B2 Chapter 33
Wu Yingjie and Li Shuwen trudged slowly across an endless plain, a pair of ants slowly making their way across the graves of legends.
It was an interesting image. Li Shuwen felt it was a little heavyhanded for a poem, as a comparison to their progress across the realms of cultivation, but it was far from irredeemably direct. A part of him wished that he had remained behind to contest Xiao Shulan and Li Hou for the right to attempt Elder Shen's inheritance. It was not a large part of him. The greater part of his mind found the stories of Elder Shen almost... Naive. If one was to give up everything for immortality, surely one should at least attain immortality? Li Shuwen could certainly think of better things to do with the power of a Nascent Soul cultivation base than simply wandering the world. Li Shuwen lived as frugally as any ascetic, but that was not for a lack of interest in the fruits of money and power. As he was now, nothing mattered more than advancing his cultivation and securing his position. When he entered Foundation Establishment and secured his family's future, that would change.
Such disdain was unsuitable for one in his position. Who was he to pass judgement upon a Grand Elder of the Azure Mountain, and the way they had chosen to live their life?
A fool, likely. A fool unsuitable to inherit Grand Elder Shen's arts. But it was not that fear that had held him back, but practical considerations. If he was to remain at Young Master Yang's side, he would need to live in the same sect as Xiao Shulan for years after this. He could not afford to offend the Capital Xiao, he was not so important to Yang Wei as to risk that. He had not risen to these modest heights by being the sort of man to throw away three years of work for something as unreliable as a small chance of claiming an inheritance. Let the others chase directly after fortune and glory. Li Shuwen had found that opportunity had a way of falling into the possession of those who kept their arms free to catch it.
So he walked, and cultivated, taking advantage of the abundant qi of the Holy Land. It was difficult to overstate how charged with life and potential the empty land was. It felt like it was primed to burst into being, as if flora and fauna were all but set to emerge from the qi itself, drawn into existence by the sheer intensity of power. The entire world was a low level spirit spring.
Li Shuwen could acquire nothing here, and if he made his way home alive, the trip would have been worth it. He had no storage treasure, but his pack was sizable, he had food for the better part of a week. If he was diligent and fortunate, he might make his way halfway through the fourth stage, leaping months, if not a full year, ahead of the rest of the initiate class. The true limiting factor on his cultivation time would be when the others left. Yang Wei and Li Hou might be mad enough to brave the journey home alone, but he would prefer an escort. Any of the four prodigies would do, but he would need to find one of them before they all left.
And then there was the knowledge that this place existed. It was not priceless. The price of a careless tongue would be his neck. But surely there was a way he could benefit from knowing that the Azure Mountain stood ready to ascend above the other three Great Sects in a few short decades. Small favors that could be extracted from elders or the clans, if he approached with his head sufficiently low.
He inhaled, tasting the stagnation at the edge of this small world. The flavor of a liminal place, hovering at the threshold between life and emptiness. His qi surged, blooming in his dantian, rushing down a dozen paths through every small corner of his form. Every path led to a dozen more, his meridians seemingly splintering into infinity, paths that fell back on themselves in mind-boggling complexity. Every cycle was like a flash, a glimpse at the totality of what he was. Every cycle Li Shuwen remembered just a little more of it, saw a little more clearly the fullness of his being. And sometimes, in those complex patterns, he saw the shapes of characters. Inspiration, or perhaps revelation.
The Verse-Tracing Method was no heaven-defying technique, but it was an excellent cultivation method, one any third stage outer disciple should be pleased to cultivate. It harmonized well with his scholarly pursuits, making it easier to empower talismans, while helping him map his meridians in detail. The technique traded power for flexibility, cultivating unopinionated qi that could be later turned to any purpose. And intimately knowing the form of his meridians would pay dividends when he sought to adapt his cultivation to a new method later.
