Tian felt his bones go soft. He collapsed to the ground, barely managing to cross his legs under him. His cultivation arts roared into action, Advent of Spring rejoicing in all the water aspected qi available, and the Hell Suppressing Sutra was even happier with the presence of both yin and yang qi. He cupped the thousand layer ice in his hands and let his body slowly absorb it. The instructions provided by the hospital, the repeated instructions to bring the treasures home- all forgotten in this blazing moment. Everything just flowed, and Tian flowed with it.
Liren didn’t seem to be in a much better state than he was. He saw her collapse into a sloppy meditation pose on the ground.
“I will have to scold her for a lack of propriety and decorum later.” The thought was faint and fleeting. He had far more urgent things to manage.
The Heartsear fruit was aptly named. The flesh was rich with juice and seemed to pour down his throat, filling his belly, then quickly spreading through his six bowels and five viscera. His small intestine and heart resonated, a bridge of fiery qi forming between them. The fire qi should have ignited the wood vital energy within him, but between the ice and the Hell Suppressing Sutra, there wasn’t any of that sort of nonsense. The energies combined in a steady vortex, spinning through his body, healing, perfecting and refining him.
There was one noticeable defect, a tiny spot on his heart. So small, you couldn’t even see it. But it was broken, and because of that, the connection to the middle dantian was damaged. And that was far from perfect.
The energies flowed into his heart, each with their own strange charm. The ice brought stability and deep nourishment, while the heartsear fruit brought passion and vitality. The defect was healed, the middle dantian was fully connected- and the dragon spirit finally made its appearance.
It hadn’t been lost. It had merely been dormant. Now it was crying, a dragon’s howl shuddering the Crimson Palace and echoing through his meridians. A declaration of unquestionable supremacy, of furious pride and carefree joy. A dragon soared through the sky, and the clouds and rains came with his call. This was the first lightning of spring, a wood dragon, purest yang, in the most yang spot in the body.
The sheer power of the qi slammed into his meridians. It filled his lower dantian to overflowing, pouring into his muscles, racing through the Hell Suppressing Sutra. His bones, already stronger and glossier than most, now took on a distinct luster. His muscles condensed, grew, and condensed again, hard as marble under skin softer than moonlight. His tendons strengthened and grew more elastic. His lungs swallowed air like a whale, and each exhale was like an arrow shooting down the sun.
His blood changed with him, becoming heavier, flowing like mercury, a vibrant purple flecked with gold. Each drop seemed to hold explosive strength and dreadful endurance. His heart beat with a slow, steady thunder, each beat driving the heavy blood through his refined muscle and bone, perfusing him with vitality. His milk-white skin flushed, blushed, like a plum blossom on a snowy tree. Then the color faded, leaving jade luster behind. Skin so soft, it looked like water would drip if you squeezed it, yet strong enough to be impervious to mortal steel.
His eyes brightened and sharpened, his teeth strengthened, his hearing grew more delicate, all his senses became more acute. His foundation deepened, becoming immeasurable. Even his crane-white hair lengthened, cascading down to the ground. Fluttering in a breeze only he could feel.
He heard a tiger roar in front of him. Some instinct telling him that he was complete, but not perfect. What he needed to be perfect was just in front of him. All he had to do was reach out his hands. Tian stretched his hands out, and Liren grabbed them. Like being grabbed by a blazing fire. He could see a star being born within her, a new sun forming. The yin qi stabilized her body and deepened her foundations even as the overwhelming yang reignited her stalled body cultivation. She wasn’t perfect either.
Not alone.
The two joined hands and the Hell Suppressing Sutra once again reached that mysterious pinnacle. Vital energy and qi circulated between the two young heroes. Microscopic imbalances and imperfections were corrected. Old broken bones were perfectly mended, then even the fused bone was smoothed into new strength. Any obstruction, any restriction, was cleared away. All impurity was incinerated and reformed into nourishment.
Were Little Treasure there, he would have seen a circling fate dragon, roaring and cheering the two on, the merit in them blazing like the sun at dawn.
Tian fell into a strange dreaming state.
He was a child again, watching a rich man beat a horse until it screamed.
“You want me to join that. To be part of that. Grandpa, there is no way.”
You don’t have many alternatives.
“Don’t I? Beasts can cultivate. I’ll cultivate like them.”
That’s possible. I think you will regret it, though.
“Living as a beast or as a human, who would pick human? They are animals that cause pain. The fact that they have fancy things doesn’t change that.”
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And live like a beast he did, retreating into the jungle. He lived as a beast and thought as a beast, eating strong creatures and natural treasures, moving on instinct and desire. In time, he became strong. In yet more time, he became very strong. At a certain point, looking more monster than man, he ascended to the Heavenly Realm. Even the goal of killing the mad god had retreated to a vague memory, a distant call to vengeance for the remembered suffering of his childhood. Periodically, cultivators would come and try to hunt him down. They didn’t succeed, until one day they did. He was besieged and killed. He didn’t recognize the uniforms, and truly, did it even matter?
He was strong, but it was a meaningless life.
