Heavenly Shae

Aside: Elder Taoying

Library guard duty was, unsurprisingly, boring. Elder Taoying kept her mind alert and occupied by working through form duels. Each year, new students arrived with existing natural skills, and they expected their teachers to be experts. Even in esoteric and backwater forms degraded by being handed down through generations of mortals. Yet, they still expected the marital elders to know them back to front. Which means they need to tear apart all their awkward and sloppy forms.

It isn't that the peasant's basic forms were necessarily bad, just that the mortals rarely grasped enough comprehension to do anything with the forms. Important aspects were often hidden. Something like balance was usually preserved, a person would simply know when their balance was off, the forms would just feel wrong. Yet, when the forms were slowed down, or taught without all the requisite movement, like with qigong: they often lost that balance and rhythm. This was intentional for qigong, where nearly all the sect members knew how to perform it properly. Yet they couldn't know the fine details of every unique and hereditary style. Even if the students looked up to them and expected it.

Taoying stretched her neck out. Reset her mind. She had become distracted.

She smiled to herself. The interaction with that new student, Little Shae, had gone surprisingly well. She didn't usually get to play the mysterious elder; she spent too much time yelling at the new recruits and forcing them to push their physical boundaries. Young and impressionable kids could only handle so much of that before they only saw you as a taskmaster, a threat of forced labor.

Her fist clenched at her side and her qi stirred within her Dantian.

Something was about to happen, no, already happening.

She inhaled deeply and channeled her qi to her mind, flooding her senses with power.

She spun and ripped the library door open to see a young woman stomping down the stairs. A threateningly familiar qi surged within her. Little Shae was clearly quite angry, yet also trying to control herself, and control her angry qi.

She waved at Librarian Ahjuan as she passed the front desk. "Just need some air." The words were firm enough, yet Taoying's keen ear detected the distinct wobble of someone struggling to hold on.

Their eyes met briefly as she approached the door, the young woman immediately looking past the elder to the trees beyond. She took a deep breath, yet didn't stop. "Are those trees important?"

Elder Taoying stepped to the side, then blinked in surprise. She watched Shae clenching her fist as she passed, then again and again as she stomped towards the treeline.

She glanced past the young cultivator and said, "Those are carefully tended, yes. The gardeners would be quite upset if they were damaged."

She watched Shae's reaction as she suddenly stopped: her neck and jaw tightened, she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Even without those simple signs, when the library door closed with a thud her qi made her feelings obvious. Taoying had last felt that kind of clear anger from only the heavens itself, it was unmistakable.

"Perhaps one that's struggling, or just in a small clearing." The angry woman said and stepped towards the tree line.

Taoying stayed at her post. Technically speaking, nothing needed her intervention, yet.

Shae continued towards the trees and red lightning began sparking up her right arm to her shoulder. Then back down to her hand, where it gathered in her fist. Taoying squinted, No, in a spiritual tool in her fist.

The Elder sighed and tapped at secret formation locations across the library doors, locking them. She followed after the young lightning cultivator and quickly passed her. "Follow me."

"How far?" She asked.

"About a dozen breaths," Taoying said and pointed forward.

A burst of cycling qi shouted warning as the young cultivator sprinted forwards. The elder waited only long enough to watch Shae's form, a single stride where she reinforced her left leg and got less power from it than her unreinforced right.

The elder activated her own movement technique and was halfway there, leaving a fluttering path of rose petals in her wake. Again she waited. Facing the sprinting Shae as she tried to catch up and taking mental notes of her self-made qi movement method. Not nearly enough to be called a technique, not even enough to match her cleansed limbs, yet still better than unfocused reinforcement.

Moving backwards was tricky enough that she needed two more activations of her own movement technique to reach the clearing with the stump. Taoying didn't even point it out to the angry young woman. She simply waited across the clearing from it.

Shae's uncontrolled anger was displayed clearly when she saw the stump. She didn't slow her forwards momentum, instead jumping and leading with her right foot, attempting a powerful kick.

She had clearly not practiced the move. It was more of an awkward-landing than a proper-kick. She didn't even plant it straight-on, leaving herself off balance and twisting sideways.

