Dragon's Descent [Xianxia, Reverse Cultivation]

The morning arrived with the sort of clear light that made distant objects seem closer than they were—a quality Ming Lian had learned to distrust during his years of field work. Things that appeared near often required hours of hard walking to reach, and simplicity in landscape usually concealed complications in terrain.

The team divided at the fork where the tributary split toward higher ground. Li Feng and Xiaolong would follow the eastern branch to the next corruption site. Ming Lian and Song Bai would track the informant lead through the lower settlements.

Song Bai's expression remained professionally neutral as Li Feng outlined final coordination details, but Ming Lian caught the slight tightening around her eyes when she glanced at Xiaolong.

Not anger, exactly. Something closer to the look of someone watching a door close on a room they'd hoped to enter.

"We'll reconvene at the Lightning-Split Oak before sunset," Li Feng said, pointing to the landmark marked on their maps. "If either team encounters significant threats, send a signal flare."

"Understood," Ming Lian replied.

Song Bai nodded her agreement without comment.

The groups separated with minimal ceremony. Ming Lian watched Li Feng and Xiaolong disappear up the eastern path, their figures growing smaller against the morning sky until the forest swallowed them entirely.

"We should move quickly," Song Bai said. "The informant will be more cooperative if we arrive before his morning drinking begins."

Ming Lian adjusted his pack and fell into step beside her. "You know him personally?"

"I know the type. Former cultivator who couldn't maintain discipline. Probably turned to Black Dao because they promised power without requiring the hard work of proper advancement." Her tone carried the disdain of someone who had never failed at anything through lack of effort.

They walked in silence through terrain that shifted from open grassland to scattered stands of pine. Song Bai set a brisk pace, her movements economical and her attention fixed forward.

Ming Lian found himself studying her profile when she wasn't looking—the set of her jaw, the controlled intensity of her gaze, the way her hands stayed near her weapons without actually touching them.

She moved like someone perpetually prepared for evaluation.

"Ming Lian," she said without turning her head, "if you have observations about my technique or approach, you're welcome to share them directly rather than conducting silent analysis."

He suppressed a smile. "Just appreciating your efficiency. It's been a while since I worked with someone who treats fieldwork with appropriate seriousness."

"As opposed to treating it as 'adventure'?"

"I believe those were my exact words yesterday, yes."

Song Bai's lips twitched toward something that might have been amusement before settling back into a firm line. "Investigation requires focus. Personal entertainment is secondary to mission objectives."

"Completely agree," Ming Lian said. "Though I've found the two aren't necessarily exclusive."

This time she did look at him, her expression carrying genuine curiosity beneath its careful construction. "You've changed since the Flowing Creek mission. Elder Wei mentioned your performance exceeded expectations."

"I stopped expecting myself to fail."

"That's all?"

"That's everything." Ming Lian gestured toward a cluster of buildings emerging from morning mist ahead. "Is that our destination?"

Song Bai consulted her notes. "Willow Bend settlement. Population forty-three, no resident cultivators above Foundation level. The informant runs a tea house on the eastern edge."

The settlement proved smaller than its population suggested—buildings clustered tight around a central well, the sort of place where everyone knew everyone's business and strangers drew immediate attention. Several villagers paused in their morning routines to watch the two Azure Waters disciples pass.

The tea house sat exactly where Song Bai predicted, a structure that had been repaired so many times its original architecture was mostly suggestion. Inside, morning light filtered through paper screens gone yellow with age and smoke.

A man sat alone at a corner table, his robes marking him as former cultivator despite their current state of disrepair. He looked up at their entrance with the wary recognition of someone who'd been expecting trouble and just had it confirmed.

"You're earlier than anticipated," he said, his voice carrying the careful enunciation of someone trying to sound sober. "I told Elder Wei's messenger I'd meet you at midday."

"Plans change," Song Bai replied. "You're Chen Huang?"

"Was. I don't use sect names anymore." The man gestured toward empty seats across from him. "Sit if you're planning extended interrogation. Standing makes me nervous."

Ming Lian settled onto the cushion while Song Bai remained standing for another moment, her gaze sweeping the tea house's interior for threats or witnesses. Satisfied with neither, she joined them.

"We're not here for interrogation," Ming Lian said. "Just information."

"Everyone says that." Chen Huang's laugh carried the brittle quality of something broken but still functioning. "Then they start asking questions that feel remarkably similar to interrogation."

"You contacted our sect with intelligence about Black Dao operations," Song Bai cut in. "Either you have information worth sharing or you've wasted our time with false leads."

