Their party gathered down by the docks. The nobles were alternately looking at the old fishing boat and the Censor. Censor Henshen didn’t look much more comfortable than the nobles, though Tian noticed he was now wearing a sword and moving like he knew how to use it. Tian felt a little bad for the kid, but only a little. This was going to be a very good thing in his life, whether he knew it or not.
“A bad day followed by a speedy separation. But it is for the best. I offer the two seniors this- when I came to West Town Temple, I had never used chopsticks. I had never even used a spoon. My understanding of humans was ‘animals that cause pain.’ On my first day, at that first dinner, a good brother showed me how to hold a spoon. When I looked back at my bowl, it had been filled with rice, meat and vegetables. That, to me, is my West Town Temple. A place where hurting boys are received warmly and taught to be good cultivators, and good people.”
Tian let the warm memories flood his voice, resting his hand on Little Treasure’s shoulder. Then, because he was a fundamentally honest person, he added- “We are also taught how to smack the head clean off a heretic. Amazing how often that comes up.”
The boat shoved off, Hong working the oar fast enough for the boat to leave a small wake behind it. Tian looked at Bluestone city as they left. Most of the buildings were plastered brick, same as in most cities in the kingdom. But the walls were indeed faced with blue stones. Thick, sturdy, they should have been immensely comforting for the civilians.
One Heavenly Person and his creations showed just how illusory that safety was. Tian didn’t know how they got into the city without the local temple noticing, but they did. Once again, the mortals paid the price for the Monastery's lack of care. Tian sighed and shook his head as Hong steered the boat into the flow of water traffic. The immortals vanishing into the river of people like the ripples of a boat’s wake.
It was hard to know just when to stop trying to maintain a disguise. Tian had been told, firmly, that once the disguise was on, you committed to the bit until the bitter end. His experience disguised as a monk supported that. But now they were rushing up the Agate faster than most went down the Agate, in an old fishing boat with a noble child and an imperial Censor. Their ‘normal people’ disguise seemed rather thin.
Tian had never worked an escort mission, but he’d carried the wounded back to base. He woke up from nightmares reliving those missions. Discretion was definitely called for. They would have to find disguises.
The Censor probably had non-uniform clothes. Once he was out of uniform, he was just a skinny, pale man carrying a sword. Common enough on the Agate. Little Treasure was going to be a problem. Nice clothes looked like nice clothes. Nothing Tian had could be altered enough to fit him without destroying it first.
Tian slipped into a brood, trying to think of what they could do. It wasn’t until he noticed Little Treasure shifting about desperately that he realized a few hours had passed.
“Sister, do you think you can find a spot to bring us to shore? I think our youngest needs to find a bush.”
“A bush, Immortal?” Treasure looked momentarily distracted.
“Junior, where exactly do you see a latrine or privy?” Tian grinned.
“Um.”
“Indeed. ‘Um.’ A small trowel and a good supply of paper is your friend there. Soft paper. Or, barring that, wide leaves from a plant that doesn’t sting.” Tian spoke with authority.
Once they had gotten the necessaries dealt with, Tian convened the group on the riverside. “We don’t need to conduct this trip in silence. I know the… relationship between mortals and immortality cultivating daoists is complicated, but really, feel free to talk amongst yourselves or to us. You have to remember, we spend a lot of time meditating. Sitting quietly, or rowing quietly in Sister Liren’s case, is nothing odd. So don’t feel that just because we are silent, you have to be too.”
“I have heard that Immortals react poorly when their cultivation is interrupted?” Censor Henshen asked.
“All cultivation is meditation, but not all meditation is cultivation. Meditation is something one can do all the time. I’m doing it now, as is Sister Liren. Cultivation, in the sense you mean, is a specific pattern of breathing combined with a very specific way of moving vital energy inside yourself. Depending on what you are cultivating, yes, being disturbed could be very bad. In my case, it’s not a problem. In Sister Liren’s case, it is. But she won’t be cultivating on the boat, so there is that.”
Tian ran the two through a quick primer on immortal cultivators and on the two of them in particular. “Censor Henshen, I will trouble you to keep an eye on Little Treasure. Because, candidly, we might well forget to feed the two of you, or give you enough time to sleep, unless you say something. We do eat and sleep, to be clear, but…” Tian shrugged and looked over at Liren, who had been rowing in the morning, fought a battle, walked around the city and was rowing again since late afternoon, all without any signs of weariness or discomfort.
The implication was obvious. The Censor bowed and agreed.
The not-obvious signs of strain were plain to Tian. Her face was hidden behind her veil but there was a rigidity to her posture, a weight and texture to her silence that said the blazing yang in her was guttering, and would soon extinguish. The dark would flood in. The crash was coming. It would be bad tonight. They had more-or-less planned to get a full day’s travel from the city in case there were heretical remnants still in the Count’s service, but that plan would have to change.
