by Tao Wong
***
The group met the next day under the paifang that demarcated the line between the start of the sect interior and the rest of its lands. Underneath the joined columns that stood over the single path up the mountain, the gate guardian sat. Elder Lu rested with his eyes closed, head tilted toward the sky as his long pipe slowly burned. Each visitor to the Sect slowed down as they crossed the threshold and offered the silent Elder a bow or nod of recognition if they were known, or in some cases, checked in to gain his approval before they continued their journey. It was there that Wu Ying and his small team gathered as the sun was rising.
“You have everything?” Wu Ying said to the team.
He noted that both members carried nothing but weapons on their body. Bao Cong had a quiver of arrows slung behind his back but no unstrung bow in sight, a simple dao belted on the left of his body. Tou Hei had his staff in hand, though Wu Ying knew he used it as much as a walking stick as a weapon. As usual, the monk was dressed in his orange robes with no accoutrements other than a simple ring on one hand. The ring was not frivolous jewelry but a storage ring, just like Wu Ying’s. It made travel much easier, though occasionally additional, non-spirit-tooled methods of baggage were required. After all, even the closet-sized storage ring Wu Ying owned cost thousands of taels.
The pair nodded in response to Wu Ying’s question, gesturing to their rings. Happy to see they were ready, Wu Ying turned toward Elder Lu, ready to hand them his Sect leave permit, and was stopped by the sight of a familiar young lady. Coming from the Sect was Li Yao, the small martial specialist hurrying down the pathway while chivying along another. As surprised as Wu Ying was to see her, her company was the true marvel. Yin Xue followed beside her, hands clasped behind his back. Wu Ying frowned, wondering why he was there.
The female cultivator brushed right past Wu Ying, never bothering to greet him, though she did greet both Tou Hei and Bao Cong. The moment she was done, she added, “Come, let’s get going. If we take too long, the ship will leave without us.”
She followed her words with action, continuing to walk down the pathways, ignoring Wu Ying and Elder Lu. Yin Xue smirked at Wu Ying before he hurried after the fast-moving Li Yao, pausing only long enough to offer a nod to Elder Lu. That left Wu Ying watching all four of their departing backs under the slowly brightening sky.
“Never a good thing.” Elder Lu’s lazy voice interrupted Wu Ying’s befuddlement.
“Sir?”
“Angering a woman. My mother used to say angering a woman and the heavens was equally foolish.” Elder Lu cackled then added as he fixed Wu Ying with a firm gaze, “Or ignoring an Elder. None of them bothered to show me their leave permits.”
Wu Ying gulped and hurried over to the Elder, bowing low and offering his own Sect seal and the permits he had procured for the other two. “Elder, I’m sure they did not mean to insult you—”
“Never you mind. I will deal with them when they return,” Elder Lu said. “But you are going to help your parents, yes?”
“Yes, Elder.” Wu Ying’s eyes narrowed as he wondered if he was going to receive another speech about the dangers to his dao and his life. He would never admit that he was exhausted by the numerous times he’d been warned—from attendants to Sect Elders to Ah Yee—and he did not need another discussion about what he was doing wrong.
“The path of a guardian is difficult. It requires both the strength to protect and the wisdom to know what to protect. Sometimes, knowing when one must walk away is just as important as protecting those one loves.”
Wu Ying’s jaw dropped, but Elder Lu had already turned away to stare at the sky, enjoying the passing clouds. Wu Ying shook his head, getting over his surprise at receiving actual advice rather than another recrimination. Still, something in Elder Lu’s voice spoke of an untold story, one that he probably would not relate. Still, Elder Lu’s advice left Wu Ying troubled in a way the other admonishments had not.
A slight droop of the pipe as the Elder acknowledged another Sect member brought Wu Ying’s attention back to himself. This was no time to be considering such things. His group had already left him behind. If he did not hurry, he could just imagine Li Yao urging the ship’s captain to leave without him. Whatever ruminations he might have on the dao of being a guardian, or if he was doing the wrong thing, would have to wait. He had a team to catch up with.
