No lewd stuff

A seemingly normal young man was at the vestibule of a large villa, and he handed a small bag over to a larger, completely bald man wearing Daoist-style robes, saying, "Here are the spirit stones owed to your mistress."

"En," the second man replied before turning around and entering the villa, closing the door in the face of the first man.

That man shuddered a little bit and muttered under his breath before leaving, "Something is a bit off about that guy. I hate dealing with him."

Inside what I might refer to as a "living room" of the villa, both Xiao Li and I were eating breakfast. It was pretty odd—for as good as he was in alchemy, he was as poor in cooking. I had forced myself to learn when I started travelling with him, just so I wouldn't starve. We could have cooks in here, but neither of us really liked the idea of hired help, especially if they were temporary hires.

The bald-headed man walked in and tossed the bag of spirit stones onto the breakfast table before turning around and walking over into one of the room's corners and standing still, very still. They were payments for me selling a number of low-grade talismans, as I had arranged a bulk selling arrangement rather than trying to get involved in the sales myself.

Xiao Li finished a mouthful of the low-grade spirit rice I had bought to go with the demonic boar meat, and then shook his head, with a shudder of his own, "I hate that thing! It doesn't really look right."

I frowned and nodded. It was true; the illusions weren't quite there, with the skeleton almost reaching the uncanny valley. Xiao Li continued, "Plus, the illusion only works when you're around. Do you know how startling it is to turn my back on him, and when I glance back it is a skeleton again?!"

I sighed. I solved the issue of my ritual casting of Major Image lasting only ten minutes at my level. It was powered by a ritual and a spirit stone and was so efficient that it should last until rapture, but I couldn't presently get around the fact that it still needed my concentration.

If it were only a stationary illusion, like hiding the hidden door in my old village home, it would be fine. But needing it to move with the skeleton and interact with entities definitely required me to concentrate on the illusion. It was amazing that I had gotten it to enter into a dormant state when I lost concentration or left the range instead of the spell failing totally and needing to be recast.

"I need to get books or personal instruction on formations, eventually. I have only seen a few up close, but I think that will help the verisimilitude of my illusions considerably," I said after swallowing the last of my own breakfast, and then grinned, "This wise young miss has long ago learned that Illusion is the One Reality and that Substance is the Great Impostor, after all."

He scrunched his face up at me and asked, "What does that mean?"

"Well, imagine a supremely powerful entity with a cultivation so high that she could destroy the entire Winding Rivers Realm with the wave of one of her hooves," I said, humming.

He nodded, then blinked, "Wait, this potent cultivator is a cow?"

"Well, hypothetically, let's say she is a goat, but it doesn't really matter, okay?" I snapped back, and he held up his hands to me in supplication, so I continued, "She would exist on such a different plane of existence that to her, her reality is so much more than ours. Our entire existence would have less substance, be more thin and wisp-like than her idle fantasies; hence, her illusions or imaginations are more real than we are."

Xiao Li sighed, "I still don't entirely get it, but wouldn't that mean it was possible we were just imaginations, too, in someone's head?"

"Maybe we are," I said, staring at him with Yandere-girl eyes without blinking. Then I got ahold of myself, coughed and said, "I mean, it's possible. It doesn't really change anything, though."

He rolled his eyes, quickly finishing the last little bits in his bowl before he stood up, "Alright. We should get started with your sword training today. I have to take extra time to fill my bath the old-fashioned way afterwards. Isn't it a little weird the property managers couldn't find anyone to fix it in a week?"

I stood up, "You don't have to worry about that, I already fixed the plumbing last night when I was bored."

He looked at me strangely, "It's a little weird that you know how to do that."

It would be weird if I didn't. Much like rocket science, at least eighty per cent of modern nuclear engineering for fission reactors was plumbing. Getting tools and replacement parts was the challenge, but the valve that broke near the cistern was easily Mended with magic. Still, I shrugged, "It's not too difficult. Still, you are right that it is weird. We're cultivators, so we should be pretty high on the list of priorities. My only guess is that things are not so good here in the Imperial capital, under the surface."

Xiao Li considered that as we stepped into the courtyard and retrieved practice swords, "I seem to remember the lady we brought those cinnamon pastries from last week complained about her son being forcibly taken by the military to become a soldier."

I held my sword in the ready position, "And then we never saw her again. I will be happy to put this place behind us."

After about an hour of high-intensity practice and sparring, Xiao Li nodded, "You've reached the first threshold, what my dad just called the basics or the foundation of the sword. You're not incredibly talented in the sword, but you still have better base skill and decision-making than the average mortal swordsman now."

I frowned, "I only know thirteen moves."

