For the next month, Yanbo continued with her routine of waking up early and sleeping late, spending all her time in the library and on the training grounds. While before her strict training schedule had gotten some whispers of admiration and disbelief from others, now all it won her was slight disdain. All that getting up early and staying in the library until late at night, that had to be all a show, otherwise how could she have made so little progress on her cultivation base. Yanbo merely gritted her teeth and trudged on. Sometimes, she would think about that dusty tome with the torn pages and the cultivation methods on it, a wholly different method she hadn't tried that could possibly build up her cultivation foundations, but then she would recite in her mind the fundamental ethics that her shifu had drilled into her day and night, and dismiss that thought from her mind.

It was the next day, when her breakfast was knocked over by a boy a little older than her wearing a smirk, whispering to his friends in contempt about the fake show she'd put on to earn the favor of their shifu, while she'd made no progress at all. How laughable, they'd said.

It was their bad luck that their shifu passed by them right at that moment, and immediately knocked over the boy with a shove of his hand.

"Is this what the Plains Sect has taught you? Is this what our Du Clan has taught you? What happened to your morals? I'm ashamed that our Sect has raised such an unruly disciple. If this happens again, you're getting dismissed immediately." He barked, but when he turned to Yanbo, he had an expression of hesitance and looked rather unsure.

"You're not hurt?" He asked. Yanbo merely stared straight ahead, a muscle in her jaw ticking. After a few moments of her convincing herself to calm down, she shook her head, and then bent down, scooping the remnants of her breakfast back onto her plate with stiff, barely restrained movements, and dumped it in the fields. She went through that day without any breakfast.

From then on, Yanbo was no longer the favored disciple, and was instead one of the average ones, being neither praised nor criticized, left in the shadows. But Yanbo let not a single word of complaint slip her mouth, and continued practicing. The whispers grew, mocking her strict demeanor and her fake, joke of a schedule, her Mountain Sect uniform which she never took off.

As the snow on the ground melted, yielding to muddy lands and rainy days, Yanbo pretended to fall asleep in the library again, stole away the book, and hid it in her room. Judging by how infrequently anyone visited the secret chamber, adding on to the fact that there had never been a checkout system to keep track of the books that were in and out, due to the trust system of the Du Clan, she knew she wouldn't be discovered, at least for a while, until someone came looking specifically for that book.

All of a sudden, her cultivation seemed to surge, and just like that, she became the talk of everyone once again, this time praising her immense progress and strides. Her shifu was wary of her now, though. After witnessing such a letdown, he was suspicious of the sudden growth, wondering if there were other variables behind it. Therefore, one day, while many of the disciples were out helping to get rid of some insignificant monster, he inspected Yanbo's room once, finding the book. His heart froze, and he deliberated what he should do.

He had already figured out why Yanbo couldn't build a cultivation base like everyone else could have. Due to that last strand of pity in his heart, he resolved to stay silent, and quietly tucked the book back where it was.

When Yanbo returned, she felt the residual spiritual energy lingering around, much stronger than hers or any of the servants or other disciples her age. Her eyes landed on the hiding spot of the book, and she noticed that it seemed to have been shifted. When she glanced at the book, it was still there, but the spiritual energy seemed to have lingered there.

She had been discovered, she knew. She waited, without exposing any fear, for a few days for her shifu to summon her, tell her off, and kick her out of the Sect, but when a month passed, she slowly began to relax again.

Maybe it had just been an illusion. Maybe that spiritual energy had just been a relatively powerful servant who'd been cleaning. Even so, she didn't feel any relief, and returned the book back to the secret chamber, doing her best to conceal all the traces of her spiritual energy from it.

Meanwhile, her shifu was trying to think of a way to subtly convince her to put down the demonic cultivation method. He was aware of her stubborn personality and her determination to succeed in cultivation. Perhaps he could take advantage of her admiration and tendency to follow role models. The next month would be the world-wide cultivator's conference, where the big five Sects would gather, along with the other, smaller Sects. Every Sect and every Clan underneath it would bring their best and most promising cultivators, and they would all be fantastic role models for Yanbo. If she took a liking to anyone that he had connections to, he could get them connected and use that to subtly influence her to give up demonic cultivation. Therefore, when he announced who was going with him to the cultivator's conference, the entire clan received a big shock. Out of the relatively large clan, he would be bringing ten disciples as their representatives. Most of those ten were the oldest disciples, the best of their clan, and the youngest who came: Cui Yanbo.

