NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 9
Orange-crest was supposed to be asleep. Dark had long since fallen. There were only five more nights until his duel with Yang Wei.
He was having lots of sleepless nights lately, despite Daoist Scouring Medicine's continual exhortations that he should rest well to recover from the exertions of the day. His master insisted that though a truly powerful cultivator almost always grew beyond the need for sleep, orange-crest was still far too low in realm for such a thing to apply to him. His many tomes all agreed that the need for sleep tended to reduce drastically in the later stages of Qi Condensation, and by the Midpoint of Foundation Establishment most cultivators should be sleeping no more than one night in three.
Orange-crest thought this sounded like a reasonable guideline rooted in a great deal of observational evidence. But he wasn't tired. Not even after a whole day of martial training with Daoist Enduring Oath. So he didn't sleep.
Instead, he was reading The Drunken Phoenix's Breath again, squinting to make out characters illuminated by only the guttering light of a small candle. A small candle he kept a very safe distance from the well-stained book. The roof was a little windy. He'd already finished the manual twice. He wished it was longer. That was new, he usually wished books were shorter. It said a lot, but it also said nothing. There were ideas there, but the text sort of danced around them. Sections of the manual were simply stories. Tales of a wandering cultivator who captured ghosts and stored them in his gourd. The story of the drunken master who stumbled over a lantern, setting a town ablaze. How he fumbled about trying to extinguish the fire, only succeeding in making the matter worse. How he accepted responsibility for his mistake, and inhaled the whole inferno. The price he paid, for taking such a calamity into his flesh. A story about a hero who collected the bitter tears he shed, and drank them down when his will wavered, finding new strength in the depths of his sorrow.
Other sections of the manual were... Academic musings? Open questions?
"Why does sufficiently strong wine burn when set to flame? What quintessence of wine is it that burns, to leave behind a drink no stronger than water? Does qi burn with the intoxicating aspect, or abide in that portion which remains? To be a drinker is to wonder. To be a brewer is to test."
Orange-crest thought he understood that part. It was a task. Make wines. Burn wines. See what happened. Learn the why behind the happening. He'd already prepared three small jars of wine for later. Rice. Weak fruit. Strong fruit. A tiny bit of spirit stone dust in each of them, along with the Fourfold-Marked Green Rotworm. Daoist Scouring Medicine said strong wine burned better, weak wine often did not burn at all. But he'd never investigated how burning wine influenced the qi that remained.
"When wine burns, it sheds the truest portion of its nature, leaving behind a pale shell of itself. What does a phoenix expend, in order to burn? Some men say there are 3000 Great Daos. Some daoists say there are 10,000. Some wild-eyed creatures number the paths at 84,000. Is the flame a Great Dao? Is alcohol? Can a Great Dao be finite, exhausted by the act of existence? Can the finite one day exhaust itself, giving rise to myriad permutations? Or are the myriad permutations merely an emanation of the finite itself, its own exhaustion reification of it's nature as a Great Dao?"
Orange-crest did not understand this passage half as well. Maybe not even a quarter as well. He still wasn't sure what a Great Dao was, and his master's answer had not made the matter much clearer.
"Alchemy is a Great Dao. Gossiping probably isn't. Some rivers lead to the pinnacle of understanding, others appear to terminate before reaching the sea."
Very helpful master. The worst part is that the silly man had the audacity to act like he'd said something profound. He might well have, but did it really count as profundity if your audience didn't understand it?
Orange-crest carefully put the book down. He took a deep drink of watered down rice wine from his gourd. Then he put the gourd on top of the manual as he lay back to think. What was one more circular water-stain? It almost seemed like a way to honor the book.
There were techniques here. The manual did not name or number them. But there were at least three. The ability to drink wine, and breathe flame. The ability to suck things in and trap them, in a gourd or one's body. Was that one technique, or two? Putting ghosts in a gourd seemed very different from breathing in a great inferno. And there was something else too. The manual kept mentioning phoenixes. They were even in the title. But they never showed up in the stories, there were only questions about them. What did it mean, for them to burn?
Orange-crest scratched his buttocks, at the cleft just below his tail. Ah, that was the spot. Can't do that in a robe. His new fur was sort of pleasant to scratch. So stiff that when the hairs were rubbed against each other with sufficient force they made a noise like the crunch of autumn leaves.
It was good it took substantial force to make his fur crunch. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to sneak around anymore.
He should go to sleep. Neither of his brothers were good with a spear, but tomorrow they were going to both spar with him with one anyway. That probably meant they would overcompensate with their terrifying strength and leave him bruised as a throwing-plum.
He definitely should sleep.
Instead, orange-crest rolled over onto his back, lifting the book above his head. The pages flopped around in the wind, but no passage suddenly stood out to him. He could hardly make out the characters through the poor light anyway. He wondered who wrote the manual. Most of the others had names on them. Names and titles, so that readers would know the book to have been written by a great cultivator. Those that didn't were often at least embedded with a fragment of will, an intoxicating memory that drew the reader in, and left no doubt someone powerful had authored the work.