"Some people know less. At least you really know these thirteen," he insisted and shrugged, "Besides, these moves are specifically designed to be a good foundation for whatever sword arts you learn next."

I nodded, "If I am at the first threshold, where are you?"

He grinned, "I've long ago reached the one with the sword level." I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded cool and profound, and he said, "If you ever reach the point where moving a sword is no more difficult than moving your hand or any other body part, then you'll know you've reached this stage, too."

I nodded. It sounded like to reach that level my proprioception had to include the sword in my hand, which sounded hard to manage. But I couldn't say that it was impossible. I had heard of special forces operators in my last life who could weird a rifle as though it were just an extension of their own bodies, too. I sat the sword back on the rack and said, with a sigh, not particularly looking forward to our next training, "Alright, let's do it sitting down this time. Otherwise, we both tend to run away too quickly."

He made a face but nodded. We then moved over to a large ritual circle I drew in one of the corners, and we both sat down in the lotus position. He said, "Okay, I'm ready."

I nodded and energised the circle, and the Fear spell was cast on both of us. He had asked for this training, both to continue making him more resistant to illusions as well as to "temper his Daoheart." That last reason actually sounded pretty good to me, and I decided to join him after judicious testing in private by myself.

The Fear spell would either project an all-senses illusion of your largest fear or, if that stopped working, just shove fear as an emotion into your head so that you never really got used to it unless you mastered fear itself.

Surprisingly, my biggest fear wasn't my pet goat. It might be somewhat of a subtle nuance since it objectively caused a very similar physiological reaction, but my emotions when I thought about her were closer to either awe or devotion. It was why I couldn't take Judge Wu or any of the other so-called divinities of the celestial bureaucracy or even the gods and goddesses of Meril's old world seriously.

In fact, my personal biggest fear seemed to change with the day or my mood. I didn't think that was how it was supposed to work, but it wouldn't be the only way my brain was different.

Today, it was a half-human, half-spider Drider male looming over me, already spinning me into a cocoon so he could devour me later. The Fear spell wouldn't be so hard to resist if it didn't also try to make you think whatever you were seeing was real.

Both of us scrambled to our feet and almost made it out of the ritual before the spell cut out. Scowling, we returned to our places so I could energise it again.

Xiao Li always left these training sessions with tears running down his face and covered in sweat, although he never cried out. Although I was curious, I was not boorish enough to ask him what his fears were.

My female intuition, which was growing stronger every month, suggested that it involved his dead parents or family situation in general, though.

---xxxxxx---

The local deacon for the Hidden Flowers Fairyland was not the "dommy mommy" type like Liu Ruxue was. Instead, Qin Fei Fei was the exuberant "girl next door" type and looked young enough that she must be something of a talent due to her similar level of cultivation, somewhere in the early Foundation establishment level.

If she grew up in West Virginia, she would have been the captain of the cheer team. She wasn't really my type, so I was a little curious as to why she asked to meet with me privately. I mean, I definitely wouldn't kick her out of bed. You'd have to be insane to do that.

I had been coming to the local branch of the Frolics, not solely for the lewd stuff. At least half of the time, I had been purchasing training in normal activities that a well-bred and well-educated young miss like I was trying to portray myself as would know: tea ceremony, debate, musical instruments, games like Go and Xiangqi, and general etiquette. It wasn't that I wanted to be a perfect young miss, but I wanted to be able to pretend to be.

As a budding Mistress of Illusion, I had long ago learned that if you showed somebody what they expected, they often wouldn't look any deeper.

"Young Miss has been coming to my place quite often these days." She grinned mischievously at me, and I had the urge to smile despite myself.

Her smile was infectious as if she was a tornado of fun, "I have a proposition for you," she said, cheerily, "I'm willing to refund all that you've paid and even allow you to have a beginner's level zither technique that we don't normally sell to outsiders, even if it is pretty common. It's a primer on basic zither-based illusion spells. All you have to do is help us with a particularly hard-to-please client."

I frowned at her. I wasn't that great with musical instruments yet, and even if I got sufficient proficiency, I didn't think I was the type of person to pull out a zither as a weapon. I wasn't a bard. Still, I was very interested in illusions! And I would be lying if I wasn't interested in how Liu Ruxue affected a large number of people with her performance months ago.

But, it was impossible. I shook my head and said, "I'll have to decline. I'm afraid that I'm not interested in becoming a prostitute."

She pouted prettily, "Ultimately, everyone is a prostitute, lovely girl. Especially cultivators. Especially, especially female cultivators." Then she changed to her trademark smile, "However, what I'm interested in today is you whoring out your mind, not your body. You're better at xiangqi than I or any of my girls, and we have a very important client who is getting tired of destroying all of us. All he wants is to play Xiangqi with beauties, nothing physical."

