I sat in the garden after I returned and flipped the talismans back and forth in my hands, still a little uncertain. But however I looked at them, I couldn’t find anything that made these sheets stand out from the rest.

“Something wrong?” Bai Ye noticed my strangeness when he passed through the corridor.

“I’m not quite sure …” I flashed the talisman sheets I was holding. “These are the supplies I picked up at the main peak this morning. The person that gave them to me fetched these out of a different pile from the rest, so I wonder if there is anything special about them. I haven’t found anything yet though, maybe I’m just overly suspicious.”

“It never hurts to be cautious,” he strode over and sat down next to me. “Let me take a look.”

I handed him one of the sheets and watched him examine it carefully.

As simple as our exchange was, I realized in retrospect that it wasn’t something which would have happened two weeks ago—as his disciple, I would’ve never bothered him with inconsequential matters like this, especially when I didn’t even have any solid reasons for my suspicions. But now that we had grown so close to each other, other things between us started to change subtly as well. I became more at ease to share everything with him, and I felt less guilty of troubling him to help me.

Maybe this was what family was like, I thought. I wished that our lives would stay this way forever.

“What is the purpose of this talisman?” he asked after a little while, breaking my reveries.

I blinked. Even I could recognize the symbol of the defensive spell. Why did he need to ask?

He read the question in my eyes. “Watch,” he said and laid his forefinger on top of the talisman’s symbol. A white light glowed from his fingertip, illuminating the drawing and gilding it in a bright halo. The symbol swirled and drifted like a fluid—the sign of its power awakening at his summoning—and a black wisp of smoke escaped from its center.

My eyes went wide. There was unmistakable malice in the dark spiritual power it released. How could a defensive talisman contain such hostility?

“Zhong Yilan is clever,” Bai Ye said, “she found a symbol that is almost identical to the one that is supposed to be assigned to you.” He pointed at a corner of the drawing. “The only difference is this line here. Connecting these two figures makes the spell defensive. Separating them, however, makes it a power suspension.”

I gasped. Power suspension was similar to defense in a lot of ways, except the effect would apply to both the user and the target, blocking not only the attack but also the user’s own spiritual power flow.

“How do you know it’s her that did it?” I asked. It was a natural guess, but from the way Bai Ye spoke, he seemed to be certain of it.

“There are residuals of her spiritual power left on this sheet from when she modified it.” His eyes narrowed. “She planned well. The shielding effect from this symbol is similar enough to the defensive spell, and the blockage of your power flow would be too subtle for you to notice immediately. If she challenges you at the outset of the tournament before everyone else and pushes you to resort to these talismans, you won’t even know how you lost to her.”

And if she forced me to use all three—which wouldn’t be difficult given her fast and aggressive style of attacks—I would have no proof left of what happened at all.

A chill climbed up my spine. She was truly a viper.

I reached out to take the talisman back from Bai Ye’s hands. “I’ll go swap them for the real ones—”

He gave me a dark look. “You should show everyone else her doings, Qing-er. Don’t be so lenient towards people that want to do you harm.”

I winced at the vengefulness in his voice, and it reminded me of what I heard about Chu Xi yesterday in the back mountains. He was right though. If I keep letting them see me as an easy target, they’ll never stop. But retaliation was never an idea that came naturally to me, and I always wished that if I simply stayed out of their way, they would eventually forget about those old hatreds and let it go.

“What grudges does Zhong Yilan hold against me anyway?” I mumbled.

Bai Ye sighed and clasped his hands over mine. “It was my fault. When she and Chu Xi reached the age to start their cultivation, the Gatekeeper had asked me to take them in. I refused. They might still be holding on to the misbelief that they are more entitled to being my disciples than you are.”

I hadn’t heard of that part of history before. This was the whole reason why they resented me so much that they’d see me dead or expelled at all costs?

“I know you’ve always wanted to prove yourself stronger than them, Qing-er,” he continued, “but that’s not enough to stop people like these. They are too vain to ever truly respect you. You have to make them fear you.”

“Fear me?”

“Make them understand that you have the power to take what they want away from them, if they keep standing in your way. Zhong Yilan wants everyone to see her as a perfect girl with a kind heart, so show everyone who she really is.”

I considered it. A part of me told myself that I shouldn’t return an eye for an eye, but another part of me couldn’t stop hearing her vile words from the bet echoing in my ears: “You’ll kneel before me and kiss my feet, and you’ll leave Mount Hua on your own accord and never return.” It disgusted me, and I suddenly realized that the thought of exposing her despicable thoughts to the entire Mount Hua, along with her malicious sabotages, was satisfying.

I looked at Bai Ye, trying to suppress my mixed emotions at discovering my dark,  vindictive side. He seemed to be helping me unearth a small piece of my hidden self every day. “Will you help me?” I asked.

A bright smile appeared on his face.