In the lineup, her Mountain Sect uniform clearly drew a line between her and everyone else. There was no shortage of people talking about the decision, feeling that she'd be an inadequate representation.

Multiple people immediately began protests as soon as the names were announced, but her shifu silenced them all immediately.

"We will set off tomorrow." He said with an air of finality, intimidating everyone else into silence. Yanbo bowed her head, unsure if this was a blessing for her or just another opportunity for everyone else to poke fun of her.

That night, Yanbo didn't practice as she usually did, instead sitting alone in her quarters, staring through the window. Since the night when she'd snuck off with Yunhai to the Plains Sect and had gotten accepted by her new shifu, it'd been almost two years. For two whole years, she'd been practicing diligently and working hard, but it struck her then that she hadn't heard a single piece of news. Perhaps this cultivators' conference could be a chance for her to meet with Yunhai, hear about how the family was doing. She was getting older, now. She ought to finish up her studies so she could go back to her family and take care of her parents. After all, that was her duty as their child.

Finally, she took off her outer robe, hung it on the bedpost as she usually did, and went to sleep.

The next morning, she awoke as usual, put on her outer robe, and stepped outside. Immediately, she was met with a handful of mud on her leg.

"Sorry!" Someone yelled disingenuously, and then the culprit and his accomplices ran off. Yanbo had no intent to chase after them, instead stepping back into her quarters stiffly, taking a piece of cloth to wipe herself off. It left a darker stain on her uniform. Even though the colors of her Mountain Sect uniform were dark, it stood out easily. She pressed her lips together and set the cloth to the side before walking down to breakfast.

They left shortly after breakfast was over, bringing scant belongings with them. They traveled by their swords, but Yanbo, as the youngest disciple, hadn't gotten one yet, so she rode along with Yucheng. Yucheng, as the son of the Du Clan's leader, had naturally come along.

Only an hour after they'd left the wards of the Plains Sect, traveling over no-man's land, they happened across a storm and were forced to descend to the earth and instead move by feet. This delayed their journey a whole day, as they were forced to stay in a city along the way in order to shelter from the storm. The younger and more bad-tempered disciples swore up and down the heavens that they'd never encountered such bad luck. The youngest, Yanbo, stayed silent, saying nothing.

The storm raged through the entire night and finally let up the next morning, leaving the grounds sloppy and wet, impossible to travel over foot. They traveled at cloud level until they finally reached the desert, the home of the Desert Sect.

Yanbo, walking absentmindedly, wondered what she would encounter at this cultivators' conference. She fuzzily remembered that her brothers had mentioned such a thing a couple times before, but they'd never discussed in detail what had actually happened. It wasn't until she felt something glowing hot for a brief moment in her robes that she stopped and looked back, realizing two things: she'd ended up walking ahead of her clan by a couple of feet, and they were all standing behind her, staring at her incredulously, and secondly, she'd just passed through the strong, impenetrable wards of the Desert Sect without any effort or noticing.

Immediately, disciples spotted the intruder and descended upon her, but spotting the disciples and two adults gathered behind her, just outside of the ward, they figured that she must've been one of the guests. Still, they were rather offended that she, a scrawny-looking fifteen-year-old girl, could've walked through the barrier without noticing, and wanted to know how she'd done so.

"Who are you? How did you enter the wards?" The oldest of them, seemingly the leader, demanded of her.

"Cui Yanbo." She answered the first question, and then hesitated. She fished the flaming paper crane out of her robes and held it out.

"Isn't that the flaming paper cranes of that girl... that Lin Jinghe? I heard she's recently risen to favor with the Sect leader." One of them wondered, and the rest all seemed to agree. "But how would this kid have one? She doesn't give them out lightly. I've heard that they have the ability to protect those they're bestowed upon. Only her close family has one. They're the pride of the Lin Clan, the spiritual weapon of the eldest daughter of the Clan leader."

