"What in the world is that..."
"Some enormous merchant convoy from somewhere?"
As one of the three great capitals of the world, Moondrift City saw merchants and travelers passing through in an endless stream. Even after the sudden outbreak of war, within only a few days everything had begun to settle back to normal. Townspeople were back at their livelihoods, and the markets and shops that had shuttered for the better part of a week were opening their doors again.
Even so, when a convoy of more than ten wagons, each hauled by demonic beasts, came rolling through the city, it was hard not to stop and stare.
"Aren't those the Grand Marshal's people?"
Someone with sharper eyes than most had spotted the familiar faces controlling the beasts. They weren't in full uniform, but the pressure radiating off them was unmistakably that of soldiers tempered in battle.
"Where are they headed?"
Beyond the ordinary crowd, cultivators who kept watch on the city's movements were perched in the upper floors of restaurants along the street, gazing down with quiet interest.
"What's in those wagons... could that be a fortune?"
One burly man swallowed audibly. As a cultivator, he could feel the radiance of high-grade valuables emanating from each wagon as it passed, and ideas he had no business entertaining flooded his mind. But a companion nudged him and pointed to the last wagon in the line, where an elderly man sat giving off a faint but constant pressure, and every one of those ideas died on the spot.
Why would Sage White-Beard come in person?
Every soul who'd been nursing ill intentions slammed on the brakes so hard they nearly lurched forward. There were a handful of people in Moondrift City that, no matter the circumstances, it simply didn't pay to cross.
And the old man was one of them.
It wasn't merely his Sage-level power that made people afraid — it was the title of "Grand Marshal" of this city that truly made them lose sleep. One word from him could set every soldier in the city in motion. Just the thought of being hunted down by an entire army was enough to keep a person up at night.
"That road leads to..."
"Isn't that the way to the Goddess Alchemy Palace?"
No one knew who had said it first. But when they looked back, the road at the far end of the street did indeed lead to the crumbling Palace that had been falling into disrepair a little more with each passing day.
These weren't fools. A great many of them knew perfectly well what had recently taken place at the Grand Marshal's residence. Between the sheer volume of goods and the Battlefield Heroine's undisguised closeness with the Goddess Alchemy Palace disciples, the connection was plain to see.
"Send word to the sect!"
"What for?"
Some still didn't understand. Those with quicker minds, though, had already gone pale. They pointed to the mountains of goods packed into every wagon.
"...The Goddess Alchemy Palace may be coming back."
"What do you mean by that..."
"It means those goods are going to restore the Palace's glory, you fool! Send word to the sect now!"
"U-understood!"
A simple transfer of goods was all it had taken to send rumors racing through the entire city. Spies from every power in Moondrift City emerged all at once, and every last one of them had the same destination in mind.
The Goddess Alchemy Palace.
.
.
.
None of the commotion outside touched the woman sitting in the last wagon in the slightest. Bai Fanxian calmly sipped her tea while two children leaned out on either side, drinking in the sights with wide, curious eyes. The cities of this era weren't built on the same technological foundation as their own world. For Tang Yeye and Hui'er, it was no different from visiting a living replica of a city from centuries past.
"Doesn't your dimension have anything like this?" Mu Xia watched the two of them with quiet amusement and turned to ask.
"Hmm... how to put it. There's nothing like this left in mine, I suppose?"
Bai Fanxian smiled faintly and answered honestly. In that world, cultivators had dwindled over time until they were little more than a minority. Technology had risen to fill the void, advancing in ways no one had anticipated.
"Then I'll take you sightseeing around the city myself!" Mu Xia offered with enthusiasm. Bai Fanxian had no objection. She let her gaze travel down the road stretching away from the city and asked:
"Is the Palace really this far out?"
"We're almost there. Just over that mountain."
"..."
Who on earth would want to build a Palace this far from civilization!
Mu Xia seemed to read the thought. She smiled wryly and explained:
"No one knows when it was built. But according to the records, it was already standing here about ten thousand years ago."
...Is that so?
Bai Fanxian turned it over in her mind with quiet puzzlement. Could it be that a disciple of hers had slipped through into this dimension ten thousand years ago and built a Palace here?
The Palace in her own world no longer existed in the present age. It had likely been destroyed beyond all trace during the events An Weiying had shown her through the records.
Who could it have been?
Whoever it was, she felt nothing but gratitude. Because at the very least, it had become a thread connecting her past and her present.
"We're almost there."
Even though crossing a mountain had sounded like a long way, it turned out to be not nearly so far as expected. Bai Fanxian noticed the quality of the air shift around her. The path grew gradually steeper, paved with pale, worn stone, and the fragrance of countless herbs growing along both sides drifted in with every breath, entirely befitting a place called the Alchemy Palace.
Even the scent is the same...
She gave her head a small shake. When the wagon came to a stop, Sage White-Beard pushed back the curtain and spoke with a note of concern:
"It seems there may be a small problem at the front... would the two of you be willing to go handle it?"
The two he meant were Mu Xia and Su Lin. As they stepped out, raised voices reached them from the direction of the Palace's front gate. Four or five girls were holding a soldier at bay with such fierce expressions that the poor man could do nothing but scratch his head helplessly.
"Xinjia! Xinhong! We're back!"
Mu Xia hurried forward to intervene, and the soldier let out an audible sigh of relief. The girls, upon seeing their senior sister, shifted instantly from fierce to alarmed.
"Senior Sister! Did those people do anything to you!?"
"..."