They found a campsite near the river. The high bank was lined with dense grasses, comfortable enough if a bit buggy. The two mortals had packed, or had packed for them, bedrolls and the like, though both clearly expected to be doing their sleeping indoors. Neither had brought tents. Tian sighed, looked up at the heavens for support, and decided to temporarily put the two of them in his tent.
After dinner, of course.
That evening, Censor Henshen silently bowed over his bowl, and set out a small folding table from his luggage. With exacting care, he laid out chopsticks, a napkin, a tea cup, everything he might need to set an elegant table. He carefully invited Little Treasure to join him.
“With the permission of the Immortals, this Henshen would like to take the duty of continuing to oversee the proper rituals and education for little brother Treasure. As a civil servant and a human being, I would be failing in my filial duty to watch him fall into indiscipline.”
Tian and Hong shared a look, and collectively shrugged. “My senior brothers spent endless hours drilling me on etiquette, and all the other brothers helped. I thought it was just because I was a wildling.”
“No, my parents and sisters did the same. Go ahead, Censor. A scholar is going to be a scholar in the academy or the camp, I suppose.”
“Exactly, Immortal Hong. Exactly.” Henshen bowed with cupped hands, and rose smiling. “Without education, the younger generation can only fall into barbarism, and the kingdom will fall with them. A scholar cultivates benevolence and righteousness, not immortality. It will be my joy to instruct Little Treasure for the next few months.”
Little Treasure looked less enthused, but didn’t complain. Things are hard when you are six years old.
That night, Tian and the crane sat with Hong through the shakes. Her qi was more disturbed than ever.
Her vital energy cultivation art is unstable. It’s not that it’s a bad art. It’s not amazing, but it’s not bad given her circumstances. The problem is that she’s not progressing her body refining art, and that art is immensely powerful for her level and realm. It’s building up more and more at its current level, which is putting pressure on her Dantian to absorb and process all the vital energy that her fleshy body cannot hold. On the one hand, her cultivation is improving rapidly. On the other hand, a gas expanding rapidly in a sealed container results in an explosion. She needs to break through to increase the amount of qi her body can hold, and each day she waits increases the likelihood that something goes very wrong.
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“Is there a problem with her body refining art?”
If we had found it before the Hell Suppressing Sutra, I would have pushed you to cultivate it. It would have changed your whole personality, but you sure wouldn’t worry about being short. It’s a high quality extreme yang body cultivation art. She doesn’t seem to have the corresponding qi cultivation art, or maybe she just can’t use it yet, so there is a degree of incompatibility with her current cultivation art.
Tian thought this was a spectacularly lousy moment to push his sister. On the other hand, the dawn was her favorite time to cultivate. Needs must.
“Sis, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but… your qi is becoming dangerously unstable. Whatever the problem is, you know I will hear you. I won’t hate you. So just tell me already.”
Hong buried her face in her knees, and wrapped her arms around them, turning into a little ball of misery.
“Have you figured out there is a problem with my body cultivation art?” She asked, without unburying her face.
“Yes.”
“And why?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know why.”
“I do not.”
“Because I’m scared. I already look like a man, Zihao. I know you don’t think so, but I’m taller than most of my sisters already, and we still have a couple of weeks until we’re sixteen. I have better muscle definition than most of your brothers, even if my muscles aren’t bulky. And I’m tanner than a farmer’s wife. Not exactly the aristocratic young miss you imagined you were meeting at our first spar.”
Ah. “Grandpa, would progressing her art-”
No idea, sorry. Probably not, but whatever she is cultivating feels truly old. Beauty standards change across a single mortal life. Who knows what they were like whenever that art was made? But that’s not the angle you should take. Remember the hospital? Whose opinion was the only one that mattered?
Tian half smiled.
“Well, Sis. Let’s talk about that a bit.”
“Are you looking for an excuse to make tea?”
“No.”
“There was a bit of a pause there.”
“Your imagination is acting up. Better drink some tea about it.” Tian chuckled and set out his tray. This wouldn’t be a quick chat, but it would be better with tea.
They talked through the night, trying to explain to each other truths that their sibling’s minds would not hear. Tian trying to tell Hong that the opinions of the world were worthless, and only she could decide her beauty. Hong trying to tell Tian that beauty was in the eye of the beholder, and she was very tired of being seen. That none of the beauty her eyes beheld looked like her.
That she was scared. She could fight heaven and hell but not the eyes of the world.
They started going around in circles, becoming miserable. It was only a few hours until dawn at that point, so being good daoists, they agreed to cultivate. Hong took a long while to calm down enough. She kept stirring, shifting, her head snapping around to look at some half imagined noise. Tian smiled and shook his head. He gently pressed her down, and lay his hands against her back.
“Cultivate, Sister. No matter what the dog eyes of the world see, your Brother sees beauty and courage. And unlike the world, I will support you all the way to the apex.”