The Drunken Phoenix's Breath was unclaimed. No name on the cover, nor the spine, nor any of the pages. He hoped one day he met whoever wrote it. That way he could hit them with a stick until they explained why they'd written the book as if they didn't want anyone to understand it, and what it really meant.
Orange-crest took another sip from his gourd. The extra water probably wouldn't help, but it was what he'd brought out with him. He stoked his dantian, letting his qi suffuse his body. Gently, he breathed in and out through his nose. He couldn't use his mouth, not without awkwardly gargling its contents. Long minutes passed as he tried to gently shepherd his qi into his mouth. Qi never wanted to rest in his gourd, always boiling away. He wasn't sure if it was staying in his mouth or not. It was almost harder to sense his qi when he kept it within his body. There was so much other qi moving around within him, it was like trying to find an itch in the middle of a storm. But he thought he was doing something.
The monkey raised the candle to his lips, and spit.
The candle went out. The watered wine did not catch fire. But for a moment, orange-crest thought he saw a strange orange light flickering within the droplets he launched out into the night, like the reflection of fire upon water.
Maybe it'd work better with real wine, strong wine. Or with qi-wine. Or maybe doing it the harder way was good practice, and he just needed to keep trying.
Or maybe he was climbing up the wrong tree entirely, and the whole book was one of those silly 'metaphors'.
The monkey grabbed his things and jumped off the roof, enjoying the way he sunk into the cold dirt. It was time for sleep. He had sparring to do tomorrow. Technique interactions to test, and equipment selections to finalize. Pills needed to be dissolved into the centipede wine, packets of non-lethal poisons prepared to coat his backup-knife with, clever tricks refined in discussion in order to reap best advantage when he finally unveiled his illusions. Yang Wei would be a monstrously powerful foe, orange-crest would need every possible advantage to lay him low.
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It was as he'd told Yingjie the Ogre. Tomorrow comes. And this time, he'd not be found wanting.
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Two disciples rested in the shade of a great yew tree. One of them reclined against its trunk. He held a calligraphy brush in one hand, and a book of bamboo slips in the other. He moved in fits and starts, staring at the unfinished book for long stretches, before suddenly adding a few characters to the end.
The other disciple held a spear in trembling arms. Exhaustion was writ in every line of his form. Then, as if in response to some silent command, he surged into motion. There were many profound spear arts beneath the Heavens. His style was not so impressive as Seven Lances Scatter the Banners, or so domineering as Sunflower-Watering Spear. The disciple's spear sliced through the air in terrible arcs, rending phantoms. Every carefully measured thrust exuded an air of desolation. His motions were economical, so stripped of everything unnecessary that they seemed almost mundane.
Li Shuwen thought that there was a certain correctness in the way Yang Wei practiced alone. It was a lonely sort of technique. It made the young master seem like a warrior that could stand alone on any battlefield. Only corpses worthy of sharing the air he breathed.
Li Shuwen tapped the tip of his brush against his lips, the phrase he was looking for just out of reach. Perhaps... The spear art was like witnessing ten thousand arrows blacken the sky? Not the most elegant of deaths, but an extremely certain one. No, that wasn't quite right. It was an image as unevocative as it was inaccurate.
He moved to a new section of the book, and stopped watching Yang Wei. Any other outer disciple could have learned something about the dao of the spear just from watching the young master train. Once he decided he wasn't getting a good poem out of his performance, Li Shuwen did his best to actively ignore his companion. As far as he was concerned, if he ever needed to use a heaven-defying spear art to defend himself, he'd already failed in every way that mattered. He understood well the cold logic of power. The way that all the trappings of civilization could fade away before the harsh glow of swordlight. But his ancestors had not spent their whole lives clawing their way heavenward so that their descendants could trade stabbing at fish with pointed sticks for thrusting at men with proper spears.
Instead, Li Shuwen wrote about the leaves. He tried to write at least a dozen poems a day. His calligraphy still wasn't good enough for his talismans to reliably take qi.
A journey begins with a parting.
The tired song of autumn.
The dying sun peers between boughs of gnarled yew.
A witness to our-
A spearhead sliced through the leaf whose journey to the earth had so engrossed Li Shuwen.
Yang Wei spun, his spear reaping a toll of imaginary heads. The head of the weapon slid back, rearing like a serpent. He stepped forward, thrusting. No screaming wind trailed the blow. No burst of spiritual force surged outward. But Li Shuwen knew the unobtrusive thrust could have gone clear through the yew tree behind him. Boundless force, without a whisper of fanfare.
Yang Wei collapsed down, finally finished. He'd been performing spear taolu for hours. Li Shuwen grabbed a gourd of water and tossed it to his patron. Yang Wei caught it easily. Instead of drinking, he laid back on the ground and poured the contents of the gourd over his head.
"Thanks."
Li Shuwen tossed him a second gourd. Yang Wei drank from that one. It was an entirely unnecessary duty. The young master had a spatial bag. He could have brought his own water. But for some reason, he never did. If Li Shuwen didn't offer it, he would almost invariably wait until he returned to his dwelling to eat or drink.