Xiangqi was a board game that somewhat resembled chess in my past life, and chess was something that I was really good at. To the point where I had multiple people suggest that I could play professionally. I hadn't been to tournaments often enough to get an official rank since I joined and left the Navy, but my elo based on religious online play was in the 2300 range. This elo would easily qualify me as GM if it were accurate, although there were some inaccuracies inherent with rating purely online play, so I didn't take my rating to heart and let it give me a big head.

Still, I was strong enough that I mainly played on private chess servers and had even played very famous chess GMs, including being blessed enough to be demolished by Magnus Carlsen on several occasions.

I played Xiangqi with a few of the girls and even Fei Fei herself after I paid for it to be taught to me, but it was wasted money when I realised that the rules were the same as xiangqi from my last life, and I steamrolled over my series of tutors. I had played Xiangqi online in my past life when I wanted a change of pace, but I was never as good as I was with traditional chess. But I was still at a level where it would take a serious hobbyist to beat me.

Xiangqi was a much more complicated game than chess, with a larger board and about an order of magnitude more legal board positions, but the ideas in the game were much simpler. Overall, though, I felt it was a more complicated and difficult game, especially if I allowed it to reach the end game stage.

Since my end game was relatively weaker than my chess end game, I tried demolishing everyone I played from the start, seeking to win in the mid-game.

It wasn't even that I was that good, but while this world was at least a million times larger than Earth, where it fell flat was its mass communication. The only way you got better at a game was to continually play with stronger players, and the internet made that possible, as well as widely distributed strategies that anyone could read.

So it wasn't that I was just so much smarter than Fei Fei, but it was someone from the information age bullying someone from the medieval age. I beat her in Go, even if barely, and I was awful, comparatively, at that game.

"It's not strip Xiangqi, is it?" I asked, remembering the custom rules that my first tutor had jokingly offered, which I accepted instantly. I went out of my way to capture every piece she had, which was not really the way you generally played the game if you wanted to win. But it was worth it. So worth it.

Fei Fei grinned and shook her head, "No, and I'd ask that you didn't offer." Oh? Interesting. Must be a real VIP if someone came to a brothel and was important enough not to be propositioned by her workers.

I hummed and nodded, "Sure. I'm interested in the zither spells. How many times do I have to play?"

"Whenever requested. We'll send someone to your villa to pick you up," she said, "But probably only once or at most a couple times a week."

I raised an eyebrow, "What if I'm busy?"

"The only place you really come to is here. What would you be busy doing?" she asked mildly, "Don't worry. This won't keep you past when your airship is scheduled to arrive."

I sighed and nodded, "Fine."

---xxxxxx---

The first time they called me was the next day, and as I was led into the large salon, I saw my opponent for the first time. It was a boy who might have been twelve, certainly too young to be in a brothel, even for this world, where they would consider him an adult by fourteen or fifteen.

Still, I was enlightened as to her request not to offer to play strip Xiangqi, if a little bit offended that she thought I would ever consider it. Although, I was an independent cultivator who specialised in yin Qi, so it might be that she considered that me going onee-san on a boy to be on the mild side of what I could be capable of.

She noticed the shadows that I carried in my shadow, too, so she might consider what I was capable of to be a lot wider than what I actually felt morally okay doing. Whatever the case, I thought that children would always be safe from me—especially since his cultivation base was at least in the sixth level of the Qi gathering realm.

The boy was dressed quite richly and grinned as I walked in, saying, "I don't recognise you. Did they bring a ringer in?"

I nodded and did my best to glide over to take a seat across from him, "They did. Would you like a teaching game?"

From what Fei Fei had said about the boy's abilities, in that she had gotten close to beating him on several occasions, I was pretty sure I had his number unless he was seriously sandbagging, which was always an option. So, I offered him a teaching game first.

He snorted, amused and said, "I think not, chess tart." I don't know why, but I found that insult hilarious.

I nodded and then proceeded to open with a brazen blitzkrieg-style central cannon opening. Blitzkrieg-style play wasn't real popular in this game, and it suffered from weaknesses in the mid to late game, but this chess tart was out to make an object lesson on a brat today.

He raised an eyebrow at my unconventional opening and tried a standard single-horse defence. I played as though we had a time clock, and this was speed Xiangqi, although we didn't, and it wasn't—I was flexing.

I systematically dismantled him, but he wasn't so arrogant that he refused to admit defeat. When it was obvious he lost, he surrendered with an exasperated sigh and said, "Okay. That was good. Perhaps a teaching game might be nice."

