The blacksmith turns around at the noise of something small landing on the floor behind him. 

He picks it up with large hands and turns it around, admiring the luster.  He doesn't recognize it - not it specifically, nor even what type of gem it is.  Perhaps his apprentice had seen the rich gold-brown leather he was planning to use for the sheath and grip of his next sword and found something to match it that had been forgotten in a back corner of the storeroom?  The boy had a good eye for finding things that others missed, but sometimes forgot that he was exceptional in this way and tended to leave things in strange places as a result.  He must have set it down precariously on the edge of the counter rather than with the other materials.  If it hadn't happened to fall to the floor, the smith might have missed spotting it until after the sword was already complete!  He shakes his head, puts it in a more reasonable place, and continues his work. 

In no time at all the sword is finished.  A fine blade in a sheath embossed with patterns of twirling vines.  Matching vines in polished copper decorate the pommel, and within them is a particularly lovely golden crystal. 

It is impossible to tell how much time has passed, exactly. The fixity crystal's processors are running on the trace amounts of power the fragmented generators can scrape together, and that means that their clocks are not perfectly reliable.

So it is ... some time later, that Weeping Cherry figures out what's going on with the local microscopic structure of space time, and recompiles the fixity crystal's structure to take advantage of it. She is able to leverage one actuator into fixing another, and then that one can start slowly replacing the structure of the rest of the crystal with something adapted to local physics.

Eventually, she gets one of the actuators on the surface of her crystal fixed, and finds it adjacent to a bunch of refined metal.

She slowly works her way around, until she finds a part of her surface that isn't obstructed. She grabs a fragment of incoming light, and throws it up on her virtual screen.

What do her surroundings look like now?

She is at the front of a blacksmith's shop.  The shop seems to specialize in bladed items in general and swords in particular.  Other finished and decorated weapons are hung to either side of hers, while others line the table below.

Immediately in front of her and taking up much of her view is a group of young men, Chinese in appearance and wearing old fashioned robes and long hair in topknots.  They are examining the displayed weapons, some merely with admiration but others with consideration to potentially buy one.

... huh.

"In a sword" was not on her "where will I end up after a dangerous experimental failure" bingo card.

She still hasn't got a huge range, because her crystal is still mostly not adapted, but she prioritizes building out a bit more of the uncovered surface actuator until she can see air molecules whizzing past and get sound.

What are the young men saying?

"...not sure if it's worth getting one of the decorated ones," one argues.  "Its the blade that's the important part."

"It is, but why get only the bare minimum?  Are you going to eat nothing but plain rice, too?  And it's not like you can't afford it, Meng-xiong."

The first one - Meng-xiong, apparently - looks skeptical.  "Maybe if they had one that matched my robes more closely.  The only green one has the wrong pattern and isn't even the right shade.  Let's go back to that first display."

"Go ahead.  I'm going to get something that'll impress girls."  His attention is focused on a sword about a foot to Weeping Cherry's left.  After a few moments he calls out to the shopkeeper, "How much for the red one there?"

This starts a haggling session.

Why are they speaking Mandarin?

That's actually the most surreal thing, here. Other universes? Sure. Human-looking aliens running on alternate physics? Why not. But for them to be speaking a language she recognizes is just bizarre.

After a moment she shakes her head, and throws in on her growing backlog of questions.

She grabs a little bit of air and shakes it. The small volume makes her voice come out somewhat tinny.

"Er, excuse me. Would one of you young gentlemen tell me where I am, please?"

This results in the absolute confusion of everyone within earshot.  No one seems to recognize where the voice is coming from.  The first response is an inelegant "...what?" echoed by several patrons, then, "the Swordsmith's shop?"

"Yes, hello, I'm over here," she replies, twinkling a little so that they have something visual to focus on. 

"Sorry, I meant more generally. The last thing I remember is being in my laboratory, which I'm fairly sure is in a different world. So ... a swordsmith's shop? In a city, presumably?"

The more fearful patrons have made their way to the door and away, one screaming about haunted swords. 

"Yes.  Jiuzi City," the shopkeeper clarifies.  "In China, and within the mortal realm," he clarifies, just in case the sword wants a more general answer.

"Thank you, that's very helpful," she replies.

She considers clarifying that she isn't haunted, but ...

Well, there are no radio waves that the can see here. And nobody has any electronic technology on them that she can spot either. So announcing that she is the uploaded mind of a human, trapped inside a crystal ... well, the difference between that and 'haunted' is probably splitting hairs.

"And I'm sorry about scaring your customers — I don't mean any harm, it's just a confusing way to wake up, suddenly being a sword."

The shopkeeper bows deeply.  "I am terribly sorry about this!  We hadn't known, and had intended no offense."

"I am not offended in the slightest," she reassures him. "If it came as a surprise to me, I cannot see how you could have known better. It would be quite rude of me to blame you for something outside your control."

She briefly contemplates whether she can return his bow somehow, but she really can't do much more than twinkle at the moment.

"In my world, I was a scholar," she continues. "And I'm quite sure that I will be able to fix this accident eventually. In the meantime, I'm not uncomfortable, or anything. Are haunted swords a common problem, around here?"

"They're not much more common than any other haunted item."

"And how common are haunted items generally? Common enough to be known and easily identified, I suppose."

She makes a considering sort of humming sound (since she can't exactly make facial expressions).

"You mentioned we're in China — will I have to fill in immigration paperwork, do you think? Or are there other laws that apply to haunted items?"

She's sort of hoping that they have an existing framework that she can slot herself into in such a way that she stops scaring people by talking. Her fixity crystal's repair timeline is still full of question marks, but she's probably looking at months of wait, at the least, and it would be really boring not to be able to interact with people and learn a little about this world in that time.

"Common enough, but they aren't usually able to speak.  I've never heard of paperwork done by - or on behalf of - a haunted item, though I suppose that cultivators must keep records."

Here he pauses, with the expression of one who is trying to find a phrasing for something which has the potential to cause offense if spoken badly.  "It is rare for ghosts to remain for long enough to possess something without being angry enough that their main interest is in lashing out.  Or so I have heard.  This humble shopkeeper is no expert on hauntings."

Ah, that makes more sense why people were scared. She's momentarily puzzled by the idea that farmers would keep better records of haunted items, before she glances at the translation breakdown and sees that the shopkeep said "練氣者" (qi cultivator) not "耕耘者" (cultivator in the sense of farmer).

"Oh! I see! That makes perfect sense," she agrees. "But as I hope you can tell, I am not angry. My workshop has ... had, I suppose ... had precautions that were intended to keep me alive in case something went terribly wrong with one of my experiments. The last failsafe was supposed to temporarily hold my mind in a crystal until it could heal my body. Only — this is just a fragment of the crystal, and it's not working properly, which is why I was surprised to wake up like this."

"Anyway — while other ghosts may need to hold onto their anger in order to haunt things, I do not. I am content, and have no need or intention of lashing out," she reassures him.

