B2 Chapter 32
When orange-crest returned to the glade where he'd forgotten himself and laid low two dozen hollow spirits, the qi was already beginning to grow thin. Closer in density to the Fathomless Well than Godsgrave Peak after a match. For a moment, fear flashed like lightning through the monkey's guts. Fear that what remained of the spirits would not be enough. That their leavings would slip through his fingers, yearning to reclaim the shapes they'd long known. He would be the weakest of the three cultivators seeking to claim Grand Elder Tian's legacy. He suspected Formless-Gleam had concealed her cultivation and was in fact in Foundation Establishment. The Seventh Prince was only supposed to be in the third stage. But humans who found Yang Wei to be merely talented spoke of his potential in hushed voices.
His master had warned him of many things the prince might possess. Spiritual Weapons. Guardian Spirits. Destiny Aura, or Imperial Qi. Many words to describe powers Li Xun did not understand.
Orange-crest had been counting on attaining the fifth stage, to pull himself a hair closer to their level. To make the struggle a little less hairy. The monkey chuckled. Hairy struggles being bad. Humans would think that. Their language never ceased to amuse him.
"What?" Huo'er demanded. "What's so funny?"
Orange-crest sat down, crossing his legs. It wasn't a waterfall. He was still a little disappointed he'd left that opportunity behind, but a bird on his head was something. It felt right, cultivating with a bird on his head. Like something a Stone Monkey would do.
The fear had come like lightning, and like lightning it passed away. The qi would be enough, or it wouldn't. Whichever it was, he would be enough for the challenges ahead. Men called lightning the most heavenly of powers, and venerated those who commanded it. But was it not such a transient thing, compared to the solidity of the earth?
Orange-crest inhaled, and let the world without fall away. A new mountain filled his mind. It was bigger than the one he sat upon. Grander and truer, a pillar of the earth, a spear fit to split the heavens. He saw Yang Wei, just above him, closer than ever. He was locked in battle with shadowy figures, struggling up a hillside dotted with shattered blades.
He could feel the others, his images of them. Xiao Shulan and formless-gleam stalked down paths he could not see nor follow. He turned, looking back behind him at the dizzying heights he'd already climbed. He could see Wu Yingjie trudging slowly heavenward, Li Shuwen stepping lightly at his side.
This time, orange-crest did not immediately begin climbing the mountain. He inhaled, tasting the qi around him. It was rich with memory. He could taste their stories, bitter as wood ash. Men and women who had left their homes twice in one short lifetime, dying for a cause they knew beyond understanding to be righteous. It was not their qi, but it remembered their stories.
The potent combination of regret and certainty bound the qi together. It had spread far across the mountainside, like drops of ink in water. But it remained one thing, unified in purpose.
The monkey's spirit inhaled in time with his body. He studied the way the qi shuddered as his breath disrupted its placid spread. The power flooded his meridians, proud and free. Its nature did not yield easily to his call. Orange-crest cycled, feeling the oh so human power surge through his limbs. It rose naturally of its own accord, always seeking to reach the dantian in his head, and escape out through his mouth or eyes. Each time he cycled the Monkey Refining Law, pushing it back down was a struggle.
The qi cycled. But it did not yield. Did not become his.
This wasn't working. He needed something more. A connection to the power he sought to claim. These spirits had loved the Azure Mountain, but not in the same way he did. He could feel a fullness to it, a connection to community and lineage he had never known. He was a disciple of the sect, but dwelling on the way these fallen disciples had loved the place filled him with bitterness. Not that.
Images flashed through the monkey's mind. The marching dead, gaunt and unbreakable. Coffins floating through the air at the side of a demon, a sight more domineering than any mortal banner. Poison that swept across the land like a gale of silence, laying low disciples by the dozens. They had died proudly. And they had died afraid.
"Fear." Orange-crest murmured aloud. "It always returns to fear."
Huo'er said something, but he wasn't listening with those ears.
"No." He corrected himself. "Fear, it always returns."
These spirits had fallen bitterly, but they did not regret their end. But even in death, when faced with orange-wei, with something they could not overcome, they had broken off their assault. One could call it prudence, but what was that except a duller sort of fear? Even beyond in a state beyond death and pain, the memory of fear remained.
Fear had occupied orange-crest's mind greatly in the days that had led him here. In seeking to reject it, he had agreed to follow Yang Wei, and invited Wu Yingjie to join them.
