The tea did, in fact, survive. Tian almost didn’t, as the crane limped her way over and glared at him intensely. It seemed that while she might not know what he was talking about, she knew he wasn’t talking about her. Hong had to intercede on his behalf, and he paid an enormous fine in fish and petting.
For most of the brief battle, Suneater had confined himself to brainpower attacks. Tian’s tea set had survived too, except for the murdered cup. His tea pets had come out the best of all of them. They were more lively after they had been fed the ancient’s tea. The phoenix looked glossy, almost ready to start preening. He was tempted to dump a few more servings on them, but… a tea session was a ritual. These things had their own meaning. Patience. There wasn’t any rush.
“He was qi starved. Did you notice he basically never moved and only used Qi when you really forced him? I think it was all locked up inside his bones, and was what was sustaining him.” Tian lay on the floor, looking up at the stalactites. He had an uncomfortable amount of experience with this exact situation, and had already slid a sturdy cushion under his head.
“Sounds right. What cracked him open? Heavenly Swallows?” Hong had her own cushion, of course, but Tian had made a point of fluffing it for her. Her arm had barely started healing. Completely unreasonable to expect her to fluff her own pillow when an expert was at hand.
“Yeah, I punched ‘em through the gap between two cervical vertebrae- those are the ones in the neck. Anyway, I figured that something was holding those bones together and while I probably couldn’t crack the bones directly, I could wedge them apart, maybe break whatever was holding them in place. I disguised the throw with the palm strike, obviously.”
“You attempted a decapitation with needles, and it worked. I’m going to lie and tell everyone qi was flying around the room and in an act of ironic fate, he knocked off a stalactite that wound up falling on him and killing him.” Hong shook her head.
Tian grunted. It had been Liren’s spear that had killed Suneater, turning him into a burning ghost trapped in a jade brazier. He could understand the urgent need to hide your treasures.
“Stalactite it is, then.”
They were lying side by side. They had nowhere to be, and both were used to patience. The crane wasn’t quite as badly hurt, but she wasn’t eager to go rushing around either. Tian could tell she was very disturbed. She chose to lay down next to them and sleep. Smart bird, Tian thought. Liren opened her mouth for a moment, then with a chuffing laugh, closed it again.
“Really? No questions about where the magic spear came from?”
“No.”
“Because it doesn’t matter. I’d tell you if it was important, or something easy to talk about, and since I haven’t, it’s clearly not that important.” She sounded like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Yes, exactly.” Tian nodded. “Besides, I use rope darts. A magic spear is an ‘Oh. Nice.’ for me. I’d probably give it away to someone better suited for it, if I had it.”
“Ahahaha.” She covered her eyes with her good arm. “Yeah. Yeah, you aren’t suited for this spear at all.”
Tian nodded. It was good she understood. They settled back into quiet. Eventually, Liren couldn’t keep still any longer.
“Want to check out the storage ring?”
“Sure. I’ll do it.”
“You are all banged up, I should do it.” Liren frowned.
“If it’s haunted or cursed or something, I’m going to be the one who can deal with it best. Hell, I’m hoping it’s cursed. I still need a replacement source for curse qi.”
Hong paused to digest that. “Have you ever thought our lives are strange?”
“No, not really. Individual things, sure, but our overall lives seem pretty normal for cultivators. Brother Wang got locked up for heresy and now he’s on the short list of ‘good’ cultivators, married to the second-best librarian in the sect and two wives he poached from the Five Elements Courtyard. THAT’S a strange life.”
“Oi! Second best?!” Liren spoke up for her sister.
“Sister Su informed me, in no uncertain terms, that the Chief Librarian from Depot Four is the best librarian in the sect. Since he got hauled onto the Mountain, his title still stands. Apparently.” Tian could only spread his hands helplessly as he gingerly made his way to Suneater’s remains.
“Well. Whatever that spear is or does, it seems to have knocked the yin right out of Suneater. There is still a good amount of yin qi in the extremities, but the chest and skull are actually pretty yang. Like they were just refined.”
