Ch 1: The Jade Carp.

Chou-Hang-Han Building – Penthouse Office – Night -

Chou-Hang-Han Tower...

A building even too tall for its public purposes, and yet still too short to appease its Lords' swollen Ego, all of them wishing it to be just an inch higher so to better watch the Gods in the eyes as their equals.

Chou-Hang-Han…

A trio of families with more money than soul, greedily wishing for more everyday and never satisfied from the results of their alliance.

The Han brought the money.

The Hang brought the infrastructures.

The Chou brought the ruthless efficiency of men and women obeying every order given to them no matter what.

The three greatest families: money, prestige, upbringing and even ties to the ancient Lords of long past, everything poured on the same plate through alliances and marriages so that the three dragons could fuse into a single Deity to rule all that laid in front of their eyes from the shadows.

Politicians talked the talk, but the script came from the Triad of the Chou-Hang-Han conglomerate, and all this while hiding behind the bright smiles of simple businessmen with a background and life sparkling clean to the point of holiness.

In short, white robes of monks hiding under it the blood-soaked armor of devils, not that there was anybody that could actually hurt them should they discover the truth behind the source of roughly 90% of their overall power.

And now, lurking in the shadows like a common thief, the heiress of the Han Family was bitterly looking at the office that should have been hers, walking barefoot on the parquet SHE choose one day to walk on when her time came to sit on the big plush chair behind the gargantuan mahogany desk her very great-grandfather personally built with his own hands.

Lurking unseen once made sure the security cameras would only show a loop of the perfectly fine office while she instead turned it upside-down to find what she needed.

Hiding in dark corners like a rat to plan a revenge that her very family had set-up for her with the help of the other two families, people she used to call 'brothers' and 'uncles' until a mere three days ago.

Fei-Dao Han was no common woman, nor she was a possessor of porcelain skin and silk hair, she was living happily in the middle, conscious that contrary to her 'sisters' she had not the benefit of godly beauty to cover her rotten inside, but she liked it so.

She liked her eyes, cold green eyes, like pure jade, casting unforgiving judgment on whoever challenged her; she liked her sneer and the unnaturally sharp teeth hidden in it that made her enemies wonder if she had a taste for human flesh the same way a shark had; and she loved her hands, petite, yes, but calloused as the ones of a proper killer, fingers that had took countless lives and palms that had broken bones in the hundreds.

Being pretty and smile and wave was for trophy wives and escorts, she wanted to rule instead...But ever the traditionalists, her own father and 'uncles' wanted a man in charge of the empire, each generation the rule would pass to the heir of one of the three families and NEVER to the same family twice in a row, so that all three would have a chance to rule the triumvirate without distinction.

A rule that had been followed for more than a hundred years and had never been opposed.

Until Fei was born a girl, that is.

"There he is." Fei-Dao uttered in disdain as she saw her little brother, blood-related one in this case.

A debauchee, a waste of life living leisurely through obscene vices and abuse of power; why, oh why, she had to share blood with such a waste, even should he spend most of his waking time away from home and between women and gambling palaces, she would still resent him just for existing.

Nor that he did not already partake in those vices, as the kissing marks on his neck and the smell of alcohol hanging around him like a tick mist could testify; how many millions have been wasted this time, she wondered...Tens? Hundreds? THOUSANDS? Fat as he was, half of it was probably spent in tips alone to convince the pretty ladies at his favorite casino to stick to him…

"And now there he is, drooling on MY desk while an overly expensive whore is sleeping after their quickie on MY leather couch..." Fei thought in disgust as the desire of slitting the woman's throat open grew tenfold in power as soon as she saw her lack of modesty and bra.

Fei took a deep breath and calmed herself, soon all that won't matter anymore, soon her brother won't matter anymore and the whole mismanagement of her heritage won't matter anymore, and it will only take the small box she had with her to do it.

