Chapter 235: 299. Recovery

Before long, Yoshika and Eunae were once again joined by Pan Jiaying—now accompanied by a fuming Li Meili.

“I can’t believe you did that! Forcing her to permanently call you ‘Master’? I honestly thought we were better than that.”

Jia cringed from her own avatar’s rebuke. Without her Melody of the Dreaming Moon technique, Yoshika was back in two bodies.

“We know, we’re sorry! It was just supposed to be once—a little prank. We didn’t realize how strong Eunae’s technique is when actually forcing people to do things.”

Eunae crossed her arms and huffed.

“I tried to warn you! I’ve been telling you how dangerous it is for years.”

Pan Jiaying smiled awkwardly.

“Guys, it’s fine. I knew what I was getting into, and it’s not that bad anyway. It could have gone a lot worse, right? Plus, Eunae says she’s going to fix it.”

“I’m going to try to fix it. I’ve had a breakthrough, but I don’t know how much control it’s actually afforded me.”

Li Meili crossed her arms and scowled.

“Then is it really wise to be using the same test subject you’ve already messed up with?”

Eunae sighed helplessly.

“We don’t exactly have a wealth of volunteers...”

“I could—”

Yoshika swiped a hand through the air to interrupt Li Meili.

“No! Your artificial soul is too fragile, and we don’t know how that might affect us if and when you next reintegrate. We’ve seen the changes Eunae made, and we trust her not to cause any more accidental damage.”

Eunae smiled stiffly.

“I wish I had the same confidence—but I promise that I will be as careful as I possibly can. Pan Jiaying, I am going to attempt to repair the geas I previously placed on you, do you consent to this?”

Pan Jiaying furrowed her brows for a moment.

“I—I think so? Yes—yes I do.”

Li Meili shot Yoshika with an accusatory glare, but Eunae was already focusing inward on her own technique.

She wasn’t sure whether it would work, but Eunae finished her preparations and lifted her veil to meet Pan Jiaying’s eyes. Eunae didn’t have Yoshika’s soul sight projections to help her, but she could feel her own power now, and was able to visualize what she was doing.

Her power didn’t immediately lash out to embrace Pan Jiaying’s soul. Instead, the flaming claws only reached halfway between them before Eunae envisioned herself tightly grasping her own chains to hold them back.

Pan Jiaying blinked.

“Um, I don’t feel any different. Is that supposed to happen?”

Eunae smiled, even as a bead of sweat dripped down her forehead. It was working!

“Y-yes, but this takes a great deal of concentration. Please try to clear your mind and stay focused on my eyes. I need your soul to stay still...”

Pan Jiaying nodded and focused silently while Eunae worked.

Rather than loosening the chains, Eunae fought herself in both directions, holding her power back as she slowly stretched it out across the distance between them. The flame grew thinner and weaker until it was little more than a few faintly flickering threads.

Pan Jiaying gasped slightly as the threads made contact with her soul, but stayed focused on Eunae’s eyes. Eunae had to fight not to close her own eyes in order to concentrate. She’d never used her power like this before. No commands, just direct control of the burning power within her to act against its nature.

With slow, delicate precision, Eunae forced her power to gently pull the wound in Jiaying’s soul back together, willing it to reverse the damage it had done. With excruciating slowness, she stitched the wound together until the natural regeneration of Jiaying’s soul could take over and begin to repair the damage on its own.

Maybe it was her imagination, but Eunae thought she could feel the hands of her inner spirit—that hateful fragment of the Kumiho—laid on top of her own, guiding her movements with a wry smile even as she urged Eunae to reach further and take a firmer grasp.

When Eunae finally sensed her link to Jiaying weakening on its own, she shut her eyes and consciously forced that figment down into the depths of her soul. She’d deal with the Kumiho later—for now, she was just glad to have made things right.

Yoshika cheered excitedly once it was finished.

“You did it! Eunae, that was amazing! We can’t believe you thought you wouldn’t be able to do it! That was—Eunae?”

Eunae felt faint. Her power wasn’t meant to be used that way, and it fought her the entire time. Sweat poured off of her as she suffered the backlash. Just as she began to reel, Yoshika ran forward in time to catch her before she could collapse to the ground.