Chen Huang's expression darkened. "I have information. Whether it's worth anything depends on what you plan to do with it."

"That's not your concern."

"It becomes my concern when Black Dao finds out who talked." Chen Huang's hands trembled slightly as he reached for his tea cup. "They have methods for handling informants. Creative methods."

Ming Lian leaned forward. "We can offer protection. Sanctuary within sect walls if necessary."

"Sanctuary." The word emerged bitter. "You mean the same sanctuary that expelled me for 'insufficient progress' and 'failure to maintain cultivation standards'?"

Song Bai's posture stiffened. "Sect standards exist for legitimate reasons—"

"I'm sure they do." Chen Huang's interruption carried weary agreement rather than challenge. "Just as I'm sure those standards serve certain purposes very well. They certainly served Black Dao's recruitment purposes when I was desperate and angry and convinced orthodox sects valued conformity over actual human worth."

The statement hung in the air between them. Ming Lian felt Song Bai's spiritual pressure fluctuate beside him—a tiny slip in her usually flawless control.

"But you left Black Dao," Ming Lian said. "Why?"

Chen Huang was quiet for a long moment, staring into his tea cup as if it held answers to questions he hadn't asked. "Because I realized they were just as bad in the opposite direction. Orthodox sects demand you adapt yourself into perfect compliance. Black Dao demands you strip away everything except raw ambition."

He looked up, meeting Ming Lian's eyes directly. "Turns out neither approach actually cares who you are. They just want you shaped correctly for their purposes."

"The safe house," Song Bai said, her tone suggesting she was done with philosophical tangents. "You mentioned a location in your message to Elder Wei."

"Two li northwest, hidden in the old mining canyon. They abandoned it three days ago—moved operations after corruption sites started drawing sect attention." Chen Huang pulled a crude map from his robes and slid it across the table. "You'll find training materials, operational documents. Enough to understand what they're planning."

"What are they planning?" Ming Lian asked.

"Something bigger than water corruption." Chen Huang's voice dropped lower. "They're not just disrupting cultivation resources. They're preparing disciples for coordinated action against orthodox sects. Teaching them to see your philosophies as chains rather than guidance."

"Teaching them how?" Song Bai leaned forward despite herself.

"Philosophy first, technique second. They spend more time on ideological indoctrination than actual combat training." Chen Huang's expression twisted. "Make recruits believe they're liberating themselves from oppression rather than just becoming different kinds of tools."

Ming Lian felt something cold settle in his chest. "How many recruits?"

"More than you'd expect. Turns out there's no shortage of disciples who feel crushed by expectations they can't meet or adapted into shapes they never wanted." Chen Huang stood, the movement carrying finality. "Now you know what I know. Whether you act on it is your choice. Just leave me out of whatever comes next."

He departed through the tea house's back entrance before either of them could respond.

Song Bai remained motionless for several heartbeats after he left, her gaze fixed on the space he'd occupied. Ming Lian watched her process the conversation, seeing wheels turn behind her carefully maintained expression.

"We should investigate the safe house immediately," she said finally.

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"Agreed."

They departed the settlement and headed northwest through increasingly rough terrain. The mining canyon revealed itself gradually—old excavations that had been abandoned when the spiritual stone veins played out, leaving behind a landscape of artificial cliffs and unstable rubble.

The safe house occupied a natural cave enlarged by mining work. Someone had reinforced the entrance with timber supports and arranged the interior for habitation and training.

Song Bai created light through ice crystal formations while Ming Lian examined the scattered materials. Training dummies lined one wall, their surfaces marked by various technique impacts. Bedrolls suggested capacity for a dozen occupants. Supply crates contained basic provisions plus spiritual cultivation aids of dubious origin.

But the documents drew his attention most strongly.

They covered a makeshift table in organized stacks—recruitment materials, operational orders, technique manuals that combined orthodox methods in ways that felt fundamentally wrong. And beneath them all, copies of a single manifesto printed in careful script.

Ming Lian lifted one and began reading while Song Bai examined the technique manuals.

"Those who adapt themselves to others' expectations will never achieve true cultivation," the text began. "Orthodox sects enforce conformity through the language of harmony, teaching disciples to shape themselves into acceptable forms rather than discovering their authentic nature. They call this wisdom. We call it imprisonment."

The words continued, building argument upon argument against orthodox cultivation philosophy. Some points felt uncomfortably close to observations Ming Lian had made himself during his recent breakthrough. Others veered into justifications for cruelty and domination that made his skin crawl.

"Song Bai," he said quietly. "You should read this."