"A big enough bomb to turn you from a piggish ball of lard to a handful of ashes, but not big enough to make long-lasting damages to the office. I will even throw in some tears of despair for my poor brother's passing...Then I will take over as Chairman, the other two heirs won't be able to take my place as it would go against one of the cardinal rules of this alliance, and they need our Han Family and our money-making talents to keep this money-sink afloat. They won't oppose me..." Fei muttered in feral happiness as she, just to be sure, deposited the box on top of the desk merely an inch away from the top of her half-naked, half-drunk and completely-idiot brother's head.

"..." though now that she was in that office, her eyes fell on the giant bronze mural on the far left wall, and at the secret safe hidden in the central part, right under the three valiant heroes representing the founders of the three families riding their horses side-by-side towards some great battle of legends long forgotten.

"Grandpa..." a rare case of human weakness appeared then on Fei's face as she slowly walked towards it.

"Grandpa, will you assist me in this?" she asked with merely a whisper of voice as she absently uncovered the numeric pad to enter the code and open the safe.

Her Grand-pa, Old Man Quin-Li, the only man (as in "Human Being") Fei had ever respected and trusted; born when it was not the Han Family turn to command, he had still been the one pulling the strings since the at-the-time young Chou Heir was chosen, and Fei LOVED the stories of how her beloved grand-father played the fool around to make him do what her grandpa wanted while convinced HE was the great genius behind those Masterfully-planned business plans.

And her grandfather was the one that took Fei's upbringing under control the moment he knew her younger brother Ming would have been shoe-horned on that chair instead of her even if two years younger than the girl, so that she could rule the Triad from the shadows just like the man had done when he had been her age.

While her sisters and classmates played with dolls, she was learning how to assemble and dis-assemble guns and bombs of every type, from top-of-the-line to poor guerrilla-like improvisation.

Later, while others dreamed about their Prince Charming coming to sweep them off their feet, Fei was trained in how to turn a human into a giant bruise begging in tears to be given the finishing blow.

And when she finally came of age...While the 'Normal girls' chased boys to have their cherries popped, the TRUE Han heiress learned the more 'Adult' side of the Life of an Assassin: how to kill, steal, destroy, infiltrate, torture, counterfeit, fake, poison, manipulate, corrupt and kidnap her way to the top of the Food Chain...Along more Sinister things too dark to even mention in round-about ways, those taught by her Grandfather himself.

(And there was not a prison foul enough in the mortal world for people doing THOSE things, truth be told.)

"Here it is..." the young woman, now in her mid-twenties and with a kill-count of staggering levels for somebody so young, muttered with a fond smile as she saw the treasure she was looking for.

It was nothing exceptional, just a small statuette of a carp in the act of jumping out of the water, barely six inches in height and carved out of a single piece of jade; ancient to the point one could barely make out the fact that scales had been carved on its back in a way to make it look more exquisite, even the once long barbels on the front of the fish' face were now merely stumps, testament of the many generations it had been passed down through the Han family.

"Nobody of our family knows from where our founder took this thing nor why he had clung to it for his whole life, but has the first born it is my right to have it, and I shall take it." Fei muttered as she looked at her faint reflection on the giant window behind the desk and at the millions of small lights of the city down below the tower.

There she was: not tall nor short, not slim nor chubby, not pretty nor ugly, smart and yet not a genius, feared by many and loved by...Nobody, since even her grandfather for all his strength and virtue could not defeat Time itself and live forever; who or what was she then?

"I only have this office, I can only have this power...It's either this or forging my own path on the blood and tears of whoever stands on my way, starting from my own family if this plan fails..." she muttered bitterly as her hand closed tight around the little jade carp she was pressing hard against her chest.

She could not say how long she stood there watching outside that thick window, but when she glanced at the clock on the wall she saw she had barely five minutes to leave the tower, and she cursed herself for committing the most basic mistake of wasting time in useless dilly-dallying.