Another dream. He was a child again, picking through the trash. A frozen hand plucked him up by the neck.
“Oh? I thought you were a little gremlin. Technically, I suppose you are a boy.” The woman who grabbed him didn’t look to be in much better condition than he was. Half her body was covered in pestilence, the other half withered.
“I am-”
“You are a test animal. That is all. And I have never cared to hear my experimental materials speak.” A needle was jabbed into his throat, sealing his voice.
He didn’t know what Hell was, at that age. If he had, he might have thought he had fallen into it without realizing. Year after year of horror. Then grandpa woke up, and whispered a little trick in Tian’s ear. The poisons flowing into his body were refined and condensed, stored in the saliva glands under his tongue. When his tormentor came and checked on him next, he spat a decade of suffering directly into her eyes. The screaming was truly heartwarming. It went on for hours, before she eventually died.
The lab was full of reagents and experimental records. More than enough to reforge a poison soaked body. In time, word of a poison master started spreading amongst the heretics. Eventually, he was recruited as a mercenary by Black Iron Gorge. He had a knack for surviving amongst monsters. He thrived, ascended, became a person of significance. The number of blue robes he left bloody in the red sands… he never bothered counting. There was only risk and reward, benefits and obligations.
Eventually he died. He outlived Black Iron Gorge, though. Lived for thousands of years. It seemed he had a knack for survival at all costs. Part of that knack was making sure others paid the price for him.
Another meaningless life. He left the world worse than he found it, and in the end, dead was dead.
He was in the Temple, and Brother Meng took him aside and showed him that weapons break, but a boxer forges an unbreakable spirit. The true path to the heavens was with bare knuckles and a bright heart.
He was in the Temple, enchanted by Brother Tang’s swordplay, the romance of the lone swordsman rooting in his soul.
He was sitting under the parasol trees by the little pond in Brother Fu’s courtyard, wanting to master long knives like the old man who had come to mean so much to him.
He was in the hospital, swearing he would dedicate his life to medicine, and nothing else.
He was in Burning Flag City, looking up at the sky, seeing the Manor in his heart, and realizing that there was just nothing there. Liren was important to him, and the others seemed like decent people, but so what? Did he really think he would learn or do anything that mattered, hiding away up there? Better to be a little tea venerable. So he went deeper into the city, found a caravan, and without a backward glance, vanished into the Broadsky Kingdom. Elder Feng let him go. What was there to say?
He knew he was dreaming, as he watched life after life speed past. There were a few major points where things could diverge wildly, but he tended to fall into similar tracks, meeting many of the same people.
What made his neck flush were the lives he fell into debauchery. He learned to love luxury. He appreciated wine, then delighted in drunkenness. He boasted that he was a wine immortal. He boasted that only the Dragon King of the Southern Ocean had more coral and pearls than him. He flaunted his concubines and slaves, and they were so, so many. Beauties, all of them. They sighed so sweetly and cried so tenderly under him. They clung to him so tightly. And he was happy.
That was the dreadful truth- he fell into debauchery, and he was happy. The happiness never lasted, how could it? But he was happy for a time, and then there was death or disaster or merely passing storms before the sun shone on his blessed life again. More meaningless lives, but merry ones. He never grew powerful, not truly, but was it a life better or worse spent than the life of a beast in the jungle or a poison god amongst the heretics?
In some of those lives, he became entangled with Liren. Friends, enemies, lovers, nodding acquaintances, old comrades. Sometimes he took vengeance for the Xia. Mostly he didn’t. Liren never stayed in his life forever. Either he left, or she did. In every life he saw, they were anything but dao companions.
It was only a dream. It was only as good as his understanding of people and the world and himself. But he was an honest sort of child. His dream was as true as he could make it. There were a thousand paths he could have walked, and a thousand more he could walk from here, and each day more and more paths would open before him. In all of them, he was born, lived a while, and then he died. Soon enough, the tiny ripples of his life vanished into the flow of time, and the world turned on, unchanged.
If that was so, then what made him happiest? What let him go the furthest, see the most, do the most, fly the highest? Where did he see his path to eternity, to making lasting changes in the world? Was there no road that led to him killing the mad god?
There wasn’t. The mad god surely wouldn’t leave any latent dangers for himself. All roads leading to him had long since been broken.
Dreaming or not, Tian knew he was teetering on the edge of a life defining choice. He could choose any path at all, the future wasn’t fixed. There were endless ways to live, and to live well. Regardless of what he chose, like all under heaven, he would live a while, and then die.
He felt the fire blazing in his heart, felt the joyful dragon swimming through the crimson palace and cherishing the little lamp he had hung there, a light of human compassion that had brought in so many people and so much meaning to his life.
The mad god had broken all the paths to him? Fine. The heavens decreed he would never find a dao companion? Fine.
Since when did he give a damn what the heavens decreed? The heavens had decreed his death, and he had lived. Despite everything, he had lived! He had found paths where none existed and lived and found happiness despite the pain and if there was no path to eternity without Liren, then surely there must be one with her.
Under the blazing plum tree, the two young immortals blazed gold.