The disciples started walking onto the flying cloud when Tian spotted a dreadful, expedition destroying problem.
“We never resolved the issue of seniority!” Tian exclaimed. “Quickly- which of us is the senior brother or sister? Brother Wang and Sister Su have the highest cultivation, and Brother Wang is the eldest. By default, he should be the senior. Any disagreements?”
“Yes, me. My disagreement.” Brother Wang shook his head. “I can play the leading man, but I prefer to be underestimated and fade into the background. Sister Su carries a wise and austere air. She will make a fine senior sister.”
“I too decline the ‘honor.’ I suspect there will be combat challenges, and my current infirmity leaves me few non-lethal options in a duel. So long as I am in this chair, I do not fight. I only kill.”
“A logic that would also rule out Brother Tian, as he is likely to take boasting and threats as literal statements of fact, leaving shattered bodies in his wake.” Hong Liren smiled brilliantly. “Unrelated, but do you hear meadowlarks? What other bird could sing so sweetly?”
“It’s a crow, the brain damage in your ears is worsening.” Tian could happily acknowledge others as senior, but orthodoxy forbade Sister Liren sitting in the elder’s seat. “Obviously, as the elder, I’m the senior.”
“You don’t know your birthday.”
“I do. It’s one week before yours.”
“Oh? Then when’s my birthday?” Hong gave him the look of someone who knows their brother can’t be bothered to remember what month it is.
“One week after mine.” Tian shook his head. Asking such an obvious question just showed how unfit Hong was for serious responsibility. Actually, wasn’t it about time for their birthdays? He hadn’t been keeping track, but it felt like it had been around a year since his last birthday.
Sister Su coughed. Tian was suddenly worried about her lungs. That didn’t sound like a proper cough at all. “I’m afraid that it must be either Brother Wang or Brother Tian. Brother Wang for the reasons Brother Tian identified. As for Brother Tian… I’m afraid battle record trumps age.”
“Then I beat him there too.” Hong looked mulish, unwilling to miss the opportunity.
“Apologies, Sister, but when did you kill…” Wang asked, then let his words trail off, sliding his eyes towards Sister Lin. Tian jolted. It seemed he didn’t need to remind his companions about the need to keep certain matters private.
Tian looked over. “Ah, no need to bring all that up.”
“Mmm. Still though.” Wang stroked his ching contemplatively.
“Right, sure, great, but I-” Hong slammed to a stop, then glanced back at the manor. She visibly struggled for a moment, then spread her hands and cried to the sky “The Heavens are blind, except when they see too damned well!”
The Elder appeared on the platform in a sudden breeze. “Everyone is ready? Good. Don’t throw our face, don’t start unnecessary trouble. Let’s go.”
The flying cloud descended over a lush valley. A charming little river ran between rich fields and orchards, while on the hillsides, terraced fields were being cultivated. Fine homes and halls were scattered through the valley, seemingly standing in guard over the fields around them. Just below the peak of one hill was a deep bamboo grove, and within that grove was an ancient temple. It had much the same deliberate humility Tian remembered from the West Town Temple- white plastered walls, black terracotta roof tiles, simple carvings of wood and stone for decoration.
There was a definite medicinal motif. Tian noticed that the statues were of sages carrying a peddlers medicine box, or of pill furnaces. It was a little funny to Tian. The temple had statues and things, of course, but they were indoors and tended to be honored ancestors. Or Elder Rui, just in case. Most of the outdoor stuff was decorative vases or good looking rocks a brother picked up somewhere. He couldn’t imagine decorating in birds.
Tian tapped his chin with a finger. Now that he was thinking about it, a few statues of Senior Redmane might look very nice. Not life sized, obviously, but a nine foot tall miniature or something. They could put it right next to the pond near the martial practice courtyards.
Lined up in front of the temple were twenty cultivators. Tian noticed their uniforms were green and brown, with a pill surrounded by trailing wisps of fragrance emblazoned on their chests. You could quickly sort out the ranks. The outer court uniforms looked no better than what Tian was wearing, and the Heavenly People’s robes were better, but not spectacularly so. Not too many Heavenly People, though, and they all gave Tian the sense of being old.
“The Elders and Disciples of the Bamboo Medicine Hut Greet Elder Feng and the Disciples of Ancient Crane Mountain!” The cultivators below bowed deeply as the cloud settled on the fine blue flagstones in front of the temple. Elder Feng led them in the reply bow. Her bow was polite, but only polite. Tian didn’t dare be so bold. He bowed as though he were saluting elders of his own sect.
Courtesy was always the right approach. Brother Fu was extremely firm on this point.
There was a mercifully brief exchange of greetings, welcomes, complements and other social frippery, then the disciples were dismissed. The Sectmaster offered to have one of the elders show the juniors around, but in the end it was agreed that everyone would be more comfortable if they were shown around by disciples roughly their age.
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ToTian’s quiet shock, that meant cultivators in their thirties who were only Level Seven. One of their guides was fifteen and barely level four. He knew he cultivated faster than many other people, but he didn’t think it was to the point of being outrageously quick. Would the Monastery rate these people as third class talents or something? Was there such a thing as a fourth class talent?
“So, where would you like to start the tour?” An older disciple smiled and asked. The smile seemed a bit forced to Tian, but he thought it was fair. He wouldn’t be too social if someone dropped in out of the blue and demanded they be shown around the Temple.
Tian glanced at the others, who collectively shrugged. Except for Lin, who seemed like she was looking for someone. “We admired the fields from the air as we came in. Maybe you could show us how you grow your herbs before taking us around to see the medicine being made?” Tian suggested.
“Gladly.”
