Immortality Starts With Face

The summons arrived with impeccable timing — the morning after Xueyue emerged from seclusion, precisely long enough for her to have a bath, change into a new set of robes, and begin settling in for a working breakfast while reviewing Wei Long's intelligence reports.

Not nearly long enough to rest or fully prepare.

Not long enough to seek an audience with her Heavenly Father, the Emperor, and secure his support and formal acknowledgment of her breakthrough — which was, of course, currently impossible anyway. Tianlong Ao had departed the capital three days prior on what the official announcements called "a matter of utmost Imperial significance requiring the personal attention of His Imperial Majesty."

Which meant: classified, urgent, and none of your business.

And so, she was now faced with a messenger, whom she would have to acknowledge. Said messenger was a eunuch of the third rank, his robes marked with the preferred sky blue and gold colors of the Crown Prince's personal household. He prostrated himself fully before delivering his message, forehead pressed to the jade floor of Xueyue's receiving room.

"His Excellency Crown Prince Tianlong Tianba requests the honor of Princess Long Xueyue's presence for afternoon tea in the Garden of Harmonious Discourse. His Excellency suggests that the fourth hour would be most auspicious for such a meeting between siblings who have been too long separated by their official duties, or the requirements of cultivation."

Every word was a careful construction. There were the usual layers of meaning here: request, not command; "honor" of her presence; casual afternoon tea; emphasis on familial bonds; gentle reproach about her absence. And most telling: the identification as 'Crown Prince Tianlong Tianba' while addressing her as 'Princess Long Xueyue.' Heavenly Dragon versus merely Dragon — a customary distinction between those dynasty members who held official Imperial positions and those who did not.

Xueyue took her time considering her response, allowing the silence to stretch just long enough to make the messenger uncomfortable.

"Please convey to His Excellency the Crown Prince that his younger sister is deeply moved by his thoughtfulness and would be delighted to accept his gracious invitation."

The messenger departed, and Wei Long emerged from the shadows where he had been observing.

"The Garden of Harmonious Discourse," he said quietly. "A neutral ground, but visible from multiple vantage points. Your brother wants this meeting seen."

"He is establishing dominance," Xueyue agreed flatly. "Reminding the court that despite my breakthrough, he is still Crown Prince. Still in control." She moved to the window overlooking one of the Inner Palace gardens. "He's moving quickly. Before I can gain Father's acknowledgment, before I can establish my new position formally. Smart."

"What will you wear, Your Highness?" Wei Long asked.

It was not a trivial question. Clothing was language in the Imperial Court. Every choice of color, fabric, ornamentation carried meaning.

Xueyue considered the matter.

"I think the ice-blue robes might be too formal. The spring-green too casual. Perhaps… the winter-white robes with silver frost embroidery? Formal enough to show respect, but still informal enough to suggest comfort. White for new beginnings, silver for the moon — feminine, yielding, but reflective. It would show a degree of deference without crossing over into overt submission."

"Mm." Wei Long's tone was thoughtful. "Before Your Highness makes a final decision, she might want to examine the latest contract delivery from her Imperial Factor."

Xueyue turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. "Which Imperial Factor? We have seven."

Wei Long raised an eyebrow. "Imperial Factor Sun, of course — the one assigned to the Azure Province. Or has Your Highness already forgotten the contract completed by Young Master Jiang Li before the... unfortunate banquet in Yuhang City?" He paused, and something that might have been amusement rapidly flickered across his weathered features. "Your Highness may find the substance of the delivery illuminating."

"Illuminating?" Xueyue repeated slowly. "Uncle Long, when you use that particular tone, it usually means something has gone either spectacularly right or catastrophically wrong."

"This old servant suggests Your Highness examine the items for herself, and draw her own conclusions."

…

The Imperial storage facility attached to Xueyue's residence was a vast chamber carved from spirit jade, its walls inscribed with preservation formations that kept perishable goods fresh indefinitely and prevented the more common types of spiritual materials from degrading. Normally, it held perhaps a tenth of its capacity — some personal cultivation resources, miscellaneous gifts from various petitioners, materials awaiting processing.

