It started off innocently enough, Lin Bao reflected.

“These will be good jobs to get to know your superiors and to have them think favourably of you. I know you’re both competent men, Lin Bao, Hong San, else I would not have made the recommendation.” Their kindly Senior smiled at them, but Bao knew it was strained. The man looked like he hadn’t been getting much sleep and, well, there were rumors that he had been caught up in a cultivator attack, of all things.

Poor fellow. There was a shakiness to his hands that wasn’t there before.

Bao looked down at the slips and considered the job description. It boiled down to being minor clerks who would be called on to do anything from filing paperwork to auditing account books. Little better than servants with slightly higher status with access to restricted areas.

Disappointing, he had hoped for better but their Senior was probably right. The man had had some of the best scores in centuries until they suddenly dropped off. Bao was smart enough not to pry into the reasons, lest offense be taken.

“Thank you for your assistance, Senior,” San replied simply. Bao smiled slightly at his dutiful and serious friend. His own experiences of life in a little village always made what Bao considered hard work not too hard at all—and Bao certainly wasn’t going to let his friend think he was soft! Well, it was better than stumbling around.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Bao said as they took the slips. “Now… what do we owe for this favour?”

It was the nature of Pale Moon Lake City that one did not give without receiving in turn.

San got that mildly surprised look on his face, while their Senior smiled.

“You’ll go far, Lin Bao. As for the favour… I need some hands organising these with me. It won’t take too long.” Their Senior gestured to a pile of maps and what looked to be information on the various Commandaries and Magisterial positions in the Azure Hills.

Oh? Their Senior was looking to make it big. Where did he want to be assigned? Something like the Dueling Peaks? Or perhaps Grass Sea City? It was an amusing thought exercise as he worked, his attention split between it and the easy task of organization. It was strange that others struggled, but that was just his gift. It was barely an hour gone, with their Senior looking pleased at their work, when Xian spoke up.

“All of these are missing Verdant Hill,” he said, sounding confused as he leafed through the pages of paper.

“… I beg your pardon?” Their Senior turned his head to look at San, who was frowning at the map.

“Yes, Senior. It’s marked as being filled in the most recent maps, but the Magistrate has been dead for years now,” San replied. “Was there a paperwork error? They’ve been waiting for a new Magistrate to be dispatched, but none have appeared. I suppose this is why.”

“Truly?” The man suddenly seemed interested. “What sort of town is Verdant Hill?”

“It’s a boring, sleepy place, where nothing much of anything happens,” San said with a shrug.

“Oh? No cultivators to deal with?” He said it like it was some grand jape, but Bao could feel the intent in his words. The underlying terror.

“Not in centuries, I would say. The Sects of the South stay in the south, and there aren’t really even bandits.”

Their Senior’s eyes went far away for a moment before he shook his head. “I’ll make sure everything gets fixed,” he promised, suddenly seeming a bit happier. “I’ll have the post filled within the year, mark my words.”

San blinked, and then smiled tentatively as the man went about his business.

And then Bao and San started their first day, and got their first real job—

Weeding a garden in the palace.

Bao had been extremely angry about the assignment, barely managing to keep it under wraps. They were highly educated men! They shouldn’t be weeding!

When he arrived and found out it was a garden of medicinal herbs he was mollified. It ended up being less of a chore than Bao thought, requiring someone with knowledge to do the work. San started up a conversation with the elderly caretaker, who was extremely pleased to talk to Bao’s friend about medicine. It was always interesting learning new things, and the old man was a fountain of information and juicy gossip.

He so enjoyed himself that the old man bid them come back the next day, and they obliged him, helping him fill out orders and assisting him with all the minutiae of dealing with herbs. All mundane matters, until one of the other shifts had the absolute gall to steal some herbs—including an extremely expensive herb that had Qi in it.

With Bao and San’s combined intellects, however, the perpetrators were caught. They had made several mistakes in their heist—a spot of mud, a recently moved door, the size of the shoes matching… They swiftly managed to bring justice down upon the thieves’ heads, recovering all the herbs. All, except the expensive, Qi filled one, for even under intense… ah, questioning the men insisted that they’d left it in what had turned out to be an empty cache.

Their victory slightly soured, they had complained about it to Liling, who had taken to hanging around them. Bao was still a little uncertain of the guttersnipe, but she hadn’t stolen any of their money, so he found himself relaxing around her.

And then she dropped the firecracker of a claim that she could find the damn thing for them.

“You can smell Qi? I don’t believe you!” Bao shot at the ragamuffin, who looked entirely too smug. He was standing up, with his hands planted on the table, glaring at her.

“Damn right I can. How about this: I take you to the weird smell, and if it’s the herb… you give me your part of the reward,” Liling replied with a vicious grin on her face, similarly standing. The look she had nearly made Bao hesitate, but… well, either he gained some prestige or he got to put the smug ass in her place. Win, win.

“And if I win, you’ll refer to me as Master Bao.” Liling grimaced, but then spat in her hand and held it out for him to shake in some barbaric inner city oath.

San wasn’t paying attention, forgivable seeing that—Liling was practically shoving her arse in his face as she leaned across the table to leer at Bao.

