64: Wanqing at Lv 30

Wanqing logged in at 7:54 PM IRL.

She had been at her Hangzhou dorm-pod node since five-thirty and she had not, the small four hours since the Wednesday night second-knock log-out, said anything to me on any channel. She had eaten dinner at the small dorm-floor kitchenette at six-fifteen — the small noodles she ate before promotion runs in the small porcelain bowl her mother had given her for the start of fall term — and she had cleaned the bowl and gone to the pod at seven-forty.

She found me at the foothills' edge two hundred meters out from the Cinnabar Marsh archer mastery node finale chamber.

She did not, when she rendered, walk over.

She stood at the small dark cairn at the foothills' edge — the small pile of seven flat stones that marked the small two-hundred-meter line outside the finale chamber's pull-radius — and looked east toward the chamber entrance. The chamber entrance was a small dark arch in the foothills' western face. The small in-game late-evening sun was a hand above the western ridge. The bond aura at our distance was a long thin steady line of pale gold that ran from the small cairn at her shoulder to the small bench-rock I was sitting on two hundred meters back.

I had brought, this evening, a small folded notebook page. The notebook page was the small list I had drafted at the dorm desk Wednesday night after log-out: the small list of the small things she had taught me at the small kitchen tables of two timelines about how to wait at the foothills' edge of a finale chamber for an archer who was about to promote. There were seven items on the list. I had not, in either timeline, been at this particular foothills' edge before — Wanqing had run the Lv 30 archer promotion in the old timeline at a different node, the small careful Black-River-Beasts node, and the small careful Black-River-Beasts node had been unavailable since the third-month-patch made it small careful temporarily inaccessible due to a small careful server-side maintenance issue that would not, by my count, resolve until December. The Cinnabar Marsh archer mastery node finale was the small careful next-best path. She had, in this timeline, taken it.

The seven items on the list were:

*1. Sit two hundred meters out, at the cairn, on the bench-rock if there is one.* *2. Don't look at the chamber entrance for the first eight minutes.* *3. Don't read the chamber's bond-thread feedback at all. The feedback is hers, not yours.* *4. Don't, on any channel, message her.* *5. The chamber's seven-ring sub-quest will, by the small careful Cinnabar Marsh archer mastery node design, take between thirty-eight and forty-six minutes for an officer at the seventh-tier archer-mastery sub-band entering at Lv 29.* *6. The promotion event will render at the chamber entrance. Stand for it.* *7. Don't move to her until she walks the first three meters.*

I had read the list once at the dorm. I had folded it into the small notebook. I had brought the small notebook in the in-game inventory to the bench-rock at the cairn at the foothills' edge.

She walked into the chamber entrance at 7:58 PM IRL.

I sat on the bench-rock.

I did not, for the first eight minutes, look at the chamber entrance.

I looked at the small dark cairn at her shoulder where she had been standing. I looked at the small in-game late-evening sun at the western ridge. I looked at the small piece of green cloth on the topmost stone of the small dark cairn, which had been, at the small careful previous Cinnabar Marsh archer mastery node visit, the same small piece of green cloth a previous adventurer had left. The green cloth was a small careful cloth from a previous adventurer who had sat at a different foothills' edge, waiting for something of their own. They had left the cloth and it had stayed. The small careful in-game-world consistency mechanism kept objects left in named locations for up to ninety IRL days before the server's object-decay protocol collected them. The cloth had been here long enough that its original adventurer had, by any reasonable count, long since moved on to other foothills.

I sat with the bench-rock and the cairn and the cloth.

The bond-thread between us at the two-hundred-meter mark was the long thin steady line of pale gold. I did not, for the first eight minutes, look at the line.

The seven items on the folded notebook page in my inventory were seven items that belonged to a body of knowledge that was not mine by right. Wanqing had taught them as a generic guild-officer protocol, not as a promotion-day protocol. I had applied them as a promotion-day protocol. That application was an act of trust that she had not explicitly authorized. The question of whether I had been right to make it sat at the foothills' edge beside me and the cairn.

