Fates Parallel Chapter 53 - Tension

Lee Jia woke to a horrible throbbing pain in her head, and wished whoever was causing that horrible pounding noise would stop it. After a moment, she realized that the pounding was her own heartbeat, and that she would not be able to escape it. She hadn’t felt this awful since the day after her ki awakening—her mouth was dry, and her clothes were stuck to her skin from sweat.

Her first attempt at sitting up worsened her headache by an order of magnitude, so she gave up and decided to lay still for a bit. Since moving her body was too painful, she relied on her domain to take stock of her situation.

She was in her own bed, with the covers drawn up to her shoulders—slightly disturbed by her attempt to sit up. A damp piece of cloth sat next to her head, where it had presumably fallen from her forehead.

Eui knelt next to the bed and had fallen asleep with her upper body slumped over the bed, another damp cloth clutched in her hand. From the redness around her eyes and the streaks on her face, Jia could only assume she had been crying. The damp cloths and the small basin of water next to her suggested that Eui had been caring for her all night.

Considering how sick she felt, Jia was glad that she had. What had happened to her? She remembered meditating with Eui and then—something went wrong. Eui’s demonic core had activated somehow, and instead of sharing their spiritual energy evenly, it had begun to greedily steal Jia’s cultivation.

Jia tried to assess her own injuries—they must have been terrible if Eui’s healing had been unable to help her. As she circulated her ki throughout her body, she was surprised to find that she was in perfect physical health. As she meditated, the true problem became immediately obvious.

Cultivation was generally a process of accumulating spiritual energy—or essence, as Jianmo had called it—within the body, mind, or soul. Well, in Jia and Eui’s case it was all three, but the principle was the same. Once a certain quantity had been built up, that essence would need to undergo a qualitative change in order for the cultivator to continue to build up any more—that was the bottleneck between different stages.

The quality of Jia’s cultivation had remained unchanged, but the quantity—she had lost too much essence to maintain her current level of cultivation. She had effectively dropped back into the first stage, and her energy was tearing her apart trying to maintain a form that was no longer possible.

Jia tried to weigh her options. She’d known about the possibility of losing levels of cultivation, but hadn’t really done much research on the subject. There were some things she could figure out intuitively on her own, though.

The simplest option would be to simply relax her cultivation methods. She would allow her liquid qi to become gaseous once more, withdraw the ki from her flesh and bones, her domain—well, she still had no idea how it worked, so she could only hope it would sort itself out.

She’d really rather not do that. For one thing, it would require her to break through again—something she wasn’t entirely confident she could do on her own, considering the unusual circumstances of her original breakthrough. Most importantly, though, she knew that she was quite close to the border between the first and second stage.

If she had lost more essence than she had, her cultivation would have collapsed entirely and caused a deviation—or she would have just died—and if she had lost any less, then she wouldn’t be suffering so much. Hopefully, she’d be able to recover enough to stabilize herself with a bit of meditation.

Jia focused her thoughts inward and relaxed her breathing—which she hadn’t even realized had been so heavy. She and Eui had developed a sort of unified cultivation technique that relied on drawing mana in through the domain—which was extremely good at controlling the ambient energy in the air—and distributing it through their body and soul.

Normally, a huge amount of energy was lost to the domain absorbing it for some inscrutable purpose that Jia and Eui had yet to figure out, but even so it was much more efficient than regular meditation. To Jia’s surprise, as she pulled the essence in the air into herself, her domain didn’t greedily suck up the majority of it.

The result was an unexpected flood of energy so intense that Lee Jia had to actually slow down her cultivation in order to handle it. Within the hour, Jia had managed to draw in enough energy to restabilize her cultivation and prevent any further backlash. When she had once more reached the second stage, her domain went back to eating most of the energy she cultivated.

As Lee Jia stopped her meditation, she noticed a few changes. First, she felt much better now. Second, it seemed that at some point Eui had woken up and replaced the cold cloth on her forehead. She was no longer in the room, but Jia could smell something heavenly cooking.

She got up to investigate and immediately felt gross as her robes stuck to her body. The enchantments on them included self-cleaning, but it took time, so Jia decided to change into something else for once. She removed the offending robes and went to take a look in the wardrobe, grimacing when she realized that it was still full of Yue’s seemingly infinite variety of green dress robes.

Instead, Jia went through her storage ring and picked out fresh underwear and some casual clothes that were a bit more girly than what she usually wore—a loose green jacket and a long, baggy, light blue skirt. The skirt was Goryeon style, which meant that it naturally made room for her tail. It occurred to her as she got changed that she should probably shower first, but for now she’d settle for clean clothes.

