While Zhang Xing was embroiled in a difficult incident at the Southern Office, the eldest daughter of Chancellor Bai Hengqiu, who had been cursed to leave no descendants, returned to what might have been the place she knew best-Mount Taibai, southwest of Wugong County in Guanzhong, behind Daxing in the Western Capital.
The mountain paths of Mount Taibai were rough, and its summit lay under snow all year round, but Bai Sanniang walked as though on level ground, untouched by heat or cold. This did, however, mean that she had not ridden her True Qi into the sky, but had chosen to climb on foot.
This was the birthplace of the Three-One Orthodox Church, the ancestral seat of what was called the world's largest religion, and the place where Bai Yousi had studied under her master since the age of twelve.
When she easily reached the summit, the head of the Three-One Orthodox Church, Bai Yousi's master, Daoist Chonghe-a Great Grandmaster ranked third on the Heaven Ranking in public, but very possibly first in reality-was lecturing on the Azure Emperor's Great Mystery Scripture in a side room of his modest Daoist temple. Twenty or thirty little troublemakers in clean, coarse cotton-padded jackets sat inside, all twelve or thirteen years old, growing drowsy in the stove's heat.
Without a word, Bai Yousi sat on the steps outside with her back to the door, her longsword in her arms. Listening to the lecture behind her, she watched the clearing ahead, where roughly as many boys and girls of fifteen or sixteen were trying to circulate their qi in the cold air, training, opening their meridians, and practicing pushes and pulls with True Qi. Now and then, they looked curiously her way.
Bai Yousi knew that somewhere out of sight, another group of