I smiled maliciously, "This chess tart will be happy to provide." He looked a little abashed, blushing.

I played the same game over, allowing him another opportunity to face all the decisions I made, and occasionally paused at key divergent paths, "Here, look. Although this is just a game and it is nothing like real battle, some similarities remain. I am amassing everything at your hub, your nexus of movement. Your centre of gravity."

"You sound like you've seen real battles," he said curiously.

I hadn't, really. Not unless you counted the two cultivators I had recently killed, in which case I had been a party to one real battle. It would have been the end of the world if the submarines I served on in the Navy ever had to go to war. Merildwen had also been protected from out-and-out battles, too. Still, I had read enough from wise men to fake it, so I shrugged.

We set up for a new game and I played in a more relaxed manner. It was still a teaching game, so in these instances he told me what type of opening he wanted to play against, and I assumed it was styles of play that he was weakest. He asked, "I have some people who say that recklessness in war is most dangerous, while others say that cautiousness is worse. What do you think?"

I raised an eyebrow, "This goes beyond a chess tart's core competencies, young master. However..." I paused and didn't mind plagiarising from Clausewitz, as I had already been thinking about him earlier, "Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage to you than being audacious. Although if you are defensive, you can prevent yourself from losing, but you almost always have to attack if you want to win a war."

The first part was from Clausewitz, for sure. I wasn't exactly sure where the last part was from, but I didn't think it was from him. It might have been a paraphrase of something Sun Tzu wrote for all I knew.

To demonstrate this, I shifted into a game strategy that just countered everything he did without really making any moves of my own. It was a really frustrating way to play for both players and after only a few minutes, he waved a hand and said, "Okay, okay..."

I grinned and decided to throw the most popular Clausewitz quote out there to him, "Also, remember, the wise man said that war is just politics continued through different means."

The brat frowned and said, "Who was the wise man who said that? I've read a lot of books, and I haven't ever heard something said quite that way."

I frowned and lied, "You know... I can't remember. My father told me that one."

As we set up for a different game, he arranged the board state into something akin to mid-game, and I noticed all of the boards he set up for me to play were all in a similar style on my side of the board. I finally realised something, "Are you trying to beat a specific person?"

He blushed slightly and said, "Maybe. I've reached the age where it's normal for me to be interested in girls, now, so me coming here won't be remarked upon..." he trailed off.

I almost couldn't stop myself from laughing in his face, but I persevered. Still, I'm sure my lips were twitching uncontrollably.

Not only was he trying to beat some specific, but it had to be someone in his family or close circle if he would seek secret practice sessions at a brothel instead of just inviting an Xiangqi master to his house. Wherever he lived, he was clearly a rich brat, so I didn't think that would have been hard.

He was stubborn enough that he'd rather people think he was visiting a brothel twice a week than getting help with his chess game. That was kind of adorable, even if I found it completely insane that his family would find it okay for him to go to a brothel at his apparent age. Although, perhaps he started cultivating really young. Even if he had, he still couldn't be older than even Xiao Li.

A little bit later, I said, "Alright, young master, this chess tart has to leave now."

He snorted and inclined his head, effecting a snooty attitude, "This young master thanks the chess tart."

---xxxxxx---

Hongli watched his new chess tutor leave the salon, and he hadn't been lying when he said he was interested in girls now. He had seen more beautiful women, of course, but they were all nice to look at, especially when they were leaving.

Suddenly, he wasn't alone. His most trusted subordinate and protector appeared next to him, and Hongli gave him an amused look, "See? You weren't necessary after all. She was harmless."

"She is extremely dangerous. An obvious demonic cultivator," he sniffed, offended.

Hongli laughed, "Every one of the girls here is a demonic cultivator. She didn't have any great sins weighing her down. Besides, her Qi seemed pure enough." The Fate of a Nation was a very unusual cultivation method and one based on the idea of karma, which was almost unheard of before the Foundation establishment.

He was still thinking about one thing that she said, the words of the so-called "wise man." He said, "See if you can find a reference for that remark about war and politics... you know, it invites the obvious corollary."

"Oh?" his protector asked.

Hongli nodded, "Yes, that politics would just be a continuation of war by political means. It sounds obvious when I say it out loud, but I don't think I've considered it, and I think that has been a huge mistake."

He grinned viciously, "I think the next time I meet the Chancellor, I should keep in mind that he is waging war against me, but through political means."

His protector merely hummed, as he was smart enough not to get involved in that one way or another.

Finally, Hongli stood up and said, "Come, let's return home. I need to challenge my mother to a game."