She was in the E-rank dungeon.
This was, Su Xuan recognized, probably not a coincidence. The District 7 gate schedule was public information. If she had wanted to be in the same dungeon at the same time as him, she had had all the information she needed to arrange it.
He found her in the second chamber, standing over the disintegrating remains of an E-rank Bone Archer with her hands in her jacket pockets, looking at the loot like it had disappointed her personally.
She heard him coming. She did not look startled. She turned with the precise economy of movement of someone who had decided how they were going to present themselves before turning and was delivering on that decision.
"Su Xuan," she said. As if she had been expecting him and was confirming an appointment.
"Ling Xue," he said.
They looked at each other.
"You have a Ghoul General," she said.
"Yes."
"He wasn't there yesterday."
"He was." Behind Su Xuan, from his shadow, Kael was already present in the chamber, silent and vast. "He stays close."
Ling Xue looked at Kael for a moment. Her expression remained neutral. This was notable because Kael was three meters tall and radiated the cold of concentrated death-magic and most people, upon encountering him for the first time, found their feet taking steps backward without being asked.
Ling Xue had not moved.
"Shadow Sovereign," Su Xuan said. "What does the class do?"
She looked back at him. Considered it. Then: "Mastery over shadows and the space between light. Assassination. Concealment. I can move through shadows, command them as weapons, fold space in low-light conditions." A pause. "And I absorb the skills of beings I kill."
Su Xuan was quiet for a moment.
That was a powerful class. Rarer than rare. And she had just told him, in calm specifics, exactly what she could do. Which was either trust or strategy or both.
"Why are you telling me?" he asked.
"Because you're not going to tell anyone," she said. Not a question.
"No," he agreed.
"And because—" She stopped. Something moved behind her eyes, there and gone. Then she said: "Whatever you are, you already know I'm not a threat to you. So I gain nothing by hiding. I gain information by being direct."
He looked at her steadily. "What information do you want?"
"What class did you actually get?"
A long pause.
"Something that doesn't have a clean name yet," he said. "Demon God is the closest approximation the System found. I also have a second class derived from someone else's, but magnified."
"Magnified how."
"By a factor of ten."
She looked at him. Her expression was the same — still, grey, giving nothing away. But something in her posture changed, by a degree that most people wouldn't catch and Su Xuan caught immediately, and he read it as: recalibrating.
"Your brother," she said. "He's the Undead Summoner."
"Yes."
"And you have a ten-times version of his class."
"Yes."
"Which means your undead—"
"Are significantly above his. Yes."
She was quiet for a moment. Not uncomfortable quiet. Thinking quiet. Then she said: "The reason you're keeping it hidden."
"Partially. And because there's no benefit to being loud."
She looked at him with an expression that he was starting to learn was her version of agreement. Then she turned back toward the dungeon corridor.
"I'll be clearing east chambers," she said.
"We have west."
She nodded once. Walked.
Then, three steps away, without turning: "Su Xuan."
"Mm."
"Be careful with the Iron Vanguard. Zhao Wei doesn't handle rejection quietly."
She walked away.
Su Xuan watched the shadows absorb her — literally, in her case, the darkness of the corridor simply folding around her until she was not there.
He stood for a moment.
Then Su Ming appeared around the corner with his three skeletons and the expression of someone who had watched an entire exchange from a doorway and had opinions about it.
"Not a word," Su Xuan said.
"She likes you," Su Ming said.
"She respects operational security," Su Xuan said. "Those are different things."
"They're not."
"They are."
"They're really—"
"West chambers," Su Xuan said, and walked.