Meanwhile, just down the street, Jiang Cheng is carrying Wei Wuxian to the inn.  

This trip is going faster than his first trip from Mount Muxi to Lotus Pier, but it still feels like it’s dragging.  Neither he nor Wei Wuxian are able to fly right now.  The disciples who came with him to look for Wei Wuxian can, but they had expended most of their energy on the trip to find him, and having to carry passengers is tiring at the best of times.  So they stop frequently.

There is a nearby shout about a haunted sword by the guy who had run off early on.

Wei Wuxian stirs.  “What haunted sword?  Jiang Cheng, turn around.  We should go help.”

“Wei Wuxian!  Do you really think we’re in any position to fight anything right now?”

“But someone might get hurt if we do nothing.”  He wriggles, becoming unbalanced and nearly causing Jiang Cheng to fall over, then gets free.  His leg has been well bandaged and he can use cultivation to keep walking on it, which means it’s practically not injured at all.  There is only a bit of a limp in his step as he runs toward the commotion.

There’s a small crowd in front of one of the shops.  He pushes his way to the front.  

"Actually, I'm sorry, I've been terribly rude. My name is Weeping Cherry. May I ask your name, good shopkeep? You've been very helpful."

"It has been an unusual occasion," he says, then bows again as part of a proper introduction.  "I am Qiu Ling.  It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"And yours," Weeping Cherry agrees.

"Tell me, do you smith swords here, or resell them? In either case, I would want to make sure you are not inconvenienced by the fact that it is one of your swords that I have found myself in. I don't have any money at the moment, of course, but I could repay you for the materials once I do," she suggests. "Maybe I could try busking ..." she adds in a thoughtful voice.

There. Hopefully that should thread the needle between making sure that the shopkeep is neither harmed by her arrival, nor has incentive to try and sell her, while also establishing her as more of a person and owner of herself than an object.

Maybe.

Weeping Cherry has never been great at these sorts of things, and trying to do them in a foreign culture is maybe a little foolish. But she wants to try, because it is going to be a long time until her crystal is repaired, and it's better to spend that time doing and learning things than hanging on the wall of a shop.

"My brother smiths most of our swords. It is a kind offer, but unnecessary.  I could not bring myself to accept payment in such a circumstance, when you didn't ask to have a sword attached to you."

"I am more concerned with how to see to your, ah, comfort?  Can you move under your own power?  I know much about the care of normal weapons, but nothing of spirits and magic."

"Alright, thank you," she replies. "As to my comfort — this probably isn't the time to get into technical details, but I should be able to repair the crystal from in here, given time. Right now, I can't really do much except talk and twinkle — but in a few weeks I should be able to move myself, polish and sharpen myself, etc."

"Perhaps I can help?  This one is Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian."  He just couldn't keep quiet any longer.  He had been leaning on a pillar.  After bowing, he quickly returns to leaning on it again.  The pallor of his handsome face indicates that this isn't just a preference for being casual.

"I am a member of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, one of the preeminent cultivation sects in this land.  We're well versed in spirits of various kinds and a wide variety of spiritual tools."

"I admit I'm unfamiliar with the way spirits and spiritual tools work here, so I don't know how much help they could be. I'm from very far away, from a place with different rules. But it's a kind offer, and I would be fascinated to learn anything you would be willing to teach, in case it does prove helpful," she replies.

She considers asking more about what cultivators here are like — just because the word translates, she cannot assume they are like any particular story — or about whether she can do anything for his health, because Wei Wuxian does not look well. But that's probably better to discuss in private, not in front of a crowd of sword-shoppers.

"I'm sure we both have a lot we can learn from each other."

"I'm sure!" she cheerfully agrees. "Er ... could I ask you to get someone to carry me?"

The other Yunmeng Jiang disciples have easily kept up with Wei Wuxian.  Three have formed a small group near him, including Jiang Cheng, while the rest wait outside of the crowd.  All are easily distinguished by their purple robes and the distinctive bell kept on their belts.

"Tong-jie, could you get her?" 

The purple-clad woman next to him puts her own sword in a loop on her belt.  She approaches Weeping Cherry and picks her up. 

Jiang Cheng mutters about how Wei Wuxian really ought to be made to crawl to the inn on his own after running off like that, but he is also bending in such a way that Wei Wuxian can easily loop his arms around his shoulders.  Wei Wuxian does so.  Now both Wei Wuxian and Weeping Cherry can be carried to the inn.

Being able to perceive individual air molecules gives one really quite extraordinary hearing, but she doesn't comment.

"Thank you again, Qiu Ling," she calls out as they leave the shop. "May the rest of your day be more usual."

Then, in a quieter voice, she speaks to the woman carrying her.

"Forgive me if this is too private a question, Tong-jie, but from what does Wei Wuxian suffer? He is noticeably pale. I have some knowledge of medicine, and I might be able to help."

"He was bitten and knocked around while fighting a monster, then was trapped in a cave for a while.  He has blood loss and several large injuries, and had no food for seven days.  We would normally have preferred to let him rest in the nearest town to there, but... circumstances around the hunt require us to get back to Lotus Pier quickly.  I can tell you the full story later if you'd like."

"... ah. Yes, I cannot help much with wounds of that severity right now," she agrees. "I think I should be able to diminish pain if touched to the area near a wound, if that would help him."

"Although — hunt? What are you hunting?"

"Had hunted," she corrects.  "They - meaning Wei Wuxian, Young Master Jiang, and a few others who have since split off - were hunting the monster that Wei Wuxian fought.  It's dead, now.  I just joined the rescue party to retrieve the ones who had gotten trapped in the cave."

"Diminishing pain will likely be appreciated.  We have meditations and medicines to ease pain but I know from personal experience that they aren't perfect."

One of the cultivators had run ahead to arrange things for them at the inn.  Once they arrive, they immediately get waved to a seating area with enough space for a group of nine humans and one sword.

"Well, no medicine is perfect," Weeping Cherry agrees. "But we do what we can. Would you bring me over to him, so I can explain what I hope to try?"

She does so.

Wei Wuxian has been placed onto a cot.  He does look worn out from the recent adventure, but still clearly interested when Tong-jie and Weeping Cherry come over. 

"Hello, Wei Wuxian," she greets him. "I was just discussing with Tong-jie the possibility that I might be able to help with your pain. I know it's not much, but it might help your recovery all the same. I don't know what customs your medicine-workers follow here, but in my homeland it is customary to describe to the patient what the treatment is and what it entails, and then let them make the final decision. That discussion is also usually private, although you may have people you trust involved if you want to. And no matter whether you accept treatment from me or not, I am required to keep the details of your care confidential, so you need not worry that I will tell anyone else about your choice. Would you be interested in having me try to dull your pain?"

