Silence gathered in the darkness. The sun had shifted across the sky, sending the little puddle of light sliding across the cavern. Tian wasn’t fit to talk, and Hong wasn’t in much better shape. Tian felt Grandpa Jun sitting next to him, patting his shoulder, or just being a comforting, ghostly, presence.
“I… know who my family is. And they were killed by Liren’s family. I wasn’t thrown away. I was wanted. Fiercely protected, even. I was avenged when I ‘died,’ even if it was in the most stupidly cruel way I can imagine. I was ‘murdered’ by Sister Liren’s family. Her family was the reason I was covered in burns and left in the dump. All that pain. All the loneliness and fear. The starvation. All because her family made a choice.
Should I blame them? Or is it the consequence of my family being, apparently, heretics? Or close enough to heretics to make no difference. Do I blame whoever drove the Hongs to that kind of desperation? Do I blame the system and the Mountain that drove the people that drove the people, or is it just how humans are? Mindless animals that cause pain.”
Tian had spent half his life in the company of cultivators. Half his life thinking about the Dao, and what it all means. He was comfortable contemplating the vast enormity of the universe. It was just people who troubled him. Who scared him. His body remembered the rocks they threw.
Humans are animals that cause pain. He forgot that, sometimes. He would be sharing a campfire with Liren, a dinner table with his brothers, working with his sect-siblings to solve problems, and he would think humans were something else. Something better and nobler.
He tried to focus on his breath. Let the diaphragm expand, drawing breath into the lungs and belly. Cycle the qi, turn it into vital energy. Let the body heal. Exhale. Try to exhale the storm of thoughts and emotions with them.
He hated his birth family. Hated them for throwing him away. For deciding he was trash and putting him in the trash with the other trash to rot away. Deciding he was too sickly and too ugly to keep, and not caring about his suffering before his end.
In and out, in and out. Always keeping a corner of his mind on the cycle of his breath.
But that wasn’t the truth, was it? The truth was that he was wanted, and cherished. His mother tried to kill him, yes, because she knew exactly how cruel this world was to the losers. They weren’t good people, but they had tried their best to be good to him.
In and out, in and out.
If it was any other family, if it was any other person, it would be death on sight. On sight.
In and out.
But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Sister Hong. It was the choice her parents made to make sure their daughter survived. And themselves, but her too.
The Ghost King Zhong had asked himself if he just studied the dao, or if he believed.
Here, in the dark, hurting and alone, did he, “Tian Zihao” believe?
His breath stopped.
Did he truly believe?
He talked of brotherhood. He thought he was sincere, that he was willing to die for his sect siblings. He thought he believed in the Dao and the one-ness of all things. He proclaimed his belief in the Supreme Virtues of Compassion, Frugality and Humility. It was easy to believe that, sitting on a sunny bench by the martial practice squares.
This was the dark place. The light was shining down, but not on him.
Did he, in this place, at this time, really believe?
If he believed in all the stuff he had been reading and been told, then his pain and suffering had a purpose. It was to save Liren’s life. She didn’t know it. He didn’t know it. But it was. If he really believed it, she had always been his sister. If he believed that, why grieve? Why be hateful about how much he had suffered? Wasn’t he willing to suffer and die for her? She was for him.
The Hongs were responsible for the choices they made, but the Hongs were also made by the choices of other people. Surely he should focus on the origin, not the endpoint.
He wanted to believe that. It’s just that he could smell the dump even now. He could taste the rotten vegetables and the grubs, and the dirt he ate. He sometimes found himself unconsciously wincing, still thinking that if he moved too much, the burn scars would punish him. Anticipating a pain that lived in his memories.
His body was not nearly so enlightened as his mind. His mind wasn’t feeling particularly enlightened either. All the pretty words melted away under that remnant fire.
He didn’t give a damn about his dead so-called-family. He gave a damn about how he hurt. He held his hands up, looking at them in the thin light. Stronger, now. He knew once he healed, the person who left this cave would be far stronger than the one who entered it. There would be consequences. Sequelie. He knew his body well, and could feel the ‘off-ness’ already. But he would be stronger.
He wouldn’t have any more fingers, though. Chewed off by rats, who must have thought he was dead. No wonder Grandpa had to spend all his energy curing his lead poisoning. No wonder Grandpa hated alchemists. His own loving mother put the pill in his mouth.
Could he extend the logic that reached Sister Liren and accept the Hongs family as his own?
No. Not now. Not ever. Broadmindedness couldn’t possibly stretch so far, the one-ness of the Dao be damned. His family wasn’t so cheap. It only had three members, not including him. Grandpa, his real dad, and Liren. Nevermind the Hong’s, he wasn’t willing to acknowledge the Xia as his family.
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Could he forgive the Hongs for how they hurt him?
No. Not really. He didn’t know “The Hongs.” He knew Liren. He once met Liren’s Grandma. He didn’t like Grandma much then, and everything he had heard about her made him like her, and respect her, less.
Could he forgive Liren?
Forgive her for what? What exactly did she do? She had been six, same as him. She didn’t know what had happened. Once she did find out, she was horrified. She was still horrified. She worked constantly, fought with her life on the line, to stop such a thing from happening ever again. She had shown, repeatedly, that she was willing to die for him. She tried to die for him. Just what else could he demand from her?
