Volume 2- Chapter 18

Chapter 18

~~~~Tai Su~~~~~

Going into another Prefecture took precautions, chief among them was logistics and second was power, especially when said prefecture was near the spider clans. Thankfully, the logistics of food and water were not mine to handle, as the Half Moon Sect would handle it, which meant I instead had to focus on my strength.

“I would really rather not be doing this now.” I said simply, my voice carrying my annoyance across the air like a falling mountain.

We had a plan and a schedule, we wait for Bao to Ascend first, because she is the one most at risk, then Ya Xue and I Ascend in that order once she recovered. If we go crazy then Bao can help calm us down, as we recover and then we can focus on having children.

We had a schedule with everything planned out, and now we have to upend it.

“The Half Moon Sect is near the spiders Tai, they have their Trials constantly tampered with! I do not want to lose you if you meet some second tier spider warrior that you could have defeated if you were a second tier yourself!” Bao almost shouted back.

We were back home, my family home and specifically my room, and my parents have given it to them to live in so it wasn’t how I remembered it. The bed was now a bunkbed for my sister and younger brother, as my parents were busy making up for lost time now that child season is coming.

I now have four younger siblings due to that, which I am certainly of mixed feelings on. On one hand I am glad to see it, but on the other I am a bit worried on the stress this put on mother. My village no longer needs to worry about money issues with us as cultivators, but it's not like we used a lot of money any way. The biggest issue is always the fields and the food they produce, because if we don't produce food, we don't have where to buy it from when we need it.

Bao and I told our parents of what we were planning to do which left my former room only to Bao and I, as my siblings were now being taken care of by my parents to ensure we had our privacy.

Once I came in the morning to tell her of my new sudden mission, Bao immediately decided to upend our plans, and push me to Ascend.

Once I agreed, we immediately headed back home for me to be as comfortable as possible to minimize even the slight chance of something going wrong.

“Water Meridians can still fight at the level of a second tier Bao.” I told her.

“Not with the same reserves until their dantian matches their meridians.” She replied harshly.

Being born with Water Meridians is not a double edged sword, not if you have the proper care given to you early on. Water Meridians guarantee an Ascension to the Second Tier, something one needs slow, mind numbing and sanity cracking levels of determination in certain techniques to achieve, as well as triple the normal Qi.

Water Meridians also lessen or outright removes the initial mental effects of Ascending to the Second Tier, but that is not a guarantee, because exceptions rare as they are, always exist. At least Ascending to the Second Tier is guaranteed, because the hardest part was tempering the Meridians and I was already done with those.

I understood her reservations, I even agreed with her logic, but we had a plan and I despise just having to abandon it. Our conversation was me just getting my own annoyance out of my system, we've already decided together that this is happening.

I wouldn't be back home now if I wasn't Ascending. I would have told my parents I was leaving and then returned to our quarters in town to train and see what I can learn of the Sect I was meant to help with looking after their Prefecture during their Trials.

“Fine, I’ve been all but ready to Ascend for months now, elder Shen Xifeng joked that I might be the first case of accidentally Ascending to the next tier due to how bursting with Qi I am.” I agreed with a sigh.

I didn’t like it, but I could see why she wanted me to be safe and if doing this made her feel safer, then that’s what I was doing.

Whatever the Half Moon Sect was doing to get their Trial going on, was probably part of their attempts of stopping the spiders from messing with their Trials. This didn’t change the fact I would have wanted at least a few days to prepare ourselves, but all of the days we could use to prepare ourselves for it, so could the spiders.

“Alright, I am doing it now.” I said as I sat down in the lotus position on the floor.

It didn’t matter what position you were doing it, as long as you were comfortable and Bao insisted that we do this in the place I felt the most comfortable in, which meant home.

Elder Shen Xifeng thought we were being silly, as Water Meridians were the last people our precautions were needed for, but Bao and I decided not to take any chances. It's been years but we still recall the forest and the way our minds wandered back and forth between fighting one another as well as the many lessons on what failure to Ascend entails.

My wife remained silent as she took a few steps back.

I closed my eyes and pulled my focus inside of me and saw once again that Elder Shen Xifeng was certainly not joking when she said I was bursting with Qi.

My meridians and dantian were filled with nearly liquid Qi, each fiber of my muscles was the same and I had reached the point where, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t pour any more Qi into my body without condensing it. I didn’t feel bloated though, my body felt ready and filled with energy and anticipation, as if the Qi in me was just waiting for the final signal to act.

I took a deep breath and for the first time since I became a cultivator, I did what my meridians demanded of me and no longer crippled their natural Qi intake. Liquid Qi now flowed inside of me.