"Those don't fit any medical ethics I'm familiar with.  What if the patient needs treatment but is too stubborn to take it?  Not that I intend to be, I mean just in general. 

"You can dull my pain if you want to, as long as it won't interfere with my getting to ask you questions."  Wei Wuxian glances around the room.  "Everyone here already knows where I was injured.  I suppose if anything else comes up I might want privacy for that, then?"

"Alright," she agrees. "Reach out and touch my gem, so that I can get a look at your blood and choose a medicine that won't hurt you, please."

"And I do have medicines that could probably knock you out, but if you want to be awake I won't use them," she notes. "When patients are too stubborn to take treatment ... well, sometimes, like for children, their parent can give consent instead. But if an adult doesn't want to be treated, why should anyone force them? It's their body and their problem. Plus, the really stubborn ones would just avoid healers entirely, if they thought they might get treated without agreeing to it."

Wei Wuxian thinks he'd know better than any hypothetical patient he'd have, but concedes that not everyone has his confidence.  He's not going to keep arguing when there's interesting things that could be happening instead.

He reaches out and touches the gem. 

And Weeping Cherry gets her first look at the local people's biology.

The good news is that it is ... mostly human, probably. There's some stuff that doesn't make sense, but his blood has the kinds of signalling molecules she'd expect, and that gives her reasonable hope that he will respond normally to painkillers.

The bad news is what those molecules are signalling.

"Have you got a broken bone?" she asks, dealing with the most urgent question first. The miscellaneous inflammation and stress markers are to be expected, really. "Where? I thought I would be able to see a splint."

"Yeah.  Nothing serious though, just a rib or two."

"You do know that if not set correctly, bones can heal wrong, yes? Let me take care of the pain like I mentioned, and then maybe I can look to see if there are any bone splinters to worry about and whether its healing in place correctly," she says, tone mildly disapproving.

She transmutes small amounts of his blood into different painkillers, and watches the adjacent cells for allergic reactions.

"Okay, I've found a medicine that I don't think will cause any problems. It will make you feel slightly drowsy, but you should be able to stay awake. It's a bad idea to participate in combat until it wears off — it is a little bit like being drunk, in how it impairs your reflexes, but it's much better than alcohol for this purpose, because it won't impede your healing or give you a hangover, and it leaves you mostly clear-headed. It will take about 15 minutes to kick in, and then should significantly numb the pain for several hours, depending on how fast your body processes it. To give you a large enough dose, I need a little bit more contact with your blood, though. If that sounds like something you want, then Tong-jie should touch me to the side of your neck, inside of your thigh, or inside of your elbow, where your biggest veins are."

"We do have methods for checking on bones and keeping them in place.  Which is why it's no big deal.  Cultivators get into dangerous circumstances and fight monsters all the time, and our healers are the best."  Wei Wuxian flashes a grin at one of the closer cultivators, an unusually tall man who looks to be in his mid-thirties and is presumably the one who has been patching him up.  "You can check too if you want."

The elbow seems like the least weird of the options, but would likely require unlacing his wrist guards.  Neck it is.  He bares it for them, and Tong-jie complies.

"A little to the left ... there. Just a moment."

She grabs onto his blood and transmutes a measured fraction of it into her chosen painkiller, letting it wash away into his circulatory system. Thank goodness for first aid training and expert systems.

"Okay, all done. Let me know immediately if you experience any nausea. You shouldn't, but if you do it's the sign of your body rejecting the medicine," she informs him.

"If you have your own ways of keeping a bone in place without a splint, then that's fine. I can still take a look if you would like, and identify any problems, but I wouldn't do that just to sate my own curiosity, if you have already been treated by your own methods."

It's frustrating, to have to rely on indirect detection methods to see anything, instead of being able to just check and set the bone instantly.

"Thank you," he says.  "No need to worry about checking on my ribs; they've been well taken care of."

Wei Wuxian had already looked relaxed, but relaxes more genuinely knowing that he isn't going to be in as much pain.  Not that he can't handle it, but he does prefer not hurting.  It frees up some of his attention for the important task of asking all of the questions. 

"Back at the shop you mentioned being from somewhere far away.  Is it somewhere I would have heard of?"

"I would be very surprised if you had!" Weeping Cherry replies.

These people have shown no negative reaction to her objectively very weird situation and healing, so she decides that there's no reason not to be honest.

"I'm fairly sure it was a different world entirely, because my world also had a China, but it was quite different. Plus, if I were in my China, I would still be in contact with my — I'm going to need to introduce a neologism at some point, so it might as well be now — with my forks. We can talk to each other across the entire planet."

"Really, the fact that you speak Mandarin is probably the weirdest part of this whole thing; I was expecting to need to learn a new language from scratch."

"I had been wondering how you spoke our language so well despite being from far away.  Another world, with another China...  How detailed does that go, I wonder - maybe there's even another me!  Though you said that it was very different.  What sorts of differences have you noticed so far?"

"Also, what are forks?"

"Well, we don't have any haunted swords, for one thing," she replies. "Or any cultivators. We have stories about them, but they're fictional. Other than that, the clothing and technology I've seen strongly resemble my China a few hundred years ago at least. I'm not actually a historian though, so there could be more subtle differences that I'm not spotting."

"As for forks — In broad terms, we are all people who used to be the same person. When someone forks, they split in two, with both of them continuing on as independent people. Hence, 'fork', as in 'fork in the road'. Not everybody is comfortable with the idea, and most people who do fork don't do it much. But I get on unusually well with my forks so there are a lot of us. We spread out to work on and learn different interesting things, and then send each other letters and meet back up to keep each other up to date. Everyone will be very excited about this trip when I can send them a letter about it."

"Ooh.  I want a fork.  I want ten forks!  How do people do that?"

"I suppose the knowledge of how to form golden cores and become cultivators could get lost in a few hundred years, if something really bad happened.  Not having undead walking around would be weirder.  Unless it's specifically that swords never get haunted?"

She can't smile, so she settles for twinkling in a hopefully merry way.

"Forking — at least my way, I don't know what is or isn't possible with cultivation — requires special equipment. Once I have my crystal repaired enough to manage it, I'll be sure to offer you the chance," she promises. "And no, we have no undead whatsoever. I'm ... fairly certain that I'm not just back in time, though. For one thing, we have good records of China a few hundred years ago. For another ... tell me, how much do you understand about the very small structures that make up all other substances?"

Yay, forking! 

"Not much.  I think one of the scrolls I read regarding the inedia cultivation technique mentioned something that sounds similar, but I'd been distracted by a different section and never went back to examine it in detail.  Sorry.  If you think its relevant I can definitely listen now!"

