Tian’s first move was the product of years of careful, expert training, built on top of a couple of months running through the jungle. It might, to the uneducated eye, have looked like wild flailing. Nevertheless, he was prepared to argue that it was really very tactical and sophisticated, especially since flaming monkeys jumping at your face with their enormous teeth and jagged claws and flames leaping off their white-gold fur merited the highest level of combat.
Tian slapped the beast clean out of the air, sending it flying towards a tree at speed. Light, very light. He probably hadn’t hit it hard enough-
The monkey hit the tree in a distressing spray of red and black. It seems he had, in fact, hit it hard enough. Little flickers of flame rose from the gory mess, making the whole thing smell infernal.
“I’d have sworn it was bigger. Maybe it shrank when I hit it?” Tian muttered. He could vividly remember the monkey being utterly monstrous in scale, a vision of simian hell coming screaming for his eyeballs, yet now it appeared no taller than his knee, and perhaps even shorter than that. There were grunts coming from the hole in the rock behind him. It seems the others found it a bit more of a squeeze than he did.
“Brother Tian, are you alright?” He heard Brother Wang yell, muffled by the rock. He was surprised that Wang was the first in after him.
“Fine, just surprised by a monkey.” Tian yelled back. It was the damnedest monkey he had ever seen. The long, white-gold fur and the reddish face were pretty similar to the grey-brown monkeys you saw everywhere, if maybe a bit more vivid. The fire, however, was pretty damn unique. As was the fact that there was just one of them. That wasn’t how he remembered them moving.
He quickly pulled his robes back on, and as he did, he had a look around. He was in a forest, but a forest of stone. The trees were smooth or rough, straight or twisted, just as the trees in a normal forest would be. Their leaves were smooth, or ribbed, rough edged or lobed, or long and narrow. But when the wind blew them, they clattered instead of rustling.
“Could that be jade? It couldn’t possibly be, right?” He murmured, looking at all the green.
“Eh? What’s jade? Wait, those leaves!” Brother Wang clawed his way through the gap in the rocks. He gave the deceased monkey a quick glance, before turning his whole attention to the trees.
“Jade?” Tian asked.
“No, I’m afraid not.” Brother Wang softly rubbed the leaves. “I’m not sure what it is, but I’m confident it’s not jade.” The big man took out a sharp metal stylus and gave the leaves a little scratch, then tapped them. They made a clattering noise, like pebbles thrown onto a tile roof. “Three easy ways to tell. One, hold it in your hand for a few minutes. It should heat very slowly. Jade absorbs heat much slower than, for example, glass. Next is to try to scratch it with a not-too-sharp bit of metal. It’s fairly hard, so it shouldn’t scratch easily. Though there are some jade-related stones that are softer, so it’s not a completely reliable method. Lastly, the sound. It should make a ringing noise when struck, not a clattering sound. These tests aren’t perfect, of course, but they are a good way to weed out the more common fakes.”
Wang gently tugged on one of the leaves, but it stayed attached to the tree. “The color and internal fibrous texture is right, though. That’s usually the hardest thing to fake. Kind of ironic.”
Tian cupped his hands and bowed. “I’ve learned something, thank you.”
“Oh none of that. Besides, you missed the most obvious clue of all.”
“Jade doesn’t grow on trees?”
“Correct. Oh, Sis’ Su, here, let me give you a hand up.” Brother Wang rushed over and helped Su to her feet.
Tian waited a moment longer, then reached his hand out for Hong. She gave him a puzzled look, but took it anyway. He noticed, with disapproval, that none of them had taken his advice and stripped down. Now they were all dusty.
“There was a monkey?” She asked.
“Was, yes. It was on fire, and attacked me. Not very dangerous, once I saw it coming. There is… one particular problem, however.” Tian slowly explained, reaching for the right words. “It was on fire, but clearly not hurting. On fire was normal for it. And that kind of monkey, when not on fire, usually lives in troops anywhere from twenty to two hundred.”
That quickly had everyone running their eyes over the tree tops. Tian didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean much.
“Shall we move along?” Hong asked, voice bright.
“Lets.” Su nodded firmly.
“No, hang on, where is the crane?” Tian asked.
There was an extended pause, while everyone looked up the tunnel again. There continued to be no crane.
“Sister Lin, could I trouble you?” Tian asked, cupping his hands. She sighed, and ducked back into the tunnel. A couple minutes later she was back with the oddest expression on her face.
“She can’t get in.”
“Pardon?” Hong asked.
She can’t. She just bounces off the stones. I get the impression she can’t really see the entrance either. The ward is keeping out both Heavenly People and, apparently, uninvited animals.” Lin looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It seems they are not qualified to be servants.”
What could they do, but press on?
The trees were moving sculptures ranging in height from twenty to eighty feet tall. The soft clattering of the leaves was gently soothing, if different from the wind through wood. The fragrance was different too. Dry and mineral, but subtly fresh, without the sweetness of a living forest or the richness of the fallen leaves. The ground was mostly bare dirt, or dotted with scrappy weeds. The forest smelled like wind over bare stone, Tian decided. He squatted down and scratched at the earth, sniffing it, then giving it a taste.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“It’s not proper dirt.”
“How can dirt not be proper?” Sister Lin asked.
“Dirt is alive. It’s made up of rotten stuff, leaves, plants, that kind of thing. This isn’t. This is closer to the sands in the wasteland.”
“So why eat the dirt?” Lin asked, head tilted slightly to the side.
“Some dirt can be used as medicine. It tastes different.” Tian had discovered that Gourmet wasn’t very useful once he shed his mortality and started cultivating, but he still practiced it. It took very little time, no effort, and you never knew when finding medicinal dirt would come in useful.
“Huh. Is there a way to tell other than taste?” Wang asked.