Once dressed, Jia did a quick examination of herself in the mirror and barely recognized the person she saw within it. She looked—well, like a girl. It was a strange observation, but she’d spent most of her life wearing more practical men’s clothing, and most of the last year wearing combat robes.

Some girls—like Eunae, Yan Yue, or Hayakawa Kaede—managed to pull off perfect feminine grace regardless of how they dressed, but for Lee Jia, a simple change of dress felt like a complete transformation. Jia was starting to reconsider her choice of clothing, but the smell of cooking food was too enticing—someone was cooking with spices!

Jia found Eui in the living area, standing over the stove and frying what appeared to be an assortment of fresh meat and vegetables with an arrangement of spices that was making Jia’s mouth water.

Eui noticed Jia entering the room and let out a sigh of relief.

“Jia! Thank the ancestors you’re awake! Are you okay? I—”

Eui froze when she turned to look at Jia. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she saw Jia’s appearance. Feeling a little bit awkward, Jia averted her eyes and raised a hand in greeting.

“Good morning, Eui. I think I’m fine now—thanks for taking care of me last night. Um, what is that? I didn’t know you could cook.”

Eui blushed and turned back to focus on her cooking, her voice slightly higher pitched than usual as she responded.

“W-well I learned more from my mother than just how to brush my hair, you know. I just didn’t cook before because I knew you’d make me do it all the time if you knew that I could.”

Jia’s hand unconsciously went to her own tangled mop of hair, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it at the moment.

“That’s probably fair. Where did you even get the spices?”

“I got them a while ago while you were busy making every food stall in the market rich. I had planned on surprising you on your birthday but—”

“I don’t know when my birthday is.”

Eui gave Jia a flat look, but after a moment her eyes began to wander before she blushed and turned back to the stove once more.

“That’s not the point, Jia! Anyway, instead I thought I could use them now to apologize for last night.”

The atmosphere grew somber for a moment, and Jia realized that Eui was probably blaming herself for what had happened.

“Eui, last night—”

“It was all my fault, Jia! Everything has been my fault. I dragged you into this joint cultivation without telling you how I felt, and now that it’s broken I can’t even fix it without nearly killing you! Qin Zhao was right—I ruin everything. The world would be better off without—”

Jia interrupted Eui’s ranting with a tight embrace from behind, shaking her head in vehement denial.

“It was an accident, Eui! We had no way of knowing what would happen, and I’m fine now. It’s not your fault. We will find a way to fix this, and we’ll do it together.”

Eui’s hands trembled as she lifted food off of the stove and began to serve it over some rice that had been set aside to stay warm.

“The—the food is ready, Jia. Um, s-sorry about the outburst. I’m just—ever since last night I’ve had this weird rush of hyperactive energy. My mind is going a mile a minute and I can’t stop moving. It’s like I ate an entire bag of sugar, but the rush isn’t stopping, even after I fell asleep.”

Jia frowned, she understood what Eui was trying to say but—

“What’s sugar?”

Eui paused for a moment to stare at Jia before shaking her head.

“Ancestors, Jia, I hope you never learn the answer to that. Your eating habits are already unhealthy enough and I’m not sure you can pull off the Yan Hao look.”

“Wow, rude.”

The girls giggled a bit, and Jia appreciated that the tense atmosphere had relaxed thanks to that little bit of levity. They sat across from each other and enjoyed Eui’s home-cooking—which was absolutely fantastic—in companionable silence.

Jia noticed Eui repeatedly stealing glances at her and then looking away when their eyes met. After the third or fourth time, Jia raised an eyebrow and just stared until Eui looked back again.

“What?”

Eui blushed and looked away again.

“S-sorry, um, that dress is just—you look super cute.”

It was Jia’s turn to blush as she realized that Eui had been checking her out this entire time. Since Eui’s confession, she had been a lot more aware of the signs of her affection, but Jia was now realizing that she had more than a few blindspots when it came to such things.

“Um, t-thanks. It feels weird dressing like this—I don’t think it suits me, but I wanted to try it.”

Eui shook her head.

“No, it looks good! It would be even better if your hair wasn’t still so messy—oh! I wonder if Yue left any makeup stuff here...”

“Uh, w-wait—”

Jia suddenly became very nervous as Eui started buzzing about with an intense nervous energy, rifling through Yue’s bags until she found what she was looking for. Before she had a chance to protest, Eui was already behind her, carefully working out the tangles in her hair and trying out different accessories.

