"It is not easy." Xichen understands that. It is not for everyone and even to those who grow up in it, the precepts can seem oppressive.

"We are not quite monks, though some would say we are. Lan An left the order he was part of when he met his fated one," he says with a bit of a laugh. "All my life. I was born into the Sect and it is all I know. Lan An was an ancestor."