Chapter 49: Body and Spirit
For all the time they spent on him, Sen never wholly lost sight of the fact that Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong were practicing cultivators in their own right. From time to time, he'd see Master Feng practicing qinggong techniques, flying horizontally through the air and using the courtyard walls as stationary platforms. He'd occasionally find Auntie Caihong scowling down at some pill that hadn't come out the way wanted or, sometimes, just not the way she expected. So, he wasn't entirely surprised when he found Uncle Kho practicing with his spear in the courtyard one morning. What did surprise Sen was the way that the old cultivator was practicing. He had been very clear with Sen that the spear was a weapon you wield with two hands. Two hands gave the weapon stability. They provided strength. They made it much harder to remove the weapon from your grasp.
He had lived up to that credo of weapon handling in Sen's training. Every thrust, parry, blow, sweep, cut, slash, and chop didn't just use two hands, they depended on it. In its own way, Sen found that the spear was an even more demanding weapon than the jian because there were simply more things he could do with it. Yet, always he was to use both hands.
"The utmost reason you use both hands is one you can likely guess by now," said Uncle Kho when Sen asked about it.
Sen didn't let the groan show through on his face. "Balance. Using two hands helps you maintain and achieve balance with the weapon."
"Precisely."
Uncle Kho had even offered the opinion that only an exceedingly rare emergency truly justified wielding a spear one-handed. Given the man's strong opinions, Sen was stunned to see the cultivator wielding a spear with one hand. Although, he supposed that he was diminishing what he truly saw before him. Uncle Kho was only using one hand to hold the spear, but he was manipulating it in other ways. At times, he felt the older cultivator use air qi to drive the spear while slashing or using a lightning-fast kick to drive the base of the spear shaft up in a fast counterstrike. Sen even felt Uncle Kho use a brief burst of earth qi to bind himself to the ground for a second so he could use his own body as a pivot to deliver a sweeping blow so fast it seemed nothing short of miraculous that the air itself wasn't split in two. Sen wasn't sure how long he stood there simply watching the display of supreme qi and spear control. He was almost in a trance state when Uncle Kho addressed him.
"You have questions?" The old cultivator asked.
Sen twitched at the words before he shook off the mental stupor. "I do."
"Then, by all means, proceed," said Uncle Kho with an amused smile.
"You have been, I think, very clear that the spear should be wielded using both hands at all times. Have I misunderstood?"
"You have not. I stand by that position."
Sen waited, certain that Uncle Kho knew exactly what he planned to ask, but the older man simply waited. He seemed prepared to wait until time itself ran dry for Sen to simply ask the question.
"Very well. If that is the case and you feel so strongly about it, why would you practice a one-handed style with the spear?"
Uncle Kho nodded as his face took on a faraway look. "All of the reasons I gave you for using two hands stand as true. For you and for other cultivators, the odds of you losing an arm but not losing your life are very low. If you lose a limb in a fight, you aren't simply sparring. You're in a life-or-death fight. Any enemy worth the name will immediately take advantage of that kind of crippling blow. Simply put, it's not worth the time and effort you'd have to put in to learn a one-handed style. Beyond that, it suffers from the countless weaknesses I've already described."
"Yet, there you were, practicing one anyway," said Sen.
It wasn't an objection. Sen truly didn't understand why Uncle Kho had bothered with it if such styles were of no use to cultivators.
"You forget, Sen. I am very old. That has afforded me certain luxuries. For you, for most cultivators, everything you learn must serve a purpose. And, for most cultivators, the spear is just a weapon. It's a useful tool. You learn about your tools. You take care of them. At the end of the day, though, that's all they are. Something useful you carry with you. If that's all they are, then your best choice is to learn the most useful, most efficient method of wielding it. That is what I am teaching you.
"For me, though, the spear isn't simply a useful tool. It's part of my cultivation. The way of the spear has been responsible for much of the enlightenment I have enjoyed over my long life. For me, everything related to the spear is a potential source of understanding, of enlightenment, and of advancement. For me, a one-handed style may not prove particularly useful in a duel, but it has the potential for far greater benefits."
Sen had more questions, but he didn't want to veer the conversation in a drastically different direction. "Did that style provide you with any enlightenment?"
Uncle Kho considered the question. "No, but the man I learned it from certainly did. He was a very interesting man, especially for a mortal. He was a soldier. I don't remember where he came from. I'm not sure the place even exists anymore. I suppose it doesn't matter that much fifteen hundred years later. The point is that he was a regular mortal soldier. He'd lost an arm in a battle. For most soldiers, if they survived, that would mean they got to return home. Except, he didn't have a home to return to, or another trade for that matter. He'd been a soldier his whole life. It was all he knew and all he wanted to know. Yet, what good was a spearman with only one arm?"
"Not much good, I would think."
"No, not much good at all. Yet, this man was determined. He trained, night and day, day and night, for years. He taught himself a whole new way to do what he'd taken for granted for so long. Oh, how I wished that he were a cultivator. The things he might have done with centuries. It wasn't to be. Fate, I suppose."
"Did he rejoin the army?"
Uncle Kho shook his head. "No. They told him that the army didn't have a place for spear geniuses like him. Instead, he was sent to the capital. He spent the rest of his life training others in the spear."
Sen pondered the story. On the surface, it sounded like the man had a fortunate encounter that ensured his safety and life. Yet…
"Uncle Kho, it sounds to me as if that man suffered a tragedy. At least, he did if the life of a soldier was all he truly wanted."
"It was a tragedy and a triumph. Like so many, that man saw the spear as something his body wielded. So, when he set out on his path to reclaim the life he lost, he tried to train with his body. Of course, he failed because he could no longer do what others did. In order to reclaim the spear, he had to find a new way. He had to approach the spear with an open spirit, with an open heart. He had to be willing to hear what it had to teach him. He did that. In doing so, he achieved something in his life that few will ever experience. At the same time, he reforged himself into something new, something that could no longer fit into the life he craved. Tragedy and triumph. Acquisition and loss. Body and spirit.
"All too often, we treat these things as opposing forces in life. Yet, the wrong acquisition can seed future loss. A triumph on one side can create a tragedy on the other. For all that cultivators focus on qi, the mystical essence of life and creation, we spend a great deal of time focused on our bodies. We all too often treat spirit as though it is a hindrance to cultivation, rather than a pathway. I saw in that soldier's triumph and his tragedy the possibilities of a different kind of path. If the spear could take him so very far in so very short a time, how far could the spear carry me, if I were but to approach it with an open spirit?"
The answer was all too obvious. It had carried Uncle Kho very nearly to immortality. It might yet carry him across that bridge. Of course, Sen also understood that the lesson wasn't about wielding the spear. It was about forging a path, the right path, that could carry him just as far. What that path would look like, Sen couldn't even guess. Perhaps it would be the spear, or the jian, or perhaps it would be the intricacies of medicine. Or, perhaps, it would be something he hadn't even glimpsed yet. Some miracle hidden in plain sight, waiting for him to find it.
"So, it's a reminder? Practicing that style, I mean."
Uncle Kho nodded in agreement. "It is. It's a reminder of what that man accomplished. It's a reminder of what he helped me accomplish. Most of all, it's a reminder that we can seed our own tragedies in our accomplishments. I never take for granted that I will succeed on the path of cultivation."
Chapter 50: The Jianghu (1)
As summer slowly unfolded and the mountain once more teemed with life, Sen's cultivation followed along in its slower path. While he trained alone or with Uncle Kho's guidance, he gathered and cycled the misty qi that pervaded the courtyard. Sometimes, he would travel away from the manor and gather the thinner qi from the mountain itself. As he did, he tried to understand why one clearing was strong in earth qi, while another mere minutes away was dominated by wood qi. He let his spiritual senses stretch out from his body, seeping down into the soil and rock, spreading out into the air, or flowing along with the water of the occasional spring-fed streams that slowly cut channels in the ancient stone of the mountain. At times, his curiosity was sated. He would discover that a beast core humming with attributed qi lay unclaimed in the earth below or held fast in the inexorable roots of a tree.