"Screw your uncle and all his descendants!" she cursed loudly as she rapidly left the scene down her planned escape route, she will activate the bomb with her remote instead of using its timer, it was already too late for that.

Stairs.

Stairs.

Corridors.

Locked door, kick it open.

Stairs…

"WHO'S THERE?!"

...Guard that had to piss at the worst possible moment thus changing his path…

No time to curse the gods more, Fei thought as she switched gear and ran towards the guy instead of away.

"Miss Han?" the poor sod asked confused.

Tap! Tap! PANG!

It took two steps once reached her target, one to jump against the wall using her left leg, and the second to bounce back from the wall with her right leg to kick the guard straight at the neck with some added power, action soon followed by the well-known 'Crack!' sound of the bone there shattering causing his instant death.

Not eve sparing a glance to the still flying corpse, Fei pivoted around to continue running, activating the bomb just to add a diversion to her hastily-made retreat.

Kaw-TOOOOOM!

The whole Tower shook as the package she gifted her brother detonated in all its splendor, obliterating him, his 'Whore of the Week' and the whole Office in a glorious blaze of fire that had almost caused the whole floor to cave-in on the one right below it.

"...En...I will need to have few chosen words with who built this, that room should have withstood the blast better than this." Fei muttered in disdain as the fire system blared to life and every sprinkler of the building started pouring down water in an artificial deluge.

Parking lot -

There it was, an untraceable and common-looking scooter she used to arrive; not very dignified, but whipping-out a limo for this kind of job would have been a moronic thing to do.

BANG!

She barely registered the bullet piercing her back all the way through her stomach, but she felt it when the second one did the same while shredding one of her lungs.

Turning around she saw Qiu-Yun Shou, her 'Uncle', looking at her with the still-smoking gun still in his hand, a very recognizable, gold-covered gun.

"Isn't that my father's gun?...And that folder?" she thought in a daze as she staggered to take a weak step forward.

BANG!

A new bullet went shot, this one piercing her heart and shattering the jade carp she had hidden in the secret pocket of her infiltration gear in that same area.

She now remembered that folder, it was 'Daddy's secret Weapon' as her father called it when she was found trying to open the safe the man had in is personal office back home, the Han Family own way to keep the Shou and the Hang on a tight leash.

"The floor is cold..." already blinded by the loss of blood and almost-dead, Fei barely noticed she had fell on her back to look at the parking's ceiling.

"Thank you for offing your own brother; your mother was right: after him and your father, you are the last one I needed to remove to turn this Triad into a two-headed Dragon, nor that I plan for the Hang to stick around for long either." Qiu-Yun said with a perfect amicable smile as he prepared to shot a last time right between the girl's eyes, just to be sure.

"Oh..." was all she could gurgle out in answer, even if the breaking of the Jade Carp held a higher priority in her mind than the betrayal and death of her family at the hands of her own mother selling them to one of her Uncles, especially since her Grand-daddy loved that small thing.

"Farewell, little Fei. Soon mommy too will join you as Uncle Qiu doesn't need her anymore." the old man said with a fond smile as he took aim for Fei's forehead.

BANG!

…

…

...

Pain was no more an issue.

Her earthly desires no longer held value.

Her spirit was free.

Fei's soul soared unopposed in the afterlife: boundless, weightless in the nether realm of the Heavens like only a wisp of smoke could once swooped away by a breeze.

And Fei saw, felt, and lived, and tasted the life of another girl…

Born under an unlucky star, testified by her lack of skills, treasured only for her jade-colored eyes and yet still cast away and erased from her family line on the orders of an uncaring father.

Fei saw, felt, and lived, and tasted the life of that girl as she was raised by that man's brother, he too cast away years before for the same reason; an uncle turned father, and Fei felt on herself the man's most honest love as he cherished the girl as if a gift from the Gods themselves, pampering her as much as a man in absolute misery could offer to his little 'Princess'.