"Well, I don't want to bore you. Elementary particle physics was very much my area of scholarly research before landing here, so I could talk about it for hours. If you're actually interested, I can give you a better explanation. But to very briefly summarize, while skipping a bunch of details: all matter is made up of a few fundamental components, arranged in different ways. The valid ways in which these components can be arranged is ultimately a consequence of the underlying physical laws that affect them, plus the shape of the space that they're embedded in. By 'shape' I actually mean something a bit more complicated, but 'shape' is close enough. By watching how the components move, you can make inferences about the shape of the space. Everywhere that my forks and I could observe in our world had exactly the same shape, but the space here has a slightly different shape," she explains.

"And I have no idea why that is! It's really very exciting. But either we somehow forgot about cultivators and undead, and managed to lose a bunch of records without noticing we lost them, and the fundamental shape of space changed slightly ... or I'm not back in time, and instead I'm somewhere else. Which makes equally little sense, because why would you be human, or at least close enough that you react the same way to the medicines I tested, and speak Mandarin? But I still think the latter is less unlikely than the former."

A new thing to learn about!  Wei Wuxian is completely unable to prevent himself from asking more questions. 

"How many fundamental components are there?"

It's so refreshing for someone to want to learn about fundamental particle physics! Mostly people ask her about, like, her duties administrating the fixity crystal network, or her life, or boring stuff like that. She'll answer them, because of course she will, but people seem to forget that she took over the solar system because it was the right thing to do, not because she wanted to talk about it.

"That's a great question! I haven't re-confirmed any of this here, since we don't know if the shape of space is the only difference, so it's possible that the details are slightly different. But I've already seen nine of the same fundamental components, so the basics should really be the same ..."

"Anyway, the answer depends a little bit on categorization, and whether you consider force-mediating particles separately. Also whether you distinguish gluons by color charge. An answer which is mostly correct, in that each of the particles named is fundamental and can't be broken down further, but slightly incorrect in that it doesn't correctly model important non-local forces, is '30'. Other answers that could be considered correct are '18, but twelve of them are capable of moving backward in time' or '32, but three of them can spontaneously turn into each other under some circumstances'. Those answers are actually all different ways of re-framing the same fundamental truth. In reality, fundamental components can be broken down into two categories: fermions, and bosons. Fermions are what make up physical matter, and there are really just three important ones ..."

And Weeping Cherry will give an introductory lecture on the standard model of particle physics — with occasional detours into how non-local effects like fixity fields can be elegantly incorporated into the model, although she refrains from giving any actual details on how fixity fields work — quite possibly until somebody stops her. Or at least until someone interrupts her with a different question.

Wei Wuxian listens intently, grinning and excited, occasionally asking clarifying questions. 

Jiang Cheng is far less interested in fundamental particle physics.  He has just been subjected to a long lecture on it anyway and his patience is starting to fray.

"Thank you for informing my sect brother about this topic," he cuts in during a lull, before Wei Wuxian can ask something else that will start a whole new tangent.  "I'm sure he'll have plenty of other questions on it later, too, but we would be remiss if we didn't offer you the chance to ask questions of us as well."

He is really hoping that the questions will be practical.  This does not seem likely.

...This is going to be his entire life if Wei Wuxian manages to get himself duplicated, isn't it.

"Oh! Uh, yes, I do have several questions of my own," she agrees. She doesn't blush, but only because she's a sword.

"My questions are mainly about how cultivation works — but probably there are some more urgent questions. Let's see ... Are there any particular rules of politeness I should be aware of? Everyone's been perfectly accepting of my current inability to bow, but I am a foreigner, and I'm sure I will mess up something sooner or later. Also, does your world currently have any big problems other than disease, famine, natural disasters, and apparently monsters? I ask because if you have, like, a foreign army that needs a competent translator to negotiate with, I could help there," she offers. "I can also help with the first three things, just not immediately."

Jiang Cheng can handle those.

"Names are the most obvious one.  Everyone has multiple names and honorifics they can be addressed by based on their rank, the relation between the person and the speaker, the listener, gender, setting, intent, and some leeway for personal preference."  He considers preparing himself for a potentially hours-long lecture on the topic and makes a face.  "The most practical option is to just ask which term you should use, or have your holder whisper it to you, until you've seen enough examples to intuit them."

This prompts a proper greeting spree.  Jiang Cheng ought to be addressed as 'Young Master Jiang' and Wei Wuxian as 'Young Master Wei' or 'Wei-xiong.'  Tong-jie likes being called Tong-jie.  Everyone else in the group has wandered off by now, but they get listed. 

"As for problems- The Qishan Wen sect."

"Most cultivators live in sects, and among those sects there are five prominent Great Sects: Qishan Wen, Yunmeng Jiang, Gusu Lan, Qinghe Nie, and Lanling Jin.  The Wen Sect is nearly as large as the next four combined. 

"The Wen used to be decent enough, but in the past ten years have been growing increasingly hostile to the existence of other sects.  Smaller sects in their territory have already been overtaken.  The Cloud Recesses, home of the Gusu Lan, was burned down earlier this year, and they've made a failed attempt to attack Qinghe Nie's sect residence as well."

Weeping Cherry's name is a single unit, but people being familiar have shortened it to "Cherry", and people speaking formally tend to tack on whichever titles are relevant to the situation.

"Eesh; that does sound like a problem," she agrees. "Have you any idea why they're doing so now? Has something changed?"

Shrug.  "No one knows.  Wen Ruohan has been their leader for almost thirty years, so it isn't a case of leadership changing."

"Wen Ruohan has been collecting the Yin Iron for a while - that's a material that generates resentful energy.  If he were affected by it... though from what Wen Qing had implied I'd gotten the impression he was collecting it in order to gain the power to conquer."

Wei Wuxian looks back to Weeping Cherry.  "Ah- I'm getting ahead of myself.  You don't know what resentful energy is.  This will require a basic explanation on cultivation theory.

"In addition to the normal physical energy, there is qi.

"When souls are incarnated and striving towards life and enlightenment, a soul produces spiritual energy.  When they ought to be passing on but are attached to the world by unfinished business, they produce resentful energy.”  As he says this, Wei Wuxian motions with his hands.  At ‘striving towards enlightenment’ his hand reaches upwards of its own volition like a bird taking to the sky.  At ‘trapped by unfinished business’ his hand rises in the same path but this time its as if its being dragged unwillingly by an invisible string.

"Cultivators are people who formed a golden core within their spirit.  Its an organ that creates and stores a large quantity of spiritual energy, as well as allowing us to sense it."

“Exposure to spiritual energy makes people and things ‘better’ - healthier, calmer, smarter.  Taller and prettier, even.  Exposure to resentful energy is the opposite - angry, twisted, monstrous.  That said, I think they’re much more similar than people give them credit for.  Resentful energy is energy.  With a way to shield the body and mind from the damaging effects, it should be just as possible to use as spiritual energy.

"And back to the Yin Iron - it's a material that was created long ago and sealed away.  I haven't exactly had a chance to study it, but it seems to generate and store resentful energy in a similar way that golden cores store spiritual energy.  Wen Ruohan has been collecting it and experimenting with it."

"Interesting!"