They all looked Yanbo up and down, and deciding it was better not to offend her, just in case she really was one of Jinghe's people, and respectfully opened an entrance in the wards to let the rest of the Du Clan in.

"Since you have one of Jinghe's flaming cranes, that means you are a guest at our Desert Sect. I'm assuming you're all here for the cultivators' conference?"

Yanbo's shifu nodded and took over the conversation, letting Yanbo fade into the background, but everyone else looked at her strangely. They'd never seen Yanbo with that paper crane, and were wondering where exactly she'd gotten it, how she seemed to become even more special by the day. What was it that she had that they didn't? Many of the younger disciples immediately began to harbor even more jealousy.

After their shifu finished his pleasantries, one of the disciples led them away and brought them to their temporary living quarters. On the way, Yanbo watched, hiding how impressed she was at the tall, grand buildings. Even the living quarters of an average clan of the Plains Sect were lavish and rich-looking, with multiple servants attending them, and their own private training grounds.

That night, Yanbo sat alone in her quarters, staring down at the flaming paper crane in her hand. Jinghe, Yanbo had figured, had made significant progress in climbing the social ladder within the Desert Sect in the years since she'd rescued Yanbo from that flaming house, even getting the favor of the Sect leader. She would certainly be in attendance. Would Yanbo be able to see her? Yanbo stared down at the paper crane for a long time before gently setting it in a hidden place and going to sleep.

She was interrupted the next morning while in the middle of her daily training routine by an attendant telling her that breakfast was ready, that it would be sent up to her room at a moment's notice. Yanbo shooed the attendant off coolly, and later went downstairs to the dining hall to eat. The entire grand building had been dedicated to the Du Clan, and there was a large section squared off just for the Plains Sect. How rich, how wealthy did the Desert Sect have to be, to be able to provide such lavish living quarters for guests, for all of their guests?

For a few moments, she sat on the bed, smoothing her fingers over the rich fabric of the covers, observing the golden patterns stitched onto the white cloth, curling and dancing across the fabric, as if it were alive and had a mind of its own.

Finally, Yanbo headed downstairs to grab breakfast. This would be the first day of the cultivators' conference, which would last an entire week. After breakfast, everyone congregating in a vast open space, which Yanbo surmised was the training ground of the most elite in the Desert Sect. Some of the important people had seats lining the edge of the grounds, but mostly there was only standing space. After listening to some important people discussing and talking about vague concepts about honor and valor and heroism that had no appeal to Yanbo at all, everyone began mingling amongst themselves. As a young girl with no fame to speak of, nobody sought her out, so she instead wandered to the edge of the training grounds, separate from the great crowd.

As Yanbo was facing away from the general crowd, she suddenly heard a scream, and she whipped around, only to see a spray of mud coming towards her face. She lifted her arms and braced herself for the shower, but suddenly she was surrounded by a warm heat and a flash of bright color, and the mud never fell on her face.

Instead, one of her fellow disciples was laying on the ground, his face flustered and bewildered, as if he didn't know what had happened. A twenty-or-so girl was standing slightly in front of Yanbo, wearing the striking white robes and golden belt of the Desert Sect.

"You're truly a shame on your Clan and your Sect. What honor is there in kicking mud on one of your fellow disciples? How has she wronged you?" The girl demanded.

Yanbo's fellow disciple was still in a little shock, unable to process what had just happened, and could only blabber senselessly in panic before running away. However, with that scream he'd made to attract attention, he'd attracted the attention of at least half of the cultivators gathered there that day, and they all witnessed him sprawled in the mud and accused of such a petty thing. He'd lost pretty much all of the Plains Sect's face. Running away was the wisest choice. When he'd run away, most people turned away from the scene and muttered amongst themselves, and the topic was largely forgotten and buried among all the other things that they wanted to discuss.

The girl in front of Yanbo turned around, her expression no longer so severe. Although she didn't wear a smile, she looked noticeably gentler. Her gaze swept Yanbo up and down, and then up and down again, a slight furrow creasing between her brows.