Fei saw, felt, and lived, and tasted the life of that girl growing-up as the daughter of a pauper Wine-maker, scrapping for day-to-day basics and yet tasting pure celestial happiness in the small room in the back of the wine shop they called Home, a palace in their hearts.

And Fei felt it when that girl turned twenty, and in a cold night some mysterious figures detached from the shadows to burn the wine-maker's shop and home down to nothing, all in the hope to kill both him and his 'Daughter' so to truly erase both from the face of the earth.

Fei felt it because as soon as one of the walls of the small construction caved-in, the poor father covered the girl with his body to protect her from the searing-hot rubble that crushed the man but miraculously left the girl almost unscathed.

The problem was that, the girl did indeed die of fear at seeing the man dying to save her, and now Fei was inside the girl's body looking with tear-stained eyes as the girl's beloved 'Daddy' passed away right in front of her with a last, gentle smile forever etched on his badly-burned face before she too collapsed in a dead faint.

Apparently, she no longer was Fei-Dao Han, but had been reborn as Pò Fènghuáng, disgraced and forgotten heiress of the all-powerful Fènghuáng Family.

How this miracle happened Fei was not sure, but since the convoluted mess of dreams and memories of both her Old and New lives she was plagued with in her unconsciousness always included a jade carp looking at her straight in the eyes, she had a faint suspect about the culprit behind it.

Unknown time later -

The world was only made of pain, and the air smelled solely like bitter medicines and other chemicals; trapped in a body completely bandaged immobile Fei barely registered her being somehow alive as soon as she futilely tried to open her eyes, and immediately regretting it as her awakening meant she could feel the atrocious pain rattling every inch of her body nonstop, down to the very tip of her hair.

"...That was some big mess you were in, little girl..." a woman's voice said with an echoing background as unfocused shadows walked in front of Fei.

"Who are you?" the girl thought dizzy as her left eye was completely blinded, and apparently they had the good idea of also gagging her because with all the pain she was feeling, biting-off her own tongue could have easily happened without her noticing.

"You there?" the shadowy figure asked aloud snapping her fingers in front of her right eye.

"The medicines will work, just do not pretend her to jump to her feet yet, big brother said that maybe the ratio of 'Blissful Heaven Root' is still too high for this formula..." another voice, a male one, answered humming thoughtful.

"Maybe because he mixed drugs in it," the woman answered annoyed.

"Then maybe you should have asked a real doctor for help."

"Drugs?" Fei thought as her brain felt like resting on a cloud of cotton, completely detached from her body and sluggish in its movements.

"Real doctors cost money, and I have not all the Gold Leaves those leeches ask every time,"

"You sure it was not because you owe Old Man Dugu at least this after he died to save his precious daughter?" the male shadow asked curious.

"Dugu?...D-Daddy?...Pò's father?" still confused about who now she was, Fei tried to move her head, only for a flash of searing pain coming from her neck stopping her from ever trying again.

"What I feel or think is nothing you should worry about, if you have finished healing her take your Silver Leaves and scram!"

"Wu-Wu-Wu! You treat your nephew like this now, grandma?" the male asked with fake exaggerated sobs.

"This 'grandma' is only five years your senior, you insolent kid! Now go!" the female silhouette bellowed soon followed by a pang! Sound of something heavy being kicked away.

"AYE! Okay! Okay! I am going! But Big Brother Xie won't like to hear you treated me like this after he prepared all those medicines for you!"

"At best he will give you some more kicks, you useless sack of shit! GO AWAY!"

"GOING! GOING!" the male voice squealed like a piglet as he ran away.

"..."

"..."

"Please forgive the noise, little girl. But Ke has the uncanny ability to make people go mad in anger just by breathing. Now rest, tomorrow we'll talk some more, okay?" the female voice said as a new smell of spices filled the air.

"Breath-in this incense, it was made to help you sleep no matter the pain..." the voice said gently before everything fell back into darkness.