At other times, he remained in ignorance, if not complete ignorance. There were moments when he felt something, but something obscured from the insistent, questing tendrils of his own senses and qi. It felt like sensing a movement in the darkness. He knew something was there, felt some faint quivering of its presence on the very edges of his ability to know and feel. Its true nature or purpose, though, was denied him. Yet, even those failures were not whole failures. He had taken Uncle Kho's lesson to heart. When he had reflected on it, Sen came to see that failure and success were far more deeply intertwined than he had recognized or been willing to recognize.
Taken at face value, failure was pure defeat. A defeat by the physical demands of a form or the complexity of a cycling pattern or simply by ignorance. It was the certain knowledge that someone was simply not adequate to the challenges before them. That was how Sen had viewed failure for a long time. Yet, over time, he had come to see that view for the painfully shallow thing it was. As Sen had meditated on failure and success, he had seen that failure was also a forge. It could burn away the base metals of doubt, laziness, and fear, leaving only the pure steel blade of determination. In an almost perverse inversion of that principle, he came to see that easy success was like introducing base metals into your work. While the product might look fine on the surface, pressures of any kind would corrode that same blade. Intense pressures would make it crack and fail.
Sen hadn't thought of his musings on success and failure as particularly profound or relevant to his cultivation, save for the obvious benefits of having strong determination. In the end, he had only meant to revisit them with the benefits of the perspective that Uncle Kho had provided. He had hoped, not in vain as it turned out, to discover a more useful way of viewing failure. While powering through failure in the face of his all-or-nothing attitude had helped him hone that determination, it had cost him something. What troubled him was that he couldn't identify exactly what it had cost him. Maybe it was something he'd never had a name for in the first place. He thought of it as a sort of softness inside his heart. He didn't think it was weakness, but rather some intangible capacity that had been diminished. If he could find a better way to see failure, though, he might be able to preserve what remained. Possibly, he might even restore a bit of it over time.
What he had not expected his insight to do was generate one of those sudden rushes of qi that surrounded him whenever he came to some truly important insight. Caught off guard as he was, Sen was also well-trained in the fine art of swift reactions. He'd hastily thrown up a basic defensive formation, courtesy of some formation flags that Uncle Kho had provided to let Sen practice on his own sometimes. Then, he'd taken advantage of the moment to form a few more drops of his liquid qi. Adding to that reserve had been such a slow process that Sen was surprised to discover that his dantian was close to a quarter full of liquid qi. While it was still a ways off, Sen knew he was closing fast on entering into middle-stage foundation building. The gains in his spiritual senses from that additional liquid qi were what had sent him on his private quest to understand why certain kinds of qi concentrated out in nature in the first place.
Sen also concluded that, taken at face value, not discovering why certain kinds of qi prevailed in a spot was a failure. Yet, in that failure, he had sensed the elusive, ephemeral force that seemed to hide behind the mask of the natural world. That was a victory because it didn't leave him ignorant. He knew that qi didn't coalesce purely at random in nature. Something made it happen, at least some of the time. Yes, it might take him weeks, or months, or even the rest of his life to unravel what that hidden force was, but the simple knowledge of existence was enough victory for one day.
Even as Sen had that thought, he felt a familiar presence enter into the range of his spiritual senses. Sen felt it as Master Feng recognized Sen's presence and altered course to find him. The older cultivator had been away for a few weeks on another trip to try to understand some problem on the mountain that Sen truly did not understand. While his master had explained that the spirit animals had behaved very strangely, Sen had seen nothing similar since. He had the occasional run-in with them, but that was almost inevitable living out the wilds as they did. Sen was surprised that it didn't happen more often. Yet, his master was insistent that he track down the problem. While Sen was free with his questions about cultivation and combat, he normally shied away from prying too much into Master Feng's personal affairs. He eventually asked why Master Feng was spending so much time and energy on a problem that didn't seem to be a problem anymore.
Master Feng had been happy enough to answer that question, at least. "Any time you see spirit beasts acting in abnormal ways, it's cause for concern. It may mean that there's something wrong with the natural order in the area, which is often the best you can hope for. The other possibilities mostly involve direct interference from someone or something. Regardless of the way, you don't just leave it to happen if you can intervene. I can intervene."
Sen frowned as his mind caught on something. "If it's a problem, why didn't Uncle Kho or Auntie Caihong take an interest?"
"They did, but we all knew that this problem would take some travel to sort out. Caihong just got back. As for Jaw-Long, let's just say that it's better for him if he doesn't go wandering."
Sen was thinking back about that conversation and wondering if Master Feng found anything as the man appeared between some trees. He smiled and waved, then froze in his tracks. His head whipped around to look at something that Sen couldn't even feel with his spiritual senses extended as far as they could go. Sen watched as Master Feng's hands closed into fists and then slowly opened again three times. It was a mundane act, but Sen got the impression that it was a ritual of sorts. After that short ritual, Master Feng looked over at Sen.
"Do not interfere."
Sen shuddered. As terrifying as Master Feng had been after killing all those spirit beasts, the man who issued Sen that order was far worse. That man was a statue made of pure ice. There was no emotion on his face. No tension in his body. From what little Sen could sense of his qi, it was as still and smooth as a pane of glass. Finally, Sen sensed what his master had sensed. There were potent qi sources hurtling toward them. A few seconds later, Sen was struck mute by the sight of three men flying through the air on top of swords. Even as part of his mind tried to process what he was seeing, another was analyzing the three men. Master Feng and Auntie Caihong had both put in more than a little time teaching Sen how to identify cultivation stages with at least some accuracy. All three of the newcomers were in the core formation stage. If Sen was reading it right, the one in the lead was late stage, maybe even peak. The other two were substantially weaker, maybe only early stage core formation. Of course, that didn't really make a difference for Sen. Dead was still dead, regardless of whether it took someone a half second longer to do it.
"You ran away before we could finish our conversation. You wandering cultivators really should learn to respect your betters," said the one in charge.
He had a hard face with thin lips and angry eyes. The men following him seemed to be cut of a similar cloth. To Sen's eyes, they looked like they might even be related. Not brothers, but cousins, maybe, thought Sen.
Master Feng's only response was to briefly shake his head and say, "You should not have followed me here. You doomed yourselves."
"I think you're the one who's doomed. I'd only have crippled you back in the city. Out here, well, I'll just kill you and the weakling over there for offending the young master of the Diving Eagle sect."
At a mention of "that weakling" the man gestured at Sen. Sen didn't understand what he was seeing. Had Master Feng done something to those people? Were they seeking death in glorious combat by challenging a nascent soul cultivator hovering on the very cusp of immortality? None of it made sense. The young master who hadn't bothered to name himself to Master Feng drew a dao and the other two mimicked the action a moment later.
"You really should run away now," said Master Feng, wholly unconcerned. "If you can get off the mountain fast enough, you might survive."
The young master sneered. Then, all three of the newcomers were driven to their knees as though by the hand of an invisible god. A moment later, Sen felt something he'd only felt once before, a very specific killing intent. Once more, his mind was filled with the image of a desolate wasteland. A moment later, a man who burned with a halo of lightning descended from the sky in front of the three newcomers. Sen remembered well the look on Uncle Kho's face when he'd been arguing with Master Feng. He was wearing it again, and it was no less frightening the second time around. Uncle Kho glared down at the three men.
"I am Kho Jaw-Long."
Those were the only words he said. It seemed those were the only words he needed to say. The young master burst into hysterical tears, slammed his forehead into the ground, and started begging for his life around his sobs. The other two were seemingly too terrified to even move. The begging lasted for three seconds before a finger of lightning fell from on high and just erased the young master from existence, leaving nothing but a charred spot on the ground. Uncle Kho paused for a brief moment to look at Master Feng.