Still seeing their fierce eyes turned his way, the young soldier gave a dry laugh and turned to the two women.
"Ah... I'll leave the rest to you, then."
He walked back to his companions with his head down, wondering the whole way whether his face really did look that ugly and frightening.
And would he ever find a wife in this lifetime?
Su Lin dipped her head in a small apologetic bow for the trouble, then turned back to the junior sisters still standing guard at the gate in a tight, protective cluster.
"Nothing happened to us. These are the Grand Marshal's people. They only came to help us bring our things back."
Once they knew their senior sisters were safe, the girls relaxed. They turned to eye the long line of loaded wagons and asked with wide-eyed curiosity:
"What is all of this?"
"...Wow!"
Every girl's eyes lit up when the first wagon was opened. Inside, packed tightly from edge to edge, were clothes and fine silk cut into dozens of beautiful outfits. Several of the pieces seemed to have been made by special methods, giving off alternating warmth and coolness, a gentle warmth shifting to a pleasant chill and back.
"Beautiful!"
"That one looks so light..."
"It must feel wonderfully cool."
"Where did Senior Sister get all of these?"
The girls crowded around the wagon. They admired everything with wide-open wonder — but not a single one dared to reach out and touch. They only stood a little apart and looked.
At the same moment, Bai Fanxian's group arrived as well. Mu Xia beamed and gestured toward Bai Fanxian to introduce her to the juniors:
"The one who gave all of these to our Palace... you should know her well enough. The Battlefield Heroine herself!"
The name sent every pair of eyes sparkling. Yesterday, because some had been too young, a number of them had stayed behind to watch the Palace, but when the senior sisters returned, they had told and retold the story of a woman who had single-handedly brought the battle to a close, bringing everyone else back alive.
"Wow..."
"She's so beautiful..."
"Don't be rude to Lady Heroine, everyone... um... Lady Heroine?"
Mu Xia had been scolding her junior sisters when she noticed something: Bai Fanxian had gone very still. She was gazing past them with a distant expression — toward the Palace building rising at their backs.
"...My lady?"
Hui'er tugged gently at her sleeve, and Bai Fanxian came back to herself. She found dozens of pairs of eyes fixed entirely on her. She gave her head a small shake and offered the girls a faint smile.
"It's nothing. I was just a little overwhelmed by how beautiful your Palace is."
"Isn't it! Our Palace has been praised for its wonderful atmosphere for thousands of years!"
One girl hugged herself and nodded with satisfaction, drawing envious looks from her companions. Mu Xia laughed softly and turned back to Bai Fanxian, who was already beginning to drift away again.
"Shall we head inside, then?"
"Ah... yes, let's go in."
Beyond the front gate lay a large courtyard with paths of pale marble running down the center. Several buildings stood close together at the far end. As the large procession made its way through, many disciples who had been busy with their duties came over to crowd around and look.
"Wow! Those are precious materials!"
"There are Grade-4 and Grade-5 ingredients over there!"
"And here — candy! A whole wagon full of candy!"
"Wait! That's my candy!"
Tang Yeye rushed over to protest. But when she looked at the girls her age standing nearby and saw the pitying expressions, the thin frames, the hollowness in their cheeks, something stopped her short. Two very different thoughts waged a brief war inside her head. In the end, she pressed one box of candy to her chest and pointed to the rest.
"...You can have those. But you have to share with everyone!"
Su Lin watched the girl walk back clutching her one box and felt a pang of guilt. In the first place, Bai Fanxian herself had specifically asked her to keep those sweets set aside — and yet here they were, ending up in the hands of her junior sisters anyway.
But before she could go and apologize, Hui'er caught her hand. The girl shook her head with a quiet smile.
"It's fine. She's not as upset as you think."
She pointed to where Tang Yeye stood. One of the junior disciples had run over and was holding out a piece of candy from her own share. Every child who had received some followed her lead, each one offering a piece back to Tang Yeye until both her hands were full. By the end, every face in the courtyard was bright with happiness, and Tang Yeye stood at the center of it all.
"..."
Bai Fanxian watched from a little distance, her gaze traveling slowly around the compound. Something about the buildings, the paths, the whole landscape pressed in on her with a strange and inexplicable familiarity.
These paths. The tall building standing over there. Even the trees planted all around — all of it brought back memories from ten thousand years ago.
"...Was this area a herb garden before?"
The question caught Mu Xia completely off guard. But meeting the quiet certainty in Bai Fanxian's eyes, she answered plainly:
"Yes... but as the Palace fell on harder times, we couldn't keep even the front herb gardens maintained anymore. It's truly a source of shame..."
She scratched her head with a sheepish look, then found herself puzzling over something: how could Bai Fanxian have known? Anyone coming here now would see nothing but ordinary open ground.
Could she have been here before?
"...And the back herb garden?"
"That one we've managed to keep in excellent condition. Even when herbs were harvested for the war, we replanted them right away."
"...Did they say why?"
"Hmm... the elders always said that the back herb garden is the heart of this Palace. Even if everything else were destroyed, that would be all right — but the back herb garden had to remain..."
Mu Xia turned over her memories of childhood. Those elders were long gone now. But she and her sisters had followed their words faithfully ever since.
"...The same, even to this extent."
"Pardon?"
The girl didn't understand what Bai Fanxian meant. Bai Fanxian only shook her head gently, her gaze settling on the large building at the far end of the path.
...Just like ten thousand years ago.
As though someone had taken her entire Palace and set it down right here!