Some more time later -

If it was a week or even a month, Fei could not honestly tell, but after a long agonizing period of being drugged up to her eyeballs her rescuer decided it was time to reduce the dosage of whatever home-made concoction she had been using on her, letting the poor young woman finally attain a functioning brain and awareness.

"Okay...Gun shots to heart, lungs and especially brain are considered fatal, or at least grievous enough to leave a human into a vegetative state if rescued fast enough...And Uncle Qiu-Yun clearly wanted me dead. What is happening here?" Fei thought unsure as she was still bandaged tight enough she could not move even a finger, forced to simply lay on that uncomfortable bed to look at the old-style wooden ceiling with only one eye since the other was buried under too many layers of smelly bandages.

"Logic dictates I should have died, but maybe the Han family still has some allies that found me and brought me to a back-alley doctor for recovery, and that would mean I was simply having strange dreams because drugged and suffering from blood-loss..."

"Ah! You are awake!" the same female voice, now sounding clearer thanks to less medicines jumbling Fei's brain, resounded happily in the room.

"Mmmhn!" Fei answered through her gag.

"Yes, I will take that away, give me a minute." the same voice answered as a drawer went open and rapidly rummaged through.

"Ah-ha! Stay still now, I need to cut this off and the knife is pretty sharp..."

Zing! Zing! Zing!

"AH! Where am...I..." Fei asked, in a voice she knew was not hers.

"D-Damaged vocal cords perhaps..." she thought in light worry.

"What? You don't remember my little, quaint Tea House, young Pò? Turning twenty a month ago doesn't mean being that old already! You would make your Aunt feel awful otherwise!" the woman replied with some exaggerated sniffling.

"I am twenty-four...And I don't have an aunt that doesn't wish me dead...And my Name is Fei. So this is merely a case of mistaken identity! Absolutely! Without a shred of doubt!" feeling her doubt grow in sizes at an alarming rate, Fei kept trying to explain logically what happened.

"M-Mirror?" Fei asked faintly.

"Aah! You want to see the damages, eh? Fire is nothing to joke with, but poor Dugu managed to save your life all the same...Sure had we asked to a real doctor...Even just a First Level Bronze Qi, you would have already been running around like normal. But those costs a lot..." the woman answered sighing as she took an overly-ornate mirror to hold it in front of Fei's face.

"First Level? Bronze Qi? Dugu?...AND WHO IS THIS GIRL!?" Fei thought in alarm as she could not tell who was looking back at her from the mirror.

She should have brown hair, and instead they were (looking at her eyebrows) black.

Her nose should be slightly bigger than normal compared to her face, instead it was petite, proportionate and pointing slightly upward in a cute manner.

Only her Eye(s) were still jade green as they should be, although with a more 'feminine' cut of the orbit instead of her old slightly-bulging-out one…

She didn't even see the thin scar, as thin as a simple line drawn by a pen, cutting her face diagonally in two, she was more concerned by the 'Extreme Makeover' whatever quack healed her decided to waste time on while saving her...Because they only did that to fool the police!

OF COURSE!

THERE WAS NO OTHER EXPLANATION!

And this was certainly hysteria talking! Not at all some Manhua bullshit reincarnation thing!

"Little Pò is still a cutie, see? That scar has been reduced by a lot! And it will be faint enough that should you want you can cover it with minimum effort, aren't you happy?" the woman said chuckling.

"N-Gaaaaah..." once again higher brain functions escaped Fei, only this time there were not drugs to justify the thing with.

"Huhuhu! I know, I know! The little flower of Lián City is afraid the rest of her body is damaged? Have no fear, with all the threats Aunt Xiao used on those two brothers, young Xie's medicines certainly healed you perfectly, otherwise they know they would have less hope of surviving my wrath than going fondling the balls of a Deity-Class Celestial Beast down in Tian-Fa Forest!"

