Fatherly Asura

“These,” declared the man. “These are unwelcome here, friend. Ah, but don’t trouble yourself over it. The fire in your eyes tells me you’ve no need of them.”

Where blood might accompany this unearthly pain, neither Fu, Shuidi nor Hushi felt any gush from their lungs. They saw none spurt from the gaping hole in their chest, [Core] or [Spirit] - whatever uncertain place this figure wrenched from.

Three heartbeats passed.

Vision returned.

Something else did not.

Fu staggered to his feet, backtracking from a remarkably bland figure of farmer-like appearance. A monster of dirt-smeared tunic, muddied hands and unkempt hair. The sight was maddeningly mortal save for the impossibly familiar crinkle beside his smile and the twin, gleaming chains in his grasp.

A tentacle frantically tapped upon Fu’s navel, and then its own in turn.

“What- what have you done, stranger?” searched the Fatherly [Asura], looking both inward and expanding his [Senses] about him.

His [Clouded Ghost Arts] had…

“My [Dao Oaths],” he realized, staring at the black and gold links that now dissipated in this figure’s hand. “Those were not yours to take.”

The cockerel crowed almost mirthfully. “When an acorn falls, does it blame the ground for catching it?”

“One might say it blames the wind,” said Fu.

“Ahaha, truly?” laughed the man. “Then you ought to return, friend, and thrust complaints upon the wind that brought you here. This place is not for constraint, and these chains, well, it’s bad manners to spit in the village well.”

Raw, gravel-like pain thrummed about Fu’s inner [Channels], and Shuidi put much effort into stabilising their [Spirit] with small infusions of nurturing Qi. It seemed as though the world about them swayed, and in truth their [Senses] were overcome by the shifting [Seasons] of all things.

But the Fatherly [Asura] breathed. “A [Dao Oath] is a constraint then. An insult. Though it is not one worthy of death. You must forgive me, stranger, the wind that sent me here did so without preparation. Still, one might say it is worse manners to affect another as you have.”

“That it is, but there’s very little you might do about it,” laughed the man. “Tell me please, my polite friend, what business have you here?”

Hushi slung himself from the douli, setting a stern gaze. “Jinghui Hua sends us for her heart.”

Strange as it was, the man’s frown still seemed as though he held a smile. “Hua sent you for her heart? By the Heavens, I hope it’s where I left it,” he said, and despite the inflection of humor his features proved darker. “She would not task this to just anyone. Hua is… hmm, I can’t seem to recall a word that doesn’t sound insulting. Vexing? Challenging? Particular.”

Fu’s lips quirked. “That is proof enough that you know her. We greet you, [Barefoot Emperor]. We greet you as Gao Fu, Hushi and Shuidi.”

“Gao Fu. I’ve been poor with names for the better part of three millenia. Faces are more my strength. I rarely forget those. Hua wouldn’t willingly choose yours though, I’m sorry to say. Though, she did choose mine and it’s of the same bland appearance.”

He shared qualities with Shengcang Bulu. The [Cherry River Fool]. So casual an attitude is surely a ruse, lest Grandmother is fond of this behaviour.

“We have never met, and yet I see you each time I close my eyes. Allow me to begin again. I am Gao Fu, father to your grandchildren and heart of your late daughter.”

The cockerel winked to its cultivator’s shoulder. “Mei was not of an age to bear children when she passed, Gao Fu. Speak plainly.”

“Changkuai. Demands made in anger… well, do as you please. Such is the Path,” the man said, shrugging.

“It is improper to ask on a woman’s age, but my Jinghui Mei was some twenty moons old when first we met. When childbirth… when she passed, it was no more than two moons later. As for what you claim, I do not know, said Fu.

[Barefoot Emperor] inclined his head in ponderance, then abruptly sat upon the ground. “Twenty moons. Changkuai, did you hear that? Twenty moons. Hua… Hmm. This Gao Fu is blissfully ignorant, no?” The expression upon his face was one of pity. “My little Mei’er, our Mei, it seems, she was conceived well before your guess of twenty moons.”

Here-

It was as though Fu were no more than the simple fisherman of yestermoon. No morsel of his heart could defend against the pang of this statement, nor could the cold shell of his vocation protect him from the rising heat.

“My Mei was no immortal,” he warned. “Do not twist the truths of my heart. She was many things, but never a liar. I recall her memories, her stories, her thoughts.”

The man held up a hand. “Oh, she may well have believed as you believe. The complications surrounding her birth… hmm, it’s easier to say that she was sick, Gao Fu. A pale baby, cursed by the very waters of Hua’s Path. We argued upon the remedy, though by these words it’s clear the [Cherry River Sage] went against my wishes.”

Mei. Sick?

Knowing nothing of this man but his absence, Fu crouched, burying such an intensity of gaze upon him that it might have melted the sun. “One Father knows the next,” he said after many heartbeats, sighing. “For the peace of my heart, I would know more.”