They started chatting, their hosts steadily relaxing as they found Tian and Wang easy to talk to. Tian seemed endlessly interested in everything, constantly asking questions about different plants, or how they irrigated the fields, or how the rain in spring affected diseases like brown leaf rot in the fall. Brother Wang had a warm laugh and never asked questions. However, all his statements seemed to make people want to talk.
“You must be breaking your back hauling those baskets around!”
“No fear of that, Fellow Daoist. We use specially treated Red Tip Pine wood to weave baskets we can carry on our backs. Even fully loaded with Yellow Veined Coldroot, you can stroll up and down the hill without breaking a sweat.”
“Woah. Hard to imagine doing it without storage rings.”
“Oh, we use rings for some things, but other herbs must be kept in very, very precise conditions to preserve maximum medical potency…”
Sister Su looked quite interested, but rarely asked questions. She did, however, frequently pull out a board, rest it on her armrests and take some notes. Sister Hong stuck to nodding appreciatively now and then. Lin couldn’t be bothered to speak, which the others appreciated.
Tian couldn’t understand why she was so miserable. This was a wonderful place. Every inhalation carried a rich wood qi with it. The aroma of herbs and fragrant grasses filled the valley. The ground was soft and yielding and rich. The river was cool and sweet, making a gentle harmony with the sharp sounds of hoes and sickles as disciples tended the fields. Even the sun above was just warm enough but without the poisonous intensity of the Wastes.
He looked out at all the green and life and people working hard to grow and to heal others. To make medicine that would give life and strength to strangers. Nobody here was fighting for their life. Nobody was getting dragged in by their brothers and sisters, trailing so much blood the water in the mop bucket needed to be changed twice before the floors were really clean again.
His mood crashed. They could live like this because his brothers, those that still lived, were fighting in the wasteland. And none of them would be out there if the sect had been taking care of business rather than naval gazing for the last thousand years. He could practically taste the coppery blood being spilled on black sands, even surrounded by all the vibrant green.
“Daoist Tian?” A sister in a green robe smiled tentatively. She was the fifteen year old level four. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. Sorry. You have a truly wonderful sect. Truly wonderful. I… Sorry. Memories.” Tian forced himself to be in the present. He had felt himself slipping in time. The horrors of the wasteland never seemed far away.
“Did you grow up on a farm?” She asked. Tian took a better look at her. Pretty, but orthodox cultivators generally were. Neatly dressed for the formal occasion, but her hair was a little long to be Temple Tidy. Not so long as to be mannish, of course, but the little flowers carefully shaved in had their lines blurred and softened. She seemed a little intimidated by Sister Hong, but she was polite and friendly with Tian.
“No, I grew up in the jungle and on the fringes of human settlements. But the memories weren’t that. A few weeks ago we were in the Redstone Wastes and, well. I work at the hospital. I expect you know what that’s like.”
“You are a doctor?!” She didn’t quite shriek in surprise, then looked mortified at her loss of decorum.
Tian and the others from Ancient Crane Mountain chuckled. “I’m an orderly and a field medic. More orderly than medic, if I’m being honest. I’m studying to be a doctor though. And I did work for a little while as a herb boy, so this really is all very interesting to me.”
“That makes more sense.” She patted her chest. “I don’t know what I would have done if you were both a cultivation genius and a genius doctor.”
“I spend too much time trying to study my books to be a genius anything.” Tian racked his memory for a moment. She had introduced herself, but so had a lot of other people. Her name was… “It was Daoist Shu Xiaoling wasn’t it? What do you do here?”
“Same as any disciple. I tend an herb garden. When I reach a high enough level, I will start learning medicine formulation.”
“Oh? There are cultivation requirements to make medicine?”
That got all the cultivators from the Bamboo Medicine Hut nodding firmly. “Oh yes. Fellow Daoist would be surprised. Even the most basic fever suppressing medicine must be purified and blended to extremely exacting standards. The sensitivity required, to say nothing of the pharmacological knowledge needed, is… enormous.”
Shu Xiaoling looked wistful. “I really don’t know when the day will come when I can step into the Pill Forging Hall.”
Tian widened his eyes. “I had no idea it was so difficult. Could you show us your field?”
“Oh! But Senior Brother Jin’s field is much more impressive. He has managed to grow a whole row of Shadowbells.” She waved a little desperately at a nearby plot. Tian thought about it for a moment. There was no “Brother Jin” in the tour group, and Tian would be pissed off if strangers tramped through his field just to look at things that were no business of theirs.
“I don’t know Daoist Jin. But I know Daoist Shu. I’m sure I could learn a lot from seeing what you are cultivating. But if it’s inconvenient, we can move on to other things.” The sweetness of the air and the kindness of the place was just so marvelous, so wonderful after everything that he couldn’t help but smile. His eyes lost themselves in the clouds as the lamp in his heart blazed with the joy of the moment.
Then a cool breeze blew through. How many brothers had died dreaming of a place like this? And here he was, still alive because they died. Because he hid. Because the elders were taking extra special care of him, and for what?
The smile subtly changed. There was pain in it now, and reminiscence.
There was a long silence. Tian glanced over at Daoist Shu who was staring at him with glassy eyes.
“Daoist Shu?”
“What? Oh. OH. Yes! Yes of course! Please, I have plot four-oh-seven, at the foot of Eye Balm Hill.” She shot off ahead of the group. Tian sighed internally, but refrained from a rueful head-shake. There were scatterbrained people everywhere, but it would be rude to point it out in someone else’s sect. Though why Brother Wang and Sister Hong were laughing in that strange way he didn’t know. His sect siblings could be terribly rude sometimes.