These were small benefits, compared to what a truly remarkable cycling method could grant a cultivator, but it was of small things that a daoist's foundation was built. Most importantly, he'd not spent a single merit point upon acquiring it. Most outer disciples spent years sharpening swords and patrolling borders before they acquired anything more suitable to them than the first level of the Azure Spirit Method.
A few words to the young master, blunt enough that he'd think them a subtle hint, had led Yang Wei to imply a nonexistent interest in poetry to his lady mother. She'd enclosed the method with her next letter, desperate for any chance to encourage the young master to develop more well rounded interests.
Yang Wei had handed him the scripture with an absent mindedness that bordered upon disdain, feeling no need to give it a place in his storage ring. His mother's approving words were worth far more to him than the scripture itself. Li Shuwen was not certain that Yang Wei even realized he was cultivating it. Whether Yang Wei approved, or did not care, it would be years before Li Shuwen asked of him another favor, however small.
He had forty seven merit points with the sect. He'd saved more than a hundred by avoiding purchasing a cultivation method. His time here would save him that sum again, if not twice it, in spirit stones or access to spirit springs. A fifth stage suitable breakthrough pill would run him at least a hundred and twenty. Everything Li Shuwen had garnered from rumor suggested that cultivating in a sect was all about getting ahead of the curve. A higher cultivation base meant a higher allotment, more opportunities, and better missions. Nobody invested in talents that developed slowly. If he could make the fifth stage before his second year with the sect ended, he might seriously consider approaching one of the elders that specialized in crafting. Mastering such an art would grant him an independent source of merit points that did not require risking his life on External Affairs patrols, or clutching after Yang Wei's thigh, while helping him provide more value to the young master as support. From there, he might have a real shot at finding a master, or attaining the rank of inner disciple.
He just needed to smooth his path to Foundation Establishment. Once he was a true daoist, everything he sought would be within reach. Fifth stage in two years usually meant Foundation Establishment in less than twenty. Taking an extra year or two to make the halfway point of Qi Condensation usually pushed that timeline back by decades. The difference between being named a daoist before thirty, or after fifty. If he could just-
"How can you bear it?" Wu Yingjie's voice cut across oppressive murmurs of the rustling grass. Li Shuwen sighed, and released his cultivation method. His cycling had been suboptimal anyway. The Verse-Tracing Method was stable, but it was not that stable. These days, he was all too easily distracted by dreams and plans for the future. After his difficulties even reaching the sect, he'd risen higher than he'd dreamed possible this year. Young Master Yang had lost before the main stage of the Initiate's Tournament, but his star had never been higher. Cultivators across the empire whispered about the way he'd touched Spear Intent, and Li Shuwen's influence had quietly risen in the wake of those whispers. Senior outer disciples he'd never met, and even one inner disciple, had approached him with questions about the young master's interests and temperament. Reaching the nameless Holy Land and potentially the fourth stage was practically adding flowers to brocade.
"Bear what?" Li Shuwen asked.
"Serving him. Yang Wei. He is... He is a better man than some. But as a cultivator, does it not grate at you, to live in his shadow?"
Li Shuwen turned to his companion, his fellow cultivator of comparatively modest talent. He considered everything he knew of Wu Yingjie. His affiliations and value. His desires and nature. What he wished to hear, and what words might move him in useful ways. How Li Shuwen's words, honestly relayed, might ring in the ears of others.
Then he shrugged, and decided to show the man the same honesty he showed Yang Wei. A single, polished, facet of the truth of himself. Perhaps he should have taken performative offense on the young master's behalf, but his heart was not in it.