The qi drew closer to him, huddling about his shoulders like a crowd filled with anticipation.
"It cannot be overcome. Or perhaps it shouldn't be overcome?" He mused aloud, hardly caring what Huo'er heard. Perhaps the greatest secrets were those that even the clearest of words could not easily transmit. "I can't go back. To know is to fear. The virtue that follows must be more than the one that came before."
The words were wrong. Pale imitations. They were as true as the remains of the spirits he sought to cultivate were real.
But what the monkey realized resonated, with him and the qi. He was already ready. And he wasn't. And he never would be.
Orange-crest had experienced many sorts of cultivation breakthroughs. Fueled by pills or wine, attained in places deep or heights rarefied. Driven by a hunger to see and be more, or by his master's ill-comprehended exhortations. Characterized by revelation, or mere accumulation.
He'd heard from no shortages of mouths that every breakthrough was supposed to be harder than the last. Of the many mysteries of cultivation, it was one of the few things that seemingly everyone agreed on.
This one was easy. And it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. But he did it all the same, and so attained the midpoint of Qi Condensation.
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Orange-crest heard the Seventh Prince before he saw him. One could hardly miss the signs of his passage. The unending crackling grumble of thunder, punctuated by the actinic violence of a lightning strike. The way the underbrush had been pounded flat as if an entire army had passed through.
Once he got close enough, it wasn't a hard trail to follow. Not when you could hear the steady ringing clash of steel upon steel, like a war being fought without voices.
"Your company has been an interesting diversion, Li Hou. But I think it is time that I take my leave."
Orange-crest leaned his head back. It didn't let him meet Huo'er's eyes. But feeling her flap her wings and scrabble for footing was funny. She gave up in the end, launching off his head.
"I'm sure he doesn't bite." Orange-crest told his companion. "Probably only eats birds other people kill."
"It's not him I am worried about biting." The bird said, fluttering to rest upon a nearby branch. It was a branch above him, of course. Huo'er seemed incapable of positioning herself below his eye level.
"I don't bite either. Usually." Orange-crest continued obstinately. He hesitated to defend formless-gleam in front of Huo'er. The bird had obviously already made up her mind. No good would come of her knowing of their acquaintance.
"Ware the fox. I have warned you before, and I repeat that warning again. She is stronger than either of you. If you are wise, you will make peace and common cause with the prince."
"I'm very wise." Orange-crest insisted. "That is not the question. The question is if he is wise like me."
Huo'er sighed. It wasn't very effective. More of a sharp huff. Her body wasn't really built for long, slow, exhalations.
"I will be near. But do not count upon my assistance. I am not so invested in the outcome of Elder Tian's choice that I will lay my feathers upon the scale."
"I thought as much. You just like watching. Because you are old."
"A rude little thing, you are."
"The bird is calling the monkey orange."
Huo'er huffed again.
"I do not like that he is here, this prince. He is not a member of the sect. I should not care. My own name is not listed upon the Azure Mountain's rolls. My master would not care overmuch for the impropriety of allowing him to enter this land."
Huo'er paused.
"You'll see, when you see him. He embodies different virtues than the ones I chose my master for."
"He's too human." Orange-crest summarized.
"Yes. Too human is a good way of naming it. But also no. My master is very human, in a very different way."
Orange-crest shrugged. Lightning crackled.
"Words are hard. Have an oatcake?"
Huo'er huffed a third time, then launched herself off the branch.
"Good luck, Li Hou." The little bird said, vanishing into the distance.
Orange-crest stepped lightly onward, his qi roiling with anticipation. Advancing to the fifth stage felt good. It hadn't come with an obvious qualitative change in his qi like advancing to the fourth had. Rather than experiencing an immediate increase in volume or density of qi, he felt that he suddenly had far more room to grow. With every breath of the holy land's air he took, he could feel his expanded dantian slowly filling itself. A part of him longed to take a day or two to cultivate and experiment. There were so many techniques at the edges of his capabilities. The Phantom Palm, the more complex expressions of the Drunken Phoenix's Breath, or just hardening just his fur without the aid of the Centipede Wine. After advancing, they felt closer, like a few days or weeks of dedicated study might reveal their mysteries.
