I woke up in bed, not knowing the time of day or where I was- the unexpected lack of numbness in my limbs making me almost fall out of bed as I tried to get up too fast. The poison had cleared away, leaving me to contend with the soreness of all my muscles after the exertion of...everything that had happened. Had Lily left already? I should at least get up, I thought, and see her off- The weakness in my protesting limbs making even sitting upright a struggle. How much poison had she laced into that strike? In the midst of everything, I hadn't even stopped to think about it, my mind clouded as it was. Nothing lethal, certainly, but she'd crushed past my body's defenses like they weren't there. That numbness had felt familiar, almost- something I'd tasted before. I tried to bring it to mind, but with how sore I felt, it was difficult to think- the scent of tea wafting from a cup left by the bedside slowly waking me up.

  I held it in my hands. It was still warm, so it must have been left there recently- I let that warmth soak into me, trying to focus on the present. At some point in my sleep, I'd been undressed and changed into clean clothes- the cut on my shoulder had been bandaged with a healing salve applied, as well. Whatever Beryl and Lily had told the elders, it seemed like I wasn't in trouble, at least for now.

  "...Feel like I've been a huge dumbass." I mumbled, sipping the bitter tea and letting the exhaustion wash over me. All told, Lily had probably put enough poison in me that she'd probably counted on leaving before I woke up. Not that I could stop any of it- she'd really crushed me without any effort, and by the sounds of it, Beryl was probably even stronger.

  Gods, I missed home. At least Earth was the kind of shitshow where everyone was equally vulnerable to being shot. And she said she'd come back in a year for me- for what? Potential. She'd said I had potential.

  It was the first time in forever someone'd said that. Why did it have to come from a woman like that? Just the thought of her made my skin crawl.

  "Miss Maybell." Another of the outer sect's disciples opened the door, peeking in and calling my name. A younger girl with hair the color of pine leaves, who had been adopted by the sect a few years after I had been. A good number of people in the outer sect were like that- survivors of plagues or disasters that owed their life to the sect and had no remaining family to go back to, and thus wound up here. The elders liked to grant people like us the names of flowers after taking us in, to signify being part of the same family- something about being brought up with care in their garden. Personally, I thought it made things rather dehumanizing- some of the people here were even descendants of people who'd been taken in like that, given similar names as well. The only reason me and Lily had been special is because we'd survived something...supernatural. Most, though, were just normal people, and never reached the higher stages of cultivation that afforded one a comfortable life in the inner sect's compound.

  In short, we were servants. While nothing kept us working here by physical force, there was also nowhere to really go for most of us. I'd planned to leave and strike out on my own as an alchemist, but sects like Lead and Emerald cornered most of the markets- my best options had been to settle somewhere more rural in need of a village doctor or witch, but at least I'd thought it'd be something more rewarding than this.

  "Maybell. Are you okay?"

  I'd zoned out thinking about how much life just kind of sucked, and it took me a moment to refocus.

  "Yeah. Well, as okay as I can be, anyhow. I feel like I was ran over by a truck..."

  "...A truck, Miss Maybell?" She stared at me like I’d grown a second head.

  Ah. Even after this long, some quirks of how I used to speak just sort of remained. I didn't want to let go of my old memories, painful as it was- and, well, some expressions hardly had punchy-enough sounding replacements in this world. "Like a very large carriage powered by explosions. Don't worry about it, Holly. I think the poison's still wearing off." I yawned, finishing off my cup in one large gulp- immediately regretting wasting good quality tea. But, well, I had to get through the day. Pushing myself up from the bed, I attempted to get up, only to almost stumble face-first into the ground. Maybe the poison was still tripping me up, I thought- it was a familiar sensation. Something was still scratching at the back of my thoughts, like I was missing a piece to a puzzle.

  I shook my head.

  "What's with all this 'Miss Maybell' stuff, Holly? I'm only three years older than you. You're going to age me into an old hag, being so formal with me."

  “...So.” She walked in, carrying a tray with medicine and water- quickly placing it down on the table before leaning in conspiratorially, whispering. “Is it true you got into a fight with one of the soldiers?”