“Didn’t know it could do that,” Hong shrugged. “But I can’t say I’m surprised either.”
Tian grunted and reached for the ring, starting to bend over. His ribs let him know just what they thought of that idea. He opted to kneel down instead. “I know we heal fast, comparatively, but I’d be interested in learning more healing arts. The Demon Pulling Art is good, but we break bones more than I’m comfortable with.”
“Who would be comfortable breaking bones?” Hong shot back. Then added. “You aren’t wrong though. Did you ask at the hospital?”
“Yeah, not much available in the Earthly Realm that’s worth the effort. Medicine, time, and mechanical repairs. Mechanical meaning-”
“Stiches and setting bones.” Hong nodded. “Acupuncture?”
“I’m still some ways away from that. According to the doctors, I’m still lacking in both knowledge and vital energy. I’m studying needle placement on wax dummies for now.”
Tian reached for the ring again, but didn’t touch it. He was trying to see if he could feel any active enchantments beyond the expected. He didn’t, nor did he find any curse qi. With quivering fingers, he gently pulled the ring free of the skeleton’s hand. It was ornate, heavy, and marked with the same eight sided sigil that was on the rock that had sealed the grotto. Tian let it rest on his hand for a moment, just feeling the weight of it, and waiting for it to do something nasty.
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It continued to be inert. He waited a little longer. Still nothing.
“It’s going to look amazing on the string with the others,” He muttered.
“I know I didn’t just hear what I thought I heard. You really-
“It’s a spare ring, Liren!”
“That’s Sister Liren to you! You have two hands, wear it on your other hand. Hell, you could wear a ring on each finger, if you didn’t mind looking like a cheap thug.”
Tian stroked his chin. “I do have two hands. Hmm.” He paused to consider his sartorial options.
“Zihao, if you don’t get that damned ring open right this instant-”
“That’s Big Bro Zihao to you!” Tian held the ring up and sent his awareness inside.
“Huh.” Tian grunted. “Would you believe he had less stuff than I do?”
“Yes. You are a pack rat. You are the only person I know who collects bits of straw in case they are useful some day.”
Tian raised a finger to rebut, but put it down again. It was quite true, after all. Besides, the straw had been useful. So he should be magnanimous, and move on. “No, I mean… way less than me. Incomprehensibly less.”
“It’s empty?!” Hong didn’t quite shriek.
“No, no, but it’s got… not enough. There is no food, for one thing, or water. There are a few jars of what I think are medicine, but they aren’t labeled so we will not be experimenting. There is a spare robe and what is pretty obviously a camp knife. Some manuals, a few… I think they are talismans, or some kind of magical devices, I’m not sure, and I’m not going to be testing them out, if they even still work. We’ll let the Wang Clan at ‘em when we get home. And a lot of stones. They look like different kinds of stones, but I couldn’t tell you what kinds, other than ‘not spirit stones.’ Which he doesn’t have any of either.”
“How much is a lot of ‘not spirit stones?’”
Tian looked into the storage ring again. Its interior space was ten times what the Ancient Crane Sect’s ring could hold, and the stones filled up a big piece of it. “More than I could count in a reasonable amount of time. Hundreds, at least. None of them, unfortunately, are gems or anything that looks valuable. Somehow, this guy is broker than I am.”
“Impossible.”
“It defines all logic, all human experience. And yet the truth is before me.” Tian nodded, his face creased with a frown.
“No more tea?”
“No, actually. He only had one tea cup too. They are usually sold as sets of three, and the fact that there is only one says quite a bit, doesn’t it? Though you can buy individual cups, I suppose. It’s a nice cup. Really nice, actually. As is his kettle and tea pot. No tea pet, though. No wok. No rations. No tent, or sleeping pad, blankets or lantern. No rope, or poles, or shovels. Not even a little trowel.”
Hong thought it over, then covered her eyes with her good hand. “He was planning to die or transform somehow. That’s why he was sealed up in here. Senior Brother Fu told us about this. It was his… I don’t know, terminal seclusion. What do you call that?”
