“What if… What if…” The thoughts spun and spun in Tian’s mind. He knew he couldn’t wait forever- the time left was dripping from the veins of the hanging man in thin streams. Wang wasn’t known as the bloody cleaver for no reason. The cuts were exquisitely made, ensuring that the blood and spinal fluid would seep out at a steady, but inescapably terminal, pace. Tian thought the hanging man was likely already dead.
So. One less person to worry about.
Was he just overthinking this? No, it involved his life. He should be cautious. And speaking of life- murderous intent. If it did what it said, then if Tian wasn’t trying to kill, or even hurt, Wang, the ambush should be much harder to spot, right? Everybody was frustratingly vague when they used the term.
He reckoned he could take Wang, but he didn’t want to try it if there was a hornet’s nest ambushing him from behind. So he needed to get that whistle out of the picture. And the whistle was just a bit of bone. He didn’t want to do anything to Wang. He just wanted to get rid of a bit of bone. Lots and lots of bones around, knocking another one onto the floor surely wasn’t a problem.
Tian had a stealthy look around for a rock. There were surprisingly few options, and the one he found was heavier than he wanted. The rock was long, lumpy and about the size of his foot. Tian didn’t know the word “aerodynamic” but he was quite certain this thing wouldn’t fly very well. On the other hand, it was available, which made it the best rock.
Tie a hornet corpse to it? No, that would be a step too far and dangerous to boot. He might sting himself. He was overthinking. Tian crept as close as he could. He wrapped what fingers he had around the rock and firmed his grip as best he could. He leaned back, then whipped his whole body around as though he were launching his rope dart.
For all that he despised rock throwers, throwing things was always a useful hunting method. His aim, at this range, was quite decent. It helped that the rock was bigger than Wang’s mouth. The brutal man barely got his eyes open before the whistle, and many of his teeth, were smashed directly into his throat.
Tian chased after the rock as fast as he could. He whipped the dart over his head and smashed it down as soon as he got in range. Bloody Cleaver Wang was aptly named, however. Even with a mouth full of broken teeth, he dodged to the side and yanked out a cleaver from the sash around his waist.
“I can hear him breathe. He is wheezing and choking, but I’d swear I was still hearing a faint whistling too,” Tian thought.
Tian flicked the rope up, then stepped on it. The dart had been rising gently now whipped up and to the side as the momentum was forced to change. Wang managed to get his cleaver up and chopped the dart to the side. His eyes focused on Tian. Narrow eyes, Tian noticed, and bloodshot. He tried to snarl something, but it came out as a wheeze and a tumble of bloody teeth.
Wang was adaptable. He expressed himself through the language of violence. He rushed Tian, slicing the cleaver wildly as he came. Tian skipped back, hooked his elbow under the rope and twisted his waist, yanking the dart back with brutal momentum.
Wang wasn’t a rookie, and the pain was only making him fight nastier. Instead of jumping to the side, he took a sharp step forward at an angle, closing the distance. There wasn’t a line of attack for Tian to counter with. The rope dart simply couldn’t be redirected fast enough. The heretic, on the other hand, had a clean shot.
Wang chopped out with his cleaver, like a beast trying to drag a long claw through Tian’s throat. It might have caught him, but something twisted in the man’s arm, a visible knot of muscle that slowed the cut a fraction. Qi deviation? Tian didn’t know. He just capitalized on it.
Tian hopped forward, just like in the old jumping games. The rope wrapped around him like a coiling snake as the dart went past, then with a shimmy of his shoulders and a roll of his hips, it struck like a viper at the older man. Wang hacked at the incoming dart again, but this time, Tian wasn’t going for the quick-kill. He gave the rope a little flick and watched the head snake around Wang’s arm.
Wang gave him a bloody, toothless grin. Then yanked the rope back as he stomped out a heavy kick. Tian tried to use his smaller side to slide under it, but the older man smoothly switched into a heel drop, looking to crack the boy’s skull open like a coconut. Tian got most of his head out of the way, but the heel dragged along the side of his face, scraping a bloody trail down to his neck before landing on his collarbone with a vicious crack!
Tian’s face went white. He had been in a lot of pain in his life, but the last year had been a peaceful dream. That crack of bonewoke him up. Wang grinned, the blood drooling over his chest. He raised his cleaver.
Tian raised his hand too. He couldn’t get any weight behind the blow, but then, palm arts never were about muscle. His vital energy penetrated up and through some particularly fragile flesh between the heretic’s legs. “Rupture” was another word that Tian didn’t know. He just thought that, based on what he was feeling, everything his palm covered was a bloody pulp.
Tian never forgot that keening whistle. A sound of pain, incomprehension, and the desperate frustration of not being able to express the soul-deep suffering. The cleaver clattered to the ground. Tian wasn’t polite. He scooped it up, spun, hopped up high enough to have a good angle, and hacked the back of Wang’s neck open. The head flopped forward, attached by the throat and veins at the front of the neck. The muscles contracting and spasming, making the collapsing Wang look like he was readying himself for prayer.
Perhaps he was.