They were little more than droplets, but those droplets caused a chain reaction in my meridians, as they turned my gaseous Qi into even more Liquid Qi. I decided to start with the meridians on my face, the one that has made my life hell for months and required me to wear my uniform or always have it close by no matter what I did.

I don't need to do so now, but the period of time where I had to would forever remain in my mind as the most annoying time of my second life.

One thousand drops of nearly-liquid Qi became one drop of Liquid Qi and the Liquid Qi slowly moved further and further into my head meridians. There, the liquid Qi transmuted all of the present Qi into a new state of being. It couldn't be called mere condensation, it was a fundamental change in the very nature of the Qi,

It was as if water vapor turned into molten gold and, despite that, it did not hurt. If anything, the process cooled my body as it was being emptied of Qi, until the heat of the Liquid Qi reasserted itself and I felt my body burn with renewed vigor.

By the time it reached my neck, the process became self-sustaining and impossible to stop, the Liquid-Qi turning the rest of my Qi into more of itself and drawing the Qi inside my flesh to it. It took a great deal of effort to stop the process from happening and I imagine it would be worse if the difference in states was any higher.

I knew this, because of the liquid Qi trying to get the Qi outside my body added into it, and the sparse Qi outside of my body moved far faster than the one inside my body. I could feel the tiny pinpricks of Qi stabbing into my skin and trying to push through any pores it could find so that they can get to my liquid Qi filled meridians.

Now the tales of the body of cultivators with Water Meridians rupturing from inside made sense. The Liquid Qi was actively drawing any Qi it could towards itself and when that was happening the Qi gains mass and starts ripping pieces of my flesh with it and move them through my blood vessels or meridians towards the drop of Liquid Qi.

As it was now however, the process was harmless, the Qi lacking the mass or speed to pass through Qi enhanced flesh and I easily conjured a simple Qi barrier around on my skin to prevent the outside Qi from trying to rip through my body. It was quite distracting and the last thing I needed was a distraction.

The Liquid Qi reached my heart, itself having it’s own meridian, and that’s when things changed. Until now the process was slow and steady, something that, even if I couldn’t control or stop, I could at the very least guide.

I was warned of it, but when the Qi reached my heart, that's when it is the most volatile, while in my head it is the least, as my mind has the greatest control over it near it, and the least near the heart.

My body seized up and I gasped as my heart just pumped the Liquid Qi through the rest of my body and in an instant there was no place in my body without Liquid Qi in it, no place but my dantian.

‘Tai.’ I heard a distance voice whisper.

Or perhaps it was shouting? My very being was too focused on dealing with the Liquid Qi to tell the difference. I ignored it, I needed to focus.

My breathing restarted and I was once again focused on my breakthrough. The only part that needed to be Tempered now, was my Dantian.

I gently introduced a single drop of it into my dantian, and the spiritual organ just dissipated it. How it did so I do not know, but I took it as a sign that I needed more Qi, and so I poured more and more into it.

I felt an old sensation come up the more I did so, I could once again feel my soul, something I was not able to do in years since I fought that Water Deer.

I could feel it filling up with Qi, and so I fed more and more Liquid Qi into it until something shifted. I was no longer my body, I was the soul and now the soul controlled the process of cultivation.

The soul then proceeded to expel the Qi into the dantian and the dantian transformed. What was once mere flesh became something else, it became a spiritual entity that lived in both the spiritual realm and the physical one.

I felt a sense of unity I never knew existed and realized that this unity was what I always was, and then it was over, I was once again only myself and I opened my eyes to see my wife’s worried stare.

My hands were clammy and my uniform was wet. I turned from my wife and noticed that I had sweated so much I was drenched.

“Are… are you alright Tai?” She asked me, her voice extremely fragile.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet. That single gesture relieved a lot of the fears inside her, which did the same in myself.

I breathed out to relieve all of the tension in my body. I was well, I could not sense anything amiss and my mind wasn’t feeling anywhere near as loose as when I had just started cultivating. Whatever that feeling in my dantian was, it did not seem to have done anything to my body or mind.

If anything, it was getting harder to remember it, the entire experience slipping from my mind like a dream.

“Water.” I rasped out loud.

I think I’ve expelled most if not almost all of the Liquid in my body through my sweat and I felt parched. Bao immediately ran out to bring me some water and all but forced an entire flask of water down my throat.

"Thank, you." A voice said.

I didn't know if it was mine or Bao's but I didn't care, my body felt too much like a mix of a wet rag and as strong as mountain to be able to make sense of certain things

And that’s how I advanced from a tier one cultivator to a tier two, not with fanfare or an emergency, but home and under the careful watch of my wife.

Is it strange that, despite so much changing in a moment, I felt the same as before? My body felt wrung out, but this time, my mind was clear.