  “I-” …Was I in trouble, actually? I didn’t know if to lean into the rumor or not, so I fished for more information. Maid gossip spread like wildfire, so there were probably several competing versions by now. “Where did you hear that?”

  “May I- Oh, what the hells.” She sat down beside me. “Peony said that Clover - you know how he is- told her your sister came in this morning in a huff to drop off some stuff for you, so he asked around, and apparently one of the Emperor’s soldiers hit on her last night. And then you punched him in the face.”

  I blinked. Well, that was a…believable sequence of events, all things considered, but who’d spread that rumor-

  Ah. Beryl. It was probably her doing. It wasn’t even that big of a complete distortion of the events of the previous night. Mostly. It was less embarrassing, if anything, so I decided to go with that and say mostly true things. I made a note to follow up with Clover on my sister passing by- …It was sad I’d been out of it, but she probably hadn’t wanted to actually run into me.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, she’s probably so busy with all this cultivator politics stuff going on already, and I was going to see her before she left, and then this red-wearing bastard comes in and starts harassing her.”

  “Wow! Ugh, I hear the Emperor’s soldiers think they can get away with everything… Wish you’d won, show him what’s what.” She sighed, flopping down onto the bed. She was definitely skipping on work right now, but it’s not like that was my business. I flopped down onto my back beside her, grumbling.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Yeah. My whole body’s sore and I didn’t even land a good hit. Cultivators are bullshit.”

  “Cultivators are bullshit.” She nodded wisely in agreement, before pouting. “Apparently Miss Basil covered for you, with one of the disciples. They wanted to discipline you for it, but she managed to talk them down… She’s been pissed off all morning, so we’ve been all doubling up on work.”

  “She did?” That must’ve been a whole show. It probably helped that I got so thoroughly trashed and Beryl probably covered for me as well, but thinking of a middle-aged woman like the matron facing down some centuries-old babyfaced coot who could punch through steel in an argument was kind of terrifying.

  “Yeah. Apparently the elders sent one of them down, since they’re so busy with all this politics stuff, and he looked like he wanted to tear off her head when she argued back. You know how the matron is, though. If there’s one person here who’d come back as a wrathful ghost…”

  “I wouldn’t want to take my chances.” I admitted. “She should’ve let me get yelled at, though. It’s just causing all of you trouble for my mistake.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. They would’ve done more than yell at you- but they can’t kill Miss Basil. She basically runs the place, they can’t replace her easily and she knows that. It’d take them forever to get someone who can do half the work she does, and they’re all tied up with all this…” She gestured wildly, as if to encompass everything in her complaint. “...stuff.”

  Sighing, I sat back upright. I had so much to do- pitching in with the work here, figuring out what it was my sister left behind for me, getting stronger… A year wouldn’t be nearly enough to get to Beryl’s level, even if I’d been a genius prodigy like Lily. Running away wasn’t an option, either. I would have to just take things as they came and find a way, somehow. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Still, I should do something nice for her to make up for it. Thank you, Holly.”

  I raised my hand for a high five. She stared at it for a moment, then high-fived me, figuring it out. Hell yeah.

  “You’re welcome. Please don’t tell Basil I stayed around to gossip? I’m supposed to be working on the garden right now, but the mud gets into everything…”

  “My lips are sealed.” I promised. “I’ll leave you some stuff to get the mud out of your hair after I’m done with my tasks.

  “You’re a lifesaver.” She stood up, waving before leaving. “Get well soon!”

  I waved back until she closed the door, letting myself look as exhausted as I felt once I was in private again. What a mess…I had to get dressed and find Clover.

  Unsurprisingly, ‘finding Clover’ turned into an entire sidequest of its own. He was supposed to work in the kitchens, but was nowhere to be found there- and since he was missing, I wound up being dragged into helping prepare the shellfish that’d just been delivered by boat from one of the surrounding villages. An attempt to chase after him during a break wound up with him somehow evading my pursuits, seemingly always knowing when I was approaching, which boded ill.

  For him, that is. Next time I caught a glimpse of him, I didn’t bother to run. I threw my shoe at him with all the force I could muster and knocked him on his ass.

