He tilted his head slightly. “Figured out what?”

Zhihu squinted at him for a second, the intensity of her gaze prickling against his skin. “Did you move here from Zhongshi?” A second passed between them in silence. “Right. What else should I have expected… you truly do not know the history of their oppression?”

“Of course I do.”

“Right,” she continued, clearly disbelieving him, which— fair, he was totally lying. “You of course then would recall their history in the previous, much lauded Empire of Twelve Constellations, where they served largely as a slave-class to cultivators looking for steeds. It is a dark stain on their history, and one they greatly despise — one that leads them in turn to despise the Empire of Nine Sunlights.”

“Who did the same thing, I can only imagine?”

For a moment, Zhihu’s face twisted into a wry, bitter thing. “Everyonedoes the same thing. The empire is just the only one to do it in an organized, universal way like the Empire of Twelve Constellations was able to. Most don’t remember it, but Fenfeng and the cats of Refuge were bitter enemies until a millenia or two ago, when the Empire of Nine Sunlights started seriously intruding on their territory.”

“I don’t think Avyr will accept that reality.”

“I’mconfidentthat he’ll be accepted to the sect on his own merit. To reach Shedding so quickly, and to have such an impressive extreme yang cultivation technique… if for nothing else, I’m sure the sect will want to get its hands onthat.” Hopefully…

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For the next few minutes, both of them were silent, just watching the parade as it flowed down through the park beneath them, bright lights and tassels and banners andflowers— so many flowers, to celebrate the coming of spring no doubt. He watched as children riding on top of floats tossed petals out into the street from hemp bags— specifically hemp bags, for whatever reason— transforming the whole procession into a thing of whirling scarlet caught up in the fervent excitement of the crowd. A vibrant showing that seemed to go on and on andonwithout end.

Beautiful.

It wasbeautiful— and despite himself, he found himself enraptured in the energy of it. A mundane sort of energy, so painfullysmallcompared to some of the enormous festivities he’d attended in the higher realms, but yet for the merepresenceof mortals, so much more alive than any such thing in the Celestial Realm ever had been. There were little reasons to celebrate in that final heaven, after all, and he shivered justthinkingabout how much effort it would take to gather any appreciable amount of his fellow Immortal Sovereigns.

It was an enjoyable sensation, oddly enough… he found himselflikingEast Saffron, for all its quaintness.

Strange.

But enjoyable nonetheless.

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