Chapter 19 - Unintended Consequences

As the white and bronze energies dissipated, Ao Wen looked at Feng Xi in wonder. "Should I say 'congratulations on your breakthrough elder sister'?" Ao Wen asked with a smile.

"Yours too," Feng Xi said with a wide smile. "A middle stage Brawler just days after Awakening. This elder sister is sure to be outshined."

"I owe my success to elder sister," Ao Wen said with genuine sincerity accompanying the teasing statement. "Truly, without your help, I couldn't have done it."

"It goes both ways," Feng Xi said, still swimming in the euphoria of her sudden breakthrough. "I couldn't have done that with anyone but you. Without helping you, there would have been no breakthrough for me."

"Okay," Ao Wen said. "Together. Our legend will start from here until it's heard far and wide, from the Lotus Bridge to Fisher's Way!"

"Brat," Feng Xi said, picking up a plum pit from the ground and throwing it at Ao Wen. "That's two blocks! Our legend will at least resound from your house to mine! Our fathers will see to it I'm sure," she teased.

While the two women reveled in their breakthroughs and teased each other, two pairs of yellow eyes watched intently from the bushes nearby. Moments later, two large cougars leaped from the bushes, snarling as they sprinted towards the young women.

The pair of cougars that burst from the underbrush appeared almost sickly compared to the lithe grace their kind normally possessed. Dull patches marred their tawny fur and shadows darkened the skin beneath their eyes. The larger male moved with a limping gait, clearly nursing an injured hind leg.

Still, desperation drove these two to risks beyond reason. The memory of teeth and claws rending their flesh remained fresh, along with the bellowing roar that claimed their territory and drove them from long held hunting grounds. Now winter approached with no secure den to see them through the bitter cold. They would fight and risk death rather than meekly starve!

"Xi!" Ao Wen shouted, diving for the ground and rolling to her feet with the 'Practice' saber in hand, positioning herself between Feng Xi and the rushing cougars.

"Left one!" Feng Xi called, fingers dancing across zither strings, sending a wave of white energy at the pouncing cougar, stunning it as though it's ears had been boxed.

Ao Wen didn't waste the opportunity, stepping in with an upward cleaving blow to the cougars lower jaw. Her bronze colored energy surged, shattering the stunned cougar's jaw and snapping its head back far enough to snap its neck with a resounding crunch.

Having learned from her fight with the coyotes, Ao Wen kept moving forward with the strike, narrowly avoiding the claws of the second cougar before both of them faced each other warily.

Feng Xi's hands stilled above her zither. "He's too close to you Wen," she called. "I can't do anything to it without hitting you!"

"More like not close enough," Ao Wen grumbled.

Suddenly, the cougar's eyes turned from yellow to blood red, its form swelling to nearly twice its previous size, lunging towards Ao Wen with a snarl that shook leaves from nearby trees!

This time, Ao Wen's reflexes betrayed her. Without time to think, she shifted her grip on Practice, her left hand moving to the spine of the blade, stepping in to rake along its side as it passed. Practice, however, wasn't Dragon Fang. The wooden saber had no edge to slice with!

The cougar twisted in midair to land on its feet and lunge again. This time, there was just enough time for Feng Xi's hand to slide sharply along the length of a zither string, creating a string of white energy that tripped the snarling cougar, sending it tumbling to the ground.

Again, Ao Wen sprung into the opening Feng Xi created for her, saber crashing down in the simplest of overhand strikes at the cougar's back, crushing its spine and snapping 'Practice' in the process. Discarding the broken weapon she pulled a workman's knife from her belt and pounced on the cougar, reaching around the massive struggling beast to drag the knife's edge across its neck, ending its life in a spray of hot blood.

"Oof," Ao Wen grunted as she rolled off the cougar and got to her feet. "I didn't think predators this large came to the forest edges," she said while she used a corner of her long skirt to clean off her knife.

"Usually they don't," Feng Xi said. "I think they were attracted by the energy of our breakthrough. Blood Rage Cougar's are fierce but they're not smart, especially when something sets off their rage," she said, gesturing at the second one.

"Then we should go," Ao Wen said. "Before anything else shows up."

"Wait," Feng Xi said, pulling out a much heavier knife of her own. "Don't you at least want to collect their hearts and beast cores?" She'd accompanied her father on enough hunts to know what most people wanted from the common creatures of the Thundercloud Forest.

