Molting the Mortal Coil

Seems she’s picked a side.

“It is indeed quite impressive.”

The homely woman suddenly interjected, “The Jinxi have certainly made things look pretty, but prosperity was brought about through all of our hard work.”

The beautiful woman nearly sneered back at the Yi Matriarch, “Of course, and as the leader of our Clan, they have paved the way for us.”

“Oh, really? Where were they when those belly dragging lizards were trampling my people? The Xie have twice the honor of the Jinxi.”

The Ci Clan Head’s face twisted when the Scorpions were brought up, “Those land crabs only know how to pinch and poke, they can’t be compared to the majesty of the Jinxi. The luck of the crickets has helped us prosper for many centuries!”

The Yi woman had a stormy look on her face and opened her mouth, but then she looked around them and closed it again. They were only a few dozen feet from the Chong Clan Patriarch after all, and if she yelled out what she wanted to say… It could be imagined how that might end up.

Instead, she glared fiercely at the Ci Clan woman, “You are merely jealous of them. You wish your stingers were as potent as theirs.”

“You!!!”

At that moment, the handsomely dressed, yet ugly fellow jumped in, “Oh ho ho! If you want to talk about poison, my Min is the best!”

Sage refrained from showing any support, even as things suddenly turned into an argument about who’s poison was the most powerful. Both himself and the Jie Branch Head stayed out of it, not joining into the three way pissing contest.

Surprisingly, the evening passed without any major waves. Dancers and musicians were brought in and they showed off their skills for the crowd. The climax of the show was the most impressive. The Jinxi showed off their Golden Crickets. They were about the size of a palm, and the last show of the night was a half dozen Jinxi women playing various stringed instruments while their crickets produced an entrancing sound. Not just Sage, but the whole crowd felt their emotions stirred, listening to an epic song that tracked the ups and downs of a war. One of the women sang and her voice was clear as a bell, the lyrics cutting directly through the many layers of music.

After that performance, the banquet came to an end and Sage was led back to his courtyard. He was surprised at how relaxed the gathering had been, but from the performance at the end and their attitude while he’d been here, it seemed they either didn’t care much about his support, or they were taking it slow. He guessed they were just slowly trying to build up their impression in his mind, so that later when they actually asked him for a small favor he’d agree. From all the subtle things he’d seen so far, he felt like an intricately weaved net was slowly closing around him.

I could also just be a little too paranoid.

While he might be looking a little too into things, he would much rather assume the worst than be caught with his pants down. He’d rather waste mental energy and suffer a bit of stress in order to be ready for whatever underhanded nonsense someone might be up to. Especially since he’d noticed that the younger centipedes were quite chummy with the younger members of the cricket family. Even if the Patriarch and the Wu Elders seemed polite and cordial, the behavior of the younger generation was a great indicator in his eyes.

The next few days passed as before, but this time they started casually running into members of the Jinxi Branch. They would stop at a restaurant and the man who ran the restaurant just happened to be eating in the main room. The restaurant manager then asked him questions and complimented his answers, then declared they should work together on a new restaurant in his own city. Sage politely declined, but as luck would have it, the next shop they entered another ‘random’ person found him appealing and wanted to do Alchemy in his city. Next, there was a team of merchants that wanted to start a route to his town, and after that a famous musician troupe.

Everywhere he went, people seemed to praise him or wish to work together with him in Lionheart Town. Perhaps others might be conceited enough to feel all the praise was due to their own majesty or maybe those less narcissistic might attribute it to the rising popularity of Lionheart Town. Sage, on the other hand, felt it was all a calculated ploy to pull him over to the Jinxi’s side. Even if Xiezi hadn’t told him about what was going on, he felt like he would have easily figured it out after a full day of blatant invitations.

Jinxi Shi pretended like it was all absolutely normal for so many to be seeking to work with him. After all, he was a mighty Nascent Soul, a City Lord, and also the creator of many innovations! At least, that’s what she told him, “The Chong Clan runs Ten-Thousand Wave Province. We have been seeing your Airships for quite some time. It was only after careful investigation that we learned they came from you. While others may not be as great as us, they should still be able to learn the same information, especially because of the new fame of your town! They just want to get in early.”

Sage felt a slight glimmer of power to her voice and he smiled back, “Ahh, you must be right. I suppose I’m just popular now.”

Despite their conversation, he was anything but convinced. Especially when the next few days went the same way. At the very least, he was quite impressed with how many different sorts of offers he received. So many different walks of life and so many unusual explanations for how a person would want to work together with him, be employed by him, or even gift him a great opportunity. He met no less than three other Nascent Souls that offered to be a Master for his children, and over a dozen marriage proposals after another week went by. At that point, he stopped going out into town with Jinxi Shi, declaring that so many experiences had given him inspiration. Closed door cultivation. The most common term for what he was doing. On the verge of a breakthrough, or in order to push for one, cultivators did it often. The idea being they needed complete concentration and focus, locking themselves in somewhere alone so their progress wouldn’t be disturbed.

The only problem was that he knew as soon as he came out again, this little dog and pony show of theirs would just pick back up again. How was he supposed to get out of it?

After a few days, the sealed door outside his chamber rippled. As a powerful clan, all of the cultivation rooms in their buildings had Formation Arrays to isolate them from the outside world. If someone was at a vital moment and some loud disturbance or battle broke out next door, it could ruin their advancement. Any powerful group would not allow such a simply solved problem to exist. Yet, now someone was deliberately disturbing the array outside his door. While it was only a minor ripple, if he had truly been at a dangerous point and was forced to lose concentration, it could heavily damage his cultivation. One little slip of the mind could make him push his Qi down the wrong pathway and unsettle his cultivation technique.

Thankfully, he wasn’t actually cultivating. Instead just trying to reason a way out of this problem while doing some experiments in the Universe Ring. It actually took a few minutes of the ripples before he even noticed. By that time they’d also gotten to be quite severe, enough to make a loud thumping sound inside the room. Sage hopped out of the Universe Ring and frowned. Who is crazy enough to so savagely disturb a sealed cultivation room? Is the Chong Clan in the middle of being slaughtered? What could be so urgent?

Preparing himself for battle, Sage unsealed the cultivation room and found a small woman glaring at him.

“What took you so long? You think your crappy excuse could fool me? How long are you going to keep dragging your feet? You think hiding in here is going to make them go away?”

Sage could only smile sheepishly at the woman, “What else should I do, Xiezi? I’ve just barely got the Lang Clan on the right path and now they want to pull me into this mess. Just tell them to leave me out of it.”

“Che-He-Hehe. You think you can stay out of it? That is quite the dream you have there. The Ci have already pledged their support for Jinxi, and Yi have sided with my Xie. Those Frogs have always had a friendly relationship with the Toads, which means only your Lang and the Jie are unaffiliated.”

“I just said I don’t want to get involved. You can both just leave me out of it.”

“You think you can stay neutral? Che-He-Hehe. Perhaps you didn’t know, but there have been many different Branch Clans in the past.”