Taoying nodded at her determination. She got up immediately and continued to assault the stump, mainly by punching with her right arm. The first hit was the most impressive, the built-up red lightning discharged into the rotting wood in a bright flash. The bark around the impact point charred solid black and began smoking.

Shae didn't stop to admire the damage, instead pulling her arm back for another punch. It hit with a crunch, burnt bark pieces flew off and cast black dust into the air. The young woman winced at the impact and shook her fist out. Taoying nodded, it had been a sloppy strike into an uneven surface, and fast enough to break weaker bones.

Red sparks still raged up and down her arm, gathering in a pair of rings on her right hand. She turned it over and flexed, checking for damage. Satisfied she stepped around the stump and found a new target.

Two more strikes at fresh locations and she paused again. Shaking her hand out and cycling different qi. Elder Taoying tilted her head as the lightning shifted to blue then gold. The angry red seemingly absent while she recovered.

Taoying sent out a burst of qi to scan her and was briefly surprised to have it hit a wall. Ah, yes, the false shield supplied by the peace-bound blade, she remembered the details from her sect token.

She tweaked her scan technique to just check the young cultivator's arm. Specifically checking for healing qi, which it found, divinely powered healing qi. Hmm, it feels similar to a small amount of enlightenment qi, Taoying thought.

Shae's healing break hadn't stopped her anger, simply diverted it to her mouth. She was mumbling and ranting in another language. The meaning was still bleeding through, more than Taoying would expect from one so young. It was largely swears and curses. Not real curses, that would require far more intent. Well... she considered, maybe just a bit more directed intent. Plus a large quantity of blood and death qi.

She seemed to be cursing the very world itself, upset at some injustice, some unfairness that was unreasonably placed on her- no, on the world itself. She continued to listen, ah, placed on women, specifically.

Taoying set her senses on the library, searching for another clue. Ahjuan, the librarian, had left her post and gone up to the second floor.

'What was - she reading?' Taoying sent with two silent messages.

The librarian twitched sharply when the messages arrived, and swung her eyes towards the front doors. A brief pause, then a single word came back, weak from traveling further than expected, 'Yin.'

Taoying grimaced, and nodded. There wasn't much else that new cultivators would become so worked up about. It was an unfortunate arrangement, though better now than in the distant past, if the histories were to be believed. Was she that lost soul? She wondered. There was something on her token about that, wasn't there?

She shrugged and sighed. Leaning against a tree to wait out the woman's rage. Depending on what she read, trying to talk her down might just make it worse.

Shae went back to pummeling the stump. Four strikes, then another rest to recover. The pattern repeated twice more. Then she stopped completely, forcing all her qi back into her Dantian. She breathed calmly and waited, yet Taoying could tell that the anger was still there. The red lightning returned on the next inhale and she lashed out again with little hesitation.

Taoying was a martial elder, so of course she was watching the young cultivator's form, judging, critiquing. It was the kind of basic pouch she expected to see. Likely to cause injury, though her cleansed muscles and tendons seemed strong enough to resist any tearing caused by an off-center strike. However, her bones were not so lucky. They were bruised, healed, and then bruised again. A painful process, yet one that might strengthen them, depending on the nature of the healing itself.

As practice or durability training it was incredibly wasteful. Taoying wondered when the young woman would be out of qi. Surely she doesn't have much left? Perhaps the lightning was mostly flash? Hmm, some of her qi is denser than expected, and so she might not be using as much as she appeared to be.

A rattle came at the library door, someone trying to open it, then a knock. That'd be Ahjuan, of course. She left the angry recruit with the stump and silently sent, 'One breath.'

Two steps of her movement technique brought her to the library doors and she quickly opened them. "Librarian Ahjuan." She nodded at the woman. "What text was she reading?"

"Tides of Yin, I did warn her it was blunt, Elder Taoying."

"Hmm. If I remember it correctly, blunt would be putting it lightly. How far did she get?"

"About halfway, where it describes the current-day situation with Virgin Yin." She frowned and presented the book, open to the page in question.

Taoying grimaced at it without reading it fully. "It's a harsh history. Not a proper introduction to the topic."

