Tian had reached his limit. He hadn’t slept properly, his mind was a mess, and even bickering with Hong had lost all appeal. He would move his body a bit. Tian walked out into the garden. There wasn’t any dedicated practice space, but the area around the tiny pond was mostly filled with low lying shrubs and rather pretty little flowers. He would have to check his herbology guides to know what they were. He wasn’t in the mood right now.
He blew out a long, slow breath, then inhaled. Exhaled. Inhale like a snake, exhale like an arrow. Feel the sun on him. Feel the earth below him. Feel the rope dart in his hands. And move.
Snake Head Vine Body was an art without levels or moves. The manual had a few recommended exercises and a few examples of the kinds of things you could do with a rope dart, but it wasn’t really about any of that. It was an art to turn a rope dart into a living thing in your hands. Not blindly bound by momentum, but taking advantage of it. An art that grew with the user. The more you understood Wood and rope darts, the more the art would come alive in your hands.
Inhale like a snake and exhale like an arrow. The snake coils, its strong body like a thick jungle vine. It gathers with the inhale, strikes with the exhale. The head flies forward, putting everything into one lethal strike. Then it recovers itself, whether in success or failure. It always gathers itself, ready for whatever comes next.
The snake head can travel in a straight line, but the snake’s body is never perfectly straight. It twists and moves around obstacles. It uses them to conceal itself, or to trap prey. Like a vine, the snake has no impediments, merely more tools it can use.
The rope dart moved in Tian’s hand, then flowed. The weighted dart drifted, then struck. A blow to the front suddenly attacked straight upward, or directly behind him. It was short as a sword, or longer than a pike. Always moving, always changing. And Tian moved with it. He too was a creature of wood and water. Always growing. Overcoming all obstacles. Yin and yang turning as one.
His feet flowed through the garden. Tian could feel the qi of wood all around him. He simply stepped where the earth was, not brushing a single petal from the small blossoms. Not thinking consciously, just following the feeling the art gave him. A strong yang art, but with a core of yin in it. Vine for wood, but there was a snake head. Snakes are a symbol of masculinity, and a powerful yang tonic, but they were cold blooded creatures. Nothing was only one thing. Everything was everything.
Gather like water, grow like the vine. Strike hard and with precision, an explosion on a dagger point, before falling back. Returning to gather momentum before striking again. Snake Head Vine Body was a wood aligned art, but the five elements were all present. If you knew how to look. If you could feel the charm in them.
Tian stopped thinking all the complicated thoughts. He breathed out his fears and frustrations. He breathed in the sky. Flickering through the garden, his body told the story of a snake and vine growing together, wrapped around the tree that spanned the distance between heaven and earth.
Deep inside his bones, far deeper than Tian’s crude senses could detect, thin filaments of gold grew. Faintly, imperceptibly, his bones grew stronger and more jade-like. His blood thickened and deepened, holding more qi with every breath. Just by the most minute of amounts, but it was constant.
A much more relaxed Tian sat to dinner that evening. Meals at the manor were a comparatively cold affair. The elder ate by herself. The disciples, however many there happened to be in the Manor, ate together in a small dining room. It was pretty much the only time Tian saw Lin. He was fine with that. Heart demon or not, she shouldn’t be vicious to her sect mates. The tar around his own heart never completely cleared up, but even when it was at its worst, he didn’t abuse people randomly.
They maintained the etiquette of the Monastery. Meals were eaten in silence, and with gratitude.
What Steward Pan got up to, Tian didn’t know. Parts of the Manor were subtly, then directly, marked as Staff Only. The directness was required after Tian assured Steward Pan that, compared to mopping up the surgery after a bad patrol came in, the kitchen mess held no horrors. It seemed that there was more to it than that.
That night he meditated on what happened in Burning Flag City. He knew he would be unpacking those events for years to come, understanding the nuances of what he saw. Two things immediately jumped out at him- people invented stories to describe what they were seeing, and people were willing to turn a blind eye to anything, so long it didn’t directly and immediately hurt them.
