Fatherly Asura

Gon Ma set down his brush, and the Heavens laughed. His [Origin Qi] had not run dry in millenia.

But did they not walk in interesting times?

With tender affection, he stroked the parchment. Its likeness of ink seeping into his pores, staining each.

As easy as one might draw breath, he appeared before his altar. This five-thousand pillared expanse, where flowing, paper tapestries hung. Enlightened eyes need not look upon an object to see it. Less so in one’s own domain.

Yet his Mistress applauded such acts of mortality.

So here, Gon Man pondered, and sought to absorb each detail of the brush-stroked woman set upon this scene. His calligraphy was fine indeed, though all things could be improved.

His Mistress deserved better.

A vast river dominated the parchment, sevenfold forks flowing from its center. Seas of cherry blossom casting shade upon its gentle waters.

The parchment was stroked and Gon Ma entered.

All became as tan and black. Wet edges, and well defined lines. A world of brushstrokes from his horse hair implement.

He approached the woman, her ankles deep in the Cherry River. The basket upon her back, brimming with petals. And she spoke in silence, drawing a script of characters to enter the space above.

A hum, at first. “Bah. If you have energy to spare on this nonsense then you should make yourself useful. Talk does not cook rice.”

Upon the riverside stood a Vajra. Gon Ma had gleaned no more importance then, than the Adamant View, well opened upon his brow.

“This tenth-rate daoist has prepared a poem,” read his words. “It is his hope that it will open the beauty’s heart!

“The fool has ears, but refuses to listen,” the woman sighed.

Ink-black [Seasons] passed through Gon Ma’s will. An absence of blossoms within the trees. A growth of trunks. A downpour that swelled the banks. This he saw a thousand times, reflected in the brushstrokes he had detailed long ago.

A [Spirit Cuckoo] now sat upon the woman’s lap. Little change had taken hold on her, and the transformations of the world had laid no claim on the Cherry River.

Indeed, it yet flowed, hazing the reflection of stars above.

“You would want for nothing,” read a second man. His [Spirit Serpent] filling Gon Ma with shame and anger in equal parts. “Truly, I honour you with my hand. Women across the Empire would kill nine generations to receive even a glance of my attention.”

The woman hummed with disapproval. “Better the cottage where one is merry than the palace where one weeps.”

Some facet of Gon Ma was grateful for the abruptness, and again wound forward the painting. Hers was a simple sequence, until it was not.

One thousand Vajra from among the highest Numbered visited. Twice as many cultivators from the land’s myriad Sects. Patriarchs. Matriarchs. Hidden Masters thought long gone.

Serpents - those Gon Ma himself could name as wizened and aged. Elders from his youth, long lost to seclusion or mistake.

Yet his interest waxed to see this outline. For now, wound forward, a patchwork boat flowed down the Cherry River. The sevenfold flow had it sway and lilt, and here it gently spiralled within the grasp of each direction.

Laughter was scrawled in the air above. Met by a disdainful hum.

“Bah. Move on, stranger,” she called. “None here are thankful for your disturbance.”

A [Spirit Rooster] emerged from the boat to stand one-legged upon its bow. Its cultivator, thereafter.

Absent of detail. Nigh formless save for the script that inked at his words. “That I would, young miss, but the water’s a mind of its own. Truthfully, I’ve little notion of where we are.”

“You trespass on the Cherry River.”

The laughter was drawn louder. “Trespass on a river? What fool claims ownership of water?”

“Few would entertain an insult on the Cherry River Inheritors. None would suffer it twice, as you have inflicted. Move on.”

Gon Ma braced himself, for he knew the depths of this stranger’s insight. The infuriation that had vexed him for a thousand years, moving to deepen.

A peach pit rose from the boat, held aloft by vacant space. “Is this the water those fools claim to own?” he asked.

“Bah. The same, yes,” her hum emboldened in ink.

The peach pit dropped into the river, and flowed ever distant. “They might be grateful to know that their water’s running away.”

Lines converged on the woman’s brow, furrowed. “Run… running away?”

“All things flow onwards, do they not? Granting a thing a name and claiming it for yourself will not change that.”

Once more Gon Ma returned to his altar, spurning the [Epiphany] that dared rear its head. In place of it, he harnessed the sensation and reaffirmed his [Dao].

Golden light bid four paintings to appear and be draped in each cardinal direction. Four scenes of utmost detail and clarity. Recent things.

Predications, etched and informed by his Path.

Four vacant spaces upon them.

The first, a [Paifang]. Detailed by words that brooked no misunderstanding. “It is soon to open,” they read.

A feat of twenty seven moons, the second birthed an emptied ocean. Fine strokes to show each granule of barren earth. The parched skies, and Qi-starved air. [Demons], in supplication towards the vacant air.

The next splayed a wingspan to rival the Heavens. A return of the [Divine Serenities Phoenix] in court above its peak. What gift it offered, obscured, as was the cultivator in receipt.

Only the bare edge of a feline [Spirit Beast] at their side.

Gon Ma put the fourth to his rear. This indulgence was a frivolous waste of time, for its advent would come upon the turning of the [Season].

When the [Spring Equinox] presided, and the Four Shaded Spear would no longer stand.

🀩

“It is a seven-way split, based on contribution! Was it not I, One Hundred and First Chinmaya, that led you to the [Three Raptures Sea Serpent]?”

“Do not act so shameless!” roared another of the paper tigers. “If we did not all lend our Qi to the [Sovereign Spirit Array] then none here would stand!”

In the midst of their warring cultivators, the cries of the ship’s captain were well drowned. His kowtow, futile and his protests unheard.

Yongwu Long smiled. The youth of today were indeed rowdy.

“Young Master,” exclaimed the rotund boy ahead. “I could have these vagrants stop, if it is disturbing your meditation?”

Thinking on this, he pulled forth his [Ink].