Tian and Hong jumped down the mountainside, heading home. It was the logical consequence of location and intended occupants- The amount of vertical surface on a mountain would always exceed the horizontal space, so how do you manage housing? Easy. You just build your buildings to hang off cliff faces or steep slopes, excavating inwards if you wanted to expand.
Access was by the front door, usually several hundred, or thousand, feet in the air. The users, that is, the residents, could fly. They could all fly. At some point, somewhere, there might have been earth bound servants, but they would doubtless be stationed in shacks next to fields of medical herbs or some such similar thing. No, all the real housing was for those in the Heavenly Realm, and above.
All of which left the earthbound Earthly Realm cultivators involuntarily confined on the mountain in a bit of a tricky situation. While there technically wasn’t any shortage of available homes, there was a shortage of reachable homes.
The Monastery adopted a two-pronged approach to solving the problem. First, they built dormitories low on the mountain. Need a place? Enjoy a perfectly decent cell with a very decent dining room nearby. Want more privacy? There were plenty of caves, huts, cottages, and even mansions you could make use of, provided you could reach them. Just don’t pick one too far away, and take waiting for a lift from the Martial Aunts and Uncles on ferry duty, (the second prong), as an opportunity to cultivate patience.
Tian and Hong had found a cave they really liked, but they couldn’t be bothered to wait in a queue. Gravity was an utterly adequate replacement for a ferry, at least on the descent. Hong didn’t like the feeling of floating in space, but she still jumped, training her courage. They had added a wrinkle to their movement across the mountain with the assistance of the Snow Grace Crane. Sometimes, things would be a little too vertical even for them, or there wasn’t a good angle to leap from where they were to where they wanted to go. With the right timing, they could land, feather light, on the back of the crane, then use her to launch themselves to the next foothold.
It was a little more than exhilarating, but they kept doing it anyway. Somehow, they never felt quite right without pushing hard against their limits. It didn’t have to be every day, but they could recognize it in each other- the sense that things were too easy, and about to go very wrong.
Jumping over a five hundred foot drop to try and land on the back of a flying crane without knocking her out of the air and then leaping to a palm sized foothold on a sheer rock face was a sort of compromise. They weren’t seeking death. They were just, occasionally, deliberately death-adjacent.
Some days, it was the only way they could relax.
The two were taking a little breather on their drop home, enjoying the view from a ledge barely wider than their feet were long, when Martial Aunt Mei came up on a flying platform. “That never stops looking terrifying.”
Tian and Hong nodded. “You get used to it.” Tian said.
“I doubt that.”
“Yeah, he’s crazy. It’s absolutely terrifying. But what can you do about it?” Liren shrugged.
“Ask me for a lift? Speaking of, would you like one?” Tian and Hong shared a glance.
“Sure, thanks.” Tian smiled and cupped his hands, leaping on board with a casual step that had Mei flinching. She flinched again when Hong did the same, looking even more casual.
“I could have brought the platform closer!” The crane flew over and landed on the platform, looking around curiously. “Miss Crane, are you the only one with sense in this trio? Help your Auntie out. Explain to them that falling from a great height is a bad thing.” Mei batted her wide eyes at the crane. In reply, the crane ducked her beak under a wing and straightened some feathers.
“We were headed back home, if it’s not too far out of your way.” Hong smiled.
“Not at all. I came by because Big Bro wanted me to give you some things for your journey.”
“Please convey our thanks to the Patriarch of the Wang Clan.” Tian’s voice was dryer than dust. “By any chance, purely by coincidence, and in no way related to your visit, did he want us to bring him something back from our trip?”
Mei poked one of her cheeks with her finger and tilted her head to the side. Her eyes traveled upwards, as though the clouds had desperately needed notes written on them. Everything about her, from the pose to the innocently mindless look, screamed that Auntie Mei would have a hard time counting to “one,” and would find writing “one” utterly impossible. Tian and Hong struggled to control a twitch.
“Souvenirs. Big Bro said that you would definitely find stuff that nobody else would, and asked you to bring back souvenirs.” She nodded firmly. “He also said that, since you are old friends, he is willing to break into his personal savings to get you the very best price on anything you want to sell. There were tears in his eyes. It was suuuuper moving!”
That did get a twitch out of them. It was universally believed that, within the slimmed down Outer Court, the Wang Clan was by far the richest group. This was in part because of its size, and in part because Mei was at the Heavenly Realm, but it was overwhelmingly because the combination of Wang and Su meant extremely optimized production and sales for their family’s magic tools. Tools that they had a near monopoly on, thanks to the ‘clan’ including two extremely talented, extraordinarily well educated and remarkably hard working array masters.
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The Five Elements Courtyard’s loss was the Ancient Crane Monastery’s gain. Yet, despite all that, Fatty Wang always looked like the helpless victim of circumstances, struggling his utmost to keep his little family fed and housed. As he loudly put it “Just how many people are there to buy our wares, trapped on this mountain?”
Tian, as a committed devotee of the way of the Brokie, could only salute him and acknowledge that his brother’s skills exceeded his own.
“We will keep an eye out. Jades are at the top of the list, I assume?”