Today, however, it was full.

Xueyue stood at the entrance, staring at the rows upon rows of organized materials that filled the chamber from wall to wall. Jade boxes, silk-wrapped bundles, sealed containers marked with warning glyphs, spirit wood crates, crystal cases — the sheer volume of it all was staggering to behold.

The Princess inhaled, then exhaled slowly, seeking to center herself.

"This," she said slowly, "is absolutely ridiculous."

"Yes, Your Highness," Wei Long agreed from his position by the door, and she could hear the suppressed amusement in his voice.

The items she had requested as a test of Jiang Li's capabilities were all present. About a quarter of the list consisted of reasonable resources that any well-connected Imperial procurer would be able to obtain. Five-hundred-year-old Frost Ginseng. Refined spirit silver ingots. Scales from a Foundation Establishment ice serpents. All perfectly adequate, if expensive, materials that demonstrated access to decent supply chains.

But then, there were the other seventy-five percent of the list. To have actually managed to find even those things…

"Is this," she said faintly, "truly all from the Jiang contract?"

"Yes, Your Highness." Wei Long consulted a ledger, his expression carefully neutral. "Eighty-eight items, as specified in the contract. Imperial Factor Sun's procurement list has been completed in full. And..."

He paused.

"...there are also… supplementary items. Courtesy additions from Young Master Jiang."

"Eighty-eight items?" Xueyue vaguely remembered the list she'd approved around six months ago. Purely as a test of Jiang Li's capabilities, she'd deliberately included items ranging from merely expensive to practically impossible, expecting the enigmatic young master to complete — perhaps — a quarter of the list in the very best case scenario.

"Every single item is accounted for, Your Highness. Including the three Mid-Grade Frost-Attuned Spirit Crystals."

Xueyue's head snapped toward him. "Including the what?"

"Item forty-seven on the list. Three flawless, fist-sized, Frost-Attuned Spirit Crystals, Mid-Grade or higher. Imperial Factor Sun included them specifically because he believed them to be impossible to source on short notice. He rather enjoyed, as he put it in his report, 'putting the provincial upstart in his place.'"

There was a long, profound silence.

"Show me," Xueyue said.

Wei Long led her deeper into the storage chamber, past crates of rare herbs whose names she barely recognized, past spirit beast cores that glowed with internal fire, past sealed containers of alchemical reagents that probably cost more than a small city's annual tax revenue.

He stopped before a crystal display case, and Xueyue felt her breath catch.

Three crystals, each the size of a man's fist, rested on beds of white silk. They were perfectly clear, shot through with patterns of frost that seemed to move and flow like living things. The spiritual pressure emanating from them was profound — compressed Frost Qi so pure and dense it had crystallized into a physical form.

Mid-Grade. Possibly… even approaching the High-Grade? That would mean that any one of these crystals could serve as a breakthrough catalyst for a Supreme Grade Golden Core. Together, they represented wealth that even members of the Imperial line rarely handled!

"How," Xueyue whispered. "How does a mere provincial merchant family—"

"This old servant has no idea, Your Highness. But the crystals are merely one of several... noteworthy items in the delivery." Wei Long gestured further down the row. "If Your Highness would continue?"

They moved through the storage chamber, and with each item Wei Long pointed out, Xueyue's sense of reality became increasingly unstable.

Ten-thousand-year-old Ice Essence Jade, carved into cultivation aid spheres.

Cores from spirit beasts most assumed were long extinct.

Herbs that used to grow mostly in the previous dynasty's now-burned-down spirit gardens, whose names appeared only in historical texts from before the Phoenix's fall.

Dao fruits that could form only in mythical locations under the light of specific, once-in-a-hundred-year celestial conjunctions.

Every impossible item on her test list. Delivered as casually as if they were common trade goods.

"The… supplementary items are over here, Your Highness." Wei Long led her to a carefully separates storage section. "Young Master Jiang's note indicated these were 'courtesy gifts to thank Your Highness for your patronage and encourage future business relationships.'"