"They came to your home, not mine," said Master Feng. "Handle it as you see fit."
A second finger of lightning fell and left a second burned patch where a person once was. Uncle Kho turned the full weight of his attention onto the last man.
"Return to your sect. Tell them there will be no additional mercy. Do you understand?"
The last man found his ability to move and slammed his head against the ground three times. It was hard enough to make him bleed. Then he all but screamed. "I understand your commands, Kho Jaw-Long."
"Then begone from my mountain before I decide to wipe the stain of your sect from the world forever."
The man fled from Uncle Kho's wrath as fast as his sword could carry him. While Uncle Kho's baleful eyes followed the man's retreat, Master Feng walked over to Sen.
Sen offered a bow. "Master, what just happened here?"
Master Feng's face twisted in disgust. "The Jianghu. I guess it's time we had that talk."
Chapter 51: The Jianghu (2)
The walk back to the house was made almost entirely in silence. Master Feng looked like he'd swallowed something sour and couldn't get the taste out of his mouth. Uncle Kho seemed lost in his own thoughts. As for Sen, the longer he thought about what had just happened, the less sense it seemed to make. Questions swirled in his head. He couldn't help but question why those men had followed Master Feng back to the mountain. If they knew what he was, they couldn't have believed they stood a chance against him. The difference in their cultivation was extreme. While Sen didn't have a full sense of the differences, the fact that Uncle Kho had seemingly killed two core stage cultivators with no discernible effort painted a stark picture indeed. Yet, they had addressed him as though he were weaker than they were.
If he knew they were following him, why hadn't he simply stopped them somewhere along the way? They had said something about a city, and Sen wasn't aware of any nearby cities. He reasoned that must mean they had traveled a distance to arrive here. Master Feng had even tried to warn them off. Yet, the part that shook Sen the most was what Uncle Kho had done. It had been one thing to know that Uncle Kho had no love for sect members. It had been another thing entirely to witness the elder cultivator descend on those men like the bleak hand of Yama's judgment. Nor did Sen imagine that was the first time such a scene had played out in Uncle Kho's life. That young master had known what was coming as soon as Uncle Kho told them his name. He had known it, been certain enough of it, that he didn't even try to bargain. He hadn't tried to threaten. He had gone immediately to begging.
For a brief moment, Sen wondered what kind of things Uncle Kho might have done in the past to warrant such an extreme response. Then, Sen thought better of that line of thinking. He didn't really know anything and, after examining his own heart, he realized he didn't want to know those stories. Whatever curiosity Sen had about Master Feng's past deeds had died a similar death after the spirit beast culling. While Sen could guess a few details from stray bits and pieces he had heard, he didn't think knowing those stories would benefit him. Yet, based on what he'd seen in the very brief confrontation, that kind of violence was nothing new for either man. Master Feng had been calm, almost bored. Uncle Kho had been angry, but not even a little bit out of control. What Sen couldn't decide was what, if anything, that would mean for him when he left the mountain.
Then, there was that word, Jianghu. Master Feng had said something about that before when he'd given Sen the jian. He told Sen that he'd need to know how to use it because it was common in the Jianghu. Sen remembered that he'd been too distracted by the sword and the spear at the time to give it much thought. When it hadn't come up again, he'd let it go. Looking back, Sen wished that he'd pressed for more information. Sen realized that it was easy to think things like that when looking back, but he thought he would probably press for more information if presented with something similar now. He'd grown better at distinguishing between subjects that he did and didn't need to know about. He'd become increasingly certain that anything closely tied to how other cultivators acted out in the world was information he needed.
"Well, I guess I'll find out now," Sen muttered to himself.
"What was that?" Master Feng asked with a distracted expression.
"Nothing, master," said Sen, waving a hand as though to brush the question from the air.
Master Feng made a vague noise, which Sen read as acknowledgment. As much as he wanted and likely need to know what Master Feng planned to discuss, Sen was of the opinion that he could wait until Master Feng was ready to talk before learning this particular secret. So, they covered the rest of the distance to the house without breaking the silence, each of them weighed down with their own concerns. When they got back, Auntie Caihong was waiting for them, her expression grim.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Diving Falcon sect," said Uncle Kho in a very flat voice.
Caihong closed her eyes for a moment and then asked, "Did any of them survive?"
"I sent one back with a message," Uncle Kho answered. "More consideration than they deserved."
"It's my fault," said Feng, cutting off whatever Caihong had planned to say next.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "How so?"
"I could have put a stop to it a few times, but I was trying to avoid drawing attention to myself."
"Why?"
"Just because combat is my specialty, it doesn't mean I love it so much I want to kill everyone who shows up to challenge the mighty Feng Ming. When word gets out that I'm in a city, people always show up to try to make a name for themselves. It's like killing children. Anyway, I thought I lost them a ways back, but it seems I don't have Sen's knack for hiding. By the time I knew they were still trailing me, they were all but on the mountain already."
Sen was relieved to have several of the burning questions in his head answered. At least now he knew the general shape of things. It seemed that Auntie Caihong did as well.
"In that case, I don't suppose there was any helping it."
"There wasn't," agreed Master Feng. "Still, it has made it necessary to have a discussion with Sen about the Jianghu."
"You couldn't put it off forever. That conversation was always coming."
"I know. Well, I suppose we should get it over with."
"I'll make tea," said Uncle Kho. "I could use some after that."
When Uncle Kho went to make the tea, Caihong turned to Master Feng. "What was he like?"
"Honestly, if the young master had been a little less stupid, I think Jaw-Long might have let them go with a warning. Well, maybe a warning and a beating."
"What did the young master do that was so stupid?"
"He threatened Sen's life."
Auntie Caihong sighed. "Well, that would have taken the decision out of Jaw-Long's hands. Young fools."
"Wait," said Sen. "Why would that change anything?"
"You're a guest here. Ming can take care of himself, but if a core stage cultivator threatens a guest a full stage beneath them, we can't let it stand."
"Oh. I didn't realize."
"Remind me later, and I'll walk you through guest rights. It's something you should know. Don't worry. I don't expect my husband minded very much."
"He did not," said Uncle Kho, coming back with a tray.
Once everyone had a cup of tea, Master Feng looked at Sen. "I don't suppose there's any reason to drag this out. In simple terms, mortals live in one world, and cultivators live in another. The world that most cultivators live in is called the Jianghu. It's a world with different rules and expectations. You saw a little piece of it today. Combat between cultivators is expected. Not all seek it out, but many do. Depending on how pathetic they are, some will seek out those who are weaker and insist that the weaker cultivator committed some wrong. It's usually some nonsense about disrespecting their sect, or clan, or sister."
"Ming," chided Autie Caihong.
"Alright, that sister thing doesn't really happen. Mostly."
Sen thought it over for a moment. "Am I obligated to fight?"
Auntie Caihong said, "No."
Master Feng said, "Yes."
Uncle Kho said, "Maybe."
Sen sighed. "If you three can't agree about this, how am I supposed to know what to do?"
"Technically speaking," admitted Master Feng, "Caihong is right. You're not obligated to fight. You can simply walk away."
"Thank you," said Auntie Caihong.
"Practically speaking, though, you'll have to fight. Most of the people who issue those challenges will attack you if you try to walk away."
"So, it doesn't matter if they lied about an insult. It doesn't matter if I want to walk away. They'll turn it into a fight anyway."
"Usually," said Uncle Kho. "Even if they do let you walk away, though, it can prove more trouble than it's worth. Instead of the fight, you have to deal with them spreading the tale that you're a coward. If a story like that goes around, you'll have a fight everywhere you go. You'll find it harder to secure work or supplies."
"Sounds like an enormous waste of time and a great way to end up dead," complained Sen.
"It doesn't usually end that way," said Auntie Caihong. "Not unless there's some kind of blood feud at work. There's no honor in killing someone weaker than you. Killing someone is usually seen as a horrible failure of control."