Weeping Cherry speculates for a moment about how these kinds of 'energy' could interface with people — but she has not nearly enough to go on.

"I have a lot of questions about how you can actually detect and manipulate these energies, but those aren't directly relevant right now. Is there any way to tell whether Wen Rouhan has been influenced by resentful energy? If you could get close to him, I mean. I should be able to fly in a few weeks."

She can probably develop a way to find out — but it's equally important that the answer be legible to people locally.

"Cultivators can usually sense nearby resentful energy, but there are ways for intelligent entities to hide or disguise themselves.  It should still be readable if someone grabbed his wrist and looked through his meridians directly.  That's going to be a challenge.  Honestly, even just getting into Nightless City is going to be hard."

Wei Wuxian is not at all saying that as discouragement.  He's already thinking of possible routes, methods, and forms of trickery that might get him in. 

Weeping Cherry is torn between helpfully volunteering future abilities and playing coy until her fixity crystal at least has the range to cover (and therefore protect) itself. As she is now, she is technically vulnerable to sufficient brute force.

"I'm certain we could find a way in with a bit of thought," she settles on. "Are there ways to purge someone of the influence of resentful energy? Does removing the energy itself do it, or does it have effects on the body or mind that linger afterward?"

"Definitely.  It's the sort of thing cultivators need to do pretty often, if we run into someone who has been possessed.  It does often have lingering effects, but those can also be treated."

"Hmm. Alright, good to know. How difficult is the technique to learn, would you say? Does one have to be a cultivator to attempt it?" she asks. 

"It depends on the technique.  There are many; the Jiang Sect alone has several that people use depending on personal preference and effectiveness against certain targets.  Other sects have their own.  All of them require the person to be a cultivator.  Not only do they take a lot of spiritual energy, but to even manipulate spiritual energy you need to be able to sense it.  Most can be learned well enough to clear out mildly haunted areas within a few weeks to months, and like any skill they can be improved even once you get the basics down."

"Speaking on a practical and non-hypothetical level," Jiang Cheng cuts in, "telling if he's affected by resentful energy and convincing him to stop is all you'd need to do.  The Wen are famous for their doctors and would be more than capable of taking it from there." 

He does not say 'unless it's your goal to kidnap him and force-purify him,' because Jiang Cheng knows not to give Wei Wuxian ideas, and Weeping Cherry has already expressed her opinion on the rights of patients to refuse medical care.

Then there is a fascinating discussion about the ethics of dealing with people under the effects of mind-altering substances, and the nature of consent, which they will not have.

"Ah, yes, that does make sense," she agrees. "Alright; then that's something to keep an eye on, planning wise. It's always good to have an eye on what problems there are. Is there anything else you think I might urgently need to know? If not, I have some more questions about cultivation — or I could let you rest. Presumably monster-hunting is fairly tiring."

"I can answer those," Wei Wuxian volunteers.  This results in a bit of an argument between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, but Wei Wuxian elects to ignore Jiang Cheng's objections.

"I've been doing nothing but getting piggyback rides and lying around at inns for the past two days!  I'm as well rested as anyone can get.  And I'm an expert at cultivation theory and research.  Ask away."

"Alright. Speaking as someone offering medical advice, being injured can actually be more tiring than it looks, and I won't be offended or think less of you for cutting our discussion short," she promises. "That said, so many questions. I guess first is some overview of the fundamentals — what can cultivation do? What can it definitely not do? What does it feel like to do it? What is actually involved in cultivating? What are the ways that cultivators can differ?"

Wei Wuxian excitedly talks about cultivation.  It can do all sorts of things! 

Cultivators can send their swords flying through the air without the need of hands to swing them.  They can fly this way, by jumping on top of their sword while they're moving it.  Or floating and flying by themselves, but the sword method takes less concentration so pretty much any time someone travels further than the next rooftop over they jump on their swords to do it.  Sending other things flying or floating, or stopping things from moving, are also possible.

There's a whole sense associated with it.  Feeling places in the world that are good to build on.  Seeing ghosts and other things invisible to normal senses, and tracking them.  This is really good for medicine, since pinpointing exactly what is wrong can be hard otherwise.  It speeds up healing, and can also prevent injury to begin with - the strike that merely got Wei Wuxian a broken rib would have outright crushed a mundane person instantly.

Cultivation can affect the spirit, both incarnated spirits and ghosts.  Songs that can soothe or enrage emotions.  Control of others - Wei Wuxian has a talisman he invented that lets him order people to do basic tasks that they find simple enough to do without thinking about them.  He maybe gets distracted talking about it - how he tested it on Jiang Cheng back in Lotus Pier, and how he got beaten after using it to force the Second Jade of Lan into getting drunk. 

Heating places.  Cooling, but that's way harder.  Light.  Silencing spells and privacy talismans.  A bunch of talismans for sending messages long distance, if the person knows exactly where to send it to or knows the recipient well enough.  Qiankun pouches where the inside stretches to hold lots of things while the outside remains tiny. 

Normally it takes a cultivator to activate a talisman, since it's hard to do it blind, and many talismans are just normal ink that requires a cultivator to put energy into it.  But there are pre-charged talisman inks and ways to activate certain ones.  Most famously talismans that react to being burned by stopping all fire around them - they sell those to libraries.

The only thing more interesting than what they can do, is what they can't do ...yet!

No one has worked out going back in time, or stopping time.  Seeing the past other than through what a spirit who was there can show them.  Seeing the future.  Reviving the dead - though in theory if you had the soul and an intact body it should be possible. 

Things that it can do but are hard... there are stories of people traveling to the underworld or the heavens and returning, but none have been in the past thousand years.  Maybe the knowledge was lost, maybe the gates to those realms beefed up their security, or maybe they were just rumors and tall-tales.  Immortality: someone manages it every few decades, but it takes being extremely powerful and also extremely in control of oneself in a way that almost no one can do.  Immortals can fly as high as they want but everyone else is stopped at a point due to needing to breathe.

There are other limits.  Lots of them are just not having enough power - Qiankun pouches are one of these.  In theory a well-made qiankun pouch could hold a mountain, but it would take so much spiritual energy that a whole great sect could exhaust themselves utterly and it would only keep the mountain stored for a few seconds.  Others are limited by the amount of 'oomph' a cultivator can send out at a given time, like flight speed.

It feels like... well, the spirit is part of the body, so it's mostly like using the body, but also like moving a liquid.  So kind of like partway between your limbs being a hose that's being used to redirect water and part just like how when you're exercising and shifting your weight from one leg to another?

It involves lots of meditation!  Meditation to gather energy, to collect it.  And meditation to keep the mind stable so it doesn't go out of control.  Also martial arts - the sword forms and katas and other movement of the body is vital for getting the nascent golden core "spinning" the right way and is good for it afterwards too.  Being healthy and fit is important - cultivation and body and mind all reflect on each other and when one goes wrong the others tend to follow.