She knew that she was doing it too, the harlot. Bao had warned his friend about this devilish woman! He was entirely too pure for this lewd monster! He caught barely any of her innuendo! She constantly tried to distract his friend, and corrupt his brilliant mind!

So Bao made a deal with the beast.

Liling found the herb in an out of the way storage house, moved there inadvertently by a maid who found it while cleaning.

Bao had cursed long and hard at the stupid, smug grin that San later described as a pretty smile.

Really! A pretty smile! Bao knew much better women for San rather than the insolent, blemished—ugh. Nice, soft girls like the Daughter of the Chow family, who weren’t so crass and crude and wouldn’t interrupt the time he spent with his intellectual equal.

They gained a reputation after that as reliable men that catapulted them both skywards.

A plot to poison a minor official foiled, as it turned out San was immune to that particular poison from accidentally poisoning himself in his youth with the same concoction. Seeing San’s bland, bored pronouncement of “this is poisoned” after San drank the tea meant for another had panicked Bao so much he punched San in the stomach to make him vomit it up.

His friend had been laughing the entire time!

An inheritance dispute settled—because one fool was worse than he thought at forging signatures. Bao had taken great delight in tearing the man down, and seeing the despair in his eyes while San played the part of the muscle.

A woman healed of, of all things, poisoning by her own white, lead-based makeup! San had been absolutely furious at that one, and Bao had had to go through and convince thirty two noble ladies that the substance was bad for them. They were more inclined to listen to his upper district accent then San’s slightly rougher speech.

It was exciting. It was stimulating! Liling occasionally played a role since the street rat was… well, she was far, far more intelligent and observant than Bao had thought. Her interruptions were becoming less annoying as she revealed a quick mind behind the gutter speech. She was poor and uneducated, not stupid, and the small amount of time San and Bao had spent teaching the woman had paid dividends. Bao had even discovered that he rather liked teaching… or at least teaching people as smart as Liling.

The lessons had even spawned a truce of sorts… which led to a night of all three of them thinking of solutions that could be implemented for the poor of the city. Liling had been, well, he wouldn’t say touched by his observations and ideas, but the insults of the prickly weed of a woman lost their bite.

She was almost a friend…despite her shamelessly flirting with San all the time. Bao had given up on that front.

Life was good.

Until the veiled woman came to them.

The veiled woman had no name yet the senior officials had told them to obey without question.

She brought them to a body so savaged Bao nearly vomited from the carnage. San, however, seemed as calm as ever.

“How are you not—” Bao managed to gasp out.

“What sort of healer hasn’t seen any dead bodies?” San replied, his voice tight. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. It will pass, my friend.”

Bao swallowed thickly, thankful for his friend’s calm countenance, and turned to the mystery woman.

“The assassination attempt was aimed at me. I am told you are skilled men, who can investigate anything and uncover the truth of the matter. Do not fail me in this,” she commanded.

Bao and San swallowed and got to work.

An attempted assassination. A convoluted plot that left a trail straight to the highest echelons of the Azure Hills. A pervasive smell that Liling spoke of, that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

And then there was the stalker. Someone, something that didn’t want them to find out the truth. The danger grew far beyond what any sane person could take But they were in far, far too deep.

They found a series of blood splatters that revealed where the assailant fled.

It led to a trip through the sewers, where there were rats the size of dogs and fish the size of boats. There, they gained a description of the assailant from the lost and the broken who lived there and the words he had uttered to his employer.

All culminating in an infiltrated party, to find correspondence of a noble who had their fingers in the plot.

San stared blankly at the jade beauty before him. Clad in fine silks, her hair was done up to expose the smooth cream nape of her neck in the style popular with noble women. Her amethyst eyes drew all who stared into their depths.

“Good morn to you, noble sir,” she said in greeting. Her voice was smooth, elegant and refined.

San stared at Liling, his mouth open.

“She cleans up quite well—as you can see, my skills are quite amazing, no? Even this thistle can be a rose!” Bao boasted. “You know, it’s actually quite annoying that you look this good.”

“Awww, shaddup,” Liling groused in her thick inner city accent, showing no trace of the elegance from before as she picked at her silk clothes. “There’s a pound of this shit on my face to cover up my freckles. Let’s get this crap ova with!”

And so they escorted the new noble lady to their destination, a party in the Noble District—or as Liling called it, “Ass Avenue.”

“Hey. San…” Liling asked as they got into the carriage that would take them to their destination.

“Yes, Liling?”

“… do I look good?”

San turned and considered her carefully.

“Yes. You look good. But… I like you better without it,” he replied.

San thought it rather a shame she and Bao had covered up her freckles. They were quite charming, the more he looked at them.

Liling’s face turned crimson even through the white on her face. Bao rolled his eyes.

Their gambit was successful. They got into the party, got the letter… and then they got caught by the First Daughter and Young Mistress of the Wu Clan. A rather nasty woman who had spent the whole night laughing about how her relative had been crippled, when she wasn’t insulting Liling.

The woman started threatening them… until Liling just hauled off and smashed her fist into the cow’s face, breaking her nose and knocking her out cold.