"Young Master Yang is the most thoroughly frustrating man I have ever met." Li Shuwen griped. "He disdains spending time or familial resources on cultivation, yet he steadily advances. He has access to more manuals than I could ever dream of, yet he refuses to read them, and somehow learns faster than me anyway. He hates writing. He once dictated a letter to his mother to me. He would have kept doing it, if she did not immediately call him out on it. Yet, he has excellent calligraphy. He asked me to teach him my Brush Muzzle. A privacy talisman usable at third level of Qi Condensation. He picked up in twelve hours what took me the better part of a week. Then, he immediately began to attempt to cast the spell by tracing the curves of the talisman with his spear. He has not succeeded. But he believes so fervently it should be possible to do so that I struggle to doubt he will. As far as I know, he has no foundation at all in any of the calligraphic arts. Sometimes, it seems as if the world moves according to one set of principles for him, and another for the rest of us."
"Don't forget the monkey." Wu Yingjie groused heatlessly. "It missed half of Disciple Chang's class. It is still better with a polearm than me. It couldn't speak last year, you know. Now its tongue is as vicious as any noble scion's. I heard it once insisted that it's actually only six years old. We're being left behind by a child."
"Him and the monkey." Li Shuwen agreed.
"Why do you serve him? You are a disciple of the Azure Mountain, you don't need to follow him like a shadow."
Li Shuwen exhaled a chuckle through his nose.
"I was not born in a position to have such pride. Take my advice, Brother Wu. You'll find life much easier if you abandon it."
"Pride? Is that what you call it, to expect more than the bare minimum of consideration from others? No, even that is more than I expect. To be ignored as a stranger would be better than their polite mockery."
Li Shuwen's feet slowed, and he turned to regard Wu Yingjie.
"Ignored?" He said, his voice dropping dangerously low. "Brother Wu, you long to tread upon grounds you have never known."
Wu Yingjie stepped back, holding his hands out for peace.
"Fine. But can you honestly tell me that it doesn't eat at you?"
Wu Yingjie paused, and sighed.
"My family does not send me cultivation resources." He continued, spitting out the words bitterly. "You know as well as I that an initiate's allotment alone is not enough to achieve the third stage of Qi Condensation by the end of the year. Not for any except the most talented. I achieved the third stage by consuming something I should not have. I worry, that it will have implications for my future cultivation."
Li Shuwen said nothing.
"I don't know what you did to reach the third stage. But it wasn't a gift from Yang Wei, was it? He is not the sort of person who cares about that sort of struggle. He'd think less of you, for daring to ask."
Li Shuwen remained silent.
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"How are you so content, with the scraps from his table? We are cultivators. We all risk our lives. Yet when benefits are tallied up, they rise to the heavens, and we walk away with nothing."
Li Shuwen exhaled slowly.
"Nothing?" He asked calmly.
Wu Yingjie winced, seeing that he'd erred, but perhaps not how.
"Nothing." Li Shuwen repeated, genuine fury building in his voice. "Do you have any idea how far we've come? How privileged our position! We are outer disciples of one of the four great sects. My family beggared themselves to allow me this chance. I surrendered all pride to secure it. I cut every tie that would not help me advance, all for the sake of standing where I stand now!"
Shame and fury warred in Wu Yingjie's eyes. He clutched tightly at that impractical and ostentatious trident-scythe of his, as if Li Shuwen's words might demand bloody redress. Perhaps they would have, if the two of them were a different sort of cultivator. Perhaps Li Shuwen had more pride than he pretended. But Wu Yingjie had more pride than he would take up arms to defend.
"You are here, Wu Yingjie, because the monkey likes you." He continued, watching the words cut deep. "Because the family you bemoan is connected to the greatest clan in the empire. You have attained more cultivation than most men will in a lifetime, and you stand not even a year past your majority. Know that when you spit upon this, you spit upon everything I have given up to attain the same. I shall not see my parents for another decade. Unless I find a-"
"No." Wu Yingjie's voice was firm enough that Li Shuwen twisted his wrist, letting a talisman fall into his hand beneath the cover of his sleeve. One of the nastier ones, that Yang Wei did not know he carried. It was so much easier to scribe torment, than proper restraint, after all.
"No." Wu Yingjie repeated. "You do not get to tell me how I should feel about my fortune. You who has only ever seen our world from below, staring up with covetous eyes. You suffered to change your fate? And you dare tell me to be content with my own?"