Every sect has some variation in their techniques and specialties, and individual cultivators specialize into jobs and narrow focuses of study even within those. The Nie use sabers instead of swords.  Wei Wuxian doesn't know how much of the differences between people from different sects are genuine cultivation differences and not just differences of people raised in different cultures.  Everyone can use the same skills, if taught - every sect has secret techniques they teach only to their disciples, but there aren't any techniques that only certain people are inherently capable of.

Weeping Cherry takes notes and asks insightful questions. Cultivation really doesn't sound like a way physics should work, but Wei Wuxian clearly clearly believes what he's talking about. If only she had a slightly larger range, to try and capture and experiment with some spiritual energy ...

In any case, that all sounds fascinating. But she should prioritize a bit. She briefly ponders which follow-up will give her the most information to work with, and ends up deciding to ask about talisman design. How are designs made? Are there patterns or commonalities between different designs?

If she's lucky, they'll be something like circuit diagrams, and she can just write a backend for her self-tree's preferred hardware definition language. If not, it's no big loss, because everything to do with Cultivation is interesting anyway.

The written parts are like two-dimensional anchors for the full design which is only visible to cultivators.  It's not just what's in ink, which is why they don't mass-print them with woodcuts.  The base components have meanings but can manipulate one another in a way that's very unlike words in a sentence.  That makes larger talismans hard to predict; talismans are often split into smaller sections that trigger one another to get around that. 

Wei Wuxian clearly thinks of it like a fun puzzle to solve, as well as something where one ought to take advantage of serendipitous results - half of his favorite talismans came about when he was trying for something else and got sidetracked by a novel effect.  Most people only ever use memorized talismans, or swap out full subsections.

Wei Wuxian gets interrupted by a yawn.  He pouts as dramatically as he can while being at such low energy.  "Ah, I want to talk more about talisman design.  You'll definitely have to ask me again when I'm healed up and have paper and ink in front of me."

"Yes, I certainly will!" Weeping Cherry agrees. "The whole subject is fascinating."

She really wants to figure out how to see and manipulate spiritual energy. Wei Wuxian has shared just enough hints for her to start making guesses about the structure of talismans, but of course that isn't anywhere near enough to actually put the knowledge to use.

Her sleep cycle isn't synced up with local time yet, but, conveniently, she's starting to feel sleepy herself. She checks the position of the sun and the amount of processor power her forb has rebuilt. And ... yes, she can just about get a full 10 (simulated) hours of sleep before local sunrise, and sync her body clock.

"Thank you very much for answering my questions. I've had fun learning about your world. I hope you rest well," she says.

Jiang Cheng swoops in and makes sure Wei Wuxian eats something first, but Wei Wuxian is absolutely asleep very quickly after that.

Everyone else meditates, then sleeps.  Someone is always set to keep watch.  At sunrise this is Jiang Cheng, who doesn't need extra spiritual energy for flying or healing and therefore doesn't need to spend as much time meditating as the others. 

Ah, interesting. She had assumed that they probably would not get up much before sunrise, and that appears to have been right. She stretches in her little virtual space, casting off the blankets of the night and summoning a breakfast smoothie.

During the night, she got back enough control that she can manage somewhat decent directional audio. She speaks softly, to avoid disturbing the sleepers.

"Good morning, young master Jiang."

"Good morning, Weeping Cherry." 

Jiang Cheng shifts, trying to sit up properly now that there's someone else awake without making it obvious that he'd been sitting in anything but the most proper and dignified posture to begin with. 

Weeping Cherry doesn't really have posture right now, and making her smoothie-slurping sounds audible is probably not a good way to reinforce the idea that she's an actual person who is here with him, instead of just a sword.

... actually, cultivators might actually be able to hear her heartbeat and breathing noises. She includes them in her audio feed because people find talking to someone who doesn't have them subliminally creepy, but if cultivators have better senses it might be more obvious.

"I hope you slept well?" she offers instead. "Also, I'm curious: can you hear my heartbeat?"

"Well enough.  You?"

"And I can't, not from here."  If she wants him to go over to check, he'll have to wake someone else up.  'Don't let artifacts talk you into touching them when no one else is around to spot you' is one of those rules that cultivation disciples get drilled into them pretty hard.  "Do you have a heart?"

Well, that's an obvious follow-up question in hindsight.

She hasn't really gotten into her whole virtualization situation in any detail, but there's no real reason not to explain.

"In a manner of speaking," she says. "My normal body has a heart, and so the crystal that sustains me is mimicking one — it contains the idea of a heart, alongside the idea of the rest of me. And when I set things up so that you can hear me, I made sure to include the ability to hear all of me, not just my voice, because people get subconsciously nervous when they talk to someone who doesn't have the ... necessary background sounds of a human. Breathing, heartbeat, and so on."

"So I was just curious, since cultivators have better senses, whether your senses were good enough to pick up on the sound of my heartbeat separately."

Jiang Cheng nods in understanding.  "The improvement to normal senses is minimal unless someone is deliberately using a technique to enhance them.  Thankfully - crowded cities can be enough as it is.  The main sense we use for night hunting and cultivation doesn't have a mundane equivalent."

"Oh, that makes sense! Yeah, I imagine cities would get pretty overwhelming."

She looks around at the rest of the group of cultivators.

"Do you know what the plan for today is? I gather that we're going to keep traveling, but it would be nice to have a little more detail than that."

"The plan is to meditate in the morning and fly through the afternoon, with a short break halfway through the flight."

Clearly feeling defensive about potentially being perceived as lazy, he also explains his reasoning.  "Cultivators only get so much spiritual energy in a day and flying takes a lot of it.  Normally we'd intersperse shorter bursts of flight with walking, but there's no reason to jostle Wei Wuxian or give him more chances to wander off, and the few extra li we'd make on foot aren't going to matter."

"Oh, interesting!"

But everything to do with cultivation is interesting, so she feels she should elaborate slightly.

"My world mostly uses teleportation at this point, but prior to that we did use a lot of flying machinery for personal transport. That and self-propelling ground-based carts, both of which need a certain amount of infrastructure to support. But having cultivators able to personally make short hops by flying must complicate your logistics," she muses. "Do you tend to have a lot of permanent resupply points that you can easily fly between on a night hunt? Or do you have non-cultivator support that needs to take routes around rough terrain, and then the cultivators can range away from it with flight?"

"Not many.  Anywhere that can hire a cultivator will have an inn nearby, or some other place that can host us for a few days.  Staying in towns as we travel also allows people to come to us with reports of problems in the area."

Her current inability to nod thoughtfully is really cramping her style.

"I see. So you don't really do night hunts into unpopulated areas? Is that because there aren't things to hunt there, or because the things that are there aren't bothering anyone?" she asks.