"I suppose that's something. Is there more I need to know?"
"A lot," said Master Feng with a snort. "You should pour yourself another cup of tea."
Chapter 52: Reflection
After the very long discussion about the Jianghu, Sen became withdrawn from the others for a time. He still practiced every morning and trained with Uncle Kho every afternoon. Yet, after the evening meal, he would retreat to his room or go outside and spend time with Falling Leaf. The ghost panther could clearly sense that something was troubling Sen, but she didn't ask about it with or without talking. She simply stayed nearby. If she was pleased by the fact that Sen took comfort or solace in her presence, she didn't speak about that either. And Sen was troubled by what he had heard. So many of the stories that people told about cultivators had some grounding in truth. Everything that he'd heard about what the Jianghu was and what it meant for cultivators cast some of those stories in a different light, but not a better one. To Sen, the whole lot of them sounded petty and violent and for no good reason.
When Master Feng had first started training him to defend himself, Sen had just assumed he meant defend himself from bandits or spirit beasts. He hadn't imagined that becoming a cultivator meant that he was deciding to embark on a life where he'd have to fight, to hurt, and maybe even to kill other people all of the time. To make matters worse, Sen was far enough along to recognize that he was actually good at combat. He wasn't sure exactly how good. He only had Master Feng, Auntie Caihong, and Uncle Kho to use as measuring sticks. That made it getting a real sense of his own progress difficult at best.
Uncle Kho had once laughingly told him, "You're three thousand years too soon to defeat me, young Sen."
From anyone else, Sen would have treated that as a good-natured boast. From Uncle Kho, he suspected it was a literal fact. Compared to them, he really was a woefully undertrained, wildly incompetent fighter. That might have bothered him, and it probably would have even a year or two before. Yet, he found it difficult to feel bad about something that likely held true for nearly everyone in the world below the nascent soul stage. Being incompetent compared to them was a bit like saying that your campfire was dim when compared with the sun.
No, what made him think that he was actually getting good at it was the nature of the corrections he received. Early on, the corrections were constant and blunt. His arm was three inches out of position. His feet were in the wrong place. He was overextending in one moment, and not taking a strike far enough in the next. Those corrections had steadily diminished in frequency and tone until they reached the point that they were more in the nature of gentle suggestions. Try adjusting your right foot a hair back. Increase the speed of the twist at the end of that strike by two percent. Of course, Sen had made the crucial misstep of telling Auntie Caihong he didn't know what two percent meant. Then, he'd compounded his error by explaining he didn't know what any kind of percent meant. He'd lost a week of evenings to learning a bunch more math. While he could see the usefulness of it, after he learned, the process itself was as painful as math always was for him to learn.
Yet, for all the time and effort he'd put into training those skills, he'd spent very little time thinking about using them on other people. Oh, sure, he'd had a couple of pleasant daydreams about going back to Orchard's Reach and handing out a few well-deserved beatings, but that was as far as he'd ever taken it. He'd never dreamed about felling his rivals on the way to immortality. Sen wondered if that was a sign that he was headed down the wrong path. Did you need a desire for that kind of combat to progress as a cultivator? All three of the older cultivators said that it could push your cultivation ahead to fight others. There was the potential for flashes of enlightenment in the heat of battle. Yet, none of them seemed to know if it was even possible to progress to the higher stages of cultivation without it. As far as they knew, it had never happened. The only thing that Sen was certain of was that he wanted nothing to do with the kinds of duels that Master Feng had described as commonplace among cultivators. He also believed them when they said he'd find it almost impossible to avoid the fights.
When going around in circles in his own head didn't get him anywhere, Sen went to talk to Auntie Caihong. She'd seemed the least committed to the idea of fighting as a cultivation aid. She smiled at him when came into the kitchen where she was preparing something.
"Auntie, why did you become a cultivator?"
The question seemed to catch the woman off guard because she stopped stirring whatever was in the pot and turned to look at him.
"I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before."
"What? How is that possible? Nobody ever asked you about it?"
Auntie Caihong thought for a few moments before she went back to stirring. "My father decided it. I was sent away to a sect when I was a little younger than you."
Sen was taken aback by that comment. "He just sent you away?"
"It was common then. It's still common. Families with too many daughters look for ways to, I suppose, unburden themselves."
"Too many daughters?" Sen asked, utterly baffled.
"That's a much longer conversation," said Auntie Caihong. "Let's just say that many families see daughters as an expense they don't want. So, if they can hand one off to a sect to become a cultivator, well, it's one less expense."
"So, you never really decided?"
"I did decide. I decided the day I left my family home that I would never let someone else control my fate that way again. Becoming a cultivator gave me the power to live the life I chose."
"Did you know what it meant? All of the fighting? The killing?"
She hesitated at that. "No one ever really knows. You can't truly know what it is until you're in the middle of it. But, yes, I knew about that part."
"Didn't it bother you?"
"Yes. It still does. I'm fortunate, though. I'm not like Ming or my husband. They were known for fighting. Ming built his entire, well-earned reputation on it. I didn't. I will fight if I have to, but no one is going to come looking to prove themselves against me. That's half the reason Jaw-Long stays here on this mountain. It lets him avoid a lot of unnecessary bloodshed."
"What's the other half?" Sen asked, curiosity overriding good sense briefly.
"It lets him avoid all of the people who'd want to learn from him. They're even worse than the people looking for a fight. After a fight, the other person usually goes away. Or, they're dead. Would be disciples? They just hang around, begging and pleading to learn from him. It's very tedious."
Sen frowned at that. "But he teaches me things all the time."
Auntie Caihong threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, Sen, that's because he actually likes you."
With no resolution to his quandary, Sen went to Uncle Kho and posed the same question about why he became a cultivator.
"It was a simple choice for me. I grew up poor. I was either going to end up a soldier or try to become a cultivator. There was a lot of war going on in those days. A lot of young men like me went off to those wars and never came back. I wanted to live a long life. The longer the better, I thought. And nobody seems to live longer than cultivators. So, I found myself a wandering cultivator and pestered the man until he agreed to teach some things."
"Did you know that it would mean fighting all the time? Maybe killing all the time?"
"I'd heard the stories. I figured they were probably true. Of course, fighting never bothered me that much. I was good at it."
Finally, Sen went to Master Feng with his questions.
"Why?" Master Feng repeated. "Power. Plain and simple. I wanted power."
"For what?"
"I wish I'd really asked myself that question. I'm pretty sure that I thought I'd conquer the world or something equally useless. Once I had some power, I realized that being in charge of things only sounds good from the outside. When I think about all of the work that would go into ruling the world. Makes me shudder."
"So, you didn't conquer the world out of," Sen hesitated, then plowed forward, "laziness?"
Master Feng laughed. "Laziness and an uncommon amount of good sense. Trust me, we all dodged catastrophe when I put those dreams away."
"And you knew what it meant, becoming a cultivator? The Jianghu, the duels, all of it?"
"I didn't know any of that. And, to be honest, I wouldn't have cared. Being thoughtful about life is something most of us don't pick up until later."
In the end, Sen was left where he started. Sitting outside with Falling Leaf. He'd poured out his worries and concerns to her, while the cat listened attentively. Then, when he was done, he stared up at the stars.
"I don't know what to do," he admitted.
"You'll fight," said Falling Leaf.
Sen jerked his head around to stare at the ghost panther. It was the first time she'd spoken since they'd run into that fox. He just wished she'd said something else.
"What?" He demanded. "Weren't you listening? I don't want to fight anyone."
Falling Leaf regarded him with eyes that almost seemed to glow in the darkness. "The bear does not wish to fight the wolf. Yet, if the wolf comes, the bear will fight because it must. You say that others will come for you. You do not wish to fight, but you will fight. Because you must. Because they will harm you if you do not. It is the only path forward."