Li Shuwen turned away and sped up into a run. Wu Yingjie matched him. His every step pounded the earth, and he was soon panting like a dog, but he did not say a word.
Elder Shen's stupid strands of wheat beat at their robes. Freedom? What could a man born that talented dream of knowing about chains. Did he think that the rest of them joined sects because they were too unimaginative to dream of making it as wandering cultivators? Li Shuwen knew his limitations. Without access to a spirit spring and a real cultivation method, he never would have taken his first step heavenward.
Li Shuwen did not feel shame at the words he'd spoken to Wu Yingjie. Like pride, it was a thing he'd long since discarded. Another lie he repeated to himself until he could believe it.
The pair of them slowed by unspoken agreement. A twisted sort of harmony. Wu Yingjie was drenched in sweat. Li Shuwen trained with Yang Wei. Wu Yingjie was not wrong, that Yang Wei had no patience for frailty. He might not be able to keep up with Li Hou in a forest, but he could have run circles around the monkey on open ground like this. And for all his brave words, Wu Yingjie was not the monkey. Spite alone had kept the larger man at his heels as dozens of li had vanished beneath their slippers over two hours of dead sprinting.
They'd said much, earlier. More than either of them intended. But their pathetic grievances had not been what they were really talking about. The pagoda was close enough to see properly now, a rust-red nail rising out of the horizon.
"The sect had a plan for this place." Li Shuwen said, as his companion dry-heaved, desperate for air. "That plan was not us. The enslavement path has not been orthodox for centuries. Perhaps it was going to be sealed properly. Left alone, that its power would feed the Holy Land. Perhaps it was destined for some remnant of the Bai they've got secreted away. Perhaps they wished to wait, to allow Old Xiang to overwhelm whatever remained of Grand Elder Bai, and force him to pass on his arts to Elder Lu, or Elder Asura's Chains. Someone they trusted to tread the knife's edge between Elder Bai's way and demonhood."
"What does any of that matter?" Wu Yingjie spat. "We're here now, aren't we? Are you going to tell me that you followed me all this way to chicken out now?"
"Wu Yingjie, I will never hesitate to chicken out, if the alternative is death. And you were the one who followed me."
Wu Yingjie laughed, then coughed. He straightened.
"So what, if Elder Bai would never choose either of us. He's dead. We're not. I did not come this far to leave empty-handed."
"It will be dangerous. What we claim might be abhorrent." It shouldn't have needed saying. That was why Li Shuwen said it. To see if Wu Yingjie knew that, or rather, if he understood it. "We could simply linger at the door and cultivate and still advance a full small realm or more."
Wu Yingjie grimaced as if he'd bit into something rotten.
"And when Yang Wei emerges with a spear forged by the patriarch's own hand?" He asked. "When Li Hou or Xiao Shulan claim Elder Shen's cultivation method and are named core disciples? We'll stand next to them to take the same punishment, proudly in the top twenty percent of our year?"
"No." He said, stepping forward. "Do what you wish. But I'm going to find my own fortune."
Wu Yingjie didn't understand. He spoke a good game, but he didn't get it, how narrow the line between life and death could be. What it could take, to remain on the correct side of that inky slash. Beneath all the bluster he thought if he just lived like the prodigies did, things would work out for him like they did for them.
He thought this world was fair.
Li Shuwen followed him anyway. Perhaps he hoped it was.
In less than an hour, they reached the pagoda.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's an ominous thing, isn't it?" Wu Yingjie said. "I suppose it fits the stories."
The pagoda rose up six stories into the air, towering over the empty plains. It seemed larger up close, a cavernous monstrosity. Wide enough around that it would take a man two hundred paces to circumnavigate its base. The walls of the tower were built from rust-red stone, worn smooth by a wind now conspicuously absent. The timbers of the sloping roofs showed similar signs of ancient life, darkened and woodworn by unseen rains. Perhaps this eerily still realm did see normal weather. Wu Yingjie somehow doubted it. Yet, it was the windows that were the eeriest. Six for each floor, evenly spaced. They were gaping voids, darkness poured out from them in a flowing manner more suitable for light.