She crossed to the table, her ice-light casting strange shadows across the documents. Ming Lian watched her eyes move across the text, saw her expression shift from professional assessment to something more complicated. Her breathing changed rhythms. Her hands, always so controlled, tightened fractionally on the paper's edges.

When she finished the first page, she continued to the second. Then the third. By the fourth, her jaw had set in a way that suggested she was physically restraining some response.

"Propaganda," she said finally, setting the manifesto down with excessive care. "Justification for cruelty dressed in philosophical language."

"The justification is monstrous," Ming Lian agreed. "But the observations about adaptation..."

He trailed off deliberately, letting the implication settle.

Song Bai's gaze snapped to him. "You think they're right?"

"I think they've identified something real and proposed something terrible. Like treating a cough by setting the patient on fire." Ming Lian gestured at the manifesto. "The question is whether we can acknowledge their critique without accepting their solution."

Song Bai didn't respond immediately. She turned back to the documents, her attention landing on maps and supply lists that suggested operational scope far beyond simple harassment.

"They're planning something major," she said, her voice returning to professional assessment. "Multiple target locations, coordinated timing. This isn't resource denial—it's preparation for assault."

Ming Lian joined her examination of the tactical materials. The maps showed sect gathering sites, vulnerable territory boundaries, cultivation resource centers. Red marks indicated potential targets. Dates suggested an operation planned for within the month.

"We need to document everything here," Song Bai said. "Every map, every manifest, every—" She paused, her gaze returning to the manifesto stack. "Every piece of their ideology."

"Agreed." Ming Lian began organizing materials for transport. "Li Feng and Xiaolong need to see this immediately."

They spent the next hour cataloging documents and securing evidence. Song Bai worked with her characteristic efficiency, but Ming Lian noticed small variations in her usual patterns. The way she'd set a paper down, then pick it up again to reread a section. How her attention kept drifting back to that manifesto despite the tactical materials requiring more immediate focus.

By the time they'd finished, afternoon shadows had begun stretching across the canyon walls. They made camp near the safe house entrance—close enough to guard the evidence, far enough to avoid sleeping in a place that felt contaminated by Black Dao presence.

Song Bai prepared the fire while Ming Lian arranged their supplies. The domestic routine had an odd quality after the day's discoveries—too normal, too small compared to the implications of what they'd found.

She produced the manifesto from her pack once the fire was established, the paper catching orange light as she unfolded it again.

Ming Lian settled across from her and waited.

"You adapted yourself," Song Bai said without preamble. "For Li Feng. Chen Huang's words—they could have described you six months ago."

"They could have, yes."

"But you stopped. Changed." She looked up from the text. "How did you know? The difference between adapting and losing yourself?"

The question carried weight beyond its surface simplicity. Ming Lian considered his answer carefully, aware he was being given access to something Song Bai rarely showed anyone.

"When adapting felt like hiding," he said. "When I realized I was performing competence rather than actually being competent. When supporting Li Feng's growth became an excuse for abandoning my own."

Song Bai's gaze returned to the manifesto. "They would say you were imprisoned by orthodox expectations. That true cultivation requires rejecting external influence entirely."

"They'd be half right, which makes them completely wrong." Ming Lian shifted position, seeking words that felt true rather than comforting. "I was imprisoned. But not by sect philosophy—by my own fear of inadequacy. I used 'supporting Li Feng' as armor against having to test my actual capabilities."

"And now?"

"Now I compete when competition serves growth. Support when support serves purpose. The difference is choosing based on what's actually needed rather than what feels safest."

Song Bai was quiet for a long time, firelight playing across features that had relaxed from their usual careful construction. When she spoke again, her voice carried less certainty than he'd ever heard from her.

"What if you've adapted so thoroughly you can't remember what you were adapting from?"

"Then you start experimenting. Try things that feel wrong just to see if they might actually feel right." Ming Lian smiled slightly. "The nice thing about discovering you've been performing is that you get to stop performing."

"Even if stopping means disappointing people?"

"Especially then. People worth keeping don't need you performed."

Song Bai folded the manifesto and set it aside, her movements carrying the finality of someone making decisions they'd been avoiding. "We should rest. Tomorrow will be complicated."

"It will," Ming Lian agreed.

They settled into their bedrolls on opposite sides of the fire. But before the silence could become sleep, Song Bai spoke once more into the darkness.

"Thank you. For not pretending this conversation didn't need to happen."

"Thank you for letting it happen."

The fire crackled between them, consuming wood and casting shadows that danced against canyon walls.

Ming Lian lay awake for some time afterward, thinking about prisons people built for themselves and the strange courage required to simply stop maintaining the walls.

