by Tao Wong
Wu Ying’s hand rose and fell, each sentence, each word seeming unsuitable. He even stained the paper with a drop of ink, so often did he dip his brush and bring it close before aborting. Wu Ying stood, walking in a circle around the table before sitting and trying again. He picked up his brush and hesitated.
And put it down. His clothes needed to be folded. His bag had to be put away. There was some dirt that the servants had forgotten to clean.
Procrastination worked, and as the evening dragged on, Wu Ying resolved to not sleep until he was done. Eventually his room was clean, his clothing sorted, his manuals read through and memorized, and his notes neatly organized.
Eventually, Wu Ying stopped trying to find the right words and just lay out the facts. At least to start. His brush dipped into the inkwell and he wrote, sucking on his bottom lip.
The journey to the Double Soul, Double Body Sect was relatively uneventful. None of us were injured and we have been in the sect for a few months. The search for a solution to the issues with my body has been less fruitful than desired. While I have located a couple of cultivation manuals, making full use of them to cleanse and solve the dangers in my body has been less than successful.
Wu Ying looked at the words he had written and winced. It was so cold and academic. It was so… wrong. Hand hovering over the document, he shook his head and dipped the brush into the inkwell once more.
Something personal. Something warmer.
I have not given up looking for a solution. However, it seems that the solution might already be something I have acquired but not understood. I intend to return in the next few weeks and hope to see you all soon.
Wu Ying hesitated, considering mentioning he might die if he did not find a solution. Of course, they had known that before he left. But going from a few years of slow, grinding pain to a few months was somewhat of a change.
Then again, would telling them help?
In the meantime, I am sending some more taels to you. I hope the funds will aid you and the village.
Better to keep it simple. It still needed something. Something personal to close off the letter.
I am hoping to be back for the New Year’s, but if I do not make it, I hope Mother will make sure to cook the stewed pork with the black fungus for me again. I sometimes dream of it. Even among the many meals I’ve eaten, it is still my favorite. I’ll try to bring some spirit boar meat for her to use.
Wu Ying read over the document once more. He hesitated, debating if he should mention his illness, his coming end. Eventually, he shook his head. He’d be back to see them and talk of it soon enough. Even if he did tell them in the letter, there was nothing they could do.
Better to leave them with some foreknowledge, but not the full, depressing details.
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Your loving and filial son,
Ying
Signing off, Wu Ying waited for the note to finish drying before he rolled it closed. He would send it with the messengers tomorrow, knowing it would likely arrive only a few weeks ahead of himself. Still, it was time to write the message. More than time.
Standing, the cultivator blew out the lights and made his way to his bed, turning over what had to be done in the next few days. If he was to find a solution, then he’d best stay in the library for most of the day. Somewhere in there, perhaps, would be a story that would explain things, enlighten him. Save him.
Or not.
***
Mornings. Cultivation practice, both soul and body. As the dawn light crept up, Wu Ying began his physical practice and his soul cultivation, helping to deal with the ongoing increase in destruction of his body. Even though he knew what he was doing was insufficient, it still extended his life. And so he kept it up, even in the face of futility.
Moreover, in the very practice of body cultivation, there was still a small chance that something would make sense, that he would understand where he was going wrong and finally find a true solution to his predicament. Toward the end of the morning, he spent about half an hour working with his weapon practice, going through the forms for his sword. Sadly, he found himself increasingly dissatisfied with his weapon practice, knowing that it was insignificant to his true needs.
Afternoons. A quick lunch, taken early, before he traveled to the library. There, he studied everything he could get his hands on. He even wasted some of the contribution points he had gained by acquiring other body cultivation manuals, all in the hope of finding a solution. None of them—at least, on first viewing—provided that movement of enlightenment he needed. In the end, all he got for his troubles were more manuals that offered him nothing.
The rest of his time, he spent reading stories about the Patriarch and the Elder. When he ran out of those, Wu Ying read about other body cultivators, other individuals inflicted with broken and polluted bodies. Among those stories, he searched for a solution, options he had not explored.
He could try to pray to the gods. Occasionally, it was known that the immortals would come down for those who were particularly devoted, particularly exceptional and good, to save them.
Wu Ying could also find a demon sect and offer his services and his servitude in the underworld. After all, they could easily solve his problem of the corrupt chi by the simple act of flooding his body with even more corrupt, demonic energy. The transformation into a demonic cultivator was a known solution for the most desperate.
Almost, almost, Wu Ying was tempted. The practicality of finding a demonic sect, and one that he could reach in time, stood in the way of its use. Then, of course, was the forced servitude. While demons were not necessarily evil, what they wanted, what they needed from humans was not generally for the best of mankind. Serving them harmed one’s immortal soul, and that did not even account for the decades, potentially centuries, he would spend in the underworld as a servant.
Outside of that, those inflicted with dangerous poisons had done the obvious and seen apothecarists and physicians, even poison monsters. They had bathed in medicinal baths, alleviated their symptoms with apothecarist pills, and injected themselves with poisons. Some, like him, had found body cultivation manuals that proved effective. Certainly those at the higher stages were like that. It was hard to poison a metal elemental body.