“Ancestors, Eunae, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’ll...be fine. That’s just...very difficult.”

“We’re so sorry! We didn’t know it would take so much out of you.”

Eunae shook her head and smiled weakly. There was nothing to apologize for—she was proud of her accomplishment.

“It had to be done. Just...don’t expect me to do anything that precise again any time soon. How is Jiaying?”

They looked back to see Pan Jiaying holding her head and frowning. Next to her, Li Meili checked on her condition.

“Are you okay?”

Pan Jiaying nodded slowly.

“I—I think so? My head’s a little fuzzy, like I’ve just woken up from a weird dream.”

“Do you still feel any lingering compulsions?”

“I don’t think I’d be able to tell if I did, but I don’t feel the need to call Yoshika ‘master’ anymore, and while I think Eunae is nice, I’m...a lot more terrified of her now. I should have listened to your warnings.”

Li Meili sighed.

“It sounds like you're all better—or close enough to it.”

Yoshika breathed a sigh of relief, nodding gratefully to Li Meili.

“Eunae and Pan Jiaying should both get some rest. We made a lot of progress, and I think they’ve earned a break.”

As much as Eunae wanted to argue, she was exhausted, and part of her was looking forward to Rika pampering her while she recuperated.

 

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While Eunae and Pan Jiaying rested, Jia paid Luo Mingyu a visit. She found him toiling away over some kind of mixture set up over a complicated spell circle.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Luo Mingyu glanced up from his work and scowled.

“No, I rather think you’ve helped more than enough already.”

Jia winced. She did feel bad about uprooting the poor man’s life and essentially kidnapping him.

“I appreciate that you’re still working on this, even after everything that’s happened.”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? Besides, it’s an interesting problem and I’m not about to just let some poor woman die right in front of me. I did check the girl, by the way—she shows no signs of corruption sickness.”

Jia bowed.

“Thank you, Luo Mingyu. If there’s any way we can repay you, please name it.”

“I’ll take an introduction to Yan Hao or one of his disciples, as a start. You’ve robbed me of my career, so giving it back is the least you could do. For the rest, I’ll have to think it over.”

“I’m afraid I’m not on good terms with Yan Hao himself, but we are on our way to meet one of his former personal disciples. You’re right that it’s the least we could do, so consider us in your debt. If you ever need something from us, just ask—it’s an open offer.”

The alchemist paused his work and looked up at her incredulously.

“You’re serious, aren’t you? You have me completely at your mercy and you’re still offering concessions as insane as an introduction to the Awakening Dragon just out of good faith. Miss Lee, you are a very strange individual.”

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant as one, but suit yourself.”

Jia simply stood in silence and watched him work for a while before he let out an exasperated sigh and looked askance at her.

“Can I help you with anything else, Miss Lee?”

She shrugged.

“I was just interested in your work. I wasn’t lying when I said I had an interest in alchemy—I never got a chance to study it before, unfortunately.”

“Yes, your supposed falling-out with one of the Awakening Dragon’s sect elders. How exactly is it that a pair of foreigners managed to make enemies of the most powerful sect in the empire?”

“You don’t want to know. Suffice it to say that their accusations are baseless.”

Luo Mingyu grunted noncommittally.

“I’m sure. Well, if you want to learn alchemy, you can do it elsewhere. You’ve taken enough from me already, don’t you think? Speaking of which, have you made any progress on breaking the links to our spiritual tablets? This whole conversation is rather meaningless if you end up having to silence us the old fashioned way, no?”

Jia frowned.

“I’m sure you don’t believe me, but even if we don’t find a way to stop the sects from tracking you, I have no intention of killing you or letting you die.”

“The princess doesn’t agree, and you’ve already admitted that you can’t undermine her. I actually do believe you, Lee Jia. But I believe Seong Misun more. I was impressed with your formation before, but she made this one in an instant. There’s no doubt in my mind who truly holds my fate in their grasp—and it’s not you.”

“She did? That’s unexpected—I assumed you made this on your own.”

He shook his head.

“I told you I’m no inscriptionist. After seeing it in action, I’m forced to admit that Goryeon spellcraft greatly outstrips our own inscription techniques. In any case, I ask again—have you made progress? My life almost certainly depends on it.”

