Sunlight shone through the carvings, slanting beams scorching golden patches onto the table.
A long table drew the boundary, separating the two sides.
Awei stood with his back to the Great Sun, perched atop a brush rest like a blue dragon coiling through the air. His mouthparts opened and closed, his dark-gold limbs waving loftily as he held forth with sweeping confidence. Behind him, translucent long wings spread like blade edges, golden threadlike patterns growing across them, gleaming brilliantly.
Li Xianghan faced the windowsill. She lowered her head, drew her legs together, and knelt properly on a prayer mat, meek and respectful as a quail.
The Golden Winged Heavenly Centipede's shadow fell across her face, along with the silhouettes of its eight wings, claws and fangs brandished like a gigantic black spider that had webbed up her future.
Awei planted his limbs on his waist. "You, can you speak Da Shun Official Speech?"
Li Xianghan shrank her neck and mumbled, "I can understand it but can't speak it. I can speak a little."
Liang Qu raised a limb. "Go learn it!"
"It's too hard..."
"I don't understand Southern Border speech. If you won't learn, do you expect me to accommodate you? This Gu Language Technique babbles nonstop in my head. It gives me a headache."
Li Xianghan sobbed inwardly, grieving boundlessly over her wretched fate, tears nearly falling. Yet under the tyrannical might of Da Shun's King of Huai, she had no choice but to nod.
"You, how old?"
"Twenty-nine. No, after the new year, thirty."
"Oh-ho." Awei turned in a circle, looking her up and down. "Thirty years old, peak third realm. Not bad. If you competed in Da Shun's Martial Examination, you might even win a placing and become one of the Twenty-Eight Mansions."
Pride rose in Li