In the end, all these solutions worked. For some.
For Wu Ying, all the stories that he read, all the solutions he came across, he had either tried or had no reasonable expectation of achieving. He did mark down attempting to beseech the gods on New Year’s Eve, but he knew that all across the middle kingdom, hundreds, if not millions, of others would be asking the gods for their favor. And most would have a better case.
After all, Wu Ying had chosen his path, and if the consequences of his actions were less than ideal, they were consequences of actions he had chosen to take. Too many others were inflicted with punishments, crushed under the wheel of petty feelings, their lives torn asunder by the callous whims of others. To them, perhaps, a god’s grace was necessary. A tipping of the scales toward equilibrium.
He might ask, but even he knew he did not deserve a god’s mercy.
As such, each afternoon, Wu Ying spent his time reading until the evening bells tolled and it was time to meet his friends for dinner. Occasionally, all too infrequently, he would visit the Elder’s gardens or give a lecture—often at the same time—on proper spiritual herb care.
Evenings. Meals with friends, idle conversation to catch up on their lives. They met more often now as they waited for Tou He to recuperate. The ex-monk was recovering fast, stabilizing the damage he had done to his body and his cultivation base. He was still significantly bereft of chi, as his newly opened dantian required filling. Even the energy levels that he had for his meridians were lower, allowing Tou He to maybe show sixty percent of his actual strength. In time though, that would change.
Dinners were companionable and sociable, Wu Ying forcing himself to enjoy his time with them. Though he always wondered how man
y more dinners he had left.
Then after dinner, he returned to his rooms to cultivate again. To ponder upon what he had learned, what he had read, and what he knew in the hopes of a breakthrough. Some days, he found himself frustrated, anger threatening to overtake reason as he struggled to achieve what he had managed without thought so often in his first years in the Sect.
Enlightenment. Understanding. The Dao.
And he failed. Whether it was because he desperately needed that understanding and that need clouded his judgment, or because what he sought was not something the heavens could give him, he failed.
At times, Wu Ying felt that he was teetering on the edge, understanding brushing against the edges of his consciousness. Yet somehow, it always eluded him.
Almost, Wu Ying considered throwing himself into a life-threatening situation. He had found enlightenment before in such circumstances. At the end of a blade, when his back was against the wall, as the world narrowed to slivers of time. Almost, he chose to try it.
Then good sense overcame him, and he pushed the thought aside. Any enlightenment he gained, it would not heal but kill. What he had learned in those situations was the art of war, of death. Right now, what he needed was the opposite.
Morning. Afternoon. Evening. Late Night.
Day after day, time passed. His time ran out.
And he found…
Nothing.
Chapter 21
A week later, Tou He was nearly ready to leave. It meant that Wu Ying’s nights in the library grew ever later as he tried to finish up. As he turned the corner of a shelf, Wu Ying’s thoughts were on the latest story he had read. It filled his mind as he tried to decide how much trust to place in it. All too often, the stories had an element of propaganda to them. Mind filled with the story, with their upcoming departure, Wu Ying never saw Wan Yan. Not until he bumped into the young lady and almost knocked her over.
Her palm strike nearly took off Wu Ying’s jaw. Only a quick twist to the side by reflex stopped it from dislocating his jaw. Even then, the blow had Wu Ying staggering backward, his neck twisted to the side as he fell into a defensive stance.
“Fool peasant!” Wan Yan snarled, retracting her hand. She wiped it on her dress, clearly disgusted.
Slowly, Wu Ying relaxed and came out of his defensive stance. He flexed his jaw, listening to it click before he rubbed the still smarting portion. He tasted blood on the side where she’d struck him and pushed at his cheek with his tongue where a slight cut bled.
Yet he couldn’t be angry. They were cultivators, trained to deal with threats every day of their lives. Martial techniques became second nature even to the most pacifist of members, as demon beasts and challenges from other cultivators were a way of life. A reactive strike that opened distance after a surprise motion? That was almost expected.
Not to say that if he had struck her, there would be no consequences. For all his progress, Wu Ying was still only beginning to climb the ranks of the inner sect members in the Verdant Green Waters Sect. And propriety mattered. Though in the Sect, such an action would likely have been dealt with via an apology and a fine of contribution points.
“I’m sorry, Senior.” Wu Ying bowed, deciding on politeness. He blinked, spotting Wan Yan’s library attendant, a scroll in hand, stepping away from the pair. Strange that he would leave, considering the commotion they’d made. Wu Ying’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward Wan Yan.
Who was flushed and angry. She stomped forward, inadvertently breaking Wu Ying’s view of the disappearing attendant. “Watch where you walk, you uncouth creature. Or has your sickness progressed so far that you cannot see?”
Her voice dripped venom, and Wu Ying regretted his bow. He might have bumped into her, but she had struck him.
“I will. But perhaps you should watch where you stand too. Or are you too busy meeting your new… friend to pay attention,” Wu Ying said, taking a shot in the dark.
From that flush in her cheeks, maybe the meetings were something more. Something a little more scandalous than a dalliance.