Chapter 53: The Path Forward
Sen had been so angry with Falling Leaf that he'd stormed inside. He pretended he didn't feel her eyes on him as he went. He'd argued with her in his head all the way to his room. She didn't know what she was talking about. She was just a big cat. What could she possibly know about it?
"Bears and wolves," he muttered. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Yet, as he lay there, not sleeping, what she said kept circling around in his mind, refusing to let him rest, refusing to let him put away his troubles and have the sweet release of sleep. A little nagging part of him said that he was acting like a child. It told him that he was trying to ignore her because she didn't just tell him what he wanted to hear. He rolled onto his side and tried to ignore that little voice, too. Except, she had talked to him. She hadn't gestured or given him a serious look. She'd actually talked to him. He knew it was hard for her. She'd told him so. They'd only traded a handful of words that one time. For her, that brief speech in the courtyard was a monumental number of words. Why did it have to be those words, he thought.
He tossed and turned for most of an hour before he gave up and just stared at the wall, thinking it over. It was her last words that truly haunted him. It is the only path forward. She hadn't said it was the only path. He didn't know exactly how it worked, but he knew that cultivation could be broken somehow. He could go back to being a regular person if he wanted it badly enough. As Sen tried to think his way around it, he knew that was the heart of the problem. He didn't want to go back, not really. He didn't want to forget what being a regular person was like. He didn't want to treat regular people like they were beneath him. How could they be? The only reason he even had a family name was because Grandmother Lu had decided to give him one for her own reasons.
Going back, though, he couldn't see himself doing that. He'd learned too much. He'd suffered too much to just throw that all away. No, going back wasn't the solution to the problem. He'd held that idea in the back of his head from very nearly the first day with Master Feng, but it was long past time that he accepted that wasn't some kind of escape hatch from cultivation. If going back wasn't a real path…
"It's the only way forward," Sen said. "Forward."
Sen closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. If he was going to go forward, and that's the only real way he could move, it didn't come for free. He accepted that's what he'd really wanted. He wanted the strength and power that came with being a cultivator, but he hadn't wanted to pay the price. Like it or not, and Sen most certainly didn't like it, the cultivators had their own way of doing things. He wanted to go out and see the world. In fact, it was something he was increasingly sure he'd have to do to keep advancing. Doing that meant he would, inevitably, come across other cultivators. They would expect him to know their rules. Our rules, he corrected himself. He was one of them. He might have trained differently than they did, but that wouldn't matter to them.
The world of cultivators was a world of violence. Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong assured him that it was usually restrained violence, but violence was a fact of their existence. Fighting was the price he'd have to pay to accomplish his own goals. He thought over his training. He had learned a lot, but had he really learned about fighting? His sparring matches with the older cultivators hadn't felt like the fights he'd had with noble brats in Orchard's Reach. Those long-ago fights had been hectic and frightening, with his heart pounding in his ears, and pain screaming for his limited attention. The sparring was all control and softened by the certainty that the other person would pull back before they'd risk a serious injury. That wasn't to say that Sen thought what he'd learned was useless. In a controlled situation, he expected that he would fare fine.
Yet, how often would he fight in a controlled situation? From their descriptions of the Jianghu, he'd be fighting in forests, on the streets, and even inside of noodle shops. He'd have to worry about everything from spilled food to strewn bodies on the ground. His training had not prepared him for that. For that matter, he couldn't even expect to only have to fight one person at a time. He'd learned that lesson often enough as a child. Cowards were cowards, and they ran in packs. He expected that was as true of cultivators as it was of regular people. He had not trained, not really, to fight multiple people at once. He knew that much of what he'd learned could be used that way. Yet, knowing it and knowing how to do it was the difference between the moon's reflection on the water and the moon itself.
Sen thought about that for a long time, trying to understand the difference between what he'd trained for and actual fighting. Dueling, he finally realized. They trained me for dueling with other cultivators. That would all be helpful enough when he actually dueled someone, but those painful memories of getting beaten by a group were seared deep inside Sen's soul. He absolutely believed that cultivators would come for him as a group, at least if they thought no one could see. That meant that he needed to stop training to duel. He needed to train in how to fight. He might hate every minute of that fighting. He knew that he'd avoid it whenever he could. At the end of the day, though, he wanted to be a cultivator. For whatever reason, fighting was the price on offer to keep participating.
"Fine," he said to the empty room. "Then, I'll learn to fight."
With the matter finally settled in his head, Sen was asleep in seconds.
***
Sen took the next morning to see if things looked different in the literal light of day. He knew that, sometimes, sleep provided perspective. Yet, the morning offered him no new revelations. If anything, he felt more confident that he had the right of things. So, that afternoon, Sen presented his thoughts to Uncle Kho. The cultivator was quiet for a long, long time before he finally spoke. Sen was surprised by the first thing the old cultivator said.
"Sen, I know that Ming and I don't present cultivators out in the world in the best light, but they aren't all honorless dogs."
"They're people, aren't they?"
"Well, yes, I suppose they are."
"I've seen firsthand how honorable people treat those they see as weaker, as lesser, than themselves. As far as I'm concerned, they are all honorless dogs until they give me a very good reason to trust them. I'd be insane not to prepare for the possibility that they'll attack me in groups when they think they can get away with it. Can you tell me they won't? Can you tell me it never happened to you?"
Uncle Kho frowned and then shook his head. "No, I can't tell you that."
"Then, I need to learn how to fight, not duel. I need there to be a real risk of injury, just so I learn what to expect from my body. I probably can't control all of those reactions, but I can learn to work around them. I need there to be more than one person to worry about. I've spent all my time learning how to focus on what's in front of me, but that's not how fights usually work in my experience. It's the person you don't see that gets you the first time. I have to get ready for that."
"Very well. I suppose we all have been working from a prettier picture than is realistic. I know better. Ming certainly knows better. The heavens know we've both done enough fighting. Let me talk with Ming and Caihong. We'll sort out the right kind of training. Don't think this gets you out of spear training with me. I still have a lot to teach you before I unleash you on the world."
"Unleash?"
Uncle Kho grinned. "Did I say unleash? I'm sure I meant send you. Yes, I have a lot left to teach before I send you out into the world."
Chapter 54: Fighting Ways
Sen learned a lot about himself over the next few months. He learned that his body really had benefitted from body cultivation. He was harder to seriously injure. Things that might have once left him with cracked bones only left bruises on his much-improved body. He learned that he healed a lot faster too. Small cuts and bruises would simply vanish overnight. Deep bruises would look weeks old by morning. Sen also learned that he could withstand a lot more pain than he ever thought he could and keep fighting. At first, blows that sent him crashing into the courtyard stones or bouncing off the walls were enough to stun him into near immobility. That lasted right up until Uncle Kho casually walked over and drove his spear into the stone right next to Sen's head. Uncle Kho didn't need to explain the lesson. If you stay down, someone will make sure you stay there forever.
So, bit by bit, Sen learned how to focus through the pain. At first, he thought there must be some secret technique for ignoring pain. Surely there was some method of meditation to lock it away. Yet, Uncle Kho and Master Feng assured him that there wasn't. Sen wasn't entirely convinced, but it was clear no one would teach it to him until after he'd learned the lesson they wanted him to learn. He learned it, though, through agonizing weeks, he learned to push himself back onto his feet, even while his muscles spasmed and his bones protested. Even when he hurt so much that he was half-blind, he made himself get back up. Once he mastered getting back up, he had to master getting back in the fight. He discovered the physical fighting element of that was pretty easy. After thousands upon thousands of forms and drills, his body would work almost as well without his mental input as with it. Act. React. Attack. Defend. It was all disarmingly familiar.
No, it was the mental element he struggled to master. Pushing past it all to get back on his feet was relatively easy to convince himself to do because survival depended on it. Convincing himself to go and fight some more, rather than flee the scene of so much pain, always sounded like a terrible idea to his battered consciousness. It was that battle that he fought day after day, and then week after week. In the end, it was simple repetition that won him the fight. It was as if his mind was only willing to try arguing with him about it for so long before it finally just shrugged, gave up, and said, "Fine, have it your way, you mad bastard." After that, if he could get back to his feet, he could get back into the fight.