Hushi and Shuidi held close as he took a seat in the ever-shifting reeds.

“For the peace of your heart,” affirmed Changkuai. “Mubu. This wandering soul will speak to son-in-law if you will not.”

“Son-in-law? Ha, indeed. Son-in-law Gao Fu. Our Mei’er was nursed by the Cherry River’s banks, and suffered despite all the protections we could offer. We don’t count the passing of [Seasons], Gao Fu, so I can’t speak on how long ago this was. Millenia or centuries. Only that she the Heavens decreed she wasn’t to live beyond a [Season]. It was on the last night that Hua invoked my… aid. She asked that Mei’er be freed from time so she might sing to her sleep without worry that tragedy would fall before the verse was complete. Who was I to deny my heart?”

Shuidi hummed much as the Sage might. “Freed from time? You speak too casually, blood of my blood.”

“Try as we might to rid ourselves of it, we wear a crown much like your own, Gao Shuidi. However they might differ. Our crown is not of lightning. Not of the clear and obvious [Tribulations] I smell upon you. Just so, she was freed all the same. It was then that Hua fled, my blessing still upon our child. The Mei’er you know… perhaps Hua forestalled the inevitable.”

There had ever burned a question in Fu’s mind from the moment he had stepped upon his Path.

A whisper.

What fate could the [Cherry River Sage] not prevent?

In all her power, even diminished, how could she allow Mei’s death to pass?

The guilt of this is enough to shatter the Heavens. Hua carried such weight upon her in silence. Perhaps she is right to be bitter- to be how she is. The loss of one’s child is a tragedy, and yet to have failed against the impossible is a cruel madness.

Fu stroked his whisker, then bowed twice. “My heart settles. For this, I extend a thousand gratitudes.”

Mubu, [Barefoot Emperor], gave a toothy grin. “Mei’er… hah, there’s much to learn of her from her choice in partner. Perhaps we should thank you, son-in-law, for such a glimpse! A deal could be struck, I think,” he said, nodding absently. “Yes. Changkuai, we’ll offer whatever aid you need for more tales of these grandchildren. But not here. We’ve to catch breakfast first.”

🀩

Blood did not mean trust.

Even so, Fu spoke at length.

He had never danced the dance of courtship. His tethering to Mei was done improperly, against such common standards as chaperones, dowries, proposals and familial meetings, and this small regret was not one he could ever rectify.

Perhaps this had his tongue fly like a kite with its string cut, or perhaps… perhaps without the blackened chain of his [Dao Oath] to the Clouded Courts, his fostered suspicion had fled.

As many thoughts stirred within him as there were fish by his feet.

Hushi’s arms cracked like arrows loosed from a string, ensnaring the late [Core Formation] carp in this rushing river. Some paces downstream, Fu danced his hands beneath them, launching a good half dozen to the shore.

A strange feat, for the water’s [Season] shifted much like all did here. It grew swiftly then thinned, warmed then froze, cycling its nature in apparent whimsy.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Barefoot Emperor] merely knelt, allowing the river to consume him to his waist. His method was that of a cultivator. “The first of the Three Poisons is greed, used willingly, for my eyes are ever larger than my stomach.”

There came no release of Qi, [Dao] or [Intent], yet a great mound of carp suddenly rose to the water’s surface.

Dead.

Both men returned to the shore with their haul.

“So he has eyes only for this Ruoxuan?” pondered Mubu.

Fu removed the moisture from his hanfu with a flick, returning it to the river. “Eyes, ears, nose and all,” he smiled.

“Many endlessly roam beneath the skies to find what he has met on his doorstep. It’s either fortune or a curse. As Grandfather, I’d have nudged him to expand his horizons before this,” Mubu shrugged. “Hah, but choice is choice. There’s no stronger soul than one that knows what they want.”

[Air Qi] swept a bundle of dried sticks to their side, and a prodigious rotation of several caused them to catch alight.

“Is that so?”

“Before judging another, walk a thousand li in their shoes. Do people still say this? It’s the wise man that has first walked a thousand li in his own. Perspective, wandering, experience. I knew a frog once that thought himself a king-”

Shuidi clacked dismissively. “Until he leapt from his well?”

“Oh? You know this story? Chutu Deqiang said he’d write it down.”

“Chutu Deqiang?”

Mubu thrust a stick through his first carp, levelling it atop the flames. “The [Cherry River Spear]. Desperate to make his own stories, that one, but he’d get too distracted by his books. You’ve met him?”

“No,” laughed Fu. “Father-in-law overestimates my importance.”

“Maybe so, maybe so. Suppose it’s a matter of who creates such importance. To the Gao, you’re invaluable. I wouldn’t say that’s overestimated,” he said, burning his tongue upon the first bite. “Hot.”