Ahjuan shrugged. "True, yet it is among the first year textbooks."

The elder squinted at the librarian. "I didn't take you as one to make political moves. Are you seeking to get it moved to the restricted section?"

Ahjuan shook her head. "Maybe only to the second year section. Not just because of reactions like hers." She nodded to the woods. "Some of the boys get dangerous ideas from this too, at least until someone sets them straight."

"Hmm. I've never been involved in that kind of discussion. Obviously." She gestured at the martial badge on her robes. "Yet, isn't it better to get this kind of thing out of the way quickly? Hiding the truth can also cause problems."

The librarian bobbed her head side to side. "I suppose."

Taoying looked down at the book again. "So, she didn't get to the legal section?"

"No, it's written in historical order. So that rightfully comes later." She flipped forward a few pages.

Taoying sighed. "Someone really needs to convince the villages to take this more seriously, to teach it to the girls when they're younger.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Hmm. I suppose that would help us a little. Though, it might cause more resentment for some. Is she still going?" She looked past the elder, into the woods.

"Yes. Though her qi use seems to be waning. I can't imagine she has much left in her."

"Will she be punished?"

"What for?" Taoying shrugged. "She asked me for somewhere to vent, and I gave it to her."

"Oh... Huh. That's a rather mature response."

She nodded. "As expected of a lost soul."

"What?" Ahjuan gasped. "Is she really? -Oh, actually, that makes a lot of sense. She said she had been to other libraries, and in another language. Huh. Perhaps I should have suspected."

Taoying lifted an open palm to her side, shrugging that shoulder. "You would have connected the dots eventually. They never really hide their past enough, especially once they understand it's a common occurrence."

"Pffft, hah hah-ha," Ahjuan laughed and shook her head, "common."

"They say one is born every year. Just not always in the empire."

Ahjuan's laughter faded quickly. "Ah. I suppose that's more than I expected. I thought it was more like one per century."

Taoying nodded. "That's just the ones that we hear about, that make a big enough name for themselves for word to spread far enough. Most fade into the cultivator community, their past provides a head start, but it's no guarantee to success." She looked to the trees, "I think she's almost done, wait here, please."

Ahjuan nodded and stepped back to let the door close.

The elder took a more relaxed pace walking back to the clearing. She arrived to find that Shae had slumped to the ground, her back against the stump. Her head leaned back further as she looked up at the stars through the canopy.

"Got it all out of your system?"

Shae huffed. "Not by a li. Just made myself more tired than I am angry."

"Good. The martial division could use that kind of passion and fury. Lightning is a potent combat aspect."

She remained silent for a few rough breaths. "No thanks."

Taoying frowned. "So you're just going to bottle up all that frustration? It's going to block your cultivation progress."

"Does this look like bottled lightning?" She raised her right arm, red lightning sparked down it weakly. Then she slapped the ground and let it discharge. "The red stuff is a mistake anyway. Qi that was left behind when I stepped forward." She pushed a different power into her arm, the golden lightning that she used before. It surged and sparked, much stronger than the red. "This is my progress forward, not the red."

"And what will you do with it?"

Shae ignored the question, flipping her hand over and watching the lightning spark across her skin. It jumped in and out of her rings, dancing like ribbons in the wind. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, "I don't know."

Taoying shook her head. At least she isn't stupid.

The young cultivator inhaled deeply again and squeezed her fist, drawing the qi back into herself at the same time. "What I do know is that anger doesn't usually find the correct solution."

After a pause, Taoying asked, "Alright, I'll bite. What does it usually find?"

The young woman looked up with a fierce smile, or her best attempt at one. Taoying still had to smirk at how adorable it was.

She hopped to her feet and brushed her robes off. "There's a saying, fear turns to anger, anger to hatred, and hatred to darkness... or something like that." She shrugged. "I think it's supposed to sound poetic rather than making a lot of sense. It would be nice to say it wants that, or that it wants the easy path, but I'm not so sure. I think it wants the most direct path, the one right in front of it, the one it can overcome with violence and force." She gestured at the stump. "But it doesn't care if it actually succeeds, does it?"

Taoying tilted her head. "Perhaps. Yet, won't you be angry again later? You haven't removed the source of your anger?"