The corruption site revealed itself through wrongness rather than obvious damage. Li Feng stood at the tributary's edge, his spiritual sense extended across water that looked clear but felt like drinking poison.

"Three different signatures," Xiaolong said from where she crouched upstream. "Maybe four. They're layered—each technique building on previous corruption rather than replacing it."

"Collaborative development," Li Feng confirmed. "They're testing combinations, refining applications."

He moved to join her examination, and their investigation fell into rhythms developed over months of working together. She'd point out pattern anomalies her draconic senses detected. He'd translate those observations into human cultivation frameworks.

Neither had to explain basic concepts—they'd built enough shared language that communication operated at higher efficiency than words alone provided.

"This one uses Azure Waters principles," Xiaolong traced invisible currents with her fingertips. "But inverted. Someone with deep knowledge of our techniques corrupted them."

"Former sect member?"

"Or multiple former members sharing knowledge." She straightened, her gaze scanning the surrounding landscape. "The coordination suggests organization beyond simple banditry."

They spent the morning mapping corruption patterns and documenting technique signatures. Work that should have been tedious became almost meditative through their collaborative rhythm.

Xiaolong would probe essence structures while Li Feng recorded findings. He'd suggest test approaches while she implemented them with adjustments he'd never have considered but immediately recognized as improvements.

Midday found them resting beside the tributary, reviewing notes and comparing observations. The sun painted the water's surface in gold and shadow, making the corruption beneath seem even more perverse by contrast.

"Thank you," Li Feng said quietly, "for your patience with the current dynamics."

Xiaolong looked up from the notes she'd been studying. "You mean Song Bai."

"I mean my failure to address a situation that's making everyone uncomfortable." He set his scroll aside, his expression carrying the sort of careful honesty that preceded difficult admissions. "I've been avoiding a conversation that needs to happen."

"Because you don't want to hurt her."

"Because I don't want to hurt anyone. Which is cowardice dressed as consideration."

Xiaolong considered this, weighing her words before speaking. "I don't fully understand human courtship conventions. But I understand when someone is building themselves into a shape they think will fit."

Li Feng's slight wince suggested the observation had landed accurately. "Is that what you think she's doing?"

"I think it's what I've been watching her do for two days." Xiaolong returned her attention to the notes, giving him space to process without the pressure of direct eye contact. "I also think you've been carefully not noticing because noticing would require response."

"You're not wrong."

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, the tributary's flow providing gentle background to thoughts neither quite knew how to articulate. Finally, Li Feng spoke again.

"What we have—you and I—it doesn't fit convenient categories. But it matters more to me than most things that do fit."

Something in Xiaolong's chest loosened at the words. Not relief, exactly. More like the sensation of a question being answered that she hadn't known how to ask.

"It matters to me as well," she said. "Whatever category it occupies or fails to occupy."

Li Feng's smile carried warmth that reached his eyes, the sort of genuine expression that made his usual careful courtesy seem pale by comparison. "Then we'll figure out the rest as we go."

They returned to their investigation, but something had shifted—some small weight lifted that neither had fully acknowledged carrying.

The afternoon's work proceeded with the same efficiency as the morning's, but lighter somehow. More comfortable in ways that had nothing to do with cultivation and everything to do with two people choosing to remain exactly where they were.

By the time shadows began lengthening toward evening, they'd documented enough evidence to establish Black Dao's collaborative approach and growing sophistication. They made camp near the corruption site, their routine around fire and food carrying the ease of long practice.

"Ming Lian and Song Bai should have interesting findings," Li Feng said while preparing their evening meal. "The informant lead sounded promising."

"Ming Lian is perceptive," Xiaolong observed. "He'll notice things others might miss."

"Including things about Song Bai?"

"Especially things about Song Bai. He just spent months confronting similar patterns in himself."

Li Feng's hands stilled briefly in their work before resuming. "I hadn't considered that parallel."

"Patterns become easier to recognize once you've lived them."

They ate in comfortable quiet, watching stars emerge overhead while the fire painted their small camp in warmth against gathering darkness. Tomorrow would bring the teams back together, along with whatever discoveries and complications that reunion carried.

But tonight, sitting across flames from someone who saw her clearly without requiring explanations or apologies, Xiaolong felt something she was learning to recognize as contentment.

The fire burned lower. The stars wheeled overhead. And two very different beings found rest in proximity that mattered precisely because it had been chosen freely rather than demanded by convention or biology.

Some connections, Xiaolong reflected before sleep claimed her, transcended categories entirely. And perhaps that made them more valuable, not less.