But what they read in that letter didn’t solve things. Instead, it only served to make the conspiracy worse.

Things after that somehow, impossibly, became more serious.

A vicious game of cat and mouse; of plans and counter plans, of piecing together evidence guided by Liling’s ability to smell Qi.

A false accusation leveled at two scribes. Their rooms were ransacked, their possessions stolen… and their own heads were on the chopping block, accused of the crime they were trying to solve. Liling missing and presumed dead.

That had been the worst day.

Until she turned back up, dressed like a boy and bearing everything they needed.

A message to the veiled woman… and a chase on a horse drawn carriage, while cultivators of all things dueled around them.

Bao’s high pitched scream of panic filled the air, broken occasionally by his commands to steer the carriage in one direction or another.

San with a sword out, as the brave fool cut arrows out of the air with it, and used a slab of wood as a shield for Bao. Despite his defense, he had three arrows sticking out of his hastily padded clothes.

Liling, driving the damn thing and screaming at the horses to go faster even as their mortal assailants caught up, the cultivators distracting each other for the moment.

A flash of light. An arrow from where San couldn’t defend.

Bao, still screaming, threw his arm in front of San, the arrow punching all the way through it and nearly into San’s liver.

They defended each other. They bled for each other. And in the end, they reached their destination, with minutes to spare.

A Scribe, an Apprentice Archivist, and a scullery maid presented their findings to a court, and to an amused-looking veiled woman.

Their reward? Their names stripped from the record, and any involvement they had in the crisis redacted. It was simultaneously the best and worst payment that they had ever received.

Oh, they got some silver later, and the veiled lady gave all three of them strange talismans that she said would protect them… but…

It was really all they could take out of Pale Moon Lake City. Everything else was better left behind.

Liling sighed, and took a swig of her bottle, looking at the two men who were sitting with her.

“Fuck! This sucks!” Liling whined after a moment, snuggling into San’s arms. He reached absently around her, and pulled her tight against his chest. It was exceedingly comfortable.

“It does. But… it’s better than the alternative.” Bao sighed, the skinny man looking exhausted, with his arm in a sling. Liling was worried. People with wounds like that lost their arms more often than not on the streets, but San had said he would be fine. Damn skinny bastard had made her worry about him! “I dare say we got out well, didn’t we, Brother San?”

“Yes, we did, Brother Bao. It’s a shame but… I think this may be for the best. I’ve had enough excitement for one lifetime.”

Of course, the boys had to do that whole manly man thing and swear brotherhood to each other. They both had dopey smiles at calling each other brother, but… well, she wouldn’t interfere. They had earned this, and Bao had saved San’s life. Liling owed him for a lifetime because of that… but the only thing she could really give was the fact that she could cook. Eh, he said he really liked those pork belly dumplings she made.

Though speaking of the dumplings

“You’ve eaten quite a lot of those…” Liling ventured at the once mound of food in front of them.

“You only live once! And food is too good to not enjoy!” Bao replied, though there was a slightly manic edge to it. “The bigger question is… what do we do now?”

The table became silent, and then San spoke.

“Verdant Hill. Like I said to our Senior. It’s a quiet backwater. Nobody will ever care about us if we’re there. There’s enough work that needs to be done that I doubt we’ll ever be bored.”

Bao considered it, then nodded, stuffing another dumpling in his mouth.

“Well. That’s all good for you two, I guess, but what the hells am I going to do?” Liling demanded.

San blinked, cocking his head to the side. “Come with us and marry me?” he stated, as if it was obvious.

Liling paused. Then her face flushed.

“… I guess I can do that,” she whispered.

They started drinking again.

“Oh, the ol’ spry whore, the ol’ spry whore, and the donkey that came in her back door~!” Bao, Liling, and San slurred together, as they downed another bottle of rice wine—and then Liling got an idea.

One Bao found hilarious.

Liling ran her tongue slowly up San’s bare chest, wine trailing in her wake. “Tasty,” she said with a throaty moan, while Bao howled with laughter.

Thirty two days after they left Pale Moon Lake City, they caught sight of Verdant Hill. It really was a small place, Bao reflected, compared to Pale Moon Lake City. But at least they were finally there, and he wouldn’t have to pretend to ignore San and Liling’s “subtle” sneaking off into the forest.

But there was something off about it. Something that differed from San’s stories.

“… it’s a lot cleaner than I remember,” San said, sounding a bit confused.

Indeed, the streets were pristine and the sound of construction echoed out from the town. The people looked happy and determined. It was quite the nice place, and as they walked through it, they were struck by the fact that the Palace still looked quite run down, particularly compared to the rest of the revitalized town.

They spent the night in the tavern, where they spoke to many people, all of whom had good things to say about the newly appointed Lord Magistrate. A man of the people,they called him.

So it was with great enthusiasm that they went to speak with their new employer.

They blinked with shock at the Lord Magistrate. Their kindly Senior, now the Lord Magistrate of Verdant Hill, blinked back.

“As I said; the town would have a Magistrate within the year,” he reminded them as primly as he could.