~~~~Mei Lin~~~~

I have always struggled with understanding others of my kind, be they men or women, but women were by far the hardest to deal with. I learned shortcuts where true understanding evades me, and even after being a part of the household of a scholar who specializes in understanding such, true understanding of people, especially of women, evades me.

The hardest thing to understand were their hierarchies. They are everywhere, the tanners have one, merchants as well and even warriors and all professions had one. Then there were familial hierarchies between families, then there are organizational hierarchies where various organizations settle their internal hierarchies and then the hierarchy between each other and so on.

Eventually these and more coalesce into a single societal hierarchy composed out of all other hierarchies that interact with one another to form it. I could understand most of them to a given extent, but the female hierarchy was always subjective and difficult to make sense of to me.

Men’s hierarchy was simple, have access to resources, the ability to look after one’s woman and shower her in attention and gifts and possess useful skills and your place in their hierarchy was set. Women on the other hand could be the recipient of all of that and be considered both at the top and at the bottom depending on factors my mind cannot comprehend or make sense of.

You can be a woman with multiple children, a life of affluence and even have a high social status profession, but being a concubine immediately put you at the bottom of the social pile and required your own family to pull you out of there and force other women to respect you.

I never understood why, I still don’t, despite Tai Su trying to make sense of it to me, but I knew that women consider having any sort of restriction around their actions and circumstances, that they can’t get around to, as being worthy of nothing but disdain. And due to this, concubines were at the bottom of the women’s hierarchies.

“You have beautiful children Haoran, Gao Lin.” I praised my brother and his fox wife.

I was in his home now as Li Lin had recently given birth and I was fulfilling my family duties of helping the two of them with their newborn.

“Thank you for helping us Mei, I don’t know what we’d do without you coming in and helping sometimes.” Haoran answered, his tone relieved now that I am here.

After Gao Na gave birth and became Gao Lin, I’ve been helping my brother and new sister in law with their children, them and Cheng and Li Lin too, as the two cousins were excited to give birth at a similar time. They did one month away from one another, which wasn’t much all things considered.

I would have thought they were the best of friends if they didn’t insist on living on opposite parts of the town. No, they were friends and competitors, but neither woman wished the other anywhere near her children despite marrying twins. Or perhaps I missed something and this was some form of long term business decision?

You never know which is which with foxes.

“What is family for but looking after each other? Gao Lin are you ready to leave already?” I asked.

Both she and her cousin were recalled to their home in Hikato for an important meeting. Both women were tight lipped about it and had to hurry back home fast and so, it fell on me to look after their children.

“Yes Li Lin, should be coming any moment now, once she’s here we’re both leaving with the first carriage. You have no idea how much this means for me big sister, thank you.” The woman said and bowed lightly.

My eyes narrowed slightly, even as my posture and face remained locked in my best approximation of warmth and kindness.

Looking after your children deserved more than a light bow, but this woman obviously did not respect me. She hid it well, but I’ve learned something important while interacting with the fox women.

Fox women and Human women had the same internal hierarchies, and despite me being the eldest of my family, despite my two siblings looking up to me and respecting me and despite them having had to come to me to ask for the right to marry my siblings, the fox women did not respect me, because I was a kept woman and they were independent and equal i ntheir marriage.

“Naturally, I made sure both of you have some sweets prepared for the trip, Cheng should be coming with them assuming he hasn’t ate them already, he has a big appetite.” I joked.

The two of them gave a soft laugh, their baby daughter suckling from my teat. It didn’t take long to induce lactation into my teats, an easy to make potion was all it took to make sure I could feel both their children.

My siblings didn’t see the disrespect for me in their spouses eyes. Fools the lot of them, but I remained silent as well.