  Hopping towards him on one foot like a lame vampire, I delicately slid my foot back into the wooden clogs, watching him clutch his head on the ground and squirm.

  “Nice trick you have there.” I crouched down beside the older boy, watching the trickle of blood from the side of his head stain his copper-red hair. Ow. Deserved, though. “Care to tell me where you learned it?”

  “You’re a maniac!” He yelled, sitting upright. Not too dizzy to complain, thankfully. I was worried I might have actually hit him too hard, for a moment. “Is assaulting your coworkers your new pastime, Maybell?!”

  “Don’t know. Maybe I’ll make a habit of it if you keep avoiding me. One time, two times… Five times is the line you crossed here, asshole. You were using qi, so I assumed you’d at least protect yourself. Shall I tell the matron you’re shirking work using techniques you shouldn’t know?”

  “Okay, okay- sheesh. I should’ve known.” He grumbled. “I was going to give them to you later, so don’t get too pissed. I just thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up…”

  I blinked. Then, it clicked. “Lily left me notes on cultivation?”

  It can’t have been anything too complicated- if it was secret knowledge of some kind it would probably have been much harder to smuggle out. Clover must have looked through it and found out qi-sensing- a surprisingly quick learner, if she’d come by this morning. That was…

  It was actually really impressive, even if him going through my sister’s stuff pissed me off to no end.

  “Yeah. Look, it’s a few books. I thought it’d be fancier or something, but…Eh, you can look at it. Shit, here I thought it was my ticket out of this place.”

  I offered him a hand up. He stared at it for a moment, but took it, huffing. “What’s gotten into you, anyways, punching soldiers and throwing clogs at people? Taking your loss out on others?”

  Soldiers, plural? …I better head off the rumor before it becomes something outrageous. “It was just the one fight. And you stole from me, so we’re even.” I went to poke his head, making him pull away. Serves him right, really- He’d always been kind of a bully, when we were both kids, picking on me after I got transferred here. It’d taken a while for the others in the outer sect to get used to me, with the whole situation being as it was, but he never really stopped being a pest. I wasn’t very fond of him, to say the least.

  He reached into the pockets of his jacket to pull out a small patch of bandages, soaking them in his qi before putting them over the bruise. “I was going to give them back. I was just going to copy them first. Don’t act like you’ve never gone through someone’s things, Maybell, I know what you are.”

  I rolled my eyes. Taking leftover ingredients from the inner sect’s lessons wasn’t thievery, it was recycling. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now give me my stuff, brigand.”

  We kept jabbing at each other's nerves as we headed to his room. It was dimly lit, the table filled with empty headache medicine vials that must have been weeks old- the place smelled like it hadn’t been opened up to air nearly enough. If this had been back in my former world, I would’ve expected to see a couple anime posters on the walls, for good measure. More importantly, amidst the mess, there was a couple of familiar books.

  “...No way.”

  I stepped in without thinking- walking over to pick up what looked like my old diary, my mind suddenly flooded with memories.

  When I was a child- back when I hadn’t been in this world that long- I had been afraid of losing my memories of home. I couldn’t tell anyone about it, and I couldn’t confirm any of it had even been real- the only proof I’d lived a life as another person was just my memories, and so I’d become terrified of forgetting. That was why I’d wanted a diary, and why I’d written it in English, of all things- trying to preserve something of who I was in a way people wouldn’t be able to peek at. It’d been stupidly sentimental- a huge risk that someone could find it and translate it, mistake me for a demon or an evil spirit- so I’d done my best to keep it hidden. Even so… here it was.

  Lily must have found it. By the looks of it, she must have found it quite a long time ago. Had she translated it? Did she know? Was that why she hadn’t trusted me with whatever her problems were, never come back to see me?

  With trembling fingers, I opened it.

  Instead of my old writing, what I saw was my sister’s - diagrams, instructions. Simple notes on the basics of cultivation. The original pages- the ones carrying my secret- were missing.

  Lily had taken them out and replaced them. Why?

  The pieces of the puzzle were finally beginning to slide into place.