He was probably overstating that last point. He hoped he was, anyway. But the people in the city lived quite happily knowing there was an active slave market twenty miles south of the city, and that the local nomads would snatch up anyone they thought they could get away with grabbing for the express purpose of putting them up for sale. Tian would have thought that would be enough to have the cavalry actively sweeping the steppes. But of course they weren't. That would interfere with business, and as long as most of the slaves were other nomads… how was that the Kingdom’s problem?
Which led back to people telling themselves stories about what they were seeing, rather than seeing the thing itself. It was ironic that the potter was the only one to guess right- he really was an immortal in disguise. Then the better educated, higher ranked goldsmith, relying on a combination of book knowledge, observation and, Tian suspected, his own fears, concluded that he was some kind of legendary Monk. A Penitent, whatever that was.
It took very little effort to turn that disguise into a reality for the whole city. And a lot of it was looking the part, and the other part of it was, essentially, fooling mortals with things that were normal-ish for cultivators. Which led to the most darkly funny part of the whole thing- the cultivators.
The mercenaries believed the story about him being a legendary monk utterly. So did Jin. Jin believed it so much, he bet his afterlife on it. Jin was also, plainly, crazy. But still, they invented stories. They “recognized his techniques.” The Elder even mentioned cultivators who examined him after he fell unconscious and concluded that he was, in fact, a monk who sacrificed his life to seal a demonic weapon. Presumably they had their own stories about him too.
They must have done. Tian sold the story so well, he had become an enshrined deity. Tian’s mind skittered away from that thought. The only God he knew about was the Mad God, and most of what he knew about that god was based on seeing the Hell he made of the world.
Was this why the monastery didn’t want to be involved in the mortal world? Were mortal ideas and mortal thought too fragile to stand up against the reality of cultivators? It would make sense, but the answer seemed unsatisfying.
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Tian shook off the thoughts and slipped into cultivation. He wasn’t ready to fully sort through everything. But that was alright. He had time.
The next day passed quietly. Tian spent his time studying his medical texts, practicing his arts, and meditating. He got the next dart started. The sensation of cultivating it was markedly different compared to the first time. He could feel the metal vital energy becoming soft in the heat from the fire vital energy in his heart before sinking into the carefully crafted dart. He didn’t put the dart straight back in his ring when he was done. He sat with it in his hand, and thought about Sister Li, and the hours she had poured into making each dart.
He didn’t know what he could do for her. He would just have to be on the lookout for something. Some miracle that could change everything.
Tian sighed as he stood. He got a ball of string from his ring and tied six individual socks into balls. The balls were then hung from a tent pole between two trees in the garden. A gentle push sent the balls swinging back and forth. Tian took his fully cultivated dart out and tried to get a feel for the timing. He threw it gently. The needle evaded the first swinging ball, but snagged the edge of the second. Tian set himself a small goal of consistently hitting the third swinging ball today. It would make a good exercise in controlling the Imperial Heavenly Swallows.
The next two days passed in much the same way. Tian and Hong gave each other space. They could feel that what the other really needed was quiet, and a chance to sort through everything they were feeling.
Hong preferred to practice on the stone paths through the garden. Tian couldn’t imagine why, but it worked for her so it was none of his business. Tian noticed she had started covering up. Not that she had been showing more skin than anyone else in the sect. Her uniform was always very proper. She had started covering her head with a long white scarf. He thought she was afraid of sunburns on her bald head, but she was wearing long gloves too. Sometimes, he saw her wearing a mask.
Tian was going to ask about this inexplicable behavior, but was rescued by a memory- sitting with the wounded and the dying in the hospital. Many, particularly the women but men too, were terrified of looking ugly. Burns and skin rashes were especially bad, as was any rotting disease. He had heard tens of times that they wished they had just been stabbed or chopped instead. The patients hated how it felt, and even more hated how people looked at them. The revulsion when they saw the wounds, and the instinctive fear that it might be catching.
Because he had repeatedly reforged his body, Tian was quite pale. He privately blamed the giant demonized hawk for this, along with his tendency towards yin methods and yin thinking. He might not be right, but he was nonetheless resolved to make his problems someone else’s fault.
He had come out of the evil bird fish-belly white. It wasn’t nice. He had darkened a little to a more human coloration, but he was still closer in coloration to new paper than old paper. Hong had been rather pale skinned when they first met. Now she was a rich tan. And Brother Long, as well as many others, referred to pretty sisters as Jade Beauties.