"More the latter than the former.  No one pays to have something killed if they aren't being harmed by it. Though, our range isn't that limited when we're fully rested.  If someone wants to go out looking for interesting prey for fun and glory there is plenty of wilderness still in comfortable range of villages and farms."

"I see. Thank you for explaining," she replies.

Interacting people without a physical presence is so awkward. Plus, she's not entirely certain her HUD is correctly calibrated for these people anyway, and she's constantly second-guessing whether she's come across well.

"Is there anything I can do to help with breakfast or morning preparations more generally? Or are we just waiting for everyone else to wake up? I can start fires or heat things up if you press me to them."

Jiang Cheng is awkward even with a body.  He continues to sit stiffly in the posture of both a noble young man and one with the important task of guarding his sleeping sect-mates.

"No, the inn staff are already handling everything.  We're just waiting."

"Alright, then," Weeping Cherry replies. "Do you have a favorite way to pass the time? I would be quite interested to hear more stories about your home, or tell you about my own," she suggests.

He already seems nervous enough that she doesn't really want to poke him for more details on cultivation.

He was intending to sit in complete silence for the next hour, but he supposes talking is okay too. 

"This one would like to hear more about your own homeland.  Perhaps clothing?  Are the fashions very different from what you've seen here?"

"Oh, quite," she agrees. "While some people do like wearing robes, my home has a lot of ... diversity, I guess you'd say. You can walk down the street in New Selenopolis and see people wearing pants, skirts, shirts, robes, dresses, gowns, etc. Probably the most common day to day wear in my neighborhood is short-sleeved shirts with pictures or writing printed on the front, and stretchy but hard-wearing black or blue pants decorated with little bits of metal near the waist. But you wouldn't find it terribly remarkable if someone was wearing something else. Partly, that's because we have technology for making clothing cheaply, so people are liable to have lots of clothes to choose from."

"For my part, I usually wear a sort of enchanted light summer dress. I do have some other clothes, but I have tweaked the enchantments to make it the most comfortable thing for me to wear 90% of the time. It has sleeves that grow or shrink depending on ... well, approximately on how many people I've spoken to recently, but that normally come to half way between my shoulder and elbow. The skirt comes to my knees, and has just enough extra fabric to swish a bit while I turn. The dress itself is a light silvery-white, and resists becoming stained. It's decorated with embroidery that follows the shape of a particular mathematical process. It's my default out-of-the-house outfit, although I wear other things for fancy occasions or when meeting with someone who expects a particular look."

"Even though causal clothing has a lot of variety, some people read a lot more in to what you're wearing during a business meeting, or while courting. So to get things right, you really need to know what culture the person you're approaching is coming from, and either try to match, or just let that inform how you choose your outfit. There are some formal clothes that are more broadly acceptable. A high-level business meeting will fairly often see the people involved wearing earth-tone or black straight-cut pants, with a long-sleeved white or light blue shirt fastened with buttons, a decorative cloth around the neck, and a long-sleeved darkly colored jacket over it. Women are less likely to wear the cloth, but more likely to be able to vary the color of their shirt or jacket. But ... then there are the people who want to show off that they're so important that they don't need to care about what other people think, who will deliberately wear clothing that doesn't match that standard in order to show off that people still have to respect them anyway. Even those people typically don't wear anything that shows too much skin during a business meeting, though."

"We have so many people, though, that you'll be able to find someone wearing almost anything. One of my friends has experimented with 'wearing' a cloud of golden sand that constantly shifts around them. In some ways, it's really nice to see such interesting designs — an in other ways, it makes the whole prospect of signalling social status with clothing needlessly confusing and convoluted. I have a little ... call it an enchanted reference book that helps me recognize some of what people are saying with their clothes, but I'm sure plenty of it goes over my head too."

He listens attentively to her preferences, closing his eyes briefly to try to visualize the description better.  The short sleeves and skirts seem odd to wear in public.  Lotus Pier's inhabitants are no strangers to removing or hiking up robes in concession with the oppressive heat and humidity of Yunmeng summers, but he would never go into a market that way.

"When price is not an issue does everyone wear silk or have you found better materials?  Do the methods for creating clothing quickly also allow for faster embroidery?"

Jiang Cheng wishes he'd brought one of his fancier outfits.  His current outer robe isn't much different than the standard uniform of the others beyond being cut from a finer material.  There hadn't been time to waste packing and he hadn't known he'd want his formal robes. 

It only seems fair to explain some aspects of local fashion in return.  "Among cultivators, color tends to signal sect affiliation.  The Yunmeng Jiang Sect wears blue or purple and our embroidery is often lotus-patterned.  The Qishan Wen - the ones we're currently watching out for - wear red and sun or fire patterns.  The Nie wear grey or green, the Jin wear gold, the Lan wear white."

"Oh, that's very good to know — I'll keep an eye out."

Eventually she will have enough of a radius to put together a decent telescope, and then she'll be able to keep an eye out properly.

"And ... yes, we have found 'better' materials than silk, but that's mostly because there are a bunch of ways for cloth to be 'better'. Like, silk is probably the smoothest natural fiber, and is also fairly breathable and durable, but it's not the most breathable. There's a material called 'goretex' that is more light and breathable than silk, but still repels water and doesn't let in wind. But it's texture is not very smooth, and its surface doesn't look so nice as silk. Then there's other fibers whose main selling point is that they're stretchy, which means that they can conform perfectly to your body as you move. A lot of people doing intense exercise wear clothes made from them, so that the clothes don't get in the way — they're usually just enough to preserve modesty and wick away sweat without restricting your movements," she explains.

"In practice, most clothing is made of blended fibers, to find a balance between their properties. We can spin much thinner thread out of mixed fibers than I think you can; there are tricks to make the different fibers adhere. One popular blend is cotton, for thermal transparency, and nylon or rayon for stretch, sometimes with some silk for texture. But there are many blends in common use. People wearing pure silk is rarer — many people don't actually like the texture — but lots of people wear clothing that has some silk in it. My dress is technically made from linen, actually, but you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell under the enchantments."

"As for producing faster embroidery — yes, absolutely! We have much better machines for it now, but it's actually fairly simple to put together the first step toward that kind of machinery; a 'Jacquard loom': an automatic loom that can weave custom patterns without much human intervention. Although you do still need to occasionally check that they haven't jammed. I can show you how to build one, if you'd like," she offers.

"That would make swimming easier," he says of the stretchy fibers. 

"Jacquard looms sound useful.  I'm not the person to build or operate such things, but there are a number of shops near Lotus Pier that would appreciate one."  Jiang Cheng wears clothes, keeps track of fashion, and can do some basic mending.  That doesn't make him a tailor.

He turns the topic back to fashion trends.  Being able to recognize what people are doing with their appearance is important, and he enjoys being able to show his knowledge.  Glowing night pearls and magical color-changing fabrics were common a few years ago but were overused and are currently out of style.  As one might expect, more labor-intensive things such as embroidery convey wealth, and therefore influence.  Sleeve shape is a matter of personal preference - flowing sleeves are graceful, but can get in the way of archery.  Cultivators rarely wear hats, but the mundane do; some are practical while others convey information about rank.