"Lián City! Celestial Beast! Tian-Fa Forest! WHO! WHERE! WHEN! WHAT! WHY! HOW!?" Fei's brain crumbled into a fine powder as questions upon questions piled-up inside her, until hear head started spinning again and she fainted once more, the last thing she saw was a giant carp made of pure jade jumping out of the water as if to mock her.

A month later -

"Okay...Let's...Let's analyze this thing calmly and with a clear mind." Fei, now Pò Fènghuáng or just Pò, said to herself as she walked in a circle in the backyard of her 'unofficial aunt' tea-house.

"I entered the main office of the Chou-Hang-Han Tower to plant a bomb to simulate an enemy attack and kill my brother so to take office...And MAYBE it was a bit overdoing it. Once planted the bomb I wasted almost an hour after recovering the Han Family's lucky charm, the Jade Carp, and had to use the emergency escape route instead of the safest, but slowest, one I prepared before hand..." she muttered before stopping to sit under the big and ancient tree right in the middle of the garden.

"Once activated the bomb and reached the parking lot under the Tower...Uncle Qiu was waiting for me to kill me using father's gun he took once he had killed him...It means that somebody betrayed me by informing Qiu I was going to the Tower, and the man's lackey probably had been tailing me for who knows how long until the time was right to shot me." she added with a tired sigh.

"And now, here I am, I presume...Reborn as Pò, apparently disgraced heiress of the Fènghuáng family. But why was this girl disgraced? Why they wanted her and her father, both barely a step above being street beggars, dead so much to burn down their house with them blocked inside? And why Me of all people came to take over her body? I can't recognize the night sky, the calendar, the money...and if not for Pò's own memories, even the Language would be alien to me." she said gritting her teeth hard.

"The real Pò used to be an air-headed bimbo, so there is not much I can gather from her memories, so I will need to play dumb and have this Xiao woman teach me what I need to know." Fei growled in anger as she started again to pace restlessly around the garden.

Not too far away -

"She looks distressed."

"Everybody would be in her place, idiot Xie." Xiao answered huffing.

She was a tall woman with short and unruly golden-brown hair with a very masculine cut, clashing fiercely with her delicate features and sapphire eyes, even the elegant floral dress she was wearing helped not in making her look more refined.

"And the legendary Heavenly Lotus Tea House has been left in your hands? I would find more feminine charm in a Four-Armed Red Gorilla Celestial Beast! Ufufufufu!" Xie answered with a mocking chuckle.

Tall, slender and (to Xiao's hidden grief) possessor of graceful manners and silky long black hair making the woman next to him look even more masculine, Xie looked like a dishonored prince himself if one looked at how well he dressed, although the various scars on his hands and the eye-patch covering his right eye disproved the fact that he was a saint like his appearances suggested; not that the COLD light shining behind his sane silver eye could not dash that notion to pieces at the mere first glance.

"Keep joking and I will show you that my punch too is as strong as that Beast's."

"My word, I had no intention to insult Big Sister." Xie said nonplussed as he tucked his hands in the wide sleeves of his robes to hide them and assume a more thoughtful pose.

"...Something wrong?" Xiao asked.

"Just wondering on the timing of the attack to old Dugu. Just the day before the Fènghuáng heir makes his first foray outside their manor, and just in time to propose him for the great opening of the new academic year in the 'Imperial Military School', the decrepit house of a poor wine-maker living in their Family area burns to ashes with nobody noticing; this no matter the paranoia of the guards patrolling the streets, mind you...And everything is swept under the rug as fast as possible since they are trying to present their prized boy as a candidate for the hand of the Emperor's daughter! Isn't it strange that a Family usually crying outrage for the smallest thing now goes all secretive and quiet?" Xie answered with a light tone, almost joking in nature.

"Just like the other three Great Families, they all are more concerned with their plans for marriage to the Emperor's heiress, and to the grief of the Fènghuáng Elders, their beloved Jié is second place compared to the Lóng Family heir Wei.