Fu narrowed his eyes. “An immortal that burns his tongue? Surely a volcano could not scorch the [Barefoot Emperor], let alone carp.”

“These fish gave their life, Gao Fu, isn’t it right they seek vengeance?” laughed Mubu. “Worry not. I will endure the [Primordial Realm] without issue. That’s the reason for your visit, no? To have me return Jinghui Hua’s [Spirit]?”

“It is. Though you have not pried.”

Another fish was skewered and eaten, though none prevailed over Hushi’s swiftness.

Content with the small [Spirit Insects] of this reed-filled bank, Changkuai did not partake of the carp. But his wizened voice clucked out between bites. “To involve ourselves is no small thing. We make mountains of molehills and overturn seas without uttering a word. Hua would know this.”

“As Changkuai says,” nodded Mubu, fanning his mouth. “The notion has me quite taken, however. Grandchildren. Blood of my blood. A part of Mei’er in three. Ahaha, once our minds are set it’s quite a feat to change them.”

“Yo-you would visit?”

“Hmm. Soon. The constraint of time is painted quite awfully across your face, however, son-in-law. As though a mortal pox. Yes, I think we’ll visit soon. Once the dust of these affairs is settled. For now…” Mubu thrust himself beside Fu most uncouthly. “Gifts that will vex Hua to no end.”

The once-fisherman could not help smiling. “The wise do not leap into a tiger’s jaws.”

“Ahaha! With Jinghui Hau in our hearts, are we not already within those jaws?” he laughed, and then-

Daylight was already rich upon the skies. Silver-blue and cloudless.

Mubu pinched his thumb and forefinger together and set it upon the Heavens as though it were a juvenile spyglass. Madness followed as his other hand plucked light from the oval between fingers, threefold, and Fu saw then that the [Barefoot Emperor] was beyond comprehension.

“Hold these,” he said, depositing three stars into Fu’s palm with a sigh.

No reasonable soul had ever held a star, thus the Fatherly [Asura] merely sat in wonderment, sharing the sight with an enraptured Shuidi and Hushi.

The [Barefoot Emperor] called out once. “Changkuai.”

“Do not-”

This cluck of protest was interrupted as Mubu wrestled his immortal [Spirit Cockerel] to the ground, plucking three plumes of his extraordinary tailfeathers and suffering myriad bloody cuts for the effort.

He then turned, depositing each within the stars.

They merged.

No.

They apotheosized into some manner of fable, radiating such energy and power that Fu feared his hand might catch alight. Three brilliant feathers of gold-

Mubu touched them, and the gold turned to teal. “They’d want to honor their father, no?” he smiled, shifting back from the three [Constellation Seeds] in Fu’s palm. “[True Saint Grade]. Something to grow into, if they’ve the inclination to choose it. Call it repayment for time missed.”

[True Saint Grade]. Is that what he is? A realm beyond that of [True King Grade]. Beyond [Gleeful Viper], [Plum Axe Zhu], the highest Lords of the [One Hundred and Eight]. What would Master Bingbai think of this? An existence that plucks [Constellation Seeds] from thin air. Truly a monster.

“This is too much,” shook Fu. “Joining us for supper would have been sufficient.”

Laughter built like the first droplets of a downpour, claiming both men.

“A father-in-law isn’t meant to enjoy his son-in-law’s company. But I suppose we’ve never been ones for convention. Ahaha. Now, what to give our Mei’er’s darling? Any suggestions?”

[Half Cloud Step] blurred Shuidi to the douli’s tip. “This humble hermit would learn father-in-law’s technique.”

Again Mubu laughed. “I only asked the stars to do so. Granted them a choice. It’s no technique.”

His crown. His [Primordial Law]. It must be as ridiculous as he is.

“Father-in-law… asked. He asked the stars,” whispered Shuidi. “Brothers. We must strive for the same.”

“Still, that’s no gift. Ask, Gao Fu.”

The loudness of Fu’s [Core] was deafening, try as the [Dao of Conquest’s Exhalation] did to suppress it. No [Clouded Ghost Arts] could work without the [Dao Oath] to his Clouded Courts. Indeed, without the pledge of his [Spirit] he had pondered if was still truly of the Sect.

His position was precarious.

Once we part ways, let us have Bingbai re-administer the Oath. We would not be as we are without the Sect. Much is owed.

“The constraint of removed [Dao Oaths] is clear,” snapped Changkuai. “Gao Fu wouldn’t be foolish enough to chain himself once more, surely. You’d spit in the face of both Grandmother Hua and Grandfather Mubu?”

Say what one might about these monsters, but they had taken to their roles with fervor despite what little confirmation they had.

“Our cultivation requires what these [Dao Oaths] offer.”