The first bundle contained inner robes. Seven sets of them, each in a different color.

Xueyue lifted one, a brilliant snow-white —

— and nearly dropped it in shock!

"Uncle Long? What kind of silk… is this?"

"This old servant believes that is web-weaving from the cocoon of a Foundation Establishment stage Frostbite Spider. Possibly several, given the size of these garments."

Xueyue held the robe up to the light.

The thread count was fine — so fine, in fact, that she had trouble resolving the individual threads even with her new Golden Core level senses. The embroidery depicted a hunting scene — frost serpents pursuing prey through a snow-covered forest —rendered in such exquisite detail that each scale on the serpents was individually visible. This level of craftsmanship was beyond masterwork. This was the kind of thing that belonged in the Imperial Treasury, not something casually gifted as an afterthought.

"I seem to recall that Frostbite Spiders are notoriously aggressive," she said with a frown. "The Foundation level ones are borderline demonic beasts. They attack cultivators on sight. Harvesting their web-weaving requires either killing them — which often damages the webs in the process — or somehow convincing them to cooperate willingly, which is considered impossible because they tend to be mindless predators."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"So then how—?" She stopped herself. "Never mind. I… don't think I want to know."

Xueyue set the garment with exaggerated care and picked up what appeared to be an outer robe made that looked to be made out of spun moonlight. The fabric felt wrong against her fingers.

Too smooth.

Too cool.

It felt like holding a liquid in her hands; one that caught the light and reflected it in ways no mere silk should be able to achieve.

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"This isn't silk," she said faintly. "It is... metal?" She held it up to the light, examining the weave. "This is actually woven metal?"

"Spun platinum, according to the accompanying documentation," Wei Long confirmed.

Xueyue's fingers traced the impossibly fine weave, her Golden Core senses straining to understand what she was touching. "This thread count... Uncle Long, this is impossible! No mortal weaver could achieve this level of finesse. The precision..."

"…would require a skilled cultivator craftsman, yes," Wei Long confirmed with a serious expression.

"But… but even a Foundation Establishment expert couldn't do such a thing by hand! Manipulation at such a fine scale would surely require a specialized qi technique! And for something of this scale, the control alone..."

She paused, her eyes widening in realization.

"This would require at least Golden Core level Qi manipulation! This kind of precision would take centuries to master!"

"Yes, Your Highness."

She began to pace, continuing her train of thought.

"...Which implies that an eccentric Golden Core master — someone with centuries of experience — spent decades learning exotic, specialized Qi techniques for metalworking. Not for forging heaven-defying weapons or artifacts. Not for creating cultivation aids. But merely for… sewing?"

She held up the robe, still trying to process what she was seeing. "For making clothing with no spiritual properties whatsoever? This... is all just decorative, isn't it? Beautiful, certainly. Probably the finest craftsmanship I've ever seen! But I sense no spiritual emanations from it. This robe has no inlaid formation arrays, no Qi enhancement, no cultivation utility… at all?"

"…So it would appear, Your Highness," Wei Long nodded.

"But what sort of Golden Core master would dedicate their life to learning such frivolous techniques? And… who would even commission such a work? The cost alone would be..." The Princess trailed off, shaking her head. "No, this must surely be an ancient artifact! From one of the older Dynasties, perhaps? But what eccentric Emperor had the whims for such wasteful extravagance?"

"This old servant initially thought the same," Wei Long said. "…until he realized that Young Master Jiang had sent us seven sets of these outer robes. In different colors and alloys."

Xueyue stared at him in shock.

"S-seven? He gave us seven of these? But… wouldn't that mean Jiang Li has access to at least one Golden Core master who specializes in... decorative metalwork?"

"So it would appear, Your Highness."

"But… but that's insane! It's obscene! It's..." She carefully folded the robe, her mind racing through implications. "It's a level of resource waste that even Father would never approve!"

She noticed Wei Long's pained expression.

"…And it's not actually what you wanted me to see, is it?"