"Pffft," Shae blew a raspberry and laughed. "What am I supposed to do, fight the whole world? The heavens and reality itself? Ah-hah hah hah."

Taoying looked at her flatly, a small smile on her lips.

The young cultivator finished laughing then saw her expression. "You're serious?"

"We cultivate to challenge the heavens themselves. That's what a tribulation is, heaven's response to that challenge."

Shae brushed her robes off again. "That's one interpretation, I suppose."

"You disagree?"

She lifted her right hand and cycled her golden lightning qi again. "Clearly."

"Hmph." Taoying grunted. "Finish reading that history book. There's more there that you need to know."

Shae's hand dropped limply and she frowned. "Maybe not today."

"Better today than letting it fester. And look for a more detailed account of how it all changed. How we arrived at our current system. As unfortunate as it is, it's still better than it was."

She grimaced. "I read the earlier account in that book. It wasn't much different than my past life. I'm not sure how turning women into little pinatas is better than a few days of discomfort."

Taoying frowned. "What a brutal simplification. One that shows you don't understand how dangerous a few days of discomfort is to a cultivator. Think, Little Shae. How does even a single day of weakness affect the balance of power between two rivals?"

Shae looked at the ground, slowly frowning as the truth made itself clear. "A day when you can't cultivate or train. When your formerly weaker enemies can strike you down easily. Fuck," she swore loudly and her knees wobbled from light-headedness.

She paused to let the younger woman regain her balance. "Yes. There is much more to this than a first glance would suggest. You're right to be angry at the unfairness; I won't deny you that. Now, take a moment to contemplate the whole, you might find more there than you expected." Elder Taoying turned and walked back to the library.

Shae swayed slightly, then dropped into a seated position on the stump.

Shae looked up at the night sky. Thousands of stars looked back. Thousands of places she'd rather be than another culture with built-in incentive to discriminate between genders.

"Bleh," she stuck her tongue out. "Take a moment to contemplate the whole," she mocked. "I think I'd need a good bottle of tequila for that, or maybe a bad one."

She shook her head, then forced a laugh. "Hah. The hole. Awful word choice, Elder."

She took a deep breath and resisted the urge to calm herself with enlightenment qi. That is as much of a crutch as alcohol; I probably shouldn't self-medicate like that.

"No wonder Yun and Apollo didn't want to talk about it." She sighed.

She caught the moon creeping along the edge of the canopy. "Yin and yang, eh? Sounds like some four-humours shit." She huffed a laugh. "Although... It has to be based on something, they can't just make up a full system like that."

She did manage to let her mind wander now, slowly combing over possible explanations. Probably not hormones, female hormones spike during ovulation and pregnancy, no mention of that happening with Yin qi... And what's with the moon and sun connection? Light is just light... Heat and cold once removed, maybe? But that just needs darkness, not moonlight.

She remembered Yinxi shuddering when she felt the first rays of moonlight. She was definitely feeling something. The heat from the sun I could understand, but the moon? And you wouldn't easily mistake that for qi.

She blinked at the moon, then stood up and moved to a part of the clearing where the moon was more clearly visible. She sat in the lotus position and took a deep breath. "Okay. For the sake of argument, let's just assume it's real: let's assume there's a special qi flowing down from the moon and we cultivators can collect it." She took another deep breath and closed her eyes.

Shae spent some time calmly breathing to enter meditation. Then longer to get her bearings, trying to sense her surroundings. She tried to call out to the qi around her. Yet, she quickly realized her problem: she didn't know how to call the yin qi. She had emotions and mental pictures to connect to the other elements, but with yin qi, she didn't really know what it was. It just didn't make sense to her.

Belief in it probably wasn't an issue, she decided. Back on the mountain she had used religious iconography to move divine qi around, and she certainly didn't fully believe in all of those. However, she did understand them to some extent. Unlike with yin qi, that was clear now.

She quickly left the clearing after that realization.

Elder Taoying and Librarian Ahjuan were talking quietly as Shae approached. They cut their conversation short just as she began to pick out the words.

"-I see, thank you for the advice, Elder." Ahjuan nodded politely.