"It's not that I don't," Ao Wen said. "I'm sure those things are useful. But it's getting dark, I don't have a real weapon and even my practice saber is broken. We don't need those things but won't other beasts be attracted by the scent of blood? We should go."

"You're right," Feng Xi said, putting away the knife and collecting her zither. The heart and beast core of Blood Rage Cougars were actually more useful to Ao Wen than to her. If her sister was willing to give them up for an extra bit of safety, she had no place to argue. "Let's go home. I'm sure you want to really wash up anyway."

Moving quickly, the two young women left the forest behind as the sun slipped beneath distant mountain peaks.

"We do make quite the team you know," Ao Wen said as they entered Turning Leaf town proper, watching lamp lighters moving along the streets setting things aglow.

"We do," Feng Xi said. "It wouldn't be bad, you know, to do some hunting of our own."

"I'd like that. I'll have to do something about a weapon though. Wooden sabers are basically worthless," she complained.

"I did mention that people left gifts for you didn't I?" Feng Xi said with a smile. "While no one gifted you a weapon, there's enough money there to either buy one or have one made."

"That's handy," Ao Wen said with a smile. "Anything else interesting there?" The gifts others had left for her really hadn't registered on her list of important things to handle. It had totally escaped her mind that there might be useful things that anyone would have given her. Besides, while they credited her with supporting their awakening, it wasn't like she'd done anything for them deliberately or specifically to deserve a gift in return.

"Mostly simple things," Feng Xi said. "About half the women you helped awaken came from families like yours. They sent a few pieces of jewelry, some hand made tokens, nothing extravagant. The rest came from some minor families of note. More jewelry, a few taels of gold and a few herbs from deep in the forest," Feng Xi said as though they were ordinary things of little concern.

"Did you say taels of gold?" Ao Wen stopped walking to look incredulously at Feng Xi.

"I think maybe fifty or so? Enough to trade for a few spirit crystals but you're probably better off spending it on yourself and leaving what you don't use to your family. Gold and silver might be useful to mortals but the Honored Elder wasn't joking when he said cultivation would consume vast amounts of wealth. I hear that in the big sects, disciples are given over a hundred spirit crystals a year just to use for their own cultivation," even Feng Xi sighed imagining it. Were it not for today's lucky breakthrough, she might have needed to collect resources for several years to make the attempt.

Ao Wen, on the other hand, felt a bit of whiplash, going from feeling poor to rich to suddenly feeling poor again. Clearly, she had many more changes to get accustomed to.

"Fairy Feng," a warm masculine called from across the street. "It is my good fortune to encounter you on a night where the full moon lends its radiance to your dazzling beauty," the man said, crossing the street to approach her in the company of another newly awakened cultivator.

"Young Master Mo Yan, Young Master Tang Jin" Feng Xi said frostily, giving only a minimum of courtesy to the pair of swaggering young men. This evening, both men seemed to have left behind the fancy armor they had been seen in lately, though they both carried swords in elaborately decorated sheathes and wore elegant robes with silver or gold embroidery. Clearly, both were still reveling in their new status as cultivators.

"I see that Fairy Feng has been working her servant hard this day," Mo Yan said with a disdainful glance at Ao Wen before he turned back to Feng Xi. "Since we have the fortune to have Tang Jin's company, perhaps Fairy Feng would like to join us for a meal from the balcony of the Four Gardens House."

"Mo Yan," Tang Jin said, stepping up next to his taller and more graceful friend. "That's an excellent idea. My family has operated the Four Garden's House for generations and has several dishes that cater specifically to nurturing the spiritual energy of cultivators. They also provide an appropriate service hall where your servant can take a small meal and await your departure," he added, following Mo Yan's lead of calling Ao Wen a servant despite feeling that she had fully Awakened as a cultivator.

Feng Xi's face became increasingly dark as the two men spoke, however, her expression lightened when she heard Ao Wen starting to laugh.

"Sister Xi, I take back what I said before," she said with a laugh. "I clearly owe martial brother Jun Ben an apology for how I've described him to you. Fellow cultivator Mo, fellow cultivator Tang, thank you for showing me that there truly are mountains beyond mountains!"