Sen also learned that he'd never truly trusted his intuition. He'd had a kind of sixth sense for trouble when he'd lived on the streets, but he'd only ever listened when that sixth sense was clamoring for attention. If it wasn't screaming at him, he usually pushed it to the back of his head. When Uncle Kho and Master Feng had started Sen on learning to fight more than one person at the same time, he swiftly learned the folly of that old habit. They hadn't been two minutes into the first day of training when Master Feng had casually batted him to the ground from behind. Then, a few minutes later, Master Kho did the same thing. On and on it went with Sen acting as little more than a training dummy for the two. It was a brutal way to learn, but he started to trust those tiny twinges in his gut. It wasn't always enough to save him from the blow, but he was almost never caught wholly unaware. It also taught him not to lock his spiritual sense facing forward. He didn't always succeed at maintaining that sense in all directions, but he got increasingly skilled with it as time went by.
It took about a month, but Sen even got over his phobia about pills. He had apparently come in bloody and bruised from one too many of those training sessions because Auntie Caihong had grabbed him and put in him a seat. Then, she retrieved a pill from her storage ring, handed it to him, and ordered him to take it. He'd tried to protest, but she gave him a look that she usually reserved for when Uncle Kho was moments from doing something he'd regret forever. Sen had shut up and taken the pill. It had helped. It wasn't every day after that, but it seemed that when Sen reached some invisible threshold of injury, Auntie Caihong would give him a pill. Sen still didn't like them. He didn't think that would ever change. Yet, he could see that there were important differences between the cultivation aids. Not taking a healing pill when someone offered it after you suffered an injury wasn't noble. No principle was served. It was just stupid. Looking back later, Sen thought that pure mental and physical exhaustion probably helped. It was hard to get worked up about anything when falling asleep while eating was a distinct possibility.
Sen also discovered an ability that he might have found exciting in other circumstances. While he'd been limited to using two kinds of attributed qi before, he learned that his channels could support at least four different cycling patterns, as long as he didn't push any of them too hard. The reduced qi flow certainly put a hard limit on how strong his qi techniques could be, but it opened up a lot of horizons for him defensively and offensively. He found that hurling a small fireball behind him and a wind blade in front of him while wreathed in mist was surprisingly effective at driving back opponents. Unlike before, he pushed his natural affinities hard. He developed techniques for shadow screens that hid him and even helped mask other techniques before they burst through the screen. He honed the fire whip spell until it could extend several feet. If focused exclusively on fire or shadow, he could do even more impressive things.
He learned to form several fireballs at once. He could throw a ring of fire around himself that made getting close enough for an attack a gamble. He even found that, with enough concentration, he could form a solid blade using shadow. Sadly, it didn't do anything special. At least, it didn't do anything special that Sen could identify, since it couldn't cut Uncle Kho or Master Feng. That was the problem with most of Sen's qi techniques. Both the older cultivators could tone down how much of their cultivation they used. It was that sole fact that prevented them from killing Sen every time they landed a blow. Yet, they couldn't really make their bodies more vulnerable. All of those centuries of body refining and general qi infusion had made them all profoundly difficult to injure. It made practicing qi techniques against them a mixed blessing for Sen. On the one hand, he was getting in a lot of practice. On the other, he wasn't any closer to understanding how those attacks or techniques would play out against people at his own cultivation level.
Despite small problems like that, though, Sen was accomplishing his goal. He was learning how to fight when the odds were stacked against him. He didn't go easy on himself either. He specifically asked Master Feng and Uncle Kho to use a cultivation level equal to that of a peak foundation formation cultivator. Sen knew it would mean taking a lot more hits and suffering a lot more injuries, but it would also prepare him better for the fights ahead. If he could stand off two incredibly skilled fighters like the two older cultivators for even a few minutes, he'd give himself fair odds against a handful of people at his own level. If he could level the field even that much, he'd trust himself to find a way clear from there. After all, he didn't need to achieve absolute victory every time. All he needed was to make sure the fight was so painful for the other people that they'd rather quit and go home. So, he fought, and pushed, and the part of his mind he'd trained so long ago cultivated in the background, inching him closer and closer to another breakthrough that had no place in his thoughts.
Chapter 55: A Distant Call
For once, Sen simply sat in the darkness that pervaded the mountain before dawn. He had meant to get up and train, as he did every morning. When he stepped outside to start, though, he instead found himself sitting on a bench, cycling qi, and letting his mind drift. It was quiet and, although Sen barely noticed, a touch of frost rested lightly on everything, ready to evaporate at the first kiss of sunlight. The smallest tendrils of winter had come early that year. In a quiet corner of his heart, Sen recognized that he was tired. A few weeks earlier, Uncle Kho and Master Feng decided that Sen was reaching a kind of something. He searched his memory for the term they had used. His bleary consciousness haltingly, grudgingly, dredged up the word. Plateau. He was reaching a plateau just fighting the two of them. So, they enlisted Auntie Caihong to increase the difficulty. Sen had not appreciated how much harder fighting three people would be until he had to do it.
It wasn't thirty percent harder the way he had imagined. He was relatively sure he could have managed thirty percent harder. No, it was more like three hundred percent harder. Three people could coordinate and vary their attacks in ways that were impossible for two people. It changed absolutely everything about the fight. Sen had been forced to push his skills, his qi techniques, and his senses to their extreme limits to avoid simply being crushed immediately. He ended every day feeling like his mind and body had been wrung out like an old cloth. He also knew that his middling ability to keep them at bay had more to do with Auntie Caihong training him in her sword style than it had to do with his ability. He knew what to expect from her, at least a little. It gave him a tiny edge and just enough room to stay a half step ahead of utter defeat.
Yet, the toll of pushing so hard for so long had started to add up. He noticed himself making tiny errors that wouldn't have happened a month prior. There were tiny hiccups in his thought process that delayed decisions for fractions of a second. He knew that wouldn't seem like anything to regular people. The delays were so small that they probably wouldn't even notice, but Sen did notice. In a fight with three people operating at peak foundation formation, even tiny fractions of a second were critical, or lethal, depending on which side of the fight you were on. So, for once, Sen just let himself sit and rest for a little while. As he had more and more often, Sen found himself staring off into the east. The ocean was in that direction. His desire to see it had turned into impatience. It was a nagging sensation that the ocean was waiting for him, although he knew that didn't make any sense. There was something else, though, something that tickled at the edges of his perception or his mind or maybe even his soul. He started to reach for the sensation when he heard the door open.
He looked over and saw Auntie Caihong walking over to him. She held small, steaming cups in both hands. Sen just stared at her as she walked toward him, vaguely aware that there was something he ought to be doing. His sluggish mind finally made the connection, and Sen shot to his feet. He offered a respectful bow before accepting one of the cups. Auntie Caihong sat down on the bench, and Sen joined her. He held the cup in his hands for a moment, enjoying the heat that sank into his fingers. Then, he lifted the cup and sipped at the scalding liquid. He offered a little sigh of contentment as the heat bloomed inside him. Auntie Caihong looked around happily at the courtyard.
"I love this time of year," she said.
"Why is that, Auntie?" Sen asked, mostly by reflex.
"I don't know if it's any one thing. I like the colors. I like the way it's cold in the morning but can still feel like summer in the afternoon. I like the way I can feel everything on the mountain getting ready for the winter. Everything is changing, but it's not done changing yet. Before long, everything on the mountain will be asleep or have traveled away to somewhere warmer. Winter is often peaceful, but it's too still for me."
Sen nodded to show he understood, although he couldn't think of anything to add. He found his gaze drifting east again and forced his attention back to Auntie Caihong. He found her giving him a vaguely sad look.
"You'll leave soon, won't you?" She asked.