“Mmm! Little Tian understands us the best!” She nodded, managing to bounce cheerfully while sitting down. The platform didn’t wobble. One of the products the Wang Clan made was jade discs with stabilization arrays carved on them, for smoother rides in flying vehicles. Not cheap, but highly valued by many at the Heavenly Realm. Managing turbulence and maintaining stability on flying swords were notorious problems.
She set them down in front of their cave dwelling. Calling it a cave was a bit misleading. You entered through a triangular gap between some boulders, moving, slightly, into the side of the mountain. However, whether by natural erosion or some ancient senior’s whim, the thin roof of the cave was mostly worn through and open to the sky. Sunlight poured into the cavern for most of the day, making the place feel quite magical.
Some thoughtful person, or generations of people, had built a little house with a little garden. A thin stream, barely wider than Tian’s hand, rushed through the garden just thirty feet from the front door. The stream was enough to water a few plants, fill a tub (eventually) and to cook with. What their cave dwelling lacked in profound spirituality, it made up for in cozy practicality. Tian and Hong were very content with it.
“Give our best to Sister Su, Sister Ming and Brother Wang. Tell them to come around for tea once we are back.” Tian smiled. As exhausting as the Wang Clan could be, they were good people, and good company. Besides, they frequently turned up with rare teas and excellent snacks. If that didn’t justify having them over, what could?
“Speaking of Sister Ming, she is almost at the peak of Level Nine. Do you think that-” Mei’s voice turned serious, but was cut off by Tian shaking his head.
“You are a genius, with a profound insight into the Five Elements. My tea was uniquely useful to you. I am happy to keep serving her the best tea I can, but what she takes from it is entirely up to her.”
Mei, in a dubious proof of her alleged genius, stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, tilted her head to one side and rapped her head with her knuckles. “Silly me!”
“Sister Mei… it’s only us here. We know you. Respectfully, for the love of all that’s holy, can you knock it off?” Hong couldn’t take it any more.
“Hehe. Honestly? It’s not easy to switch on and off. You have to get your head in the right place, and it’s tiring to swap back and forth. I’m like this at home, too. It might seem strange, but it makes conversations easier. When your family consists of three wives and one husband, and a major cultivation imbalance, and two of us are a long, long way from everything we ever knew, making conversations easy is important. You wouldn’t believe how much effort we put into intentional communication. It’s one of Big Bro’s greatest strengths- when someone is talking, he really listens. And Sis Su always gives her full attention.” Mei started to fly off. “Good luck you two! Bring back lots of loot!”
The two watched her fly off, waving politely. When she was some distance away, Tian muttered, “I think I can commit to a lifetime of monogamy. I say that with the faith that my life will be measured in the thousands of years.”
“Agreed. Though, obviously, in my case it would be monoandry.” Hong turned and started walking into their cave.
“Isn’t it called monogamy for either gender?” Tian followed, taking a moment to fill a bucket from the stream.
“Probably. I just wanted to make it absolutely clear. Don’t want to get married, don’t want to marry another woman. I had a certain sister making discreet advances. Again. Despite being told. Again.”
The two shared a long suffering look, then sighed. Hong unwrapped the package from Mei. It was a matching pair of jade ear cuffs and matching jade protective amulets. The amulets weren’t heaven defying, but they would keep them comfortable camping in the wild.
“Are these their communication tools? Tian held up the ear cuffs with a whistle. “Brother Wang must be really hard up for supplies if he’s willing to gift us these. I think it’s the most expensive thing they sell.”
“I thought you and he were quite close?” Hong asked.
“We are. That’s why I said it. He is a good brother, but he believes in keeping very, very strict accounts. You should hear him go on about how debt is only acceptable if it is invested wisely.” He tried fixing one of the cuffs on his ear. It was surprisingly fiddly.
“Let me do that.” Hong plucked the cuff from his fingers and turned his head to the side. Her warm fingers quickly fixed it in place. “Pinching?”
“No, it feels a little odd to have something hanging on the edge of my ear, but I’ll adjust. I’ll do yours now.”
“Mmm.”
Tian picked up the jade cuff and carefully squeezed open the golden clip on the inside. He then slipped it over the edge of her ear, marveling again at the soft warmth of her skin.
“Do I feel cold?” He asked.
“A little cool, not cold. Like a pitcher of water that’s been sitting in the shade. Speaking of, I’ll run down to the garden and we can test the range on these.”
She rushed out of the house in a swirl of dust. Tian chuckled and started laying everything out for their trip. They would head out in two days, and expected to be gone for a month. Grotto exploration was frequently dangerous, and it wasn’t unheard of for people to be trapped inside for a long time. Just to be safe, they were packing six months worth of food and water.
“Everyone always looks at me funny when I pull out my string of storage rings, but they still turn up for dinner.” He sniffed.
“Most people value security. I know you value security. Just because it’s sometimes convenient doesn’t make it less funny.” Tian heard Hong’s voice whispering in his ear. He had the uncanny feeling that he could close his eyes and point straight at her. A useful feature of the cuffs he was unaware of.
“Security comes in a lot of shapes. Food security is high on that list. Grab some firewood and come on back. We have a lot to do.” Tian smiled, forgetting for a moment that Hong couldn’t see it. “I’ve been missing going on adventures with you. I can’t wait!”