“Smell. It smells good. Delicious, actually, though that was mostly when I was very sick. These days it’s not as nice. I know that doesn’t really help you, but it’s true.” Tian stood and dusted his hands off. “The dirt not being real dirt makes sense, though. We are in a place where the normal rules to the world don’t seem to apply. Stone trees, monkeys that burn without being burnt. Who knows what it looked like before thousands and thousands of years of neglect?”
“I wondered about the fire fruit thing.” Liren smiled. “It makes more sense when you see there is a forest of stone trees. It also explains why there is still something resembling a trail.”
They followed the trail deeper into the woods. Tian found a grove of bamboo; stone, but still soft green and textured, each segment smooth between the rough walls. “We should see if we can transplant these. People would love to have them outside their cave mansions or even indoors. They don’t need sunlight, after all.” Lin murmured.
“The bamboo?” Tian asked.
“Upright, like a gentleman, very auspicious, yet eternal as jade, very suitable for a cultivator.” Lin smiled slightly.
“Huh. Now I want some.” Liren muttered, and everyone nodded with her.
They walked another fifteen minutes before they heard the sound of rushing water. There was a collective shrug, and they followed the trail towards the noise. It was, after all, supposed to be a trial of fire and water, and so far, there hadn't been much of either.
It wasn’t long until they reached the river bank.
“We… didn’t see any rivers as we flew in, did we?” Brother Wang asked.
“Not near here.” Sister Su’s eyes narrowed as she glared at the “river” in front of them. The river was a shimmering, flickering splendor, flowing between the sandy banks under the bright sky. The trees ended well back from the river. Tian would normally expect shrubs, but he understood the absence. A haze of poisonous fire qi shimmered over the water. Anything trying to grow in this environment had better really love fire. Plants, as a rule, did not.
Tian watched a spray of “water” go flying. His eyes weren’t as sharp as Liren’s, but they were pretty damn good.
“That was a fish. The water is just lots and lots of little fish.”
“Not a fish.” Liren shook her head.
“Sis, I may not be a fish expert, but I’m pretty confident about saying what is, and is not, a fish.”
“Confidence is a wonderful thing. Very yang, I love to see it.” She beamed. Then waited. Continuing to beam.
“Not a fish?”
“Not a fish, no.” She shook her head. “Snake. Tiny snake, one that looks like a minnow, but a snake. And it’s damn well full of fire qi. Which is unnatural as hell.”
Tian silently agreed with her. The “river” as a whole looked like, and was acting like, water in every conceivable way, except every part of it reeked of the most virulent, consuming, oppressive and toxic Yang Qi.
“Brother Tian, is this something that could help you heal your heart, or just supplement your yang qi?” Brother Wang asked.
“Kind of you to ask, but no. This whole thing is wildly poisonous, and while I don’t mind poison as a rule, I don’t think this particular sort would do me any favors. Sis’ Liren?”
“Same thing as you. I need yang qi of a sufficient density and purity, not just quantity. This is definitely not it. Does anyone think they could manage to catch one of the snakes? Just so we can examine it?”
Lin stepped forward and produced a fine mesh net from her storage ring. Tian barely had a chance to examine it before the net went in the water, and exited with a gleaming haul.
“Easy. Now-”
“Back, get back!” Tian yelled, then shot backwards, trying to put as much distance as he could between him and the river. Liren was right behind him, but the others were a step slower.
The fire poison convulsed over the river, then exploded. It was a soft, slow sort of explosion, rippling outward like thick ink dropped in water, transforming the shimmering air into the orange of a mushroom that would give you three days of suffering before death.
Sister Su and Brother Wang both employed light body techniques that seemed adequate, but Sister Lin was at the center of the blast. She had done something, leaping dozens of feet with a single explosive move, but she was still caught by the rolling edge of the cloud.
She hit the ground in a tumble of burning silk and the stench of cooking human flesh. Tian dove on her immediately, scissors called immediately to his hand as he cut away the burning fabric. This fire lingered, seething, like burrowing maggots digging for the marrow. It wasn’t going to go out easily. Tian didn’t bother experimenting, and simply removed the cloth.
What to do about the flames that had reached the skin of Lin’s calf was a harder question. He tried batting it out with a bit of thick cloth from his ring, but all he managed was to set the cloth on fire. Though the quantity of fire poison did decrease momentarily when he did so. It looked like the fire poison became self-sustaining by parasitizing what it had latched on to. His eyes narrowed, sorting through options as quickly as he could manage in the middle of an emergency. None of his options were good, but one was least bad.
He summoned a water barrel from his ring, ripped the top off it, and set Lin down into it in a spray of cool mountain water. The water convulsed for half a minute before turning still.
“Is it out?” Lin hissed. “It burns like hell!”
“It’s not out. It’s suppressed, but not out. It’s going to burst back into life the moment you leave the water. Do you have any way of refining it out or suppressing it?” Tian asked.
“No.” She bit off the words. Tian glanced around. Wang and Su shook their heads, while Liren gave him a cool look.
“Can your meridians handle it? Can your dantian?” She asked.
“They have never been better. My body has never been better. It’s just a little piece of my heart that’s not doing so well. That and… everything that comes with it.” Tian smiled a little. “Sis Su, with your permission I’m going to reach into the water and touch your leg where the fire poison is. Do I have your permission?”
He vividly remembered the blowup he had with Liren when he had healed her after the Black Acacia Heretic had nearly killed her. He had no intention of making the same mistake twice.
“Do it. Whatever it is you are going to do.” She hissed.
Tian reached down and activated the Demon pulling art. It was easy enough, the Fire Qi was nasty, and persistent, and filled with unnatural vigour, but it wasn’t complicated. All he had to do was drag it out of Lin, and into himself. Then, inside his yin chilled flesh, a poison fire burned.