Mubu woefully rubbed his belly as he bit into another carp. “Any insight we might offer wouldn’t align. In fact, we strongly urge you take no further [Dao Oaths],” he smiled. “Oh? Changkuai, didn’t we come across some beggar with similar talents? Horrible face that one though.”

Strongly urge is not forbid. They talk much of constraint. Are they unable to impose their own? A strange limitation for one that can pluck stars like cherries.

“The Beggar Sect’s techniques are not of our Path. To accept anything of this stripe would cause much deviation.”

The last fish was eaten, and Mubu flicked his stick into the brook. He set his hand above his brow as if to shield his eyes from the sun.

Yet it hung high behind him in distant skies.

“Poor stick. Constantly pulled by the currents. Bashed by rocks, fish, [Karma] itself. It’s got a poor chance of reaching the sea, no? Oddly amusing though,” he said, pointing left. “The sea is that way, as the chicken flies.”

Hushi flung Fu’s stick in that direction. “Mubu and Changkuai are unsubtle teachers.”

“As you said, time is a constraint our faces do not wear well. To develop a technique- to gather the fractured pieces of what was lost takes time we do not have. Make no mistake, the challenge of this intrigues us. A [Tribulation] of passing moments. But after the [Primordial Realm] and Hua’s business has concluded, we must fly into a sea of swords. We cannot do so exposed.”

Silence passed.

“Is that all?” Mubu asked limply. “A [Tribulation] of passing moments. Call down your [Tribulation] and your generous father-in-law will rectify this matter of inconvenient time. We will have these moments… stretch.”

Fu held up a palm. “A turn of phrase only.”

“No no. We’re quite invested in this. Start. Begin. Commence with the [Tribulation]. Ah, it’s a Path of neutrality. Mei’er chose an interesting one, eh, Changkuai? A [Primordial Lord] that has not used his own [Law] for personal gain. Suppose that’s the simple truth of it. Too much and it becomes a gift.”

While it had not taken any of the three much time to ponder the equilibrium aspect of their [Primordial Law], it was unsurprising that Mubu held such immediate insight.

“Hmm. There are those close to me that have benefitted from my [Tribulations]. A rising tide lifts all boats, no?”

Mubu laughed. “Just so, just so. Come now, show me your [Primordial Law]. Without insult, it’s not so complicated an act that you must think on it. One part of you lacks and must be put to trial in order to overcome it.”

“And this will not impede Hua?”

“Depends how long you take,” offered the [Barefoot Emperor]. “Be warned however, we might fall prey to whimsy if it extends beyond several [Seasons]. We’ve a tendency to wander. Yes, yes, take longer than say… four [Seasons], and time will begin to constrain you once more.”

Four [Seasons]. He speaks so casually of impossibilities. I cannot parse the truth behind his words. Does he mean to stall all things beneath the Heavens? Or does he simply remove us from time, placing us back when we are done? Such things are beyond our comprehension.

[Primordial Law] hummed in their [Spirit].

The sensation was queer when used on oneself, Fu noted. Intense, naturally, and yet akin to lighting a Lunar Festival firework beside one’s tongue. Some facet of his [Spirit] resonated with the [Law] that when used on another, amplifying all he might call down.

Absent skies moved above.

Lightning did not come.

Raw elemental fury did not course through his veins.

No.

What appeared to his north and south were vast, aberrant palms of blackened energy, rising on either side as though a daoist’s mantra was about to begin. The scale of them towered four times over his length, humming with some unmatched, dread-scented power.

He heard a clap, and all became dark and twisted as his [Primordial Law] became manifest.

Gone were the freedoms surrounding Mubu. Gone was the pleasant, mystical change of shifting [Seasons] and pleasant grassland.

Cloying gloom prevailed about this strange land in which the Fatherly [Asura] had sent himself to, showing no colour but that of varying black. Worse yet were twisted shapes an arm’s stretch away, massed in their thousands.

Figures.

[Demons], perhaps, but older. More abstract and eldritch than those he had felled before. Twisted corruptions of ascetic monks with pallid skin and radiating veins of grey upon their withered flesh.

Immortal things.

So said the chill upon his spine.

Fu remained still, exerting the [Dao of Conquest’s Exhalation] as Shuidi and Hushi gathered the fragments of their [Clouded Ghost Arts] into something coherent.

Some two dozen of these beings turned inward, needling blackened irises upon the three.

Our [Dao] masks us from much. Why then, do I feel this is not enough?

A long, clawed hand flapped before his face, each finger extending as though they were tongues to taste at the fetid air. Though in place of moisture there sprung some myriad spools of dire-feeling string.

These threads struck Fu’s chest swifter than he could react.

[Karma].

The thousands all turned inward then, and hissed as a symphony of these threads made him into a seamstress’ pin cushion.

He swayed.

Six [Seasons]. Brother, sister. Let us do it in one.