***
It was on the fourth switchback that Wu Ying caught up with the group. He hurried to Li Yao and ducked his head to speak with her. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday.”
And he was. Even if he did not mean to take back the content of what he said, he certainly understood her position and could have said his side better.
Li Yao looked at Wu Ying, sniffed once, then sped up to leave Wu Ying behind. A flash of anger ran through him at his rebuffed apology. He was not the only one who was wrong. Still… he decided to leave it alone for now. She would cool down at some point. Probably.
In any case, he had someone else to speak to. He dropped back, waiting until his target arrived. “Yin Xue, what are you doing here?”
“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” Yin Xue smirked. When Wu Ying’s fists clenched, it only made Yin Xue’s smirk grow even wider. Eventually, when Wu Ying felt as if he might boil over, Yin Xue relented. “Li Yao asked me, of course.”
“To speak with your father? Would that even help?” Wu Ying said.
After all, at least from Yin Xue’s perspective, he was the unwanted son. Of course, that might be a lie too. Or a misjudgment. Fairy Yang thought his banishment and presence here was now more a matter of hedging their bets.
“Better than an unnamed peasant who’s trying to steal his villagers, I would think.”
Wu Ying bristled but had to admit, that made some sense. He hoped they were right and that Yin Xu would be able to convince his father to let the village go.
As if Yin Xue had no desire to spend any more time with Wu Ying than he had to, he sped up and fell in line with the blacksmith apprentice. Wu Ying caught bits of their conversation as the pair introduced themselves. At least the group was larger, even if they had added personal drama to the entire thing. Safety in numbers. So long as they didn’t kill one another.
***
“Good to see you here again,” said the owner of the vessel the group had embarked on. He slapped Wu Ying’s shoulder, his face—deeply tanned from being on the water all the time—breaking into a wide grin. Wu Ying had to smile, as they seemed destined to leave on the same ship he had arrived on so long ago. “Will you be working the oars with us again?”
Wu Ying glanced over at where the sailors were, some of them ready to help guide the ship out on the rowing benches, while others rigged up the sails. Since they were going downstream, they would not have a full bank of oars out. Not like when they had to come to the Sect, rowing upriver against the current.
“No, I don’t think so.” Wu Ying gestured to the drum that dictated the timing. “I don’t think I would be able to match your tempo anymore.”
The captain eyed Wu Ying again, more carefully, and nodded. “Pity, but I understand.”
Having finished speaking to Wu Ying and having sent his vice captain to deal with the rest of the cultivators, the captain turned back to his men and the cargo he was loading. Wu Ying stood by as the captain disappeared, caught up in the work of their departure, before he walked to the prow of the ship. A trace of sadness was in him as he realized that he was pulling away from who he was and who he had been. Away from the mortal world. Even joining in on the oars would be difficult, requiring Wu Ying to match strength with those who were significantly weaker than him. Wu Ying couldn’t be certain that he could do so, and if he failed, then the craft would veer off course.
More than that, he realized, his scope of worry had grown. Saving one’s family was normal. Mortal. Saving an entire village was something only a cultivator could dream of. Something the boy he used to be could never dream of.
/> As Wu Ying waited for the ship to finish loading and for them to begin their journey, he could only hope for fair winds and smooth waters. If so, it would take them a week before they had to transfer from the ship and begin the overland portion of their journey.
Chapter 9
Wu Ying tossed and turned in the hammock, unable to fall asleep. Late at night, the ship was quiet, the creaking of old wood and the swish of sails the only sounds surrounding him. Giving up, he got off the hammock, making sure to move as quietly as possible as he left the common room, and went up to the deck. Below, the rest of the cultivators and the day crew slept. The deck itself was illuminated by lanterns to allow the night crew to work unimpeded. Up ahead, at the prow, a single lantern illuminated any upcoming obstacles. A lookout peered into the dark waters, doing his best to ensure that the ship would not run afoul of anything. It was only because the river flowed so quickly and was used regularly by other ships that the captain was willing to risk traveling at night. Unlike other waterways and canals that had less traffic, the main river that led from the Sect was always cleared of obstructions in short order.