Cheng and Haoran had their plans to place themselves in a decent position, by becoming indispensable in their role as local alchemists. Once the Era of Blood comes, they would be forced to service the imperial war machine with their potions, elixirs and reagents, they would be pillars of the community that helped keep the peace between foxes and humans and helped keep this part of the Prefecture supplying the front lines by handling disputes between critical industries.

They told me of this, and I knew perfectly well that they would throw it all away if I disapproved of their choice in spouses, the years I sacrificed my own dignity and future for them earning me their loyalty beyond all reason. And so I held my tongue, pretended that I genuinely cared for the fox women and helped them with their children in order to help my sibling’s ambitions.

Once I had my own, the women will have to prove they are smart enough to keep my brothers anyways. It’s one thing to poorly pretend to respecting me, it’s another when they don’t help me with my children after I helped them with theirs.

Then they’ll realize where they had dug themselves into.

“I heard the door, I think that’s them, I’ll go get them Haoran.” The fox woman said and left.

Haoran came and sat in front of me as his daughter continued to feed.

“Are you certain you are fine with this elder sister? You even modified your uniform to help us.” Haoran asked me in a far too formal tone.

I was surprised to learn that our robes did allow us to make some light modifications to them and allow us to let our chest be bare, but I suppose I shouldn’t be. It is a useful addition, and the sect is all about those.

I shook my head at his nonsense, the man still didn’t understand what an ice blooded was. This helped me just as much as it helped him.

“The more annoying part is the fact that my breasts got bigger. I don’t mind helping you with feeding my nieces Haoran. What were you going to do? Feed them alchemical reagents?” I replied, my tone soft where his was formal.

“Still, I truly appreciate you helping us like this.” My brother said and bowed deeply.

My eyes narrowed slightly at his gesture. This is how you thank someone for helping your children and Haoran knew it and he also knew this wasn't how his wife thanked me.

“Rise Haoran I mean it, the two of you will help me when it’s my turn besides.” I replied, my tone little more than a whisper.

Cheng chose that moment to come carrying his own sleeping daughter. It seems their wives already left.

I would have probably been annoyed by it if I was able to be, but having the Na Ancestor beast of their clan call them home specifically excused a great deal of things.

“Give her to me Cheng.” I instructed him softly.

The nameless daughter joined her cousin in my arms, as both babes were now sleeping.

“Has she eaten recently?” I asked.

I would need to know to adapt my schedule. Elder Shen Xifeng allowed me skip my quota for this month on account of me needing to feed these two girls to make sure they are well, so I will be their primary caretaker while my brothers double their quota.

“Yes, Li has fed her on the way here. The two of them have already left with the carriage, she didn’t even come to thank you for it.” Cheng said.

The two looked at each other before nodding, It seems that we’re having this conversation now.

How bothersome.

Ever since the two women learned I was a concubine they became far more casual and dismissive of me, but it’s not my job to deal with the consequences of it too. Hopefully I can just deflect this, as I would rather not need to bother with this conversation.

Things are going better and better by the month, the last thing I need is for my brothers to get irrational from something that is being handled.

“Having your presence demanded by a Nascent Soul makes even the most calm individuals be in a rush, lest they suffer for it. That’s hardly something you should hold against your wives.” I tried to assuage their worries.

“First Tai leaves a few days ago on a sudden mission, then our wives leave suddenly. Something is going on and that’s not even counting them disrespecting you, which is its own conversation Mei.” Haoran replied sternly.

I am aware of it, but that's not one I wish to have, what would it take for their thick heads to understand that?

“Something is going on, senior has told me as much, but even she and Tai don’t know anything about it. Have you managed to talk with Da Xiu and Yu Zong about it?” I asked back.

I did not mention their wives disrespect of me and hopefully they’ll take the hint and drop it for now.

“Not even Bao Xiaoli and Tai Su know what’s going on?” Cheng asked.

Tai Su was elder Shen Xifeng’s favored disciple and that went beyond what would be normal, which made all of us think he was about to be taken as a personal disciple. Ya Xue was a Water Meridian as well and received more personal training than us Tai Su received far more personal training than even her. We all knew that if any of us were to hear something from our master as to what was going on, then it would be him to hear of it first.

And what Tai Su knew, senior would know shortly after.

“No, and judging from your words neither does Da Xiu.” I observed.