But he hurt. He had been in agony for years. Hurt so much, for so long, he had forgotten what not-hurting felt like. To live was to suffer. That was life in the dump. He had left the dump. Healed his pain. Repeatedly rebuilt his body, to the point where he might as well be an entirely different person than the child picking maggots from his wounds and popping them into his mouth to see if they were tasty.
He still hurt. The memories hurt. The carried pain hurt. And she was a Hong. She was Hong Liren. The Hongs made the heretic choice- that their lives would be better if his life was worse. The Hongs had killed those who had birthed him and looked after him his first few years. The Hongs were the ones who threw him in the dump. And she was Hong Liren.
So right now, right now, in the dark place, in this single present moment when he was free to choose, what did he believe?
It was still in the cave. The storm in his mind drowned out all other sounds.
“Brother? Brother Zihao?”
There was a sudden noise. It took him seconds to realize that it was a human voice, speaking to him.
“Yes?”
“You stopped breathing. For… It's been almost twenty minutes. I know you can hold your breath a long time, but I…” Her voice trailed off on an awkward note.
She was worried he had died. That his accumulated wounds had killed him.
He couldn’t forgive the Hongs. He could probably never forgive the Hongs.
“Liren?”
“Who are you-”
“Shut up and listen. I forgive you.”
There was a confused silence. “You do? For what?”
“For being a Hong. For understanding the horrible choices your parents made. For enduring the ‘care’ of your grandmother. For still loving parts of the Monastery and its people. For believing that you can make a difference when everybody else failed. For holding on to the virtues when they seem so hateful. On behalf of that dead boy, and, Hell, me too, I forgive you.”
There was a muffled noise. A sort of grunt and sob.
“It’s not something that can be forgiven. And you aren’t the one who I need forgiveness from anyhow.”
“I’m the best you are going to get.” Tian smiled. “Besides, haven’t you been telling me over and over how sorry you were? Well, now I hear you. The Xia boy died in that fire. He’s gone on to a new and better life. So on behalf of the living and the dead, I forgive you.”
He settled back into silence. Liren didn’t say anything. He could smell the salt from her tears. Eventually an imp of honesty prodded him to add “That doesn’t extend to your family, though. No offense, but once I’m strong enough, I’m going to piss in your parent’s wine and your granny is getting beat to shit one dark night. Just horrifying violence and a complete breakdown of propriety and the deference due to a senior. And when she heals up, I’m going to do it again. I think I might cycle between the wine cellar latrine and beating your granny into a coma for a decade or two, really incorporate it into my cultivation practice. I shouldn’t have to explain why.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth. If she hadn’t figured it out yet, he didn’t want her to know. At least, not now. Not when everything was so raw.
It took a few days to heal enough to move. Liren insisted on digging a latrine and screening it off with a bit of cloth. Tian didn’t object, but dragging his body around to dig without bothering his broken pelvis was blatantly impossible. It hurt. He could suck it up for the sake of not having death glares from Liren. Some interesting things were found while they waited.
“I’m more flexible. Look, I can bend my finger back ninety degrees. Freaky.” Liren sounded torn between laughter and exasperation.
“Yes? That’s how fingers work? You couldn’t do that before?” Tian blinked. Had there been more damage to her body? Or was this more proof of brain damage? “Healthy fingers bend all the way back and all the way forward. See?”
Tian bent his index finger back until the nail touched the back of his hand.
“Oh gross! Stop that.”
“Stop what? Having functional fingers? I’m still three down, like Hell-”
Much productive bickering followed. Then, some time later-
“Ignoring your weird and wrong fingers for a moment, I think… I don’t really have words for it. Like the amount of qi my body and dantian can hold have expanded. I feel like I have more space to store vital energy, if that makes sense. Which I’m not sure it does.” Tian wiggled his hand.
“I was going to say something similar. Not more vital energy, but it feels denser now. Purer, maybe? But definitely denser. Like moving from cool air to a cool fog through my meridians.” Hong also wiggled her hand. Considerably less fluidly than he had managed, in Tian’s opinion.
“Maybe something about how we shared blood and vital energy? I also feel like the vital energy is circulating through me faster.”
“That’s a good thing. Probably?”
“Yeah, it probably is, but it’s weird. I mean, my vital energy is circulating faster. Like moving through my body faster. I don’t really know how to explain it.” Tian waved his hands in the air trying to demonstrate what he meant. And failing.
“I think you explained it, though.”
“No, you don’t understand. This is weird. My qi doesn’t circulate this fast.”
“Yeah. And?”
“I don’t know. It’s just weird.” Tian shrugged.
“Huh. Any other changes?”
“Probably. I think I got a little lighter? Maybe your yang qi blood made me lighter, somehow.”
“Could be. I do feel pretty solid, except for the places where the bones are broken. Maybe we swapped or something.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “Tssk. Urg. Let me see…”
She paused. Tian found it to be a significant sounding pause.
“Can you just… lie straight for a moment. Legs out straight, I mean. Yeah like that.”
She went quiet again.
“And?” Tian prodded her.
“So. It could be my qi making you lighter. Well, it’s your qi now. Your… increased yang qi. Which in the long term will help you get taller. So really, when you think about it, it’s a good thing. A very good thing.”
“Sister?”
“Just… focus on that future growth. Visualize the glorious sights you will see from a height of six foot one. How imposing you will look with the crane perched on your shoulders, spreading her wings in supremacy.”
“Sister?!”
“There is no easy way to say this, Brother Zihao. You… have shrunk. Slightly. For now. I’m sure you will get taller soon.”