Upon the great vertigrised double doors were graven every animal Wu Yingjie had ever seen, and many he had not. He even spotted one of the bizarre boar-faced and rat-tailed bears that Daoist Scouring Medicine had fought on their way down.
Li Shuwen shot him a look. It was one he'd received often in his life, a silent appeal for him to shut tight his mouth and stop digging deeper. Ah. Li Shuwen thought Elder Bai might be listening in.
Wu Yingjie put less stock in the idea. A disembodied Nascent Soul had only the meanest fraction of the capabilities of a living cultivator. Still mighty, by the standards of Qi Condensation, but not a fraction so domineering as a living one. His clan had no Nascent Soul ancestors, living or otherwise, but every lesser cultivator gossiped about such things. That the elder had seen fit to leave an inheritance behind, rather than seek to return to true life, suggested Elder Bai had been weak even by the standards of lingering spirits. And that had been what, two or three hundred years ago?
Even if he lingered still, his grave would be far more dangerous than he was.
"Come on, there's no point in lingering here."
"Wait-"
Wu Yingjie did not wait. He placed a hand upon each bronze ring, and heaved.
They'd talked this to death. Li Shuwen might want to speak more, but he had no patience for it. He was doing this, one way or another. The others disdained Elder Bai. Wu Yingjie would not have chosen his inheritance either. But then, it wasn't his choice, was it?
His choice was only whether or not to outstretch his hand.
Green iron flaked away beneath clenched fingers. His back strained as his slippers slid. Li Hou's poorly fitting robe threatened to pop open, but Wu Yingjie kept pulling. The door surrendered first, grinding open with a jerk. The one good thing about his ungainly body was that it was far from weak. Wu Yingjie squeezed his hands into the space, and popped the rusted doors open like he was prying apart a clam.
He stuffed himself through the gap, and found himself standing in darkness. The interior of the pagoda was so vast it seemed like he was floating in a void, forcing him to find his footing by touch. The only light came from the dim embers of burning tapers, hundreds of incense sticks filling the space with a smoke that was invisible against the dark, but far from inodorous. Wu Yingjie could smell sandalwood and clove, musk and even the rare Dragon's Brain Camphor. It should have been an uproarious mess of scent, but somehow the smells all melded together into a single pleasing perfume, one that was relaxing, almost soporific.
"Come on." Wu Yingjie called, or tried to. The words came out a whisper. Wu Yingjie found himself unsure if he'd spoken at all. If the dark had swallowed his words, or if his voice had cracked rather than profane this holy silence.
The dark and the warmth and the scent pressed down on him, suppressing his qi.
Even standing at the threshold, he felt so very comfortable. So very at home. He immediately hated it, this smallest taste of the Harmony of Grand Elder Bai. Home was not a place that Wu Yingjie had ever felt at ease. The looming darkness reminded him of his aunt. The way she managed the Wu Clan, after outshining his lord-father. Her painting-perfect family, with everyone in their proper places. With everyone satisfied with their proper places. To chafe against her rule of the family was no better than defying it.
If only he'd learned that earlier, before she'd written him off entirely. Perhaps he would have had a chance.
He should at least have been desired. A second son of the main line ought to be worth something to a noble family. Even if his talent was not extraordinary. Even if his face and figure were less than elegant. But his aunt had children of her own who needed resources, and in these days, the Wu were not wealthy. Four cultivators in the new generation had strained their finances to their limit, especially when they were already looking to the next generation, to Shoushan's future children. It was simply more harmonious if Wu Yingjie were somewhere out at the very edge of the composition. A fat uncle out of sight and out of mind.