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He wasn't quite certain how to categorize the change that had occurred within him, but if the last advancement had increased the density of his qi, this one had improved the scope of his dantian, and his fine control.
But practice would have to wait. Orange-crest had an audience with a prince to keep.
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The ways up the mountain narrowed as orange-crest approached the storm-blighted battlefield that had sprung up in the Seventh Prince's wake. Every shadowed path through the brush terminated in a sheer wall of stone. A singular canyon, gouged out of the mountainside like a blow from the Sect Master's saber, marked the only easy path forward.
Sure, orange-crest could probably climb the cliff face. But he was starting to understand the nature of this place now. There would be consequences to doing such a thing. What remained of Grand Elder Tian wanted the three of them brought together, and he was not being subtle about it.
From an outside perspective, the Seventh Prince was the obvious choice for an inheritor. All the mighty gathered upon the Azure Mountain seemed to feel he was a remarkable human. Orange-crest could see the case himself as a second choice. He was actually a disciple of the sect. He was more than a little talented, and a generally excellent creature for many purposes. Fun at parties, diligent at work, trustworthy in a pinch. But formless-gleam was here. And she made little sense as the elder's choice, if man's orthodoxy was something whatever was shaping fate here cared about.
As he stepped out onto the battlefield, orange-crest wondered if the three of them had arrived here in this moment because of Grand Elder Tian's manipulations, or in spite of them. Were they fighting Fate, or upholding it? And more importantly, would victory be found by submitting to whatever remained of Grand Elder Tian's Nascent Soul, or by defying it?
And then that thought fled, as he took in the scene before him. The Seventh Prince stood alone, a lotus blooming in a field of muddy violence. Ghosts fought and died and rose to fight anew around him as he slowly walked forward, dragging the battlefield itself in his wake. His hands were clasped behind him, the long sleeves of his blue-black imperial robe drifting just above the ground.
His progress was slow because he was grievously outnumbered. Two dozen of the ghosts had hunted orange-crest. Easily five times that number had gathered to oppose the Seventh Prince.
Yet they struggled to make any headway, because eight of their number had turned traitor. The traitorous spirits had taken up positions around the prince, and they seemed buoyed by his presence. Less translucent, quicker to react, more present in both form and will. His presence seemed to somehow bolster them, giving them the strength to hold back their peers.
Of course, it didn't hurt that whenever the holy land's ghosts found the presence of mind to organize into a unified charge, a bolt of lightning would fall from the dark clouds above and scatter them. Advancing piecemeal, they were easy prey for the prince's guards.
Through it all, the Seventh Prince did nothing. He shouted no orders. Drew no weapon, nor made hand signs for spells. He simply walked forward. His advance was slow, yet seemingly inevitable.
Orange-crest stepped out of the trees and made his own way forward up the hill. The canyon above loomed over them, a narrow path that vanished into the clouds. The clouds were very low here. They would have needed to climb far higher to even get close to them in the real world. Orange-crest couldn't help but wonder how that worked. Did each Grand Elder control their own clouds, or did they need to share the same height?
No ghosts charged down to impede the monkey's progress. They were all focused on the prince.
It was only as orange-crest approached that the spirits broke off their assault.
For a moment, the prince hesitated.
Did fate ordain man and monkey advance together? Or did the spirits fear that orange-crest would consume their qi as he had their fellows?
Orange-crest did not advance stealthily. The prince heard his footfalls, and turned. The circle of ghosts surrounding him parted, giving him a clear line of sight to the approaching monkey.
Prince and monkey stared at each other, taking the other's measure.
The Seventh Prince was not especially handsome. He did not have Daoist Enduring Oath's mighty figure, nor Yang Wei's strikingly sharp presence, nor Xiao Long's delicate and feminine facial features. His robes were distinctive. No other human he had met wore exactly that cut, with the long sweeping sleeves, great swathes of golden thread, and the huge circle bearing a five taloned dragon's claw upon the chest. But he himself did not look so remarkable. Brown of hair and average of face, orange-crest might have been hard-pressed to place him in a crowd. Yet, there was a weight to his presence. A hint of that sense of weight and solidity that orange-crest had come to associate with Nascent Soul cultivators. It wasn't his cultivation base. Orange-crest could feel that, the fourth stage of Qi Condensation. No, there was something else about him. Something that whispered that this man was more than he appeared.
