by Tao Wong
Sitting back, Wu Ying stared at the map, willing it to offer more clues, to make the harsh math of travel times different. When his wishes offered little succor, he put it all away and walked into his courtyard. If he had to leave soon, then it was time to focus on his cultivation and stop with the exercises. The middle of a war was not the time to be running low on chi.
***
Thankfully, Li Yao returned the next day. Wu Ying met her as she left the Assignment Hall, informed of her return via the speedy servant gossip network. Li Yao burst into a grin upon seeing him, the smile washing away the exhaustion he had glimpsed on her face. She skipped forward to meet him, but the smile disappeared as she noticed Wu Ying’s unusually serious mien.
“What is it?” she said.
Wu Ying brought her up to speed on his current predicament. She frowned as he spoke, growing more obviously pensive with each word.
When he finished speaking, Li Yao gripped his hand tightly. “Of course I’ll help. I’ll contact my parents immediately. They will do the best they can to make Lord Wen let your parents go.”
“No. That wasn’t what I wanted to speak to you about. I’m going to speak to Lord Wen myself,” Wu Ying said, squeezing back on her hand in reflex.
“That is not a good idea. If you come to him as you are, you have nothing to offer him. He’ll have all the advantages. You need to think about this properly.”
“Think about it? What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?” said Wu Ying, his tone brusque. “All I’ve been thinking of is my parents.”
Li Yao winced. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“What way did you mean it?”
“I’m just trying to help you.”
Wu Ying heard the contrition in her voice, but it didn’t stop him from releasing her hand. “In what way did you mean it? All I asked of you was to help me on the expedition.”
All that worry, all that concern Wu Ying had had for Li Yao and his parents, all that stress burst out of him as she questioned his judgment. What did she know? There was no time for her parents to talk to Lord Wen. Even if she could contact hers and they deigned to help her, it would be too late. It would take at least two weeks for her message to reach her parents and a similar amount of time for a reply to return. She just didn’t understand the timelines.
“I know what I’m doing!” he said.
“Don’t talk to me like that!” Li Yao said, her temper flaring as Wu Ying raised his voice at her.
“Then stop trying to put up obstacles. I don’t need you to do that.” Wu Ying threw up his hands in exasperation.
“Maybe you don’t need me at all!” Li Yao crossed her arms and stepped away from him.
When she did so, she looked about and noticed how they had drawn the attention of the other Sect members. Relationship drama was not uncommon, but it was always good theatre.
Wu Ying followed her gaze, spotting the gawking crowd. His stern gaze landed on an outer sect member who was watching the pair. Wu Ying’s lips curled up as he glared back, forcing the man to look away before scurrying down the path. Unfortunately, Wu Ying’s actions made Li Yao even more self-conscious, her fists clenching by her body.
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe you should just stay here. I’m sure I can handle it myself. He’s just another noble,” Wu Ying said.
“Like me?” Li Yao huffed. “Fine!”
She turned away and stalked off to her residence. Wu Ying watched her retreating back, already regretting the words he had said. All he wanted her to do was agree to come along. To help him. Not take over the assignment. Not to make suggestions over something she didn’t understand. But maybe he could have done better in how he said it. He had just been so worried about her. About his family and the situation there.
He shook his head and turned around, heading back to his own residence. As he walked, he ignored the looks shot at him, the shock that adorned a number of faces. Let them stare. He had more important things to do. Like informing the rest of the team that it was time to go.
***
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 He 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 He 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.
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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 He. The ex-monk had his legs crossed and his eyes closed as he meditated. Wu Ying stretched out his senses, feeling Tou He’s aura and the ambient chi flows. He sensed the turbulence in the air as Tou He 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 He 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 He’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 He faced at the moment. After all, Tou He 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 He 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 He 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 He 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 wou
ld 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 He wiped his face clean and mopped at the water with a conjured cloth, cleaning the deck and himself before returning the flask. Once Tou He 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 He 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 He 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.