Weeping Cherry very much appreciates having someone to explain local fashion; back home, she can rely on some mixture of being famous, not caring, and having a lot of training data to pick clothing. Here, she hasn't biased anyone's perception of her with a visual appearance yet, and she can take the time to get it right. She makes sure to get Jiang Cheng's advice on how her typical clothing will come across, and well as running some alternate designs by him.

She tries some of them out in her internal virtual space as they talk, tweaking them as he makes suggestions.

Jiang Cheng approves or shoots down ideas as needed.  Sleeve and skirt length matching what everyone else has on is going to be important for coming across as respectable.

"You're planning to cultivate a human form?  Local spirits can sometimes manage that but it can take them centuries."

"I'm not exactly the kind of spirit you have here," she reminds him. "I need to finish repairing my crystal, and then I'll just be able to restore my previous body and inhabit it. Repairing my crystal is going to take —"

She glances at the countdown clock in the corner of her HUD.

"— a long time, but almost certainly not centuries."

"I know you aren't the local kind of spirit," he says somewhat defensively.  "I just- that's the first impression people are going to have when they see you get a human-shaped form after being a crystal.  We were talking about people's first impressions."

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry — I thought you were expressing surprise that I intended to get a human form, not commenting about how it would appear," she apologizes. "My grasp on your language is good, but obviously still has some gaps."

Jiang Cheng nods to accept the apology.  He considers mentioning that he'd be doing far worse in her place, but can't bring himself to admit that out loud.  Instead, he remains quiet.  In the lull of conversation it's possible to hear the quiet sounds of other cultivators waking up and preparing for the day.

Well, she feels awkward. But a certain amount of that is inevitable.

She watches people get ready for the day, and tries to guess who she should aim to talk with while they travel.

It went about as well as any conversation that Jiang Cheng has when neither Wei Wuxian nor a rigid framework of formality are there to prop it up for him.  Once the other cultivators come in and relieve him of guard duty he politely excuses himself with a quick bow and vanishes into Wei Wuxian's room.

Local magical weapons tend to get attached to a single person.  Without thinking about it, the cultivators are all mentally filing Weeping Cherry in that category.  Thus, it's once again Tong-jie who comes by to sit with her and who offers to carry her once it's time to leave.

"Yes, please," she agrees. "Thank you for carrying me while I'm unable to move myself."

Once they're on the road, she decides to try and get to know Tong-jie better.

"So, I was distracted by Young Master Wei's condition last night, but would you be willing to tell me a bit about yourself, Tong-jie? It seems we should get to know each other if we're to travel together."

Tong-jie unsheathes her own sword and sets it out in front of her.  Rather than falling, it stops to hover just above the ground.  It's narrow and long compared to the others and glows a vivid purple.  She steps onto it and ascends.  As the strongest flier who isn't going to be carrying a human-shaped passenger today, she takes the lead.  Everyone falls into formation behind her like geese.

"Sure!" Tong-jie says, then pauses because she's not entirely sure what about her would be most interesting to Weeping Cherry.

"Well, I'm the third eldest sect sister of our batch of disciples.  My father is the Sect Leader's cousin, and I trained under the same teacher as his children and Wei Wuxian.  I'm planning to be a night hunting cultivator, mostly, and to teach history in between hunts.  I'm engaged to one of the cooks - we'll marry when I'm twenty, so in just over a year.  Uh, and I like plums more than any other fruit."

"What about you?"

Weeping Cherry smiles. It's not visible in any way, but it is audible in her voice.

"My family situation is a little complicated — I'm either the eldest of two siblings, or one of several thousand identical twins, depending how you look at things. In my normal life, I'm a researcher, focused on the study of the fabric of space. I was doing an experiment related to trying to make a box bigger on the inside before I ended up here. I was married, once, but no longer. I was ... let's call it 'courting' ... a few people before I ended up here, but our arrangements didn't include being separated for however long it will take to get back, so for now I'm on my own. My favorite fruit is probably blueberries, which I don't think you have here, but they're a bit like Bilberries. A little sweeter, I think."

"What do you like about history?" she asks. "Or why do you plan to teach it, at least?"

"I've always loved reading through the library's archives.  It seems natural to put all that time to use by teaching what I've learned.  My favorite part is the records of old night hunts, learning about the methods cultivators discovered to handle unusual monsters or curses.

"The several thousand twins would be the 'forks' you mentioned to Wei Wuxian last night?" she guesses.  Tong-jie had been among the ones close enough to hear the conversation.  Her eyebrows still rise at the number.  She'd been imagining perhaps a dozen or so. 

"Boxes - well, bags - that are larger on the inside are common cultivation tools, but I've never really thought about how they work.  I'm sure someone in Lotus Pier can find you a spare to look at and see if what you were doing has anything in common with our way of doing it."

"Ooh! It almost certainly doesn't, but that's actually even better, because having two techniques to compare is a great way to discover more about the underlying mechanics of each!" Weeping Cherry exclaims. "Yes, I would love a chance to get to examine a spare bag."

"And yes — I was referring to my forks. It's ... rather made family reunions and that sort of thing complicated, but I don't regret it. We work really well together, and it was necessary at the time that I forked the first time."

"It's not that I don't think I'd get along with more of myself, but I don't think I'd want to fork.  If it isn't too personal a question, what circumstance required you forking for the first time?"

Weeping Cherry grimaces as she considers how to answer the question, not that anyone can see her face.

"I told you I'm a researcher. Well ... I made a discovery," she settles on. "A way to use special crystals like the one I'm trapped in right now to heal grievous injuries. I used a weakened form of the technique to ease Young Master Wei's pain last night, because that's all I can manage until I finish repairing my crystal. Once I do have it repaired, it's the same technique I'll use to restore my body. But the discovery was also dangerous — any healing technique can also be used to kill, just by making things worse instead of better. So ... at that point, I could have released my discovery to the world and simultaneously released the most dangerous weapon that my world had yet seen. Or I could have sat on the discovery, and used it only to heal those few people I was close to."

She sighs.

"My conscience wouldn't let me take either path. Every person across the whole world who died from that point onward — I could have helped them, if I had been there. So I forked myself. A lot. Enough to handle making more crystals, negotiating with different governments for access, educating people about the discovery. I absolutely don't regret it. As I said, I get on well with myself, and I was able to help a lot more people than just one of me would have been able to. But I do sometimes regret the necessity of forking so much and how it screwed up my interpersonal relationships."

"Yeah, that does sound like a difficult situation to be in.  It was a good thing that you did, finding a way to help everyone."

"I certainly think so," she agrees. "I do intend to do something similar here, once I've managed to repair myself, although the details will probably have to be different since this world is different."