Da Xiu was the second favorite, which I suppose was typical. The two men were the only ones wholeheartedly dedicated to the Pavilion and its mission, while the rest of us were following them or were in it for our own ends. As a result, the two men receive the most attention from the elder and know the most of what she was willing to share.

My brothers have taken to getting close to the Xiu household, thanks to Yu Zong also being an alchemist and the three often times working together.

Something was going on, something only high ranking cultivators were aware of and things were shuffling beneath the surface and it looked like they weren’t sharing what.

“Nothing we can do about it, whatever is going on among our superiors is not something we are meant to know for now then. All that is left is talk about the way our wives disrespect you elder sister.” Cheng answered seriously

If one were to hear the way they said elder sister, they would have thought they meant mother. It was useful in it’s own way and something I wished to cultivate in them and succeeded, but right now I was paying the price for that diligence.

I sighed at their words, I really did not want to bother with this conversation. It's not like it wasn’t being handled already.

Yu Zong and my Senior already knew of their behavior, hard not to honestly, as women are quite sensitive to this sort of thing and they have told me they’ll handle it on their end. I needed to do exactly nothing, but continue to be kind and understanding, and the fox women will find themselves at my mercy if they wanted any sort of social life.

A concubine is an extension of their senior, and my senior was annoyed that some foxes thought to disrespect her like this and was quite angry on my behalf. Treating me poorly while they tried kissing up to Bao, annoyed the woman greatly, especially when I hadn't told her anything until she 'happened' to listen in in our conversations.

If they wanted to treat me poorly then they should have first made sure Bao wasn’t going to get angry about it, and failing that notice that their own husbands treated me more like a mother than a sister.

My two brothers are slow to pick up a fight, but the moment they realize they have no choice but to pick one they will be quite quick to get on with it.

“A Nascent Soul demanding your presence is enough to make one forget their manners brother, it’s fine. If Sect Master Fu Jian or the Empress requested your presence I doubt you’d care much for manners either. I am sure they will apologize for it when they return.” I tried to deflect.

Haoran nodded in fake agreement, then used the sort of tone he would use on Cheng when he realized he was making a mistake but was stringing him along.

“That excuses today, it does not excuse the difference in behavior we saw when inviting Yu Zong and Da Xiu over for dinner. We controlled for variables such as social status, being from a banner family, having more talent or even being married to a somewhat famous figure. Yu Zong had none of that, and is otherwise of the same social status as you are and yet you aren’t treated with the same respect as she is.” Haoran said, each words falling down like a hammer.

“What is going on Mei? Why are they treating you as if you are some hired help whenever Bao Xiaoli is not around?” Cheng asked.

While I was thinking about what to answer he took the chance to arrange my uniform back so that it covered my breasts. I gave him a silent nod of gratitude but my mind was somewhere else.

‘What do I do?’ I asked myself.

I could be vindictive like what my past experiences showed me was for the best and most expedient, but then what? My siblings have their marriage and future plans ruined? And for what exactly? Some petty revenge?

No, it seems I’ll have to play at being the peacemaker and so I put upon my kinder smiles.

“Nothing much, just women stuff. Your wives don’t understand the local pecking order and think that just because I am a concubine means that I am at the bottom. Senior and Yu are aware of it and are planning to gently teach them the error of their ways. You don’t need to do anything, it’s being handled.” I informed themselves

What I left unsaid, was that this was only a mistake in retrospect.

I have seen such behavior before and for most concubines this would have genuinely been more than they could have expected. It would have been marginally worse if one of them were my senior, but women genuinely did not respect any concubine and considered it the place for the failures that can’t play the social game.

However, sucking up to Senior Bao and behaving like she wanted me to meant that the woman was genuinely outraged at what the two women were doing and took my dismissive treatment of them as an affront to her.

I also have a strange feeling that she would have still been annoyed and angered by it, even if I wasn’t, but I would never rely on said feeling alone. I've seen where this sort of 'womanly intuition' as I've heard it described took women, the thing was more likely to be wrong than useful.

“So we are to just accept that they treat you like a servant, and have your help be taken for granted?” Haoran asked in disbelief.

I shook my head.

“No, I am asking you to let us handle it among ourselves. This is the sort of thing women need to handle among ourselves to make sure things resolve amiably. You intervening will make a delicate situation worse.” I explained.

