I wake up, energized for my first day of training with Master Xia. Xiao Yue, Qingtu, and all the other servants are still in bed because it’s only dawn. Luckily, I don’t depend on servants to dress me unlike Liling.

Because I will be moving around, I’m dressed in simpler garb than usual. But with my natural beauty, I look good in anything. Today I’m wearing a simple pale purple hanfu wrap, with dark purple ribbons that go around my waist and smaller sleeves. On the shoulder of my hanfu I have embroidered lotus flowers, to symbolize how pure and amazing I am. I am wearing cloth shoes embroidered with more lotuses and my hair is in a bun held by a band with more lotus flowers. I realize that having so much symbolism on my clothes might be a little overkill for some people, but not me, because everyone needs to see how amazing, despite being so innocent, I am. 

After checking over to make sure I’m wearing the clothes right, I head outside. For the first few days, Master Xia and his disciples will come down from the mountain to train with me as the hike up takes three hours without flying. 

In a small clearing just outside our house, I find the disciples warming up. Qiao and Zhiqiang spot me and wave enthusiastically while Hu buries his head in his hands.

“Hey, Hu! Miss me?” I say, preening cutely.

“Just because we’re training together doesn’t mean we’re dating,” Hu warns me, before turning away and ignoring me. 

“Hu,” I sigh. It’s getting quite annoying that he keeps doing this, even though it was endearing at first. “Let’s drop all that pretense and go into a no-limits partnership, ok?”

Hu snorts as if I’ve said something funny. “The last people who said that were the presidents of China and Russia.”

“Whaaat?” I ask. Hu’s always like this, making weird remarks when I’m trying to be sincere with him. “What’s Russia? Nevermind. It must be one of your imaginary countries again.”

“Lisu,” Qiao breaks in. “Why don’t you do warm up stretches with me instead of him? He clearly doesn’t appreciate you enough.”

Well, I suppose doing something like that will make Hu jealous. Normally, I would never employ jealousy to get what I want, since that’s what Liling does. But this is Hu, and it’s obvious he will need some subtle nudging to realize that we are meant to be together. “Sure, of course! Since someone obviously doesn’t want to hang out with such an amazing person…”

I follow Qiao to another spot. He leads me in stretching and doing warmup moves. Secretly, I glance back towards Hu and find that he has a relieved expression on his face. I don’t quite get it. He should be sad that he isn’t able to train with me. This makes me so upset that I want to run to him and cry, but I force myself to continue on, not looking at him. He’ll definitely be jealous eventually. 

We’ve trained for some time before Master Xia flies in. 

“Alright! What time is it? Why are you all up so early?” he yawns, evidently haven just rolled out of bed.

“You told us to come here by dawn,” Qiao glares. “It’s almost noon. Are you telling me you forgot about our training?”

Master Xia lifts his hands in the air, stretching. “Whatever. Anyways, let’s get started. We’ll be starting off by reviewing some things so Lisu can catch up.”

“Yay!” I say enthusiastically. “I’m so excited to train with my boyfriend~”

“We are not dating!” Hu groans. “And why do you suddenly have such a weird tone? You sound like an anime character.”

“I don’t know what anime means but since you’re specifically using an English word to describe me it must mean something like amazing or brilliant!” I say, happy that he’s finally flirting with me. 

“That’s not even an English word, it’s Japanese!”

“Wow, you learned another language just for me? That’s so romantic!”

Hu makes a sound that sounds weirdly like frustration. “Why can’t you understand that we are not dating?”

“Alright, enough with you lovebirds,” Zhiqiang says goodnaturedly. “Master Xia’s been waiting for a long time.”

“Zhiqiang??” Hu gives Zhiqiang a frustrated look, obviously annoyed to have been cut off in our romantic moment. “You too?”

“Come on,” Zhiqiang pulls both of us toward where Master Xia has been impatiently tapping his foot. 

“Now that everyone is gathered, we’ll start with one of the first things every cultivator learns,” Master Xia says, pointing to a tall tree. The trunk stretches high, almost touching the sky. It’s stripped bare of its branches until the very top. A red line painted with berry juice lies halfway up the tree. “Your task is to get to that red line. I don’t believe in explaining things so go figure things out by yourself. I’m going to take a nap.”

With that, Master Xia shambles away to a nearby bench, where he lies down and is asleep in a matter of seconds.

“Yeah, he’s like that sometimes,” Zhiqiang sighs. “Do you want me to demonstrate?”

“Sure!” I say. 

Zhiqiang walks to the base of the tree, where he takes a running leap. Then he begins running up the tree as if it were flat ground. When he reaches the line, he turns around and starts running back down, still perpendicular to the tree trunk.

“Woah,” I say, amazed.

“That’s the first step to Qinggong,” Qiao explains. “With Qinggong, you can fly, run over water, jump over walls or long distances, and other cool stuff.”

Zhiqiang comes back. “But don’t worry if you don’t get it the first time. It took us two years of constantly falling off the tree before we were able to do it.”

Cautiously, I make my way over to the tree. “I’m kind of worried. What if I fall?”

“Don’t be,” Zhiqiang says reassuringly. “There’s a mattress on the bottom to catch you.”

“I would be a lot more reassured if someone was at the base with their arms out, waiting to catch me like a princess,” I say, winking at Hu furiously. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re probably going to be amazing, don’t worry. If you get at least a couple of feet in the air, then you’re basically a prodigy,” Zhiqiang says, gently pushing me forward.

