Daoist Heartmend stood straight, his eyes bright, his shoulders relaxed and his arms loose. His robes had once been decent enough, but now looked weathered and rough, a faded and mottled gray. His beard was wispy, reaching down to his chest, and his eyes were as deep as an old well. He carried no weapon, and wore no ornament other than a plain iron ring.
Tian and Hong knew damn well he was a heretic. He knew they knew. The only ones who didn’t were Diviner Bonecaster and the unfortunate in the cangue.
“Daoist Heartmend wouldn’t come with no purpose. Speak, then.” Hong started looking around, plainly checking for ambushers.
“I came to debate the dao with you. Truly debate the dao, not some animal violence. I, truly and sincerely, wish to speak with you. Together, the two of you should be capable of killing me. My life and death are entirely in your hands.” His voice was as tranquil as his eyes. “I am confident in my fighting ability, of course. I wouldn’t die alone. I won’t permit myself to die before we have spoken, and should you test me on this, I will ensure the town behind you dies with me.”
Tian nodded. “Speak then.”
“Let us take the case in front of us as our starting point. This man, Cao Sen, for whatever reason, came to owe a debt he could not repay. To shame and torture him for being a deliquent debtor, the magistrate sentenced him to a month in the cangue. His flesh suffers. His spirit suffers. His heart breaks. He comes to understand the cruelty of the world in a way he had never dreamed of, understanding so much more clearly the suffering of every other person who has ever worn the cangue.”
Daoist Heartmend recited these facts as though he were describing the weather.
“Then there is Daoist Bonecaster, who was moved by pity to help him drink some water, and perhaps eat something. This would prolong Cao Sen’s suffering, of course, because without Daoist Bonecaster’s interference, Cao Sen would likely die. Then there is Daoist Hong, who shares Daoist Bonecasters’ intention, and lastly you, Daoist Tian, who wishes to tear open the cangue and set Cao Sen free.”
Tian nodded lightly.
“Then there is me, Heartmend, who says the correct thing to do is simply walk on past him. Treat him with neither pity nor contempt, but as a pebble on the road or tree by a stream. A matter of indifference.”
“Get to the point.” Hong flexed her fingers slowly.
“Two are motivated by pity, but fear for the future consequences for Cao Sen if they defy the will of the kingdom. One sets his morality above the wishes of others. And one feels that nothing should be done at all. Which of us pursues the true Dao?”
“You frame it as three positions, but I see two- one which holds to the Supreme Virtues of Compassion, Frugality, and Humility, and one that does not.” Tian smiled. No one could confuse the expression with warmth or humor. “There is merely disagreement in how those virtues should be expressed.”
“As you like, but I think you will come to regret that framing. Still, it is early yet.” Heartmend shrugged.
“So make your case, Heretic Heartmend.” Hong glared. “Why is ignoring Cao Sen’s plight the true dao?”
“Because the great dao is indifferent. It emerged from primordial chaos, a thing that is the pinnacle and essence of the word ‘undifferentiated.’ Life and death are a single thread, while good and evil, if such words even have sensible definitions, are matters of opinion, putting values on things the dao does not, and cannot.”
“Compassion, frugality, humility?” Tian asked.
“Humbug. Show me where the Dao says those things exist, let alone are supreme virtues.” Heartmend gently waved at the scene in front of them, then extended the motion to the fields around them, the sky above them, the road below.
“Does virtue come from the heavens? Plainly not, or we would all be virtuous. Does it come from the teachings of the ancestors? No, they have taught us cruelty. So I ask you, where is virtue? Where is vice? I say they lie entirely within our minds, our own self-delusion. Our minds are disordered, constantly searching for the simplicity and indifference our pre-natal selves knew. When we burden ourselves with a need to fix the world, we cause suffering for ourselves and others. No different than if we lose ourselves to depravity.”
Hong shook her head. “There is no society that can be true to the dao, then. We would be concerned only with ourselves yet wanting nothing, caring nothing for our own life and death.”
“Exactly.” Heartmend nodded. “A sage wants to save the world and serve the people. Look on the product of their labors.” He pointed at Cao Sen. “A sage set out to rule the land, governing with justice and compassion, setting laws to guard and guide the people. Universal compassion and benevolence fixed the cangue around Cao Sen’s neck, as surely as his desires lead him to borrow the silver in the first place.”