Tian didn’t agree with Hong’s self assessment. He thought the tan skin made her look more vibrant and lively. But the hospital had taught him, brutally, that his opinions were worthless. It was what the patients thought that counted. Hong was covering up. Hiding from the sun. She didn’t want to get even a tiny bit more tan.
Well. That was… not fine, but not something he could meddle in. At least her hair was slowly showing signs of growing back. That was a very good thing indeed. Tian liked the tan, but a bald head was just too much. The lack of eyebrows was just creepy. He was prepared to be stubborn on this point.
Could he get a sympathy tan? No, the Elder would kick him off the sky barge if he started running around shirtless. He’d have to think of something else.
On the fifth day from when they went down to Burning Flag City, Brother Wang and Sister Su returned. Brother Wang strode off the flying cloud platform and made his way directly to Tian. With a flourish, he presented Tian with a bamboo platter holding a few small oranges.
“Praying the Martyr Venerable for mercy, intercede for me and strike down all demons that plague me!”
“Ahaha. Aha. Ha.” Tian rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.
“No. Ignore him. Martyr Venerable, I only require eighty percent of my demons be exterminated, and I can offer incense.” Sister Su wheeled over and presented a long stick of incense.
“Fair to say you two heard about it?”
“Yep.” Brother Hong shoved the platter into his hands, and Sister Su laid the incense on top of it. “Never thought I’d master silent communication before the Heavenly Person realm, but Sister Su and I managed it. “Shut Up,” we chorused mentally, and then we both nodded and did just that.”
“Ah. The Elder did… say some things…”
“Is he actually getting deified?" Hong butted in, grinning with malice.
“That is not the right question, Sister Hong.” Brother Wang shook his head. “You should ask ‘Are we getting deified?’” To which I would answer ‘Yes.’”
“Wait, what? I didn’t do anything!”
Sister Su joined Brother Wang in shaking her head firmly. “In a fascinating case of the optimization of narrative, the holy Martyr Venerable had a crane companion. There are already many stories about the crane eating all sorts of ugly frogs and causing minor problems throughout the city, which the Martyr Venerable had to rush in and resolve. However, the Crane was very loyal and chose to die with the Monk to purify the Claw of the Devourer of Innocence.”
Hong could only blink in shock. Sister Su nodded gravely in confirmation.
“I was able to independently verify several of these stories. Some have as many as twenty witnesses, with sufficient variation between them to suggest they truly did witness the same event. Congratulations on mastering a shape changing art at the Earthly Person Level, Sister Whitefeather.”
“Bless me with a dozen good companions, Sister Whitefeather.” Brother Wang bowed, and presented Hong with her own little tray of oranges.
“You want some, but where am I supposed to find some for myself?” Hong sputtered.
“I only require ten, Sister Whitefeather.” Sister Su pressed a stick of incense on top of the oranges.
“Wait, why did I get the same number of oranges as Brother Tian but a smaller stick of incense?”
“I cornered a deal on some produce and can be generous to the Gods with the stuff too ripe to travel well.” Brother Wang smiled.
“It is not reasonable to overinvest in a sacred companion spirit. Maintaining a fixed ratio preserves the hierarchy and maintains the orthodoxy.” Sister Su did not appear to have ever knowingly smiled in her life.
The sky was just such a glorious blue today, and Tian was sure he was hearing meadowlarks singing in the trees. Best of all, Steward Pan had promised Tian that he would acquire both mutton and bamboo shoots. His rise to six foot one, and the heavens, was now assured. Though he would have to make sure these two kept their mouths shut about the events in the city. He really didn’t want Lin figuring things out and tipping off the Long Clan out of spite.
“What kept the two of you in the city so long?” Hong asked. She looked torn between flinging away the ‘offerings’ and storing them. Tian had long-since put them away. Who would turn down free oranges with a complementary stick of incense?
“The Elder’s whim. Though I must say the time was productively spent.” Sister Su looked grim. “Things are bad. Far worse than I thought.”
Brother Wang shook his head. “This is where Sister Su and I disagree. She sees catastrophe. I see the best chance of victory we are likely to get.”