“Ok…” I say. “I’m trying!”

What happens next is something I can’t describe. I copy Zhiqiang, taking a running leap onto the tree. I expected myself to fall, but I just kept running, and running up the tree. It feels as natural as running on normal ground, and I barely notice how high I’m getting. I pass the red line and then I jump off the tree and do a triple backflip in midair, before suspending myself higher and swooping around. It’s a feeling similar to flying, and it must look like that’s what I’m doing, but I know that I’m manipulating gravity with my qi core to do it. After flying several rounds above the sky, I carefully touch down onto the ground, where everyone is openmouthed. Even Master Xia has woken up from his slumber to gape at me with awe.

“Well, I guess I’m just that amazing,” I say super humbly. “I didn’t even expect myself to be this awesome at cultivation, but I guess I just am super brilliant.”

“You’re not just super brilliant,” Zhiqiang gasps. “You’re a super genius prodigy!”

“I don’t think ‘super genius prodigy’ is a word,” Hu says skeptically. As usual, he’s the only one not impressed. “And I think that’s just her Mary Sue powers at work.”

I still don’t know what Mary Sue means, but if they named a word after me that must be a compliment. “Hu, don’t give me so much praise. I’m just a normal teenage girl, with just a little above average traits, like my astounding intelligence, my incredible athleticism, my-”

“We get it! You’re super awesome and whatever,” Hu rolls his eyes. “Can we please move on?”

“Thanks!”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Well, I know that when you’re being sarcastic you’re using it to cover up your true feelings because you’re afraid of people letting you know how much you care for me so therefore you do think I am super awesome. So of course I have to thank you because I am also super humble and gracious.”

Hu stalks away. “This is getting tiring, and I’ve only known you for a week.”

“And your no-go attitude is also getting tiring, but I’ll forgive that!” I call after him.

We continue to take turns running up the tree, and after Master Xia deems me to have enough practice, flying around town. When we get back after a lap around the mountain, he’s gone. There’s a hastily drawn sign saying ‘I’m tired, going to get sleep. Class dismissed.’

“He does that a lot,” Qiao grumbles, but looks relieved at being able to spend the rest of the day off.

“Want to go somewhere together?” Zhiqiang asks us. “We’ve never had a chance to really talk and relax together, Lisu.”

“There’s nowhere in this town to go except the Liu Family Restaurant,” Hu says. “And I already went there yesterday. It’s still as vomit-inducing as ever.”

“You’re right,” Zhiqiang sighs. “I wonder why Master Xia chose this reclusive town as his home. There’s nothing to do.”

“Then would you like to come with me?” a saccharine voice rings out from the courtyard. I turn around and grimace. It’s my evil stepsister, Liling. She’s wearing a loose-fitting hanfu with an extremely low rim; an extremely revealing outfit that shouldn’t have been allowed. Swinging her hips seductively, she saunters over to Zhiqiang. 

Zhiqiang seems pleasantly surprised. “You want to hang out with me?”

“Why, of course. You’re from Yucheng, right? We share the same hometown, so of course we should get to know each other better!”

Zhiqiang smiles hesitantly. “Well, if you ask, I won’t disagree.”

Liling gives me a smug sneer, before linking her arm with Zhiqiang. I glare back. “Zhiqiang, don’t listen to that evil schemer. She just wants you for the money!”

“Well, maybe because you’re stepsisters, you don’t get along well. I haven’t really talked to Liling much yet, and I’d like to get to know her better,” Zhiqiang replies. With that, he and Liling walk out of the courtyard together, chatting. 

Qiao rolls his eyes. “What does she see in Zhiqiang anyway? I’m going back to the dorms.”

With that, he stalks out of the courtyard. I turn around and see Hu with a dark expression on his face. It seems like he agrees with me for once.

“Hey, we should spy on them,” I tell him. 

Hu turns towards me, surprised. “You? Spying on someone? Doesn’t that go against your rules of righteousness and benevolence and whatever?”

“Well, Liling is extremely evil and therefore I am perfectly justified in spying on her,” I explain patiently. Hu can be a little dense sometimes, but I won’t tell him that.

“No way am I spending more time with you than I have to!” Hu groans.

I’m getting quite annoyed. Why wouldn’t he want to be with me, the most amazing girl in town? But if so, I have an arsenal of other arguments. “Zhiqiang is your friend. Do you really want someone as nice as him to be entrapped in the schemes of my evil stepsister?”

“You have a point,” Hu agrees reluctantly. “Although I don’t think she’s evil, more like horribly vain.”

“So let’s go make sure Zhiqiang and Liling don’t get together!” I urge him.

“Do it yourself. I’m going back,” Hu starts walking away but I chase after him.

“Wait! Amazing as I am, this isn’t a one person job. I need your help!”

“I don’t think you should interfere with Zhiqiang and Liling. He’ll come to his senses by himself eventually.”

“Or he’ll come to his senses when he’s trapped in a loveless marriage with her siphoning out all of his family’s funds! At least do this for Zhiqiang!”

 Hu considers this for a moment before finally nodding. “Fine. If this will get you to stop bothering me, I’ll do it.”

“Yay!” I cheer, knowing he is secretly doing this for me.