The monkey wondered what the prince saw, when he looked upon him. He supposed he'd find out soon enough.
Li Hou smiled toothily, then clasped his hands together. It was a little awkward when holding a staff, the traditional martial salute had clearly been invented by swordsmen, but he managed it. He bowed, keeping his eyes on the princes the whole way.
"This one greets the Seventh Prince of the Xiao." He said, flawless in his courtesies.
His eyes widened as the Seventh Prince returned the martial salute. The eight ghosts at his side echoed his movements.
"When last I laid eyes upon you, Li Hou, you were not naked."
"Huh?"
"I must express some surprise. I must confess that I expected one of the others. Yang Wei, or Xiao Long, perhaps, if it was a disciple from your year. Though I must admit I thought one of your seniors would be more likely."
"What?"
"My competition. You feel it too, do you not? The call?"
Orange-crest's mouth slackened a little, his grin becoming less forced. Less human, more honest. The Seventh Prince wasn't what he'd expected at all.
"Yes." He agreed. "I feel it."
"I thought it likely I was waiting for someone. Shall we advance to meet our fates together, or would you like a moment to pull another robe from a storage treasure and properly clothe yourself?"
"I am proper." Orange-crest protested. "Nothing wrong with not wearing robes."
"I suppose the wilds have their own logic." The Seventh Prince said, turning back toward the peak. "Elder Brother's insight is unique."
"You are mocking me."
"I am doing no such thing. I am ashamed to have given you such an impression."
Orange-crest couldn't help it. He burst into honest laughter, then scampered after the prince. The squadron of ghostly guards parted to allow him room, falling into place further from the pair of primates. Orange-crest had half expected to leap right into a climactic confrontation here, he wasn't half prepared for whatever this was. It was embarrassing, letting the prince run verbal circles around him.
"You speak like you know me." The monkey said. "But I've never met you, junior brother."
Calling the prince junior brother after he'd already called him elder brother felt weak. He could do better.
"I have heard your elders speak of you, Li Hou. I had the honor of watching you fight against Hu Weimin on the central stage of Godsgrave Peak."
"I have heard our elders speak of you too. But I don't remember your name." Li Hou admitted shamelessly. "Could you remind this forgetful monkey?"
"It would be wildly inappropriate for you to use such a familiar form of address for one of my station." There was no heat in the prince's words, no implied rebuke. He was just informing orange-crest of something he believed to be true. After a moment, he continued. "My given name is Xiao Yongzheng. You may call me Prince Yongzheng, if you must."
Li Hou nodded at the prince, then cleared his throat.
"Son of his Majesty, Worthy Prince Yongzheng, Noble Scion of the Imperial Xiao." Orange-crest formally recited. "This small disciple is honored to make your acquaintance, and to traverse this mountain at your side without being immediately smote for his temerity."
"Please do not call me that." The prince sputtered. Hah! A point for the monkey.
"Okay, Yongzheng."
"Do not refer to me so familiarly either.."
"Okay."
They climbed in companionable silence for a time, assessing each other. The canyon carved into the mountainside was steep for a mortal human, but hardly an imposition for a monkey or cultivator. It rose four chi upward for every three chi they stepped forward. Steep, but not so steep one truly needed their hands to climb. The way was narrow, and scattered with loose stones. Not treacherous, but a poor place to be ambushed and need to stand one's ground.
"Are we going to fight?"
It was orange-crest who broke first. It felt like a defeat, to ask. But social defeats were not real and could be ignored and he was rather curious.
"Do you plan to attack me?" Xiao Yongzheng asked mildly.
"Only if you attack me first. Was just gonna take the inheritance before you could get it." Orange-crest answered honestly.
"Then that is your answer."
The monkey's brow furrowed.
"That seems wrong."
"Why?"
Orange-crest struggled to think of anything polite to say. Other than accusing the prince of treacherous intent. Humans always wanted to fight rather than cooperate. A hundred times so if peace might threaten their interests. Xiao Shulan had leapt to violence before even thinking of sharing. Fighting had practically been a prerequisite to befriending Wu Yingjie or Yang Wei. Not winning, perhaps. But fighting at all, definitely.
"Why?" He echoed, instead of answering. Why, he wondered, had he found at the end of the journey the simple and easy companionship he'd sought at the start?