The social landscape was… complicated to put it bluntly, because a large influx of people in the town needed to be handled, the social bonds needed tended, the old order needed to adapt in a way that didn’t see the newcomers as enemies, but instead as part of itself.

The new foxes formed a close-knit social circle that was only matched in coherency by the banner families and the craftsmen. My Brothers, Gao Lin and Li Lin were the main link between the banner families and the foxes, as they were the only marriage even tangentially related to them through me and Tai Su.

The craftsmen were… they weren’t hostile to the foxes, especially as they were forced to take some of their own children as apprentices to be allowed to operate in town, but there was a clear divide between the human craftsmen and the fox families. The two are also unlikely to mingle for a few generations, as the marriage arrangements were apparently arranged for the next two generations already.

Elder Shen Xifeng has already proposed us making arrangements of our own to see if we can't nudge them in that direction, but in a strange sense of unity, both Senior and Yu Zong vetoed that idea as they found the concept of messing with the marriage arrangements reprehensible. Neither Ya Xue or I could see what was wrong with it, even as we decided to side with Bao as a matter of course.

The cultivators were each meant to keep a lid on the local culture as Seventh Yellow Hill Town will in a few generations be the local center of industry in the south-west and possibly the entire Prefecture, as most Foxes that choose to settle in the prefecture choose the south and most of them choose this town.

More humans are coming to look for opportunities, but the foxes are already a solid twenty percent of the population of the town with half more being temporary residents that move back and forth between our town and theirs. One thousand three hundred humans and some two hundred-sixty to three hundred foxes, when a year ago there were barely a thousand humans wasn’t a change that could be accommodated easily, despite it being incredibly advantageous for it to be happen. As such, it was the duty of the Pavilion to make sure it happened and it was done so safely and with nobody deciding to do something stupid.

Tai Su is handling the larger picture and helping with the banner men not getting twitchy around foxes, Bao, Yu Zong and I are handling the integration of the fox women into the social arena, my brothers are handling the integration of the craftsmen foxes and humans and Da Xiu and Ya Xue help almost exclusively with the problems between various human groups across the area created by the largest settlement around increasing it’s industrial output twice over.

“We would rather not let our elder sister be disrespected in our home despite her sacrifices for our families. We thought it was a weird cultural thing, so we remained silent as we gathered more data before forcing a confrontation, but it is not something we will tolerate Mei. ” Haoran said and Cheng nodded shortly after.

I sighed at those words and looked down at the sleeping babes, their red hair and fox ears not enough to hide the fact that they looked like younger versions of me, who I myself looked exactly like my own mother. We had to make sure to not be too loud lest the two little treasures woke up and started crying.

“You will have to, the social situation is complicated enough as it is, if something happens with your marriage, then we might see a divide between the foxes and humans that will remain open for decades. The disrespect will be addressed and returned in an appropriate manner, there is no need for you to ruin your marriage. You do love them yes? Then let them face the consequences of them failing to read the situation properly.” I replied, my voice gaining an edge of sternness.

“We love them elder sister, but we also love you and remember who raised and sacrificed for us and who married us when we were already influential. Respect must be given to those who deserve it in our homes, because our homes are yours as well.” Cheng declared bluntly.

Those women certainly didn’t make it feel like it, but I need them focused on anything but that.

“Just trust me on this and let us do our work without interference and things should be back to normal. If you wish to talk more before you leave, then I’d rather hear any tales you have to share than talk more on this.” I pleaded with them.

The two men looked at each other then sighed at the same time.

They then proceeded to tell me of the social situation among the craftsmen and unsurprisingly the potters and the soap makers were the only ones not making an issue of themselves, their fellow alchemists were bickering as if the market was saturated and they were desperate for clients when all of their work orders were filled for the next year.

I just smiled and mimicked laughing at their tales while occasionally cooing at the girls in my arms. Life wasn’t what I expected, but it was getting there and that’s all that mattered.

AN: I will add that Mei Lin is wrong on her assumptions. The foxes knew she was a concubine before they got married to her brothers. They just realized that she doesn't care for them through observation, as the fox-clan is very attentive to body language and how that relates to emotions, and to them Mei Lin reads as someone that is very good at pretending to care, but genuinely does not care, and so neither do they.

On a side note, this has been the chapter I've spent the most time editing. It was originally 4000-ish words before it turned into nearly 6k words.