Jia resigned herself to her fate and let Eui have her fun as she finished her food—it wasn’t like it was the first time Eui had done her hair. Her confidence disappeared when Eui moved around to her front with a small toolkit of little brushes and powders.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“Next is your face—ancestors, Jia, you’re such a messy eater.”

Jia blinked, nonplussed, as Eui wiped her face off with a handkerchief.

“M-my face!? What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing, Jia. You’re perfect, I just want to try it out—just a little bit, ok? Like Eunae’s, not Yan Yue’s.”

“Eunae wears makeup?”

Eui gave Jia another flat, unimpressed look, then shook her head.

“Of course she does, Jia. You can be so blind—now stay still.”

Jia didn’t know what was going on with Eui—her mood kept swinging all over the place—but it was clear that she was a bit high strung at the moment, and Jia decided that it couldn’t hurt to let her have her fun.

After a surprisingly long time, during which Eui repeatedly wiped away her work and started over, she had finally finished and stood back to admire her handiwork. Eui practically had stars in her eyes as she beamed at Jia—had she ever seen Eui smile that much?

“Oh my ancestors you are adorable, Jia! Come on, you have to see for yourself.”

Eui dragged Jia to the mirror in their room to see the results of her hard work. With an odd sense of anxiety, Jia looked at herself in the mirror and saw—

“Who the hell is that!?”

Her reflection was completely unrecognizable. If her outfit had been a transformation than Eui’s work on her hair and makeup was—-a transmogrification or something. Jia’s relatively short hair left little room for styling, but Eui had brushed back the bangs and pinned them in place. The look was accented with a small pink flower that sat slightly off-center and naturally drew the eyes up to her cat-like ears.

The makeup was even more impressive. The last vestiges of her outdoorsy tan were gone, bringing out her natural, milky complexion. Eui had then added some color back in, in the form of a subtle shadow around the eyes that made her golden eyes practically appear to glow, and a nearly imperceptible blush on the cheeks that brought out the appearance of youthful exuberance. The finishing touch was a glossy pink color to highlight the lips.

Altogether, the person in the mirror looked like the kind of graceful beauty she might have seen tending flowers in a garden within the city walls of Nayeong. The kind of girl that wasn’t noble or wealthy, but might be taken in as a maid or even marry into a noble family. That fact that it was her gave Jia an unbearable sense of cognitive dissonance, and she was struck with the irrational urge to wash it all away, mess up her hair, and tear the dress to shreds.

This wasn’t her! It couldn’t be her! The girl in the mirror was graceful, feminine, beautiful—but she was just Lee Jia. A homeless girl who had narrowly avoided slavery or worse—someone who stole to survive, a filthy urchin who didn’t deserve to even dream about being the girl she now saw reflected before her.

Jia felt her eyes beginning to water, and her hands were trembling. She didn’t know how to feel about the transformation that Eui had given her—didn’t know how she did feel. Her head was a confusing storm of emotion that she hadn’t expected at all. Eui noticed Jia’s reaction and met her eyes with a concerned expression.

“Jia, are you ok? I didn’t think that—oh, ancestors, I’m sorry! What did I do?”

Jia shook her head, and held back the tears that were threatening to form in her eyes—she didn’t want to ruin Eui’s hard work.

“No, it’s fine Eui. It’s not your fault, I just didn’t expect—I just don’t know how to feel. You did an amazing job—how are you so good at this?”

Eui let out a sigh of relief and smiled at Jia.

“I was a rich girl growing up, remember? I used to do my own makeup all the time, I only stopped because—”

Eui hesitated for a moment, her smile falling for just a second before she brightened up again.

“Well, you know. Anyway, I have an idea! It would be a waste to dress up so much and stay in all day—come on let’s go!”

Jia had another moment of panic as Eui’s manic energy returned and she began dragging her towards the front door.

“Wait, Eui, where are we going? I don’t know if I am ready to—”

“Forget that, Jia. This is long overdue, you’re going to learn something today.”

“What!? What are you talking about, Eui? You’re starting to scare me!”

Eui chuckled darkly, and Jia wished more than ever that she could still sense Eui’s emotions. Eui wrapped her arms around one of Jia’s and dragged her through the campus, cackling like a demon as Jia blushed furiously at the unusual looks they were getting. When Jia realized where Eui was taking her, the blood drained from her face.

