Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

Fushuai stirred, hearing the pop and snap of a branch within a fire. The scent of smoke and pine was so strong that for a moment, he thought he was waking back in the shrine, but there were sharper tones mixed within that he didn't recognize.

His eyes opened.

He lay beneath the canted bottom of a half-upended tree, its exposed root ball black with dirt and clinging moss. Cypress needles carpeted the slope beneath him, softened by bracken. The incline was steep enough that he could feel his body sliding slowly down whenever he exhaled too deeply.

He turned his head.

The stranger sat just above him, cross-legged on a slab of rock, feeding dry twigs into a small fire. A shallow clay bowl steamed on the coals, the paste inside bubbling faintly as he stirred. The steam smelled of vinegar and wild herbs, sharp enough to sting the sinuses.

Fushuai's arm ached. His side throbbed. When he sat up, he saw the punctures from the mantis's claw had been sewn shut with silk thread, each suture small and taut, the work of an experienced hand.

Lower on the slope, the spirit was exactly where he had left it. The giant mantis's carcass was upright, more rigid even than the trees it resembled.

"Who are you?"

The stranger glanced up. He had a long face and hollow cheeks, and his mouth was moving as if he were speaking to someone, though no sound was involved. His robes were patched and stained with clay, and his belt held a knife and a bundle of small corked jars. A traveling pack and a leather satchel rested beside him.

"Zhang Sha," he said. "I apologize for the intrusion, but you seemed in need, so I took the liberty of sealing your wounds."

Fushuai blinked slowly. Then sat straighter, folding his hands in his lap.

"Then I offer you my deepest thanks, Zhang Sha. In the name of the Gao Clan, for you have preserved my life." The wounds he had suffered would not have killed him, but being unconscious and alone in the wilds of Lonely Mountain may well have.

"There's no need for that." The man smiled faintly. "All my patients call me Sha."

Fushuai hesitated. The familiarity was a small jolt, not offensive, but surprising, especially from someone who looked a decade older than him, and was likely far older than that. Still, he inclined his head.

"I am Gao Fushuai. And I would be pleased for you to call me Fushuai as well."

Sha gave a nod, as if sealing a simple trade. "A good name," he said, returning to his bowl. "I heard it once in the north. From a manual dealer. He claimed a boy by that name would one day outrun death itself."

"He must have been thinking of another."

"Possibly." Sha scraped the edge of the bowl. "But names are like sutures. They hold a great deal, even when they fray."

They sat in silence. Wind whispered down the mountain slope, stirring the long grass and the needles fallen from shattered trees. The mantis showed no sign of returning to life, but Fushuai kept his senses extended on principle.

He turned back to the man. "Are you a physician?"

"The poultice is nearly ready," Zhang Sha said. "Best to apply it warm, before we wrap the wounds."

He lifted the bowl from the fire and set it beside Fushuai, along with a folded length of clean cloth. The paste inside was thick, almost gluey, still smelling sharply.

Fushuai took the bowl in both hands. Before he touched the paste to his skin, he touched the stranger's spirit with his own. Sha was not what he seemed. His robes were rough-spun, and his words plain, but his hands were clean and calloused.

Qi refinement stage. Near the peak. The energy within him was dense, though he had not achieved that compression by the same method as Fushuai. But certainly not the foundation formation spirit of the rogue cultivator. It didn't rule out deception, there were methods to obscure one's cultivation, but it made it less likely. And if this was the rogue, he was playing a long and subtle game.

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Sha, for his part, didn't seem offended by the inspection.

"The grip of a spirit beast is a strange place to practice the sacred arts," he said mildly.

"It wasn't my intention to be caught." Fushuai dipped two fingers into the paste. It clung cold and sticky to his skin. "But once I was there, I didn't know what else to do."

"You freed yourself. Most would have died."

Fushuai smeared the poultice over the worst of the punctures. It stung for a moment, and then went cold.

"Did the beast ambush you?" Sha asked.

Fushuai shook his head. "No. I was hunting it."

That earned him a low, genuine laugh. "Bold," Sha said. "It seems to me you should have chosen smaller prey. Even dead, I can see it was beyond either of us in advancement."