I decided, on the bench-rock, in the in-game November dusk, that I had been right. Not because of the foreknowledge — the foreknowledge told me only that she had not been here before, in the old timeline. It told me nothing about what the right act was now. I had been right because the receipt was hers, and because a receipt that belongs to someone is the correct thing to bring to their threshold and hold steady.

That was the thought I was still holding when the chamber entrance made its first ring-brightening at minute eleven.

At minute eight by the small in-game pod-display clock I looked at the chamber entrance.

The chamber entrance was a small dark arch.

I looked at it.

I sat.

The minutes moved.

At minute eleven the small dark arch brightened the small fraction it brightened when the chamber's first ring cleared. I did not, by item three, read the feedback. I noted only the brightening.

At minute fifteen the second-ring brightening.

At minute nineteen the third.

At minute twenty-three the fourth.

The bond-thread at the two-hundred-meter mark held steady. I did not, on any channel, message her.

At minute twenty-eight the small dark arch did the small shift the chamber entrance did when the fifth-ring sub-engine — the bonded-thread sub-quest's small careful midpoint check — was looking, briefly, for a bonded partner's small careful steady-state read of the partner's bond-aura for a small careful reciprocity verification. The shift would, by the small careful Cinnabar Marsh archer mastery node finale's small careful documentation in the launch-week-plus-three-month patch notes, last for forty-eight in-game seconds. During those forty-eight seconds the bonded partner at the two-hundred-meter mark — me — was meant to do nothing other than keep being at the two-hundred-meter mark with a steady bond aura.

I did nothing other than keep being at the two-hundred-meter mark with a steady bond aura.

At minute twenty-nine the small dark arch brightened the small fifth-ring fraction.

At minute thirty-three the sixth.

At minute thirty-eight the seventh.

The seventh-ring brightening was, at the small dark arch, the small careful long brightening — the small careful sustained brightening that the chamber's small careful seventh-ring engine carried for the small careful one minute and forty seconds the seventh ring's small careful final-pass engagement took.

The seventh ring went dark at minute forty.

The promotion event rendered at the chamber entrance at minute forty and four seconds.

I stood up.

The promotion event was — at the small dark arch — the small careful soft pale-gold expansion that the launch-week-plus-three-month patch had laid in for the Lv 30 archer mastery promotion: a small careful expanding circle of pale gold from the small dark arch outward to the small two-hundred-meter mark. The circle reached the bench-rock at minute forty and twenty-two seconds. It washed past me. It went on outward to the small four-hundred-meter mark and then dimmed.

Wanqing walked out of the chamber entrance at minute forty and forty-one seconds.

She had on the dark cloak. She had the bow at her back. The Iron-Hills mid-tier archer mastery glyph on the inside of her left wrist was — at the small distance I could see from two hundred meters — the small pale-gold full band, no longer a sub-band. The glyph had, with the promotion, moved from sub-bands to the full band the launch-week-plus-three-month patch had reserved for the Lv 30 archer mastery cap. There was a second glyph beside it. The second glyph was the small new-skill glyph: the small careful curved-arrow shape of *Falling-Leaf Volley*.

She did not, at the chamber entrance, walk to me.

She stopped at the chamber entrance. She looked east — out across the foothills toward the small dark cairn at her shoulder and past it toward the small bench-rock at the two-hundred-meter mark where I was standing. She looked for the small two seconds the look took.

Then she walked.

She walked the two hundred meters at the steady one-meter-twenty stride that did not change for the steepness or for the wind or for the small careful fact that she had just promoted to Lv 30 archer mastery cap on a small careful in-game evening she had been preparing for since the small careful first day of the launch-week.

She stopped at three meters from the bench-rock.

She did not, the small two seconds the stopping took, say anything.

Then she said:

"Cangtian."