“We are not friends.” Wan Yan sniffed, staring down her nose at Wu Ying. But her feet shifted again, blocking Wu Ying’s gaze as it flicked down the stacks. “And whatever you think, you are wrong.”
“Of course,” Wu Ying said, sugary.
“I will see you in the ring if you dare to spread such baseless rumors!” Wan Yan said.
Goaded, Wu Ying smiled.
Her hand raised and she moved to push him out of the way. Rather than let her touch him, Wu Ying stepped back, allowing her to exit the stacks without coming near him. She stalked off, but he caught sight of her as she turned the corner of the library, looking back at him.
When he caught her looking, she glared more before stomping off, leaving the ex-farmer chuckling.
Served her right.
***
Not all of his encounters were bad. Another accidental meeting, this time as he was leaving the cultivation chambers the next evening. He turned when his name was called, blinking as he spotted Xiang Wen beaming at him. The effusiveness of her emotions put Wu Ying on guard a little.
“Long Wu Ying, how have you been?” Xiang Wen stepped close to him and tilted her head up.
Wu Ying blinked, surprised to note that she was significantly shorter, only reaching up to just under his nose. “I am well, Cultivator Sun.”
Before he could say anything else, a cart rumbled past, hitting a pothole that had been filled by the morning’s rain shower. Reacting by instinct, Xiang Wen stepped away from the splashing water, flaring her aura and solidifying it to send the wave of liquid bouncing off. However, her step put her even closer to Wu Ying, nearly touching him and chest to chest.
Startled, already about to speak, Wu Ying said the first thing that came to mind. “You smell good.”
He flushed, having realized what he’d said. His mind was still fuzzy from the evening’s cultivation attempt and the pain that was inching back. That she smelled good was the truth too. No longer did her scent contain the rank, oily corruption. It was clean and light, a floral mixture that could rival scented water.
Xiang Wen flushed and stepped back. She blushed even as he noted another thing. She was not much older than him, if he was any judge. Perhaps not at all.
Women—noble women in particular—always had a bearing that made their ages hard to judge. Physically, all cultivators started looking the same once they reached the upper edges of Body Cultivation, due to the extended lifespan and the cleansing of impurities.
If anything, Wu Ying realized as he ran a hand through his hair self-consciously, he was the one who looked older. Between his tanned appearance, the bronzing from the medicinal bath, and the impurities in his body, he had lines that were new and a hunch that was uncommon.
“Why, thank you.” Xiang Wen cocked her head, a smile playing across her lips. “Though that’s a rather upfront comment, is it not?”
“I… that’s…” Wu Ying paused, then plunged ahead. “It’s not anything strange. It’s your chi. It’s different.”
“Ah… that’s how you could tell,” Xiang Wen said, her voice dropping. “An unusual sensing technique. One I’d expect from a beast trainer perhaps, or their animals.”
“I am no beast,” Wu Ying said, recalling the way Wan Yan had reacted to him. He stepped back, only for Xiang Wen’s face to flicker with disappointment.
“I never said you were. Just a skill not normally seen among most cultivators.” A light smile played across her lips. “But you’re all for doing things that are not traditional, are you not, Cultivator Long?”
“What are you trying to say?” Wu Ying said suspiciously.
“Wandering Spiritual Herb Gatherer. A peasant who achieved his position via his prodigious skill in sword arts and luck. Using a family sword style that is long discarded. And now a body cultivator.” Xiang Wen counted each thing off with her fingers. “Multiple expeditions, all while just an Energy Storage cultivator. You mus
t admit, you are quite ambitious.”
“I’m not. It just…” Wu Ying struggled to find the right words and finally went with the one that came to mind, even if it did not describe the events and his feelings properly. “Happened.”
“Of course.” Another smile. “Intriguing.”
Wu Ying breathed in the clean, clear air of her aura once more. He realized she was likely about to leave since she was now fine. “How did you end up getting involved with them?”
“The dark sect?” Xiang Wen lowered her voice. When Wu Ying nodded, she bit her lip before she gave a small shake of her head. “It’s personal. Suffice to say, I trusted the wrong person. And learnt too late.”
“Well, I am glad you have solved your issue.” If she was not an actual member of the dark sect, that was. Or even if she had been, the destruction of one’s cultivation base was a hard thing.
“I have. And I will be leaving soon.”
Wu Ying nodded, having guessed that.
“I wanted to thank you for the contribution points,” she said. “And for helping the sect locate and grow the necessary herbs for the pills I needed.”
“Oh!” Wu Ying said, remembering some of the odder requests for herbs that had come through. Thankfully, he had been able to locate most of them on short journeys out of the sect before the expedition or, in a few cases, transplant them from his World Spirit Ring. “That was you?”
“Yes.”
Wu Ying smiled. “Then thank you for the contribution points!”
She laughed softly, then offered him a teasing bow. “Of course, Honored Cultivator.”
“Will others from your sect be coming then?” Wu Ying said, gesturing toward the tower that dominated the town. “Or will you just be passing on your solution to them all?”