"Do I know you?"

Her gaze dropped to the back of Yanbo's neck, as her collar had been loosened with the quick movement, exposing a splotch of a gray birthmark, shaped in a flame.

"You!" The girl exclaimed.

Yanbo looked at her for a little longer. In her robes, her paper flaming crane grew warmer, and she took it out. It fluttered a bit in her hands, flying in a circle above Yanbo's head, flying another circle above the other girl's head, before returning to Yanbo's open palm.

The girl stepped closer. Yanbo had a growing suspicion of the girl's identity.

"Did I rescue you from a fire when you were young? Ten years old?" The girl asked.

"Lin Jinghe." Yanbo said immediately.

Jinghe nodded, then watched her. "Cui Yanbo." She returned.

Yanbo suddenly grew shy, looking away from her.

"So you ended up going up the mountain to study anyways? And your Clan leader even brought you here!"

"I didn't." Yanbo answered. "I went to the Plains Sect, the Du Clan, to study."

"Oh." Jinghe summoned the paper crane back from Yanbo's hand, then inspected it. "It still has spiritual powers left." She said in surprise.

Yanbo didn't say anything to this. Actually, she'd secretly been giving it spiritual powers on the occasion, as if feeding a pet or something alike. She was afraid that if it lost all its spiritual powers, it would dissipate. Jinghe returned the flaming paper crane to Yanbo with a smile.

"Keep it. You've kept it for so long, it's yours anyways." She told Yanbo.

Yanbo and Jinghe engaged in a conversation about their lives since their first meeting five or so years ago, but all the while, Yanbo didn't know that there was another stare boring into her back, at the place where her birthmark had been exposed, shocked, worried and swearing to the heavens above.

***

"Jinghe!" A voice called out. "Jinghe! The Sect leader is summoning you."

A figure emerged from the crowd, quite average-looking, with the only defining characteristics about her the unsettling gaze she had that seemed to see through everything, and a golden bracelet jingling on her wrist. Her robes identified her as another of the Desert Sect. She turned her gaze to Yanbo, her expression revealing slight, but measured surprise, as if she hadn't noticed her before. Yanbo noticed this, an unsettling worry growing in her stomach, almost as if she knew this girl from somewhere else.

"And this is?" The girl asked Jinghe.

"This is Cui Yanbo, an accomplished young cultivator of the Plains Sect." Jinghe smiled at Yanbo warmly, and her gaze became skittery and her posture showed some anxiety for the first time in a while.

Upon hearing the name, the girl seemed to jolt for a second before her perfect appearance settled over her again.

"I'm Bai Qingshan, a nobody from the Desert Sect." She said with cordial politeness and a calm smile. The smile seemed almost too perfect, with almost nothing able to be picked out from it, no fault to be identified, which only made Yanbo feel even more unsettled about her.

Yanbo cupped her hands and bowed slightly. In order of seniority, this girl was her elder, no matter what.

"I noticed from afar that you have a flame birthmark on the back of your neck." Qingshan said. "It quite resembles the symbol of our Desert Sect, don't you think, Jinghe?"

Jinghe nodded. "I was thinking that earlier. Quite an interesting coincidence."

Yanbo's hand twitched, wanting to rub her neck, but she held back. As a matter of fact, the birthmark on her neck had not always been a flame shape. At birth, it had been vaguely in the shape of a crane. It had given the fortunetellers all sorts of delights, proclaiming that she would be able to ascend to immortality at a young age, that she was blessed by the heavens, but Yanbo was here, at fifteen, with no such talents to speak of. All she had was an unreliable cultivation base and spiritual energy cultivated from a demonic path. Henceforth, she'd never believed in any sorts of fortunetellers and those sorts of nonsense.

However, ten years after her birth, thebirthmark had suddenly changed. At first, they'd wondered whether something hadhappened to her, but there had been no major incident that year... except forthat fire. And so, their family had hypothesized that she had simply beenaffected by something in that magical fire and it had left a mark on her, notpursuing the mystery any further. But listening to this Qingshan's words... itsounded like there was something more to it.