Those two are both in the Silver Qi realm, only separated by Wei being the High Class one while Jié is the Medium Class one." Xiao answered.

"So The Phoenix and The Dragon are still butting heads...So very pathetic." Xie answered bored.

"And the Niú (Ox) Family too is more than eager to stir the fire between those two, just so to FINALLY move up from their third place as soon as one of the other two falls over from their wounds."

"Aaah, yes! Those meat-heads, who better than their Head of the Niú Family to regulate the Emperor's Army? When it comes to fighting, those maniacs are second to none."

"But our greatest generals had always come from either them or the Fènghuáng, and this didn't help with their ego in the long run."

"...You still have to answer my question, what does Little Pò here have to do with all this?" Xie asked looking intensely at the woman.

"It was not a question, Xie. You never asked a thing." she answered stubborn.

"I just had it evolve into a regular question instead of an implied one, now answer! I know you and I knew who to ask before coming here, there was something strange between Dugu and the Fènghuáng Family, something nobody in the know wants to talk about and that now caused the man's death, otherwise they would have NEVER tolerated that sorry excuse of a wine shop existing in their property." he replied annoyed.

"...Umph! So be it! Her full name is Pò Fènghuáng, little sister of Jié Fènghuáng and outcast of the Fènghuáng Family because just like me, you and 80% of the population of Lián City, she cannot Cultivate her Qi, she is a 'Gemless', happy?" Xiao answered annoyed.

"Oh! That explains a lot actually...And she knows?" Xie asked looking surprised.

"Not to my knowledge, Dugu didn't want the kid to experience the trauma of her family throwing her away and erasing her name as if she never existed just to save her family the 'shame' of not producing another prodigy in the art of Cultivation like her brother. But after this, and looking at how much she is fuming, I fear she will start pretending answers." Xiao answered in dread.

"I would answer her if I were you, even should she not ask. Explain to her what we believe happened and why, explain to her that since she cannot Cultivate, any idea of revenge will need to be abandoned; she has not the Power nor the Money to go against a giant entity like the Fènghuáng Family, and she better learn it NOW and clearly so she will be free to move on." Xie said as he started to leave.

"You sure?"

"Xiao, there are rumors that when a noble family has a Gemless child they literally kill them to hide the shame and pretend it was stillbirth, Pò was extremely lucky that they just threw her away for Dugu to find, but if she openly antagonizes them, they will kill her on the spot without a second thought nor a tear. This is how the world works and she better learn this, she is young and can still have an honest life as a commoner, make sure she understand." the young man answered as he left the woman alone.

"I know...She is 'broken'...Like her name implies..." Xiao muttered in barely controlled fury as she watched the lone girl in her garden; nameless, penniless and without even a family name to herself.

"I guess the Lotus will take-in another poor girl without a future, just like it did with me." she muttered admitting defeat.

With Fei-Dao -

Contrary to Xiao and Xie's predictions, the young survivor was not drowning in self-pity, but assessing her possibilities.

"So...Retrograde society, no technology, new name and not a shred of money in my pocket. I only have my knowledge and training from my previous life and whatever scrap of info from Pò's head...That is to say, absolutely nothing except language and a tiny bit of wine-making knowledge. The situation is not good." Fei muttered with a self-deprecating sigh.

"It doesn't matter if alone against the world or alone and forgotten! I, Fei-Dao, shall raise from my ashes and devour whoever stands in my way!...A thing I don't get though...What does it mean to be Gemless? And Why it is a bad thing?...And how to ask Xiao about this without looking like a moron? I need knowledge, and I need it in industrial quantity! So, first order of business: Data Gathering."

Focusing on the only word she managed to catch in the whispered talk she eavesdropped Xiao and her 'quasi-doctor' friend Xie had, Fei marched towards the owner of the Tea House, and from the older woman's miserable expression, both knew their talk will be a long one.