Sen dug deep and considered his answer with care. "Yes. Soon, but not too soon. At least, I don't think so. It's not, that is, it's not quite time. Uncle Kho, you, and even Master Fend taught me a lot about balance and the need for it as a cultivator. I'm still in balance here. I'll stay while that's true, but it is changing."
Auntie Caihong sat quietly and sipped her tea. She looked thoughtful, but not as sad.
"Do you know when?" She asked.
"I'm guessing a bit, but probably in the spring. I think that's when-," Sen drifted off, not quite sure what words would properly describe the feeling.
The cultivator's eyes grew sharp as she looked at him. "That's when, what?"
Sen tried to gather his thoughts. He knew he had to tell her about this the right way, but it was hard to come up with the right words when he was so tired.
"There's something waiting for me or maybe something I'm supposed to do at the ocean. I can sense it. Feel it. It's like," he paused to think again, "it's like a distant call. You can hear the sounds, but you can't make out the words until you get closer. Right now, I can hear the sounds. When I can hear the words, that's when I'll have to go."
Auntie Caihong stared at him in complete silence for nearly ten seconds. Her gaze was so intense that Sen felt uncomfortable. Then, she broke the tension by snorting and offering him a wry smile.
"Jaw-Long has been a bad influence on you," she said.
The statement was so unexpected that Sen burst into laughter. Then, realizing that Uncle Kho or Master Feng might still be sleeping, he clapped a hand over his mouth. When the intense desire to laugh finally passed, Sen lowered his hand.
Snickering, he said, "A bad influence? How so?"
"Whenever he talks about cultivation, or even using a spear for that matter, there's always this mystical edge about it. It's like he enjoys this unique relationship with cultivation that gives him insight, but not in a way that he can express directly. You sounded a lot like him just then."
Sen blushed a little. "I don't mean to be vague. I just can't think of a better way to put it."
She smiled and patted his arm. "It's fine. At least, I know we'll have you until spring. So, that's something."
Sen suppressed the unhappy noise that he wanted to make. "I wish I could just stay. I love it here. I love being here with you, Uncle Kho, and Master Feng. I love learning and training. I finally know what it's like to have a family. But Grandmother Lu is my family, too. I've been away for, what, five years? I know I left her in a much better situation, but I still worry about her. I worry that she may have needed me for something, and I wasn't there. Even if I didn't know there was something waiting for me in the east, I'd still have to go."
Sen glanced at Auntie Caihong. He could see the last vestiges of moonlight glimmering in her unshed tears.
"You'll always have a home here, family here, Sen. We might not want you to go, but we're all cultivators. We understand that sometimes, advancing means leaving. Just make sure you come back from time to time."
"I will, Auntie."
"Good. Now, I actually came out here for a reason."
"Yes?"
"You're taking the day off. I don't care what you do. Sleep. Cook. Read. It can be anything except training, fighting, or studying. I'd tell you to stop cycling, but Ming trained you too well for that. I don't even think you know you're doing it most of the time."
"Auntie, I need to-," Sen started to say.
"Rest. You need to rest. You've been pushing yourself harder than I've ever seen anyone at your cultivation stage push themselves. And I've known some true zealots. Taking one day off this year will not set you back. I already spoke with my husband and Ming about it. If you don't sleep, at least try to do something to relax. Maybe even do something fun, like chasing Falling Leaf up and down the mountain. I bet she'd like that. No objections. This is an order."
A piece of Sen wanted to object on principle, but Sen ignored that. He just offered up a defeated smile. "As you say, Auntie."
Chapter 56: Next Steps
Sen never stopped moving. He felt Auntie Caihong's thrust coming toward his back, even as he saw Uncle Kho come in for a downward slash from the left. His senses told him that Master Feng was a few steps back and, for a precious moment or two, would be out of position. Sen spun away from Caihong's attack and used the momentum to knock Uncle Kho's slash just far enough out of position that it would miss him. He used the rebound from the block to carry him around again and drove a slash at Master Feng, who was forced to abandon his attack in favor of defense.
With that threat momentarily dealt with, Sen moved his head a fraction to the right to avoid another attack by Auntie Caihong. She'd closed a little too much, so he sent a short, brutal kick her way. She almost avoided it, but the glancing blow disrupted her forward motion and sent her two steps to the side. That put her in Master Feng's way. That would keep them busy for two or three heartbeats. Sen dropped beneath a swipe that would have probably taken his head off at the neck, before slamming the butt of his own spear into Uncle Kho's exposed ribs. Sen was about to launch another attack when Master Feng called the fight to a halt.
"Enough," he said in a calm voice.
Sen planted the butt of the spear on the ground and let the weapon support a bit of his weight as he took deep breaths. That shocked him. He hadn't been really out of breath in months. Then again, they had pushed him hard that day. Plus, he'd been fighting them for a while. He wasn't sure how long. There were hazy patches all over his memory of the fight. It made judging time difficult. As Sen let his awareness of his surroundings expand beyond the nearest ten feet, he realized that it was snowing. When did that start, he wondered. Not that snow was unusual so late in the year, but he'd been wholly unaware of it.
"I think it's probably time," said Uncle Kho, a bit of regret in his voice.
"Agreed," said Auntie Caihong.
Sen gave the older cultivators a suspicious look. They sounded like they were deciding something, but he didn't know what. Master Feng looked from the others to Sen.
"You've taken this exercise about as far as you can, at least at your current cultivation."
Sen didn't say anything for a moment. The implications of those words weren't something he'd prepared for mentally. After he realized that he was just staring at Master Feng, who had raised an eyebrow at him, Sen finally spoke.
"So, I'm done?"
"Oh, well, you're never done. There does come a point, though, where what you gain from additional practice isn't really worth the effort you put into it. You're at that point."
Sen just let that roll around in his head for a while. "Then, what's next?"
"I have one thing to show you. I'm not sure if you're quite there, yet, but there's no real harm in laying the groundwork for a qinggong technique."
Uncle Kho piped up then. "I have a little bit more to teach you about the spear. But, really, at this point, what you need is information. So, that's what we'll be focusing on."
"Information? Information about what?"
"The world," said Auntie Caihong. "You've never been away from the town below have you?"
"No," Sen admitted.
"Fortunately, all of us have," said Master Feng. "So, we're going to fill you in on some things you need to know. Places to go. Places to never go. People you can turn to if you need help. That sort of thing."
Sen frowned. "I suppose now is as good a time as any to ask this. It seems likely that, sooner or later, someone will ask me who trained me. Should I tell them?"
The three older cultivators traded pensive looks. Sen understood those looks, at least a little bit. He didn't know how far it went, but he knew that all three of them had reputations out in the world. After the way those sect members reacted to Uncle Kho, though, Sen had given the matter a lot of thought. While Sen didn't care all that much about what people thought of him, he didn't want to tarnish anyone else's reputation along the way.
After a moment, Auntie Caihong snorted. "He might as well. People will figure it out whether he tells them or not."
"Do you think so?" Master Feng asked.
"If they ever see him wield a jian or a spear, they will. They'll see the two of you all over his style. My influence won't be so obvious. Even so, there's no point in making him keep a secret that won't stay a secret."
Uncle Kho was still frowning. "Still, it could set him up to borrow trouble. Our trouble."
"Probably," agreed Master Feng. "But I expect that's been true since the day I picked him up down the mountain. Besides, anyone who really knows us won't be stupid enough to try to come at us through him. Anyone stupid enough to try it, well, I'm not above handing out some object lessons over the next couple of decades."
Uncle Kho mulled that over. "It has been a while since I last left the mountain. I suppose there's nothing wrong with a little leg stretching now and then."
