Wu Hao didn't think he had a habit of underestimating his foes, but for once he absolutely had. These books were kicking his ass up and down the book repository.

  He sighed, put the Heaven and Earth Wheel down, and rubbed at his eyes.

  It was the last out of five arts that he'd picked up, trying to summarize and understand the important bits of each text, and it felt like his brain was cooking the inside of his skull.

  First he'd tried the Vast Clouds Manual. The book had clearly been a spoil of war, rather than something handed over willingly to whichever member of the Jin clan here had brought it back - it was easy to tell because there was a chunk bitten out of the side out the manual, like it'd been pressed tight against someone's chest when they got slashed there.

  It didn't actually ruin how readable the text was much, though, and that was mostly because Wu Hao had been forced to admit that he couldn't actually make sense of most of the characters. He'd had to ask Jin Qilong, who'd pointed out a few of the ones he knew, and then had asked one of Librarian Zhu's assistants to haul in a dictionary that contained an enormous list of characters and a terse explanation of what each meant.

  Reading hadn't gotten less laborious since. Most of the common characters he knew - he wasn't a total illiterate and he'd learned all of his numbers at some point or another. But there was nothing covering some of the words that were used in the Vast Clouds Manual, and that wasn't even getting into the process of having to squint at the characters on the page to try and figure out a stroke order so he could actually look them up.

  The little he could decipher was that it talked about the world as being filled with mist, which was where the Vast Clouds Manual got its name. Wu Hao hadn't deciphered what these mists were or where they'd come from, but the principle as he'd wound up understanding it was that they contained qi. Therefore, interacting with these mists would see you gain qi.

  What you did with it afterwards or how that made you a martial artists wasn't clear to Wu Hao. Besides, he hadn't actually seen any of these mists before, and he'd seen a decent amount of qi.

  By that point he was nursing a headache. Jin Qilong had supplied him with some paper that he'd used to note his chickenscratch onto for characters he didn't recognize, and he'd filled it thrice over.

  The next book was the Guide to True Peace, which had granted him nothing of the sort. It opened with a flowery discussion of what "true peace" actually was, and Wu Hao's eyes had crossed before he was more than five words in. There were no chapters, either - there was just one long tract that ran across several pages.

  True peace, as defined by the author, had to come from within to be able to withstand the without. True peace - which was the same as true mystery, whatever the hell that meant - would grant mental stability, and that stability would result in upright living, which then naturally invited qi to rest within the "righteous core" of the martial artist.

  Wu Hao was not at true peace, and he doubted that he'd find any peace at all until he'd survived past the Third Heavenly Demon War. He left the Guide to True Peace laying next to its former neighbor and moved on.

  The Excellent Thought Sutra had jumped straight into terms and concepts that Wu Hao had never heard of, and the White Horse Codex had just been nonsense about horses not actually being horses. He'd discarded both of those and been left with a single choice.

  The Heaven and Earth Wheel was shockingly decent, and not just in comparison. In its introduction, the author had written with a strict hand that he'd set out to write an art that placed minimal requirements on knowledge and resources. It didn't promise great benefits as a result, but it would give him a steady foundation upon which to build the rest of his house.

  The author had proudly called it "an art meant for dissemination to the masses", and if it actually fulfilled its promises then that was absolutely true. The principles were laid out in common language, using common metaphor, and the author didn't bother to hide the downsides as compared to others: while fast to begin initially cultivating, that came at the cost of significant slowdown when actually attempting to reach beyond the third stage, and it didn't promise anything except speed.

  It wasn't what Wu Hao wanted. He'd hoped for a secret art that excelled at everything: built deep foundations, granted overwhelming power, and was fast to cultivate too. But in all honestly he'd take this.

  "Found something?" Jin Qilong asked.

  "Yeah," Wu Hao said, tapping the book. "This seems fine."

  "The Heaven and Earth Wheel Art," Jin Qilong said. "You're sure?"

  "Yeah. It's the only one I understand anything of."

  "They're not that hard to understand, are they? These other books, I mean."

  "I didn't understand one word in three of the Excellent Thought Sutra, and I'm pretty sure that whoever wrote the White Horse Codex set out to write nonsense from the beginning."

  "He didn't," Jin Qilong said. "It refers to an ancient parable, where two people discuss -"

  Jin Qilong droned on, but hearing it spoken to him didn't make it any easier to understand, so Wu Hao eventually just stopped listening until Jin Qilong realized Wu Hao hadn't absorbed anything he'd said.

  "You're not much of a reader, are you?" Jin Qilong said, and then paled. "I mean - no offense, obviously, as a merchant's ward you wouldn't have read much, I didn't want to offend you by saying -"

  "It's fine," Wu Hao said, cutting off the babbling. "You're right, young master. I prefer to simply do. I'm not made to sit around and read all day."

  Jin Qilong shrugged. "This is pretty fun, I think. Much better than sparring."

  Having said that, Jin Qilong snuck another glance at Wu Hao's arm, where his bandages were red and sticking to his wound like a second skin. Peeling them off now would be hellish, but it'd probably be required at some point or another.

  "I prefer sparring," Wu Hao grumbled. "At least then you know where you stand. Something honest about a saber trying to kill you that you just don't get from a book."

  Not for the first time, his eyes snuck up to the higher level, where more valuable texts were being stored.

  "Are you sure you don't want to let Librarian Zhu scan you?" Jin Qilong asked.

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  "Yes."

  "I was scanned as a child," Jin Qilong said.

  "I know. You said so earlier."

  "That's kind of the problem," Jin Qilong blurted. "They - I - never mind."