“I didn’t know that was a thing until two weeks ago, so, no idea.” Tian shrugged. “So he sold off everything, bought the things he thought would help propel him through his final shot at whatever it was, and that was it. No personal mementos, no trophies, not even any… comfort items, I guess I’d call them. Just the cushion he’s sitting on and the tea set.”
“No wine?” Hong asked.
“No, though maybe some of the medicine is a narcotic.” They two shared a pointed look. It wasn’t common even amongst the people of the rivers and lakes, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
“Definately worth asking the doctors about, then.”
“Yep.”
“Sword?”
Tian lifted it off the ground, and immediately dropped it when his ribs started screaming. “Damn!”
“Cursed?” Hong tried to crane her neck around and take a better look at it. The blade was a dark grey, verging on black, while the handle was a rich bronze inlaid with softly glowing slivers of white gems and wrapped in leather so soft and warm, your hands instinctively wanted to hold it. It looked anything but cursed.
“I wish. No, it’s just heavy. Like trying to pick up a loaded cart.” Tian knelt down again, and touched the ring to the sword, returning it to where it had spent who knows how many thousands of years. “What do you want to bet that there is some specific art to using it?”
“Qi.” Liren guessed. “I’d bet it was his flying sword, and you need to manipulate it with qi.”
“Makes sense. Beautiful sword though.”
“Ain’t it just? I’m already seeing the bloody bidding wars by our seniors.” Liren grinned. Tian grinned back.
“The manuals… hmm. There are sort of a lot of them, at least compared to what I’m used to. I can barely manage the few arts I know now, and he was running around with a short stack of them. I guess we need to read them to know what they are about, but I have no desire to change my vital energy cultivation art.”
Tian eased his way back towards Liren and handed her a manual at random. It had a blue cover made of heavy paper, the inner pages going yellow. The book was bound with thread, punched all the way through to the back cover, and neatly tied together. It looked rather fine, he thought, and also eerily similar to how the Monastery bound books in the present era. He couldn’t read the script on the cover.
“I would change mine in a minute, if I could find one that was actually better suited for me.” Liren grumbled. “Can you read this?”
“Nope. You?”
Liren hesitated. “Not… really. I can read it a bit. Don’t the characters look a bit familiar to you?”
“Well. Kind of. Not really. It looks a bit like when some of the seniors practice their handwriting.”
“Caligraphy. I know you know the word calligraphy!”
“Practicing writing fancy is still practicing writing.” Tian spoke with the quiet certainty of one who has understood a fundamental truth of the world. “You think it’s related to that? Somehow?”
“Our current characters are based on older ones, I know that much. And I did learn some of those older ones here and there, mostly researching the spear. And ink making. Calligraphy is one of the four scholarly arts. It comes up a lot in books on ink making.”
Tian nodded, glad her new hobbies were keeping Liren cheerful. He pulled out another one of the arts. He couldn’t read it either, but he could look at the pictures just fine.
“Looks like a refining or crafting manual.” Tian grumbled. “No use to us.”
“I’m not so sure.” Liren propped herself up on her good arm and took a closer look. She waved at the book she had been reading, laid flat on the ground. “Look at this. I’m pretty sure it’s a body cultivation art.”
“Neat. So what makes it special compared to all the other body cultivation arts in the scripture pavilion?”
“I don’t know, but it does take a lot of refined materials, if I’m reading this right.”
“Now that could be very good.” Tian grinned, and handed over the refining manual. He pulled out another manual.
“Ah… Sis? Does this say what I think it says?”
“How should I know?” Liren grumbled. “What do you think it says?”
“Well, that kind of looks like the character for sun, and that sort of looks like qi, and I don’t know the rest of the characters, but there is a circulation diagram and I’d say it’s a genuine article, Eight Directions Palace True Disciple grade Yang Qi cultivation method.”
He grinned over at her. “Looks like we won’t be relying on the malachite to make this trip worthwhile.”