"No, Your Highness." Wei Long shook his head, his tone turning even graver and more serious. "I find these robes to be merely puzzling: eccentric, certainly, but not impossible for a bored Master to produce given the right techniques and a few decades of practice. No, what this old servant wanted Your Highness to see is over here."

He led her to a small display case — far less ostentatious than the earlier spirit crystal case for the enormous Frost crystals, but somehow more carefully positioned. Inside, resting on gorgeous midnight blue silk, was a bracelet.

Xueyue leaned closer, her breath catching as she thought she recognized the material it was made from. She immediately shook her head. "No. No, surely not! That's... that's Azure Frost Drake bone?"

"Yes, Your Highness. Authentic, as verified by three separate master appraisers."

There was a pregnant pause as the Princess processed the implications.

...

"Azure Frost Drakes are known to have been extinct for over a thousand years," Xueyue finally said with a deadpan expression.

"Yes, Your Highness."

"They went extinct during the Phoenix Dynasty's northern campaigns. Every single one of them was hunted down because their bones were key components in relatively simple offensive formations that were capable of threatening even Golden Core cultivators."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"So then, this cannot possibly be genuine Azure Frost Drake bone, because there are no more Azure Frost Drakes to harvest them from – and no existing stockpiles would ever be wasted on something as frivolous as jewelry!"

"So one would think, Your Highness." Wei Long nodded. "There are also matching earrings and a hair ornament."

She brushed her fingers over the items, her mind reeling. The bracelet was an absolute masterwork — the ancient bone carved with intricate patterns, polished to a lustrous blue-white finish. But what made it truly extraordinary were the seventeen frost crystals set into its surface, each one perfectly cut and sized. Each one glowing with internal light.

"More Frost crystals?" Xueyue whispered, reaching for the case. "Seventeen of them. Uncle Long, these alone would cost—"

"More than most City Lords earn in a century, yes. But do examine them more closely, Your Highness."

The Princess lifted the bracelet carefully, sending her spiritual senses into the crystals. And what she found made her freeze.

"There are... formation arrays inside the crystals! They appear to be… defensive talismans?"She looked to be on the verge of hyperventilating, despite technically no longer needing to breathe. "But… but didn't you teach me that it's impossible to inscribe talismans inside of solid crystallized Qi constructs? The process of inscription would destabilize and shatter the crystal entirely -- or, at minimum, disrupt its structure! And these are all..."

She examined another crystal, then another.

"These are intact. Flawless! And yet, each one has a complete defensive formation, capable of absorbing attacks at the peak of Foundation Establishment. And working together..." She calculated quickly, her breath coming faster. "Together, these could probably even repel one or two full-strength Golden Core attacks. Maybe more, depending on the nature of the assault. This is indeed an amazing defensive artifact worthy of the Imperial Treasury!"

She put the bracelet on, gasping as it resonated with her Frost Qi. It felt like meeting a long-lost friend after decades apart.

"And there is even a secondary effect, too! Enhanced efficiency in Frost Qi circulation? Uncle Long, this is—"

"Still not what this old servant wanted you to see," Wei Long interrupted, while gently shaking his head.

Xueyue looked up at him, confused.

"The centerpiece, Your Highness! Examine the centerpiece."

Xueyue looked back down at the bracelet, and for the first time, she truly examined the central element.

…

And, at first glance, it looked rather unremarkable. Round. Metallic. With a transparent face that showed some kind of intricate internal mechanism. There were tiny marks around its edge, like… numbers, perhaps?

But there was no spiritual pressure. No Qi signature. Just... ordinary metal and glass.

"What is this?" she asked, lightly touching the face with her fingertips. "It looks like... some kind of jewelry? But there's no spiritual component at all. Isn't it just—"

"Send your spiritual sense inside, Your Highness," Wei Long urged.

Xueyue did so…

…

…

…

…and her breath died in her throat.

The interior of the device was alive with complexity.