Jia bit her lip and nodded.

“Some, yes. I don’t know if it’s enough, or if it’s going to be enough. There’s no doubt that Eunae can break the connection, but it’s a matter of whether she can do it without completely mangling your soul in the process.”

Luo Mingyu shuddered.

“It’s chilling to hear you speak so frankly about a magic that I was taught is completely impossible. Still, let me go on record saying that if you must choose between either fundamentally altering or completely ending my existence, I would prefer the former.”

“Noted...I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

“Much obliged. Now if you’ll excuse me, these next few steps are rather sensitive and I’d prefer not to be disturbed.”

Jia recognized the dismissal and bowed before taking her leave.

 

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It took a surprisingly long time for Luo Mingyu to finish the elixir. Over the course of two days, Eunae continued to carefully test the limits of her newfound control. If she actively concentrated on it, she could avoid enthralling people who met her gaze, but it was exhausting to maintain so she kept up her usual habits—besides, it wasn’t like Misun was going to budge on the veil.

Pan Jiaying made a full recovery, with no lingering signs of any damage to her soul, but was less than enthusiastic to continue acting as a test subject for Eunae’s powers. Instead, Ja Yun ended up volunteering—though that just made Eunae even more worried about potential missteps.

For Yoshika’s part, she took the opportunity to recoup some of her recent losses. Creating Li Meili had taken a lot out of her, and it was growing increasingly likely that she wouldn’t be getting it back on a permanent basis. She had mixed feelings about Li Meili, but she was determined to see her decisions through to the end.

It felt like it had been forever since she’d just sat and cultivated. The meditation was therapeutic, in a way. Recent events had shown her some of the cracks in her foundation, and it felt good to just quietly meditate on those issues while recovering her spent power.

Before anything else, she needed to check on her soul. Something had snapped painfully when she tried to smack sense into Eunae, and she needed to make sure that it wouldn’t be an immediate problem. It wasn’t hard to find, now that she knew how. She dug deep into her soulscape and stripped away all the layers of abstraction until nothing was left but the raw incomprehensible storm of being that was the core of her soul.

The scar was still there, as clear as ever. Clearer, even—whatever force had compelled her to avoid looking at it was gone. Instead, she could see clearly where a fresh wound had reopened, deepening the scar in some way that Yoshika didn’t know how to interpret. Apparently, whatever plans the Kumiho had for her hadn’t ended yet, but she wasn’t in any immediate danger.

Setting that aside, her mind wandered to the subject of Li Meili’s identity crisis, and what it had revealed about her own feelings on identity. Yoshika had always believed herself to be greater than the sum of her parts—she was more than just Jia and Eui, she was both of them and herself. Yet it was clear to her now that she was missing something.

Deep within her, there was a pit of dread at the thought of being just Yoshika. That she might lose parts of Jia or Eui forever, or that the imbalances between them would become irreconcilable. She had seen that dread manifested in Li Meili, and while her avatar was handling it a little better now, with the support of Pan Jiaying, Yoshika suspected it was only a matter of time before she broke down again.

Ultimately, she had gotten so caught up in being Jia and Eui, that she had forgotten to define what it meant to be Yoshika. It wasn’t a simple thing to solve—there was no easy answer. It was something she would have to search for.

Mercifully, she had a few ideas about where to look. Li Meili was an obvious one—she’d mostly avoided her avatar since she’d made the choice to try existing independently, but perhaps a conversation would do them good. Muddy was another avenue—she’d been meaning to check up on the development of the little elemental’s latent soul, and perhaps there was something to learn from its own exploration of self-identification.

A third option stirred deep within her soulscape, stretching like a cat as if she’d just woken up from a short nap. Though Yoshika could sense that she was still weak, Heian had finally recovered enough strength to manifest herself once more.

At nearly the same time, Yoshika was snapped out of her meditation by a triumphant cheer from Luo Mingyu.

“It’s done! By the emperor, this is a work of art and none of you know enough about alchemy to appreciate it.”

The alchemist held a single small golden pill aloft, softly glowing in the light but overflowing with powerful essence. His elixir was ready.