  "What?" Wu Hao asked. "They what?"

  Was it that Jin Qilong wasn't talented, maybe? That would make some sense.

  "Doesn't matter," Jin Qilong said again, and for once he actually clenched his jaw. "Leave it, please."

  "As the young master commands," Wu Hao said.

  It wasn't like he really cared that much, anyway.

  Jin Qilong sighed. "I said to stop calling me that. Why do you keep doing it anyway?"

  "Why do you hate that so much, anyway?" Wu Hao asked, instead of answering the question.

  The other boy squirmed in his seat a little before he finally spoke.

  "It's not honest," he said. "No one who calls me that actually respects me. It's just a hollow, meaningless platitude."

  Wu Hao cocked his head, noting the word "platitude". He hadn't heard it before. Today was educational in all sorts of ways. "Probably."

  "You - fine. Just call me Jin Qilong instead. That feels more honest, at least."

  But then Jin Qilong looked over to Wu Hao, who'd kept his face blank as always.

  "Do whatever you want," he said helplessly. "I can't stop you, can I?"

  No. No, he could not. He'd have to allow Wu Hao his little victories against the Jin clan.

  Wu Hao stretched again, cast his eyes back to the Heaven and Earth Wheel Art, and decided to give up for today. This would be the book he'd keep.

  It was evening when they left the library. Wu Hao had woken up in the late morning and had spent the time since either being dragged somewhere, being talked at, or being hit with a saber.

  Being cut with a saber hadn't been the best part, but honestly it'd been the most fun of them all. His arm throbbed as if calling him out for that, but he ignored it.

  As they crossed the short square that led to and from the library, Wu Hao spotted several squads of guards, and he could feel a few more sources of qi sequestered atop the rooftops of the various buildings.

  If he'd been planning on escaping, that would make it even more difficult, he realized.

  For now he followed Jin Qilong as the other boy made his way towards the main building. The outside areas had been abandoned, though a servant was hurrying to and fro to light the innumerable lanterns. Jin Qilong walked easily inside, approached a servant who was directing others, and spoke.

  "Arrange a guest room for him," Jin Qilong instructed, and pointed at Wu Hao.

  "Begging pardon, sir," the servant murmured. "But the lady has already decided which room to give."

  "Really?" Jin Qilong said. "Which one?"

  "One of the rooms near the south wing of the main building, young master."

  Jin Qilong's brows furrowed.

  "We have guest rooms there?"

  "Ah, no, sir," the servant said. His eyes darted towards Jin Qilong's face, attempting to see if he'd be punished for what he was about to say. "The lady said he would receive a servant's room."

  Jin Qilong looked oddly upset by this, but Wu Hao shook his head.

  "That's fine," he said.

  "It's not," Jin Qilong argued. "You're not a servant, you're... well, anyway, you're not a servant. I'll talk to Mother about this."

  "It's fine," Wu Hao said again. "Don't bother Lady Jin on my account. I don't need much in terms of room, anyway."

  "Well, if you're sure... You there. Has a meal been arranged?"

  "Respectfully, sir, no."

  "Show him to the kitchens, then," Jin Qilong. "If anyone asks, say it's food for me."

  The servant's eyebrows raised before he nodded. "As sir commands."

  Wu Hao hoped he'd never sound like that. Or, he corrected: that he'd never sound like that again. Father had ruined the idea of subservience to anyone for him, no matter who or where. He'd help Jin Qilong only for as long as something was in it for him, and absolutely nothing more than that.

  Jin Qilong turned, then hesitated again, and turned to Wu Hao again.

  "See you tomorrow?" he asked.

  "Probably," Wu Hao said. "Have a nice night, young master."

  Jin Qilong frowned, and Wu Hao very carefully didn't let his smile slip onto his face.

  His trip to the kitchens was, in all honesty, fairly uneventful. Maybe it would have been if he'd been in any mood to pay more attention, but he got handed a plate with a haunch of meat, a few leftover vegetables, and a bowl of steaming white rice. Even that tasted like heaven. Hunger truly was the best sauce, but it was rare that Wu Hao got to indulge.

  Afterwards, he was led to the room by a different servant - their faces were beginning to blur together and their names had never been spoken aloud.

  It wasn't a large room. Others might have described it as cramped, but Wu Hao looked around it twice before realizing that he wouldn't actually have to share it with anyone else. How luxurious was the Jin clan, that they could provide him with an actual room on such short notice?

  Hesitantly, he sat down onto the bed. It felt almost too comfortable, and he got the odd feeling that he was sinking away into the mattress even just by sitting there. Shaking his head, he munched the remnants of his food and set the plate down on the nightstand.

  For a moment more he tried to tell himself to get up, to sit on the floor, and to cultivate - but another part of him, one more driven by instincts than by rational thought, told him to simply lay down.

  He was out like a light the moment his head hit the pillow, but what felt like five minutes later he was awoken by heavy knocking at the door. Whoever was there didn't sound altogether panicked, but there was a certain urgency to them.

  Wu Hao couldn't sense any qi, though, so whoever was out there wasn't a martial artist.

  Fighting a yawn he slipped out of bed in the quiet and the dark, trying to guess at the time. Only thin slivers of moonlight ran through the window, making it impossible to tell.

  He palmed a knife that he'd grabbed from the kitchen and hid it inside his sleeve, then pulled open the door moments after the other party had decided to give up knocking, just to make sure that he wasn't expected.

  In the end, though, it was only Old Qin, who stood there looking a little sheepish.

  "Morning, kid," he said quietly. "Can we talk?"