Not spiritual complexity — there wasn't a trace of Qi in any of it — but that somehow made the thing even more impressive, for the mechanical complexity she beheld transcended anything she had ever encountered, or even believed possible. Hundreds of tiny gears, each one precisely cut, each one interlocking with dozens of others. Springs of impossible fineness. Jeweled bearings far smaller than grains of rice. Components so tiny that she could barely perceive them at all — even with her new, Golden Core level spiritual senses.

And the sheer precision of it all! The tolerances were impossibly tight — gaps between moving parts smaller than a human hair, surfaces polished to mirror perfection, teeth cut on gears so small that more than one of them could fit on the head of a pin.

Every piece moved with perfect synchronization, a mechanical symphony of such breathtaking complexity that she couldn't even begin to trace the complete chain of cause and effect. This gear drove that wheel, which triggered this spring, which engaged that mechanism… and somehow, impossibly, it all worked together to move several small pointers at different speeds across the face of the device.

She stood there, frozen, her spiritual sense locked on the impossible mechanism, unable to process what she was seeing. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

A full minute passed.

Then another.

"Your Highness?" Wei Long's voice seemed to come from very far away.

"Wha..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Just what is this, Uncle Long?"

"According to the accompanying note from Young Master Jiang, it is something called a 'watch.' Presumably his invention, which the Jiang clan will soon promote as a convenient and portable tool to… tell time."

Xueyue finally tore her spiritual sense away from the device and looked up at Wei Long, her expression caught somewhere between awe and horror.

"All of this... is just for telling time?"

"Yes, Your Highness. According to Young Master Jiang's note, this device is accurate, requires no external input as long as it is worn regularly, and can be carried on one's person at all times. It is, he suggests, the future of personal timekeeping."

Princess Xueyue's mind, immediately flashed to the Timekeeper's Guild. She pictured the Guild's ancient, massive compound near the Imperial Observatory — a place of profound, almost religious solemnity. She saw the vast, open-air courtyards filled with enormous, precisely angled sundials, their shadows creeping across marked stone with agonizing slowness. She saw the deep, climate-controlled cellars housing the Great Water Clocks, colossal bronze contraptions of dripping vessels and counterweights that required teams of dozens of attendants, working in shifts, just to monitor and refill.

She recalled the star-reading towers, where ascetic cultivators who followed the Dao of Stars spent their entire lives charting the precise, unchanging movements of the celestial bodies, using complex formations to translate that cosmic dance into working Calendars. She thought of the carefully measured fuel candles, crafted with expensive spirit-wax, their burn rates so consistent that they were used to time the most critical of alchemical processes and rituals.

The entire Guild — an institution with thousands of years of history that saw multiple dynasties rise and fall, employing hundreds of specialists, consuming vast resources, all dedicated to the single, monumental task of maintaining the "Imperial Standard Time" system — served a crucial function in Imperial society. And yet, the Guild's methods were far from perfect. Sundials were useless at night or on cloudy days. Water clocks had to be constantly adjusted for temperature and humidity. Star-reading involved a great deal of interpretation: an art exclusive to those following the Star Dao, not taught outside of its exclusive circles, it was not something that could be replicated by just anyone.

As a result, time on the entire Continent ran on a system of "acceptable imprecision."

And now, she was holding a small, mundane, mechanical object in her hand that, according to Wei Long, did the same job. But it did it perfectly. Consistently. In any weather, at any time of day or night… and all without needing a single spiritual formation or attentive attendant to maintain it? If the artifact indeed worked as described, this little device didn't just render the Timekeeper's Guild obsolete. It rendered the very concept of their work a quaint, primitive joke!

Xueyue sat down heavily on a nearby storage crate, still holding the bracelet, still staring at the… watch. Her mind was racing, trying to process the implications.

"Your Highness?... Xueyue?" Wei Long said slowly, "I need you to think very carefully about what I'm about to say."

He looked at her with an intense expression.