That brief snippet of conversation simultaneously warmed Sen's heart and chilled him right to the marrow. There was, after all, a certain comfort in knowing that if he was ever in serious trouble not of his own making, there was ridiculously, terrifyingly powerful help out there for him. At the same time, Sen had some understanding of what that help might look like in practice. Uncle Kho had ended the lives of two people simply for issuing a threat to harm Sen. If someone actually took him prisoner or harmed him, Sen had visions of miles of scorched and blackened earth. As for Master Feng, Sen honestly had no idea what the man might be capable of in a fit of anger, but he expected the results would be much the same in effect, if not in execution.
Of the three, though, Sen thought that Auntie Caihong might be the most dangerous in a situation like that. With her knowledge of medicinal herbs, pills, and alchemy, she could very well kill scores of people before anyone knew what was happening. With all of her vast experience, he imagined she could hide it from even the most watchful eyes. The part that truly made Sen shudder, though, was that he didn't imagine for one moment that those people would be granted quick, clean, or merciful deaths. Sen came to a decision.
"I won't hide the information. If someone I can't safely ignore should ask me directly about it, at any rate," said Sen. "I won't spread it around, though. Maybe people will figure out that I'm connected with you three, eventually, but there's no reason to help the information get out."
Auntie Caihong nodded. "That's probably the best answer here. It's not worth your life or even serious injury to keep it to yourself. Beyond that, though, no one really needs to know."
Master Feng and Uncle Kho nodded their agreement with that assessment. Sen started to ask another question but only managed to let out a jaw-creaking yawn. He felt a little twinge of embarrassment at the bemused expressions on everyone's faces. Then, he shrugged it off. It had been a long day, and they'd worked him hard.
"Sen, go clean up," said Master Feng. "Jaw-Long, do you still have a map of the continent floating around?"
"I do," said Uncle Kho.
"Good. We'll have to take a look at it after dinner."
As Sen wandered off to get a bath, his tired mind didn't make note of Falling Leaf staring first at him and then at the elder cultivators.
Chapter 57: Parting Ways (1)
Armed with the knowledge that he was leaving soon, it seemed that Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong decided that they needed to cram as much information as possible into his head before he went. The three of them poured over Uncle Kho's map, pointing to spots and then talking at him, and often over each other, about the place. Sen soon realized that, even with his seemingly improved memory and thinking, he could never possibly remember even a fraction of what they were telling him. So, he started taking notes of key information. He focused on what he hoped were essentials, such as the names of people they either thought he should meet or that they'd like messages delivered to. He also made careful note of businesses they vouched for or, in some cases, businesses that they owned in whole or in part. There were a lot of those, although they weren't concentrated in any one place. When Sen learned that Master Feng apparently owned a pastry shop on the far side of the continent, he simply couldn't contain his curiosity.
"A pastry shop? Why do you own a pastry shop, master?"
"Oh, it wasn't anything special. The owner's daughter was nice to me."
That got a sharp look from Auntie Caihong. "She was nice to you?"
Her look triggered a scowl from him.
"Don't give me that look, Caihong. She was all of four years old. I look like her grandfather, but she didn't know the difference. She saw me in the street, and I was grandpa after that. The shop was in trouble, so I bought the place."
"Oh," said Auntie Caihong, looking a little abashed.
Master Feng's face took on a distant, pleasant look. "Get an egg tart if you ever go there, Sen. Delicious."
Sen liked good food as much as the next person, so he agreed.
***
It wasn't all information useful for travel, either. Uncle Kho decided that Sen not manifesting lightning qi was an injustice that simply could not be let to stand. It was here that Sen learned one of the pitfalls of the training approach they had taken with him. Uncle Kho had started naming qi channels that Sen should use to manifest lightning. It was only the look of pure incomprehension on Sen's face that brought the detailed explanation to a halt. Uncle Kho had frowned then, paced back and forth a few times, then sighed. The old cultivator ultimately had to enlist Auntie Caihong and her diagram of qi channels to show Sen what to do.
It took Sen almost ten days of practice to first manifest the lightning and then get it under some semblance of control. He couldn't create anything like the bolts of destruction that Uncle Kho had so casually tossed around, but the older cultivator didn't seem to mind. He looked positively ecstatic when Sen could do it at all. Sen had worried that Master Feng might object to this approach to learning but he waved off the concern.
"It's a useful thing to know how to do. You can use it to shock your opponents," said Master Feng, before he started laughing.
Sen was mystified by the laughter and the pained groan that Uncle Kho let out.
"Really, Ming? How long have you been saving up that pun?"
"Since about five seconds after you started showing him how to manifest lightning."
Uncle Kho gave Master Feng a flat look. "It's a miracle those jokes didn't get you killed somewhere along the way," said Uncle Kho.
"Oh, plenty of people tried."
"Not hard enough," muttered Uncle Kho.
***
Yet, for all the preparation they were doing, it was Falling Leaf that made his upcoming departure real for Sen. He'd been outside in the morning, practicing, when Falling Leaf had come up, sat, and gave him a serious look. Sen had stopped what he was doing to focus on the big cat.
"You're leaving," she said.
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. Yet, her choice to say it to him gave the whole thing more heft in his mind.
"I am," he admitted. "Not immediately. In the spring."
She was silent and motionless for so long that Sen thought the conversation might be over. Finally, she spoke again.
"For how long?"
That had brought Sen up short. He'd known he would be going, but he hadn't really given any thought to when he might come back. He knew that he would come back. Uncle Kho and Auntie Caihong were here. Grandmother Lu was here. The mountain was here. Falling Leaf was here. The when of it, though? It could be years for all he knew. He hesitated to utter that truth out loud, uncertain what the ghost panther would think of it, or of him.
"I don't know," he said.
"I see," said Falling Leaf.
There was an undercurrent in those words that Sen didn't understand. Was it anger? Was it hurt? He just didn't know. Desperate to salvage something from the conversation, Sen improvised.
"You could come with me if you want."
It might have been something he came up with in the moment, but the idea resonated with Sen. Falling Leaf was his friend. He trusted her. He'd trust her to watch his back. He'd never had that before. The more he thought about her going with him, the better he liked the idea. There was another excruciating pause as the cat seemed to think it over. She answered by shaking her head.
"I cannot. There is no place for me in the human world. I would be hunted."
Sen wanted to argue, to protest that he would protect her, but he couldn't make that kind of promise. He might mean every word when he said it. Yet, meaning it didn't mean he could actually keep the promise. Still, watching all of his hastily constructed fantasies collapse was painful.
Not sure what else he could do, Sen said, "I'm sorry. I don't want to leave you behind, but I do have to go. I have to stay in balance and, soon, I won't be in balance here anymore."
The big cat regarded him with something in her eyes that truly didn't understand. It made her seem more like a beast than she ever had before.
"You leave this place behind. Not me."
With those cryptic words, she rose, went over to the wall, and casually leapt to the top. She looked back at him one more time and spoke.
"I may leave this mountain someday. Keep a watch for me."
Then, she was gone. A part of Sen feared he wouldn't see her again after that. Yet, she came and went in much the same way she always had. They did not, however, speak again. Still, the gravity of what was coming settled over Sen after that. There was a finality to leaving the mountain. He could feel it, but he couldn't make sense of it. All he knew was that it meant change. Change could be a good thing. Master Feng bringing him up the mountain had been a change and, without question, had changed Sen's life for the better. So, this new change could also be for the good or so Sen hoped. Yet, he didn't know. That uncertainty weighed on him, even as the necessity of the change pulled at him, urged him on, called him to go, see, explore the world.
What had become clear to Sen was that change almost always meant loss. He would lose what he had here. He wouldn't lose it forever or entirely. He could return and would find people waiting to welcome him with open arms. Yet, it wouldn't ever be every day again. Not like it had been over the past years. He would miss it. As hard as parts of it had been, he had also come to relish the routines and challenges. He would also lose that surety that comes with having very experienced elders to guide him. He would have to make choices about cultivation with no guiding hands there to catch him if he made a bad one. There was freedom in that, yes, but also loss. All Sen could do was hope that he'd make the kind of choices that would let him look the members of this strange family that had adopted him in the eye with a clear conscience.