“On the basis that a strict and fair system of laws applied honestly will also serve to correct the punished as well as comfort the victims.” Hong guessed.
“And deter other crimes that might occur.” Tian added.
“Just so. But we know that the laws of the Kingdom do no such thing. They are a mill, grinding people, breaking them, separating the suffering essence from its clay husk. The intention is benevolent, the result is cruel. Conversely, a bandit robs a farmer to feed himself, making the farmer starve instead. Most would call it a wicked act. But he steals because he has not learned to be indifferent to his own life and death, or how to be content with whatever the day brings. He will soon starve again, and now two suffer instead of one. Good or evil, benevolence or selfishness- don’t they reach the same result?” Heartmend nodded.
Tian considered the arguments. They were logical. Completely logical. They just ignored reality.
“Your argument boils down to “anything good people do is a matter of opinion or actually a bad thing, and anything bad people do to one another should be ignored because suffering is a defect in understanding.” Hong cut to the chase.
Tian smiled slightly. “You are an envoy from the Black Iron Gorge, aren’t you?”
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Heartmend wiggled his hand in the air. “I don’t work for them, but they occasionally give me things I might find useful. They really don’t understand me.”
“Because useful and not-useful are the same thing to you.” Tian concluded.
“No, not at all. Useful is unnatural. Useful means you are doing something to better your existence in a superficial way, or ‘bettering’ the lives of others. True improvement would come with improved understanding of the self, being more true to your pre-natal nature. What you are truly doing by becoming useful is becoming miserable. You are used by others or used by your disordered mind until you fall into exhaustion and an early death. A slave toiling in a mine is useful. The girl taken to breed sons for the Emperor is useful. But they are miserable.”
There was a cadence to Heartmend’s words. This wasn’t a spontaneous speech. He had said these exact words many times before.
“Compare a dog and a cat. A dog will guard, hunt, turn a treadmill, and can be eaten. It is bred to labor, suffer and die. Meanwhile a cat is quite useless, and will only do what it wills. We accommodate ourselves to the cat, and claim that we keep it to hunt the vermin we attract. We claim the animal is making itself useful. It is doing no such thing. It never thinks of being useful. It is merely true to its nature.”
“So the true daoist is a useless lump, passively but contently drifting through the world, accepting what changes come, forgetting even a sense of self, until they eventually die unmourned. Is that your position?” Hong asked.
“Close enough. But what about you? Look at the Broadsky Kingdom. Founded on the highest principles, overseen by daoists steeped in “Compassion, Frugality, and Humility,” strenuously accumulating merit and gathering fortune. All while they scheme against one another, betray one another, sell one another, harm one another. Is it the dao? Or simply hypocrisy in daoist robes?”
Heartmend pointed at Cang Sen. “Would his life be better or worse if the Kingdom did not exist?”
“Would he even exist without the kingdom?” Hong countered.
“Would it be bad if he didn’t? He would be one with the dao, mindless, thoughtless, indifferent, and content.”
“Merit? Sin?” Tian asked.
“Unnatural things, they exist below the dao. They merely replicate the sages’ errors. A perversion of nature, and one that should be corrected.”
Tian snorted. The snort turned into a chuckle, which turned into an eye-watering laugh. His sides ached with laughter.
“Oh heavens, it’s the same old story! ‘Once upon a time everything was natural and perfect, but then we learned the wrong things and started suffering. The only way to fix it is education- unlearning the wrong things and learning the right ones.’ It’s Brother Wang and Sister Su all over again. ‘What a shame no one has managed a well run system in the last ten thousand years!’”
Tian wiped his eyes and took another look at Heartmend, who had his own small smile. “Except unlike my good brother and sister, you see a clear path to your desired future. Destroy the kingdom, kill the sages, forget virtue and compassion, reduce people to their most animal selves, and they will act naturally. You are the one who set up the Iron Hills Gang. Or you set up what is in their basement.”
“My dao path is not yet perfected, I still find myself being useful for others.” Heartmend shook his head slowly.
