulgar way was unbecoming of someone of his station, he had never been told such a thing, but his lover Wu Mi had, since Wu Mi was indeed part of the Sect gentry, the grandnephew of the ancient founder of the Water Sect. The sun was certainly travelling across the sky at quite a speed, and it had been quite some time by Liu Liangzhe's estimate based on that.

"Yes, I think it's best if we do," he finally agreed. Jin Hufa muttered something like, "Finally!" as Liu Liangzhe picked up his child and carried him against him and got to his feet. "Come on, A-Lin, if you sleep all day, you won't sleep well tonight." He stroked his son's face to try and get him to wake up. The boy blew a tuft of his hair from his face and looked up at Liu Liangzhe with a creased face and squinted eyes as he adjusted to the light around him.

Shu Xiaolin said nothing as he adjusted himself in Liu Liangzhe's arms and rested his head against his shoulder instead. Jin Hufa walked in front of them, guiding them into the village, and Jin Baohu followed behind Liu Liangzhe, nearly walking beside him.

The town of Tongzhen wasn't what Liu Liangzhe was expecting when it came to the ostentatious Metal Sect, or the even more flamboyant Jin Clan. It was mostly made of wood and metal, but that was to be expected, and the people there were dressed like other common folk. There was a square tower in the back, more like a pagoda in its ornate construction, where the two Jin boys led them.

"As travelling cultivators, we can let you stay here for the night," Jin Baohu said.

"We could stay at an inn," he insisted instead. "We don't wish to trouble you."

"We aren't offering because we want to, we're telling you because we have to confirm you're a part of the Water Sect," Jin Hufa said with a scoff. "Now, get inside. Baohu will get you something to eat, and I'll send the missive." Liu Liangzhe went into the cave, and he paused.

"Wait, Jin-gongzi, I need to confess something," he said, his voice tilting higher with put-on guilt.

"You're not really from the Water Sect, are you?" Jin Hufa asked, his face still barely rounded with youth, looked ugly and sharp as his face twisted with rage. What had happened to make the boy so weary of travellers that aren't with a sect?

"My name is Wu Mi, not Liu Liangzhe, I just didn't want anyone to know… I was… I left my sect, my lover is awaiting me, you see?"

"Lover? You say it like you're a cut sleeve…" Jin Hufa said, his voice full of derision. So, that was something else that had changed since Liu Liangzhe had been imprisoned. Cut sleeves, back from when he was still alive, weren't considered wrong or bad, and they were certainly never spoken of so meanly. They were just… well, the only real oddities were women who fancied other women, the men had no idea how to handle those ladies so they were often run out of their homes and their sects. Thankfully there were places, or there had been places, for them to go back before Liu Liangzhe's imprisonment. He wondered if that same dislike had spread to men who enjoyed the company of other men. It seemed like it.

"I didn't realise it was a bad thing, being a cut sleeve," he said.

"Didn't realise? Are you dumb, too?!" Jin Hufa said.

"Stop getting so angry," Jin Baohu said instead. "If we report that there was a wandering cut sleeve cultivator that we didn't take back to be examined, we could get into trouble, you see? You've made this very complicated for us, Wu-qianbei."

"You could… just let me go--"

"Absolutely not!" Jin Hufa exclaimed while Jin Baohu held his arm to calm him down. Jin Hufa looked moments away from pacing in his rage.

"Please stay here while we discuss it," Jin Baohu said before he led Jin Hufa away and out of the pagoda they may have locked them in. They left Liu Liangzhe alone in a room filled with scrolls that probably had a lot of interesting information on them. There was a bed in the corner, three of them actually, and since Shu Xiaolin was so weary, he did put the boy down on one of them so he could get back to his rest. He rifled through the scrolls as quietly as possible, both to keep Shu Xiaolin comfortable and to keep the Jin boys from hearing him.