The next morning, two mortals woke to see a second sun being born, ignited with the purple flash of dawn light. The tall, quiet woman who had been rowing the boat burned with a brilliance that banished every shadow. Standing behind her, hands pressed to her back, was the little daoist. For reasons they could never explain, he looked like a tree that could cover the whole sky.
Breakfast was a silent affair, both out of manners and because their mortal companions were too shocked to speak. The morning wasn’t much noisier, though unlike yesterday, Hong took the initiative to chat with Tian. Tian, for his part, couldn’t stop grins from creeping across his face. The bad nights and stressful cultivation had taken their toll on both of them. Liren getting better was something to be happy about.
The problem wasn’t resolved, of course. Her qi was still unstable, and the problem wasn’t resolved at the root. But at the very least, he had managed to help her step into Level Seven.
They stopped for lunch on a riverbank. Censor Henshen looked hopefully at a black roofed inn some two hundred yards down the road running parallel to the river, then sighed and stayed with the party. Tian rewarded him with an extra plain steamed bun from his storage ring. Then gave an extra meat bun to Little Treasure because childhood nutrition was important.
“Immortal, this is too much. I can’t eat all of this!” Little Treasure protested. Tian frowned. Refusing food? Shameful! It wasn’t good to gorge, though, and frugality was a supreme virtue. Hmm.
“Keep it for later, and eat it as a snack if you get hungry.”
The little boy’s head bobbed dutifully.
“You keep fiddling with the hilt of your sword, Censor, and you carry it like you know how to use it. Itching to practice?” Hong asked.
“I’m afraid I would embarrass myself in front of the Immortals.” The Censor laughed awkwardly, his high-pitched voice making the laughter a bit jarring. Tian sometimes wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with the man. He looked fine, but the voice was throwing him. He was pretty sure the Censor wasn’t a woman in disguise, at least. Maybe he just had a high pitched voice.
“Nah, neither of us cultivate a sword dao. Practice without concern.” She waved him on.
“Well. If you insist.” The Censor drew his sword and dropped into a guard pose. The sword was slim, sized to be used with one hand and with barely a bronze bump to stop the hand from sliding up the hilt and cutting itself on the fine steel of the three foot blade. The sword was clearly a version of a sword and shield soldier’s weapon, made to the proportions and aesthetics of a scholar.
It was almost exactly the same kind of sword he saw sword cultivators using. It said something, Tian thought, that sword cultivators always picked swords that relied on skill for hand protection, rather than the guards on heavy knives and sabers. It said something about the censor too.
The pale man slowly moved through the forms, making sure each move was as perfect as he could manage. Treasure was a little interested, but his attention quickly wandered… until he saw the two immortals staring at the sweating official without blinking.
“There. One set is usually enough to work off any meal. More than that, and I really tire myself out.”
“Superb.” Tian spoke from his heart.
“Genuinely excellent. Truly.”
“Immortals are too kind. My skills are mediocre at best.” The Censor bowed, looking pleased.
“Yes, that’s right.” Tian nodded.
“Mediocre is a good description. Better than trash, not at the standard of being actually good.” Hong agreed. The Censor twitched. Hong continued. “We are talking about that sword art of yours. Even with your quarter-baked skills, it’s one of the very best I’ve seen. It’s actually making use of your vital energy. That’s why you are feeling so ragged- your qi is becoming depleted.”
The Censor blinked and smiled. “I have no idea why I thought that could be missed by the Immortals. Yes, this legendary technique has stringent requirements for its use, but has very, very few rivals in terms of power. Among mortal martial artists, anyway. It is known as the Exorcist Sword Technique. My brethren in the palace keep it alive and pass it through the generations.”
The censor eyed the two. “I don’t suppose you want to learn it?”
Hong pulled out her spear and waved it lightly in the air. “I walk the Spear Dao.”
“I don’t have enough appendages for it.” Tian wiggled the fingers on his right hand, still missing two. For some reason that made the Censor double over laughing.
“You are the very first person to say that they have too few appendages to learn the art! Oh heavens! Oh, I will remember that forever. Well, should you ever change your mind, do let me know. Everything is difficult in the beginning, but you do adapt.”
“Um. Immortal Brother?”
“Yes, Little Treasure?”
“What martial arts do you practice?”
“Well, just ones that you can manage with only some of your fingers. Tian smiled, teasing the boy a bit.
“Hidden weapons arts?” The Censor asked.
“No! I’m a very straightforward person.” He denied it.
“You do practice hidden weapons arts.” Hong said, in an act of cold blooded betrayal.
“Do not.”
“What do you call a rope dart and a sinister palm art then? Military boxing?”
“It’s a perfectly respectable Yin-Yang palm technique, little miss Iron Breaking Bones!”
The two bickered amiably as they got back into the boat and set off up the river. Neither bothering to mention to the mortals that the afternoon was likely to be anything but peaceful. It was strange to say, but the two had the growing sense that there was blood running down the Agate, and they were getting closer to its source.