Fushuai did not argue. He pressed the last of the poultice to his side, then looked back at the mantis. Covered branches and leaves, including some new sprouts, it might soon be no more than it had pretended to be before it struck. Its head was nowhere in sight, but he could still feel the core within its abdomen, pulsing faintly beneath layers of chitin and petrified muscle. That knot of energy had not yet dispersed. It was waiting.

"I am lacking in wisdom."

"Then you'll make a fine cultivator," Sha said, passing him a bandage. "The wise ones stay home." He watched him dress his wounds with something like approval. "You're not from these mountains. A wandering sage, then?"

Fushuai paused, pondering how much he should explain. "I am hunting beasts on behalf of my master."

"Ah." Sha's tone was light, conversational. "And who is your master?"

"Zhou Jun." It was the first name that came to him.

Sha blinked once, then shrugged. "Never heard of him."

"He's not well known." Having begun with a lie, he could only add more layers now. "But I am grateful for his tutelage."

Sha hummed low in his throat, neither agreeing nor disputing the point. He turned to poke the fire, sending a small scatter of sparks uphill, where they vanished against the dusk.

"And you?" Fushuai asked. "What brings you to Lonely Mountain?"

Sha was still smiling faintly. "The same as most people, I expect. Ingredients."

"For alchemy?"

"And medicine. Sometimes the difference is only in the price." He patted his leather satchel. "These slopes are rich, if you know where to look. I came here hunting ghostdew and earthroot." He looked toward the mantis. "I was once of the Hollow Reed Sect. We brewed more than we fought, and spoke more than we shouted. But after a time, the walls grew narrow."

"So you left?"

"I wanted to see the world. And there are things the world shows you that a sect never will."

Fushuai said nothing for a while. He did not know whether the Hollow Reed Sect truly existed. There were hundreds of minor sects across the empire; some brilliant, some base, many forgotten. Sha might have told the truth. Equally possible, he had not.

But there was no violence stirring in the man. No scent of blood on his soul.

"I thank you for your help," Fushuai said. "Is there anything I can do in return?"

Sha looked up, eyes calm and clear.

"If you're not done hunting," he said, "I'd like to accompany you."

Fushuai raised an eyebrow.

The former sect member gestured loosely at the mountainside around them. "Many of the plants I need grow where the aura is thickest, where the qi has soaked into the soil for generations. But places like that rarely go unguarded. The beasts that live there in such places are often too much for me. It's plain that you are more dangerous than your advancement would suggest, and I would be glad to have your spear with me."

Fushuai straightened. Where was Suntooth? It had been in the beast's head when it fell. He shot to his feet, and relief washed over him when he saw the weapon planted in the soil just beyond the root ball of the overturned tree. The stranger had not stolen it, but he had placed it far enough away that it would not have been within easy reach when he awoke. An understandable precaution.

"A thousand apologies, but do you not fight?"

"I fight badly," Sha said dryly. "Even for the Hollow Reed Sect. My old teachers always said I'd make a better gardener than a cultivator. They weren't wrong."

"That's why you left your sect?"

"Part of it."

Fushuai considered this. Most cultivators he had met, even those who appeared humble, chased power with blood-wet hands. Strength was a ladder, and every rung had a name. Yet this man had no hunger in his voice. No thirst beneath his words.

"If you do not cultivate for strength," he asked slowly, "or seek battle for ascension, then why do you cultivate?" It was much the same question his master had asked him, and he wanted to hear the answer.

"For immortality, like everyone else. I merely seek it in my own way." He paused, watching what remained of the fire forget itself as the flames burned low. "I'd rather raise others up with me," Sha said, "than ascend by stomping on their backs."

For a long moment, Fushuai found he could not say anything. The mountain was quiet around them, but inside, something shifted. These were the same thoughts he had once been told were naive. That strength should serve those who did not have it. That cultivation was meant to lessen the burden of the world, not add to it.

He had thought he was alone in that.

"I would be honored to have your company. I need to kill three more beasts before I return to my master. But I only need their cores."

He inclined his head, formal again.

"You are welcome to whatever else they leave behind. Herbs, bones, blood. Whatever you can use."

Sha gave a small bow in return.

"Then let us see what the mountain has left for us." The skin around his eyes creased. "Perhaps we will be like brothers when we are done."