"Any time, Junior Ahjuan." Taoying turned her eyes to Shae, judging her.

Her instincts were to look down, yet she quickly flicked her eyes up and straightened her back.

"Feeling better, Junior Shae?" Ahjuan asked.

Shae clenched her jaw and inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to look stern. She nodded anyway. "Feeling less angry, yes. Thank you for your concern, Senior, and your attention, Elder." She bowed to the pair.

Taoying shrugged. "It happens every year, to varying degrees. Easier to get one out of the way now, rather than all at once when they do the lecture."

Shae frowned. "Have they tried with smaller groups- ah, but I suppose that would also have drawbacks."

Taoying nodded. "It's been a long while since it was changed significantly, but yes, other methods of presenting the information have been tried. Speaking of, that book is probably one of the worst ways to first read about it."

Shae flinched a frown. "Librarian Ahjuan did warn me that it was rather blunt."

Ahjuan smiled warmly.

Taoying chuckled. "Yes, blunt like dropping a building on someone. You should make a point of reading the rest of it, now that you've started."

Ahjuan presented the thin book.

Shae frowned again and mimed pushing it away with an empty palm. "Maybe not today. I can't see it improving my mood." She glanced to the east, "What time is it?"

"About an hour to sunrise, if you're not going to read then you should get some sleep," Taoying said.

Ahjuan flicked the thin book in her hands. "I'll summarize the important parts that should help your opinion of it: there are significant legal protections in place for female cultivators. Unlawful acquisition of Virgin Yin is practically non-existent. Why risk it when you can get similar benefits from a handful of pills? Furthermore, it's not nearly so one-sided as this book presents it."

Shae took a deep breath, then sighed and nodded. "I guess that helps. Thanks."

"Oh, I found your other book, 'Getting the Most out of Cleansing,' it's also a textbook, so we can sign it out to you." She handed Shae a thicker book with black stains along the spine.

Shae grimaced at its poor condition and avoided grabbing the stains directly. "Uh, thank you."

"Go get some sleep, then I expect you in the arena this afternoon," Taoying said and shifted her stance forward.

Shae felt that sharp floral scent again. She blinked at the elder, and let the sensations from her forehead overwhelm her briefly. It was like a combination of nature qi and wind qi. Pollen and flower petals dancing through a meadow. Yet, there was an edge of danger, sharp edges and thorns hidden just below the surface.

Taoying shifted back. "Little Shae?"

"Ah, sorry Elder. That just... it caught me off-guard." She reached up and rubbed the side of her head. "Oh, I have an appointment soon. A cultivation assessment."

"Tsk." Taoying shook her head. "That's probably a bad idea. You've channeled a lot of qi tonight. I'm surprised you're still standing."

"Um," she shrugged, "I feel fine."

Taoying raised an eyebrow and leaned forward again, pressing her qi around the young cultivator.

Shae flinched at the feeling from her forehead, then grimaced as the pressure increased. She knew she could handle more, yet it was quite noticeable, and maybe that itself was a sign of her exhaustion. She waited a breath, then nodded.

Taoying released the pressure with a chuckle. "Heh heh, tempering showing its benefits, another cleansing recruit would have passed out from that, even fresh."

Ahjuan's eyes were wide for a moment, she blinked and shook her head. "Tempering? I assumed that was slipping. Nobody actually does tempering anymore."

Shae shrugged. "I was told the same, but also that it was beneficial."

Taoying nodded. "I'll send a runner to excuse your appointment, probably just push it back a day or two. Get some rest, then meet me at the arena. Be well fed and ready to work. We have to fix that poor punching form of yours. Can't have you hurting yourself with every strike. Not to mention how qi inefficient they were."

Shae grimaced while Ahjuan giggled.

"I'll have to remember not to throw a tantrum in front of a martial elder again."

"Heh. I disagree. The way we behave when angry shows how effective our training really is." The elder smirked.

Shae gave her a half frown, then half smile. "Thank you, again, for your guidance. Even if I will be regretting it tomorrow." She bowed and turned to leave.

She overheard Ahjuan giggling as she left, and even caught a few hearty chuckles from Taoying.