Shoushan was too talented to ignore, so Wu Liren had embraced her nephew. And recognizing her magnanimity, his parents had placed her children above him in their eyes. It'd not seemed difficult for them.
"Fuck it." Wu Yingjie swore, stepping into the dark. He took a small pleasure in it, in being someone unsuited to walk these hallowed halls. Every curse swallowed by the dark, every clumsy stumble. With every sin against this solemn place, the pressure felt a little less overwhelming.
By touch, he navigated his way around tables. Altars? Pedestals? It was impossible to see, and he dared not stick his fingers directly into the displays. Blindly disturbing whatever Grand Elder Bai had arranged was reckless even for him.
Li Shuwen's steps dimly resounded behind him, muffled by the pressure. Wu Yingjie turned just in time to see the door grind shut behind him. The dark grew ever heavier, with only the tapers and the distant windows casting light.
"Not ominous at all." He muttered to himself.
"Can you cast a light?" He called, almost shouting, in order to approach a normal volume.
Li Shuwen said something in response, but the dark snatched it away. Light bloomed in his hand anyway. Wu Yingjie grabbed the first of the offered talismans, raising it high.
His eyes widened, as Li Shuwen lit a second for himself.
The room was filled with cages.
A rabbit raised its head weakly, staring up at him. Its eyes were white as the moon, filled with ancient cataracts. A stag, its head bent by antlers more suited for heraldry than a living neck, stared limply at him. A strange flat-faced dog grunted from his left. There were dozens more, at the edge of the light.
"Silent Heavens." Wu Yingjie cursed, hearing his voice for the first time since entering the pagoda. Grand Elder Bai had been entombed with his menagerie, like one of the heretical emperors of old. How had he even dragged this many beasts so far beneath the earth?
A plaintive yelp from the strange looking dog answered him.
"-guish it-"
The muffled cry came from his left. Wu Yingjie spun, just in time to see the second light talisman Li Shuwen had cast go out. A hand clutched at his shoulder, then his forearm, and he raised his arm higher on reflex.
Only belatedly, did he realize it was Li Shuwen, and not some apparition that had attacked his companion. He pulled his arm down the moment he saw it, at the edge of the light, moving to rip his talisman in two.
It was too late. A padded thump resounded through the darkness, as the tiger slid off its pedestal. The great cat moved limply, lazily pouring itself off the short pillar like some sort of murderous feline liquid. The bamboo bars that should have restrained it were mere nubs, seemingly gnawed away by great teeth. As the light faded, its head rose, lifted with great effort. Its face was covered in scars, crisscrossed with white lines where ancient blades and whips had scoured away the fur.
Its bloodshot eyes lingered in Wu Yingjie's vision, bulging orbs half covered by eerily massive pupils, the last thing to fade as the dark reasserted itself.
For a long moment, Wu Yingjie wondered if disaster had been averted. The suppressive harmony was tied to the dark, and probably to silence. It was probably greater on the pedestals. It would never have held these beasts for centuries otherwise.
Then a low growl resounded through the darkened gallery. A wave of qi followed it, the dark grinding it away to almost nothing by the time it reached the pair of them. It was still unmistakably the slower, heavier, fluctuations of Foundation Establishment.
Wu Yingjie turned in place, tracking the angle of the heavy padded footfalls. It was circling them. Moving toward the center of the chamber, herding them toward a wall. His throat closed itself, and sweat stained his borrowed robes anew. His mind raced. He couldn't fight that. Its paws were larger than his head. It would crush his bones with a single swipe with that disparity in cultivation.
Wu Yingjie turned and ran.
And he lowered the River-Parting Fork as he did. He pulsed his qi, sending the wrappings around the three tines flying free. With every step away from Li Shuwen, he let the curved blade on the side of the polearm scrape along the floor, adding the screech of metal-on-stone to the eerie whistling of the tines.
"Come and work for your meal, old bastard."
This time, it was not Elder Bai's black harmony, but his own disordered cacophony, that stole the sound of his words away.