To Wu Ying’s surprise, seated in a cleared space near the bow of the ship was Tou Hei. The ex-monk had his legs crossed and his eyes closed as he meditated. Wu Ying stretched out his senses, feeling Tou Hei’s aura and the ambient chi flows. He sensed the turbulence in the air as Tou Hei drew in the ambient energy of the world, a small vortex of chi that centered around his friend. Except there was also turbulence within Tou Hei himself. Wu Ying frowned. He had sensed his friend cultivate before, and it was nothing like this.
On consideration, Wu Ying chose to watch over his friend in silence, concern growing as Tou Hei’s breathing grew more erratic and the monk sweated and twitched. Concerned as he was, Wu Ying knew better than to interrupt the cultivator. Doing so would be, could be, as bad as letting him continue. Maybe even worse. Chi deviation was something that every cultivator worried about. At the lower levels of cultivation, that meant the gathered energy within one’s body stopped moving in the carefully prescribed patterns, creating a backflow into the wrong meridians, crossflows into overly burdened locations, and potentially, inflows to blocked locations. This would cause the chi to strike itself, creating turbulence within the body.
It was, in many ways, similar to the backlash Wu Ying had faced when he failed to break through to the next stage. It was why in the beginning, when one started cultivating, it was always recommended to be done in groups and under the watchful eyes of a teacher. The teacher would know the flow of chi within the students and block, divert, and fix the deviations before they became set in the student’s body, requiring even further, more complicated solutions.
Even so, Wu Ying did not think that a chi deviation was what Tou Hei faced at the moment. After all, Tou Hei was in the mid-stages of Energy Storage and was not a beginner cultivator. He should be able to avoid the mistakes young cultivators would make. Furthermore, Wu Ying knew that Tou Hei was not pushing ahead, instead focusing on consolidating his cultivation, which meant repeating known patterns. As such, Wu Ying was forced to watch, though he stood ready to forcibly stop his friend’s cultivation if necessary. Doing that would normally be dangerous, but the pair had shared their cultivation methods for such an eventuality.
Tou Hei continued to shake and shudder, beads of sweat rolling down his smooth face while Wu Ying watched. As suddenly as the shaking started, his friend stopped, jerked upright, and vomited a mouthful of black blood onto his robes. As Tou Hei slumped over, Wu Ying grabbed his friend and supported him with one hand while making a flask of water appear in his other. His friend took a swig of the water, leaned over, and spat out the remnant blood. He repeated the action twice more before grimacing at his robes. A quick wash with the water had the black blood flowing off, making Wu Ying twitch in envy. Even the monk’s robes were more expensive than his own. Then again, those robes were often the only thing a monk would own—and would be worn all their lives. It was probably more economical to own a single good set than multiple cheap robes.
When his friend was finally ready, Wu Ying asked the question he had been dying to know. “What was that?”
“Thank you.” Tou Hei wiped his face clean and mopped at the water with a conjured cloth, cleaning the deck and himself before returning the flask. Once Tou Hei was done, he began a series of stretches, still avoiding looking fully at his friend.
Frowning, Wu Ying sat on a nearby bench and waited.
“It was a cultivation exercise.” Tou Hei sighed and sat beside Wu Ying, a corner of his lips twisting wryly before he finally met Wu Ying’s gaze, the first flush of embarrassment fading. “It seems I still have not killed my ego.”
“Idiot!” Wu Ying jabbed his friend in the knee with a finger. “You know you can always ask for help.”
“I know. I thought I had a grasp of it already.” Tou Hei sighed. “Should have listened to my Master. The exercise is to help increase the size of my dantian.”
“Too small?”
“Yes.”
“What does it do?” Wu Ying leaned forward, curious to hear what method the ex-monk had dug up.