He scanned a few scrolls with little importance. They were just missives. Apparently Tongzhen had a real yao problem before they sent their disciples to take care of it, and determined that it was brought to the town by rogue cultivators. They were blaming sectless people because it was easiest to believe, or that's what Liu Liangzhe was sure of. He was halfway through reading his fourth scroll and the only one rife with juicy information. There was a scandal with the Jin Clan's current sect leader that they were having to smooth over, but from the tone, this wasn't as uncommon as usual, but this time it involved doing business with some terrible people, people that apparently had connections to the Wood Sect. If the Wood Sect caught wind of the Metal Sect being involved in any of their hardship, especially when dealing with obvious crooks -- a gang of semi-rogue cultivators that called themselves the Seven Devils -- then there would be major problems.

He had no idea who the current High Cultivator was, the one elder, most commonly a sect leader, that had the voice over all the other sects, thus their position as the 'high' cultivator -- a pompous position, in Liu Liangzhe's opinion as a wanderer. Still, if they heard about the accusations, no if they saw the proof of the Jin-Shigong having something to do with the downfall of the Wood Sect in any way… Well, there would be a lot of trouble. The issue came with the fact that Liu Liangzhe was sure that Shu Xiaolin came from the Wood Sect, and if they had anything to do with how he ended up on the street, then he wanted to punish them himself, but if it was caused by the Metal Sect's intervention, it really complicated things even further than they already seemed to be!

"Hey! Put that down!" Jin Hufa said. Liu Liangzhe dropped the scroll before he picked it up and rolled it before setting it down. He smiled nervously.

"Apologies, Jin-gongzi, it fell first. You just caught me putting it back up," Liu Liangzhe said, and he patted the wall covered in pockets for scrolls to be rested. The scroll tipped back out of the place he set it and Liu Liangzhe caught it again and shoved it back into its place. If that wasn't proof, then what was?

"Whatever. Just get away from the wall," Jin Hufa said. "Anyway, you and your kid need to leave. Just go through the village. We'll follow you out. But you better not tell anyone that you met us."

"That's an excellent idea," he agreed before he went to wake Shu Xiaolin again. Xiaolin glared up at him, his bottom lip pushed out from his mouth in a pout. "Don't look at me like that, we're going to head out. It's night, but don't worry, I'll keep us safe."

"Right. He doesn't even have a sword," Jin Hufa whispered to his partner with a mocking huff. Liu Liangzhe rolled his eyes and waited for Xiaolin to get out of the bed before he held his hand and walked with him out of the pagoda, and to the back of the village, where another archway made of metal stood, carved with tigers like the previous one. He picked Shu Xiaolin up before they walked out of the area.

"Thanks for showing me out," he said, bowing to Jin Baohu and then Jin Hufa. Xiaolin did the same, a bit awkwardly, but he had been taught before -- and it hadn't been by Liu Liangzhe. He headed out of the archway, and the barrier seemed to snap back around him. They dealt with the problem by putting a barrier around the town, which meant there were yao waiting for them out in the darkness. Of course he had no idea how to deal with yao, or yaoguai and yaolings, without using his arms, and since he didn't want Xiaolin to get snatched up that wasn't happening.

Yaoguai had a few major purposes. They were primarily, but not limited to, animals and objects that gained sentience. Many of these things could then take a humanoid form and thus shapeshift, but they were most notable for their ability to wield illusions. Their illusions were a trap, of course, but they were very tricky to tell apart from falsities. They could also be anything because of their shapeshifting abilities and illusions, which could make them seem invisible to the naked eye.

"Any strange noises you hear, ignore them. We are alone out here, just me and you, Xiaolin," he warned. "Now close your eyes. Yaoguai are masters of illusion." Xiaolin closed his eyes and kept his arms tight around his neck. As much as Liu Lianzgeh didn't care for Jin Hufa and his attitude, he really wished he had some sort of weapon to defend himself, and his sword was the most practical. Unfortunately he had no idea where his sword was.