"Wanqing."

"You did not, in the eight minutes, look at the chamber entrance."

"I did not."

"You did not, in the forty-eight-second reciprocity verification, do anything other than keep being at the two-hundred-meter mark with a steady bond aura."

"I did not."

"You did not, in the seven rings, message me."

"I did not."

"You did not, when the promotion event rendered, take a step toward me."

"I did not. I stood for it."

"You did not, when I walked the two hundred meters, walk toward me."

"I did not. I waited for you to walk the three meters."

She held that.

She said: "You read the small list."

"I read the small list."

"The small list was at my Hangzhou-9-cell first-cycle adjunct-training receipt my aunt taught me at the kitchen table when I was thirteen. The receipt was the small careful seven-item small careful waiting-at-the-foothills receipt. My aunt had taught it to me as a small careful generic waiting-at-the-foothills receipt without naming what one waited for. I taught it to you, at the small careful Greenleaf Inn long table in late August, as a small careful generic guild-officer-at-foothills-edge receipt without naming what one waited for. You did not, at the time, ask what the receipt was for. You wrote the seven items on a small careful index card. You kept the small careful index card in your dorm-desk-drawer. Tonight, by my count, you took the small careful index card out and folded it into your in-game inventory and brought it to the bench-rock."

"I did."

She nodded once.

She said: "The receipt is for waiting for an archer at the foothills' edge of her promotion chamber. You did the receipt cleanly. Thank you."

I said: "You promoted cleanly."

She said: "Yes."

She held my eyes.

She said: "Two weeks."

"All right."

"Don't go before me — wait. I want, on the day, to be at the cairn."

"All right."

"The cairn at the small foothills' edge of your Black Castle Foothills Tier-2 Berserker promotion chamber is — by my count — the small dark cairn at the small western edge of the foothills, three hundred meters out from the chamber entrance. The chamber entrance is a small dark arch in the foothills' western face. The chamber's seven-ring sub-quest will, for an officer at the small careful seventh-tier Berserker mastery sub-band entering at Lv 29, take between forty-two and fifty-two minutes."

"Yes."

"I will be at the small dark cairn three hundred meters out at the small bench-rock if there is one. I will not, for the first ten minutes, look at the chamber entrance. I will not, in the seven rings, message you. I will not, when the promotion event renders, take a step toward you. I will wait for you to walk the three meters."

"All right."

She closed the three meters.

She put one hand, briefly, on the back of my left hand at the wrist — the small two seconds the press took, no more — and she stepped back.

She said: "Walk me to the south-gate ramp. We'll log out together."

We walked.

The Cinnabar Marsh foothills at this hour were a quiet zone. The in-game sky above the western ridge had gone from late-evening to full dark in the twenty minutes since the promotion event — the patch-cycle that moved the in-game sky on this server happened on the hour, and the hour had come while she was walking the two hundred meters. The marsh-cypress along the lower path rustled the small careful wind-sound the olfactory-and-acoustic bank had seeded for this zone at full dark. The path from the foothills' edge back to the south-gate ramp was a path I had walked twice now — once in the old timeline at a dead run, and once this evening at the steady one-meter-twenty stride.

The bond-thread at the eight-centimeter mark held its steady gold.

At the south-gate ramp she logged out at 11:34 PM IRL. I logged out at 11:36.

In the dorm room A-7 I lay down on the lumpy pillow.

In my chest the second voice — *three months* — was quiet. The first voice — the old counter — said:

*She has, in the launch-week-plus-three-month version of this server, just become the third-fastest Lv 30 archer-mastery promotion on record. She did not, in the old timeline, ever reach Lv 30 archer mastery cap. The chamber she promoted in tonight was, in the old timeline, the chamber she did not promote in. The receipt I read at the bench-rock was the receipt she taught me before I ever needed it. Tonight I needed it. Tonight she promoted.*

I closed my eyes.

I slept.