“It’s a simple exercise. In fact, it’s not the most suitable for me, but it is the closest we can find. You overfill your dantian and push against its boundaries with your chi. At the same time, you set up a spiral to compress the dantian’s edges. In doing so, you are meant to give it strength and flexibility. Every few days, I increase the amount of chi I use to achieve the next level. That was what you saw.”
Wu Ying knew that the amount of energy one could contain within their dantian was set at birth, but it would also grow as one progressed in their cultivation. Just like a muscle. But not a big muscle. A small one, a muscle tucked away and supported by other larger, stronger muscles. Targeting it was like trying to water a single plant in a field of vegetables while using a washing bucket thrown from a distance. It was difficult and likely to overwater everything else unless one took great care.
Tou Hei fished in his pockets and drew out a small bottle, which he handed to Wu Ying. “My Master gave me these pills. They are Black Ice Chi absorption pills of the North Wen. If I go too far, I am to take this. Except I might not be able to do it myself.”
“Just practice when I’m around then.” Wu Ying took the pills and held the bottle before him, turning it around in his hand. Like any good cultivator, he asked a few more questions about the pills and what they were meant to do.
In short, the pills would absorb the rampant energy in an individual’s body. It was part poison and part medicine, since it did not differentiate between good and bad chi. Instead it drew it all in, storing it in the pill before forcing its ingestee to expel the pill—and its contents—in a violent and explosive manner.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Wu Ying said. “Is it at least helping?”
Tou Hei shrugged. “Not much. The entire winter I might have grown my dantian’s size by an inch?”
Wu Ying winced. A good dantian and the compressed energy it contained should be half the size of a fist when one ascended to Core Formation. Initially, most body cultivators had a head-sized dantian made up of uncompressed, unrefined energy. A body cultivator’s goal, along with the development of their meridians, was the compression and refinement of that energy, increasing its density. A cultivator would go through multiple stages of compression and refinement, the largest change occurring during the first half of Body Refinement.
However, just because the chi was compressed did not mean the amount of energy had changed. It was only by expanding the muscle—the base amount—that Tou Hei could draw more. If he did not, it would limit Tou Hei’s ability to break through to the Core Cultivation stage. In fact, depending on the size of Tou Hei’s dantian, he might even struggle to clear the final Energy Storage meridians.
“So are you going to try again?” said Wu Ying, noting that Tou Hei had regained his color.
“If you will watch over
me.”
Wu Ying nodded, and his friend flashed him a grin. They both made sure that they were comfortable before Tou Hei began his cultivation exercise. Wu Ying watched over him, splitting some of his attention so that he could work on his own cultivation exercise. Tou Hei had done this for him more than enough. Time for him to return the favor.
***
The next morning, Wu Ying found Li Yao practicing on the upper deck. He tentatively approached her, worried that she would rebuff his advances once again. However, this time she did not stalk away but kept her focus on her forms. For a time, he watched her wield her spear, enjoying the graceful loops and swirls of motion. Perhaps it was her previous training as a dancer, perhaps it was her natural grace, but she moved as if she were dancing. A very martial dance, for each pivot, each graceful sway of her body was punctuated by the crisp strike of a weapon. When she was done, Wu Ying was amused to note that he was not the only one watching the beautiful cultivator. All around, various lazing workers were eyeing the young lady.
When Li Yao put away her weapon, Wu Ying girded his loins and approached her with a pair of breakfast bowls. He offered her the simple bowl of congee that was their breakfast, the boiled rice porridge being seasoned with fresh chives, garlic, and just a touch of sesame oil. Layered on top of the bowl of porridge was a filet of freshwater fish. While Wu Ying could not tell which particular fish it was, the white flesh looked succulent and glossy. It was likely the same one they had eaten last night, a simple freshwater delicacy that had been caught as they left the city. One advantage of traveling by boat was the constant ability to add to the stores.
Li Yao looked at the bowls before she propped her spear over one shoulder and took the bowl with her now free hand. She offered Wu Ying a simple thanks and took a seat against the boat’s edge, away from any of the sailors. After setting her weapon on her knees, Li Yao dug into her meal with gusto.