"Nothing this complex can be created by a single person. No single genius, however brilliant, could possibly conceive of and build something like this. Just look at it — there are hundreds of precisely machined components, each one requiring specialized tools to create. We are talking about tolerances measured in fractions of a hair's width. Materials that need to be refined to an impossible purity. Even just the knowledge required to understand how these mechanisms all interact…"

He trailed off, staring into the distance, before continuing with a renewed intensity.

"…would require an entire educational infrastructure the Empire does not possess! Formal mathematics beyond what our best academies can teach. Engineering principles our craftsmen have never developed! Entire teams of specialists working together — and I don't just mean cultivation masters either — but mechanical experts who have dedicated their entire lives to understanding physical forces and material properties."

Wei Long began to pace back and forth, like a tiger in a cage.

"And, even with all that knowledge, you would still need to create a massive, specialized infrastructure to actually build the thing! You would need precision tools that simply don't exist in our smithies. You would need to develop and test methods for measuring and cutting at scales our artisans can't achieve. You would need entirely new quality control systems to ensure every component meets exact specifications. And… before you even got a single working model, you would need to build dozens, no, hundreds, and maybe even thousands of prototypes! Account for and resolve test failures. Iterate and improve the design. Create generations of product refinements!"

He paused again, while looking back at her.

"And Jiang Li had not only created this watch, but also claimed to be able to make more of them on demand! Do you realize what that means?"

Princess Xueyue looked up at Wei Long, and her eyes were wide with something approaching fear, before completing the chain of thought.

"This artifact… represents centuries of accumulated knowledge. Generations of specialists building on each other's work. An entire civilization's worth of advancement."

Wei Long nodded slowly. "Yes. This old servant has reached the same conclusion."

"Which means," Xueyue said, her voice barely above a whisper, "that this… watch… is an artifact from an Ancient Era? Not the Phoenix Dynasty, but something far older. A fallen Empire so advanced compared to ours that even their casual timekeeping devices are beyond our ability to reproduce. But, no, that can't be right! If the watch were an ancient artifact, then how could Jiang Li possibly imply that he can build more of them? Unless there was some kind of Ancient-era production facility? One that is intact and usable by someone in the Qi Gathering stage? One that somehow remained hidden all this time? Or..."

"Go on, Your Highness."

"Or maybe it comes from another continent? Somewhere across the Demonic Sea. An incredibly advanced land we've never visited?"

"…That thought, too, had crossed my mind, Your Highness. But there is another possibility."

"Another..?" Xueyue's hand was trembling slightly as she held the bracelet and considered the issue.

"T-the other possibility… is that this artifact is not from our world at all."

The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive. Princess Xueyue and Wei Long looked at each other, with the implications hanging in the air between them like a suspended blade.

"Jiang Li," Xueyue said finally. "Just... who is he? What kind of person has casual access to something like this? And if he has this, then what else does he have? And what power is enabling him?"

Wei Long shook his head. "This old servant does not know, Your Highness."

Xueyue took a deep breath to compose herself.

"Uncle Long, whatever society can create something like this… If they decided to move against the Empire..."

"We would undoubtedly lose," Wei Long finished quietly. "Yes, Your Highness. This old servant has considered that truth."

Xueyue stared down at the watch, watching the tiny pointers move with perfect precision across its face, each movement the result of hundreds of perfectly coordinated mechanical interactions happening invisibly inside the case.

"I just wanted to test his capabilities," she lamented, and a slightly hysterical laugh escaped her throat. "I just wanted to see if he could source rare materials — and maybe get a hint of those supply chains. I wanted to know if he was just a merchant or something more. And he..."

She gestured helplessly at the storage chamber full of impossibilities. "And he sent me this!"

Xueyue was quiet for a long moment, her thumb absently rubbing the surface of the watch case.

"What will Your Highness do?" Wei Long asked.

Xueyue took a minute to contemplate the question.

"I'm going to wear some of these items to meet my brother," she said finally. "I'm going to declare formal protection over the Jiang family. And I'm going to pray to every god and Buddha I know of that Jiang Li is still alive somewhere. Because..."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.

…

"My brother is going to lose his mind."

"Yes, Your Highness. He certainly is."

…