“Eui, why are you taking me towards the library?”

The response that came was in such an uncharacteristically saccharine tone that it gave Jia goosebumps.

“Didn’t I tell you that you’re going to learn? Where else would we go to do that but the library?”

“Uh, right, that makes sense, but I don’t see what that has to do with—and that’s where—aren’t you—?”

Jia was sputtering, trying to ask too many questions at once and not able to actually get any of them out before they arrived at the academy archives. Eui gave her a bright, sweet smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes before nearly throwing Jia bodily through the door to the library.

“Good luck, Jia! This is going to be an important lesson, ok? Pay close attention.”

“Wait, Eui you’re not—”

Eui shut the door in Jia’s face, and was clearly holding it shut when Jia tried to open it again.

“Ancestors damn it, Eui! At least tell me what I’m supposed to be learning!”

After another moment of fruitlessly fumbling with the door to the sound of Eui’s muffled cackling, Jia gave up and turned around. The receptionist was staring at her like she had grown a second head, and Jia blushed bright red as she attempted to regain a tiny shred of dignity.

“I-I’m here to use the library. I should be on the list of people with permission—Lee Jia.”

The receptionist nodded slowly.

“Of course, Miss Lee. Feel free to—” the receptionist did a double-take “Miss Lee!? By the emperor, I hardly recognized you! Miss Yan must have gotten you, eh?”

Not quite, but Lee Jia didn’t want to start any weird rumors, so she just smiled politely and proceeded into the main hall of the archives. Come to think of it, isn’t it a little weird that some random student from Qin knows her by name? She was pretty sure she’d never seen that boy before in her life.

Lee Jia wandered through the stacks for a little bit, wondering what she should even be looking for. She was pretty sure she knew why Eui had brought her here—and it had nothing to do with research—but she figured that she shouldn’t waste the opportunity.

The archive wasn’t very well organized, except that there was a restricted section on another floor that was forbidden to them even with their special permission. There were books, scrolls, jade slips, and even more esoteric things like engraved tablets or woven tapestries stacked on shelf after shelf.

The lack of organization made finding anything useful a challenge, but Jia had a trick she could use to find what she was looking for with relative ease. Focusing on her domain, she spread it out as far as she could and focused on the objects on the shelves. Within her domain, she intuitively understood everything within it, and could quickly guess at the contents of any book or scroll, and even directly read a jade slip.

After a few minutes of wandering, Jia collected a few texts and tablets on the subject of stealing cultivation—which, as it turned out, had significant overlap with dual cultivation. They were mostly cautionary texts and bestiaries that discussed demons and warned against unscrupulous rogue cultivators who might trick others into predatory forms of dual cultivation.

It wasn’t the first time she’d done research on the topics of demons and dual cultivation, given her unusual relationship with Eui, but stealing cultivation in particular was an angle she hadn’t thought to approach it from, so she hoped that perhaps she could make some new insights.

With her research material gathered, she could no longer avoid the inevitable. Moving to the archive’s study hall—which was mostly just an arrangement of large tables—she found exactly what she had expected. Hyeong Daesung sat alone, practically buried in a stack of books, taking down notes as he flipped through them.

Jia was tempted to just sit on the opposite side of the hall from him entirely, but she knew that a snub like that would be extremely hurtful, and Dae was one of her closest friends who had helped her adjust to life in the academy. Well, if this was what Eui wanted, then fine!

Jia set her research materials down on the same table, across from Dae, and greeted him with a bow.

“Good morning, Dae.”

“Oh, Miss Lee! I wasn’t expecting to see you here to—”

Dae’s words cut off as he looked up at her and froze. He just sat there and stared, slack-jawed for what felt to Jia like it must have been a full minute before she politely cleared her throat.

“Um, Dae?”

Dae’s face went bright red and he shook his head. He stood and bowed deeply, with an embarrassed look on his face.

“S-sorry! That was terribly rude of me! You look lovely today, Miss Lee. You’ve come to study, yes? Please let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”

His apology was slightly dampened by the wagging tail, but Jia smiled politely as they both took their seats.

“Of course, Dae. Thank you.”

As Jia began to go over the research material, she soon noticed Dae repeatedly stealing glances at her in a manner that was extremely reminiscent of Eui earlier. Jia’s brows knitted together as she cursed her best friend and roommate internally.

“Alright, Eui, you’ve made your damn point!”

“What was that, Miss Lee?”

“...nothing.”

Lee Jia felt like this was going to be a very long and uncomfortable day.