"Fellow cultivator?" Tang Jin said, blinking in confusion. Had he perceived it correctly? His senses were generally much keener than Mo Yan's, perhaps he shouldn't have believed Mo Yan that Ao Wen's Awakening had failed.

"Sister Wen," Feng Xi said, hiding her smile behind her hand. "Didn't you always describe your martial brother Jun Ben as an 'idiot?' I'm very sure that's the very first thing you said when you told me about him!"

"Oh, Jun Ben is an idiot," Ao Wen said, ignoring the darkening expression on the faces of the two young masters. "But it only took one beating from martial sister Xiang to teach him that he could afford to be an idiot but he couldn't afford to be a toad lusting after swan meat," she said, her gaze becoming stern as she looked at the two toads in question. "But maybe our fellow cultivators are smarter than martial brother Jun Ben after all. Maybe they don't need the beating."

As Tang Jin's youthful face face became increasingly dark, Mo Yan gave another disdainful look at Ao Wen. He refused to allow this little girl to gather the spotlight to herself and worse, to get between him and his pursuit of Feng Xi! "A cripple thinks she can give Heaven's chosen sons a beating? Unarmed? Two against one? Truly the arrogance of servants who glimpse the world of cultivators knows no bounds," he said slightly louder than their conversation called for.

This time, Feng Xi didn't bother to hide her laughter. "Heaven's chosen sons?" Looking around, Feng Xi noticed that a crowd had started to form around them and pitched her voice to carry further. "My little sister Ao Wen doesn't describe herself as Heaven's chosen daughter even after her breakthrough to become a middle stage Brawler today." The crowd around began to murmur in surprise, hearing that the mysterious Fairy Ao, rumored to have been crippled during the Awakening Ceremony, was actually already a middle stage Brawler!

"Big sister Xi," Ao Wen said playfully. "How can I call myself Heaven's Chosen next to someone like you who's an Understudy less than twenty years old! I wouldn't dare call myself as talented as big sister!" Compared to hearing that Ao Wen had become a middle stage Brawler, the news that Feng Xi was an Understudy was far more explosive, setting off a wave of exclamations in the crowd.

This time, even the unflappable Mo Yan's eyes bulged. "Fairy Feng has become an Understudy?" he said, his mind reeling. As a newly awakened Brawler, he had some room to court an Aesthete who had awoken two years ago. The gap between an Aesthete and an Understudy under twenty years old, however, was like the difference between a chicken and a phoenix. What right did someone like him have to court her? Could he be so shameless?

"But little sister," Feng Xi said in the tone of an elder giving advice to a junior. "It isn't right to bully those of lesser cultivation. Besides, you've already had to kill two Blood Rage Cougars for me when my breakthrough caught their attention. I couldn't bear you having to shed more blood on my account today just to teach a lesson to these ignorant juniors. As their seniors in cultivation, we should guide them kindly, lest they stumble and suffer grave injuries for their mistakes." The words she said were spoken gently, politely, but the people watching in the crowd collectively drew back from the confrontation. Blood Rage Cougars were a deadly predator to any mortal. Encounters with them in the edges of the Thundercloud Forest were most commonly survived by being the lucky one to run faster than other fleeing companions.

One man, however, stepped forward while others drew back. "Fairy Feng, Fairy Ao," the elderly man said, cupping his hands in a polite bow. "The Cranes Pool operated by my family is certainly not as extravagant as the Four Garden's House, but if I can be presumptuous in inviting Fairy Ao to our humble establishment, I'd like to repay the favor you've done us all by preventing two Blood Rage Cougars from preying on the people who make their living in the edges of the forest."

"Please," Ao Wen said, stepping forward and helping the elderly man to stand up straight. "Old man Sang doesn't need to gift anything. Protecting others when able is something cultivators should do and I was just protecting big sister Xi," she said, instantly humble before the older man.

"Little sister," Feng Xi said, continuing to play the role of wise big sister. "We should accept old man Sang's kind intentions but visit another time. Right now, we should both return home to consolidate our breakthroughs."

"Of course," the old man said warmly. "Fairy Feng, Fairy Ao, you are welcome to grace us with your presence any time," he said before withdrawing along with much of the crowd.

Both Ao Wen and Feng Xi left as the crowd dispersed, neither bothering to say a word to the still stunned young masters who were left alone in the street after the crowd dispersed.