"You have as much a right to seek fortune here as I do." The Seventh Prince said reasonably. "Arguably more of one, you are actually a disciple of the Azure Mountain Sect. The Grand Elder seems to have called both of us here. Why should we not have an honest contest of talent and comprehension? I do not believe I will lose, nor am I so craven to resort to perfidy if I am proven wrong. Such things are beneath a man of my aspirations."
Orange-crest clicked his tongue. He could list several reasons why they ought to fight now. He was likely stronger. This was all but guaranteed to end in bloodshed with formless-gleam and and the prince both present. He was not the most impressed with the restraint of humans when there were benefits to be claimed.
But in the end, none of those reasons were in accordance with the monkey he wished to be. They were reasons that would ring truer to Big-Crest and Shan. Fearful and greedy reasons.
"Okay, Prince Yongzheng." The monkey agreed. "An honest contest."
The ten of them ascended the mountain in silence. Well, the ghosts were always silent, save when their blades cried out in place of their voices. Whatever Xiao Yongzheng had done to these eight did not seem to have changed that. The canyon path was long, and neither of the living travelers felt the need to draw upon their qi to hasten their journey.
"What is it like, being a prince?" Li Hou eventually asked.
"You know, I do not believe anyone has ever asked me that. It is rather hard to put it into words, as I have no memory of being anything else. I know many find the expectations of noble birth stifling, like my cousin Shulan. I cannot say I have ever. Many paths are closed to me, but since I was young, I have never desired to walk any roads except those of highest onus. Craft and scholarship have never called to me as rulership and cultivation have. What is it like being a monkey?"
"Very good. We can't fly, but we have the best hands. Get to eat lots of different things and only the strongest animals hunt us. Kind of like being human except you get to be satisfied sometimes. Also we have better teeth. And fur. And we get tails. Those are very good. Easy to forget they exist, unless you're wearing robes, but they do a lot of good things while you're not really paying heed to them. Good for balance."
The Seventh Prince exhaled softly through his nose, a noise that might have become a chuckle, if it ever got the chance.
"I think living among daoists may have given you a skewed understanding of humanity."
"Maybe." The monkey shrugged. "But it's the only understanding I have."
The prince hummed noncommittally. They ascended further. The light began to dim, as they reached the edge of the clouds.
"Are you going to become emperor?" Li Hou asked suddenly.
"Normally, people do not simply ask me that. It is not solely, nor even primarily, my decision. It is improper for my to opine upon my father's choice of crown prince, even in private."
"There's nobody here. I don't count as people for politics purposes."
That got a genuine laugh from the Seventh Prince.
"You underestimate yourself. You may not be interested in politics, but if you continue as you are, I imagine you may find politics interested in you. But yes, I will rule, if I am equal to the task."
It looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn't, and orange-crest did not know how to prompt the prince to get him to keep speaking. So they fell into silence again, familiar strangers.
Orange-crest expected something to be waiting for them at the apex of the canyon. Perhaps a specter of one of those demons he'd seen, all bruised eyes and corpse-pallor, with a floating coffin at their shoulder. It would have fit the pattern of this place. Instead there was only a cave. Albeit, a cave more worked by the hands of humans than any orange-crest had ever seen. Heavy metal doors had been thrown open, expectant. Deep crevices marred the walls at even intervals, holding lanterns of stone and glass, radiant with fiery qi.
Orange-crest lingered at the threshold, pretending to examine the intricate engravings upon the door. There were more insects than he expected, silkworms and cicadas as prominent as stars and dragons.
"I'd expected a guardian. A greater eidolon to test us." The Seventh Prince spoke for both of them. "I suppose we'll find one further in. Unless it truly is a trial of comprehension only."
Orange-crest knew better. Why test them with the memory of a demon, when you had a real one to hand? She might be stalking their shadows even now, a silent eleventh. He hoped he was wrong. But it fit the logic of this place.
"Come on, Li Hou." Xiao Yongzheng said invitingly. "Our fates will be found within."
Orange-crest found that he did not wish to find his fate. His stomach was heavy with apprehension. But he wished less still to allow his fate, or that of formless-gleam, to be decided without his input. So he stepped into the cave within a cave. How dark fate's sense of humor was. He'd embarked on this journey hoping to remember the monkey he used to be, wild and honest and free. But one way or another, he suspected these coming hours would make a traitor of him yet.