Li Shuwen was fairly certain it was not that he enjoyed being served, as so many in his position did. He'd seen plenty of evidence that Young Master Yang oft found it discomfiting to be served by others. It was more like he thought the needs of his body beneath him, or found the deprivation the point? It was yet another of the man's strange quirks he had yet to unravel.
"My uncle arrives tomorrow." Yang Wei said eventually.
"I thought the notables were not expected for another two weeks?"
"A week, for their servants. A week and a half for the earliest of them. His schedule has been light of late."
"He came to see you then. To spend time with and train you?"
"Yes." Yang Wei said simply, as if the thought were not preposterous. As if every story he'd told Li Shuwen about his legend of an uncle did not fly in the face of the common understanding of the way Nascent Soul cultivators spent their time.
"I imagine you shall be quite busy in the coming days then. Are there any matters you wish to delegate to me?"
Yang Wei smothered a chuckle, letting its ghost escape through his nose. As if he had any social entanglements he hadn't already delegated. He still did not truly understand why so many clambered for his attention. Being acquainted with him would not improve their chances of a commission under his uncle, or move his father to speak in support of their clan's petitions at court. Was he truly so unrealistic to expect his peers in the sect to see in him Yang Wei, and not the Young Master of the Yang Clan?
"Not going to ask for an introduction to The Storm That Marches?" He asked his adjutant. "He's always on the lookout for talents capable of managing logistics, if you find External Affairs not to be to your liking."
"No." There was no hesitation in Li Shuwen's answer.
Yang Wei allowed one his eyebrows to drift upward. Li Shuwen had a convenient knack for answering questions he was too lazy to properly put to words.
His companion took a long moment to think before answering. He'd learned quickly that Yang Wei never minded pauses in conversation.
"I once watched a dog chase after a wandering cultivator, barking madly." Li Shuwen eventually said. "The man humored it for a short time, staying just out of its reach, before finally leaping to a nearby roof. But I could not help but wonder what the dog would have even done if it caught him. What would I do with such a man's acquaintance? It is good to be related to an emperor or patriarch. I suspect it is profoundly dangerous for one to merely know your name."
"You are his favored nephew's aide."
"Informally. And I offered you my service. Not the Yang Clan. To presume any relationship with your uncle would be profoundly inappropriate."
Yang Wei sighed.
"My uncle would hardly care."
"That does not surprise me. He is your teacher, after all. But that he does not care is precisely why I must."
Silence fell between them. Yang Wei did not care enough to discuss the matter further. Li Shuwen probably thought the question a test. That was something his father would have done, to subtly probe someone's loyalties. Yang Wei had not meant it as such. Yang Shui was perfectly capable of forming his own opinions about people without his nephew's help.
They lapsed into comfortable silence again, the stillness of the night only broken by the rhythmic hums of cicadas. Yang Wei allowed himself a rare moment of idleness. The spear would consume all his waking hours for the next five days, there was no need for him to add this moment to the pile.
"Do you want to speak with him?" Li Shuwen asked suddenly.
Yang Wei blinked, taking a moment to grasp his companion's meaning. How curious, that their thoughts had drifted in the same direction.
"I would not mind, if he sought me out. But we've all that needs to be said between us."
"Why do you favor him?"
"I don't. I don't favor anyone. I treat them as their behavior merits. But I already know how a fight with either of the Xiao scions will end. The monkey is more interesting."
"You're that certain of victory? I heard Xiao Shulan has recently broken into the fifth stage as well."
"I cannot cut flame any more than they can burn away my thrusts. Is not the outcome obvious?"
"Enlighten me." Li Shuwen said dryly.
"They have never sought out loss. Demanded true duels from their seniors, to discover the limits of what punishment they can bear. Unless one of them is far stronger than they have yet shown, they will flinch first, when we begin to bleed each other."
It was Li Shuwen's turn to snort. That was very like the young master, to trust in the most direct path to victory. No matter how horrifically painful the intervening steps might be. He supposed a man who'd never lacked for healing pills since the day he was born might have a different relationship with injury than the rest of them.
They lapsed into silence again. For the first few days of their acquaintance, Li Shuwen had worried when Yang Wei fell silent. But he'd long since learned this was simply how Young Master Yang was. He rarely spoke, when he didn't have something to say. He had a tremendous disdain for those who spoke falsehoods, but happily tolerated those that were never given voice. It was not that he seemed to lie to himself. He just seemed to find it as easy to ignore his own sentiments as he did his thirst and exhaustion.
"It shouldn't be this early."
"Oh?"
"This match. Someone wants me to eliminate the monkey before he reaches the main stage."
"And what are you going to do about it?"
Yang Wei's brow furrowed, as if Li Shuwen's question was the very height of nonsense.
"Nothing? It is a tournament. We will fight. I will win. It is perhaps a pity, but if I end his run early and few witness his strength? Well, he'll have to take solace in the fact that I will at least see him as he is."
Li Shuwen sighed.
"Young Master Yang, I know you better than most of the other disciples. But sometimes I don't think I understand you at all."
Yang Wei said nothing. But Li Shuwen was learning how to measure his silences. The two young men lay beneath the old yew in quiet peace for another hour, enjoying the music of the cicadas.