“And I suppose you have a collection of very basic cultivation methods with you. Blood baptism, burning alive, stealing fortune, those kinds of things. People can do what they like with them, it’s no business of yours.” Tian continued.
“Black Iron Gorge did hand me a good deal of useless paper. Sometimes I use them to wipe my ass, sometimes I hand them over to people who might make the world a more honest place.” Heartmend nodded again.
“Were you the one who put a bounty out on us?” Hong asked.
“There is a bounty on you? Nothing to do with me.” Heartmend shrugged. “Why would I trouble myself with your affairs?”
Tian shook his head. So many things suddenly clicked. Indifference to others and to yourself. It was beyond selfishness, it was a dao of oblivion. Much of it even echoed the practice of the Ancient Crane Mountain. Meditating until you lost your sense of self and united with the dao was considered a true peak of cultivation. Likewise, immortals generally took care to not be seen by, or interfere with, mortals. Indifferent to their blessings and sufferings. A rule that had only started breaking down in the last few years.
Actually… that wasn’t quite right, was it? It was more like things had only reached the point of being inescapably, obviously, in collapse in the last few years. All the things leading to this point had been going on for centuries. Millenia, even. All that accumulated merit and fortune had buffered it, for a time, but it couldn’t last forever.
Was the bandit strategist right? Was the turning point Empress Zhu? Was that the point when the Monastery just stopped caring? But why would Empress Zhu’s extermination of the rest of the royal family…
A letter suddenly came to mind. And it all clicked.
Tian looked over at Daoist Heartmend. “You have suffered.”
“I have. My mind was not properly trained then, of course.” The heretic nodded.
“The same could be said for those who made you suffer. They, too, presumably suffered.” Tian smiled a little.
“True. Quite true.”
“Hurt people hurt people, is that it?” Tian asked?
“Indeed. I see you understand me. I don’t think your sister does, but then, you were always the more indifferent of the two of you. Unburdened by many worldly ties and disdaining fetters, by all accounts. It’s why I categorized you as separate from Daoist Hong and Daoist Bonecaster. You simply do not care about what the mortal laws are, or what consequences might befall this man should he fail to abide by them.”
Tian stretched his back, then his waist. “That’s right. If they are throwing stones, he should move away or throw some back. Piss on any law that puts someone in a cangue!”
“Brother?” Hong asked, looking suddenly worried.
“His arguments are logical, assuming you agree with his premises. After a year debating policy on Windblown Manor, I can see how it hangs together. But like all those debates, it only holds up if you agree with the premise. He is arguing that the Dao is a vast indifference, not benevolent. He asserts that the Dao is a path without a purpose. Therefore a proper daoist is also indifferent, true to their nature before they were born. Our belief, that the dao is benevolent, is merely self destructive delusion, harming ourselves and others.”
Heartmend nodded along. “It’s why I chose the daoist title ‘Heartmend.’ I help people restore their natural virtue, healing the defects in their minds and restoring their dao hearts. Such is simply my nature, and my dao.”
“All very logical. Except for a few, minor, problems. First of which being that it assumes the Dao truly is indifferent, second that it is our nature as humans to be as inhuman, and inhumane, as the Dao, and the third is assuming that all pain is equally bad.” Tian tried to crack his knuckles, but nothing popped.
“I like being an orderly. Fighting against the cruelty of the world hurts, but doesn’t it make me happy to see my brothers living well? I’d rather work to improve an imperfect world than ignore it, or be ignored myself. I have had quite enough of being despised and ignored. And if that means I suffer, so what? It’s a kind of suffering I’m okay with enduring. Compassion for others and compassion for myself- That is my dao. So. Since your life is, as you say, in my hands, I am going to close my hands now.”
Tian strode over and brought his palm down towards Heartmend’s head. Heartmend slapped his hand aside and stepped back.
“Oh? It seems that you aren’t completely indifferent to life and death, Heretic Heartmend. Don’t you know that this is your opportunity? You could return to your pre-natal nature this very afternoon. Not interested? Come then. Let us debate the dao differently. Us lousy daoists will just have to sort out the truth with animal violence.”
Tian swung a heavy palm towards Heartmend’s head again, and with absolutely no warning, delivered a savage kick to his nuts.