Tian stood over Bloody Cleaver Wang until his heart stopped. Tian knew exactly when it was. He could watch the veins and arteries flex with each weakening pulse. When Wang was all the way dead, he hacked off the head and tied the long hair to his belt. He looked above the door. A Hornet’s nest as big as he was. He didn’t know how long he had before they started to get active.
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Tian, mindful of the repeated advice from both Grandpa and his senior brothers, quickly checked Wang for any storage devices. No such luck. Just an ordinary pouch with four spirit stones and a few odds and ends. Mostly odds- bits of bone with dense writing, vials of some sticky, nearly black liquid, bits of broken silver. He quickly searched the rest of Wang’s possessions, and found only a change of clothes. Nothing worth saving. Not even a bar of soap.
He zipped over to the cages, and checked them for traps. Nothing, but the people inside had dead eyes. Whatever human spark was supposed to be in them was gone. Like all thought had been beaten out of them. Tian shook his head. They would move, or they would die when the hornets started moving. Which, with his luck, would be any second now.
Tian yanked them out of their cages, shocked at how easy he could haul around the much larger, heavier peasants. Cultivation had done a lot for his strength. He hadn't really noticed around all the senior brothers.
The peasants seemed numb- Tian had never seen anyone so… he didn’t have the words for this either. Even animals were more alert than this. Animals would see the bodies, smell the blood. They would be hungry or scared or angry. These peasants just stood there.
Tian started shoving them towards the exit. He didn’t want to yell, just in case that was the final thing that set off the hornets. The peasants would only take one or two steps, then stop. Eventually, he used his rope dart to tie them together and simply yanked them towards the door. It worked well enough- they shambled for the exit. Painfully slowly, but they went.
He was met outside by Brother Su standing next to a shallow pit. It wasn’t long enough for an adult body.
“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure what you would choose in the end. And you even got everyone out. Not a single casualty. Very well done. How’s your collar bone?”
“Broken, Senior Brother.” Tian was quite still. He knew he couldn’t beat Brother Su in a fight, but he’d try if he had to.
“I know that. I mean the pain.”
“I’ve been hurt worse, Senior Brother.”
“That’s a shame.” Brother Su smiled. Tian felt a flutter of icy fingers run up his spine. It was Brother Su’s normal smile. His eyes crinkled, his cheeks pulled back- it looked completely sincere. Tian didn’t trust it. “Kids shouldn’t know that kind of pain.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Brother Su.”
“I know. We all know. You hide it, most of the time, but we can all see it plain as day.”
“Brother Su?” Tian’s voice was quite soft, and his knuckles white on the rope.
“I’m quite glad I won’t have to fill the grave, of course.”
“Senior Brother, I really don’t understand.”
“You are a feral wildling. You grew up with only the barest interaction with adults, and the people you did have contact with were… not good role models. You were beaten and hurt by the ordinary people you did meet. You are vindictive, but patient. You aren’t a genius, but you enjoy training. You study everything you are given seriously, but generally mimic behavior without understanding it.” Brother Su’s smile never shifted. “You are a nightmare in the making. But you still have your human heart. There is reason to hope.”
Tian just waited.
“See- it’s that shit. You decided that either I was going to explain everything and we would all go home, or I would try to kill you and you would do your best to wound me and escape. You already decided that you can’t kill me or outrun me, so you figured that would be your best option if this went violent.”
Tian’s eyes widened slightly, but he stayed silent. He might need every breath in a moment.
“This? The grave, this conversation? Have you ever thought about why Ancient Crane Monastery calls themselves members of the righteous faction? I’ll give you a clue- It’s also why your senior brothers don’t turn into people like Bloody Cleaver Wang.”
Tian was thinking very quickly. Brother Su continued.
“We take responsibility for each other. Part of that responsibility is educating our juniors and ourselves. We, most particularly, study moral education and the law. It’s quite simple. As you get older and more powerful, you lose empathy. And at the end of that road lies demons in human skin.” Su’s smile had more than a hint of the infernal to it, Tian thought. Not that he would know.
“So we cultivate rules that don’t rely on our remembering to be empathetic, and we cultivate hearts that nurture what empathy we do have. Most people don’t start from quite as low a point as you, obviously, but everyone gets ‘it.’ That spark of human caring. And if they don’t get ‘it?’ Well. Then their brothers and sisters have an obligation. They made the monster strong. Now they have to slay it. That’s the law. And that law means, as a practical matter, killing you if you can’t learn to be a decent human being.”
“Have I?”
“Have I learned to be a decent human being Senior Brother.”
“Have I learned to be a decent human being Senior Brother?”
“Absolutely not.” Senior Brother Su’s smile shifted a little, and Tian thought there was a hint of laughter in it. “But something in you gets ‘it.’ You saved everyone, even though running away or triggering the hornet’s nest would have been, arguably, a safer course for you. Though I must inform you that no, you would not have outrun the hornets, and yes, I would have let you die in agony as their venom melted your flesh from your bones. Hence the grave.”
Tian went still again.
“You saved the people, even though it wasn’t the job. It’s the job before the job. A heretical cultivator puts the whole world on an altar to their ambition and SETS THAT FUCKER ON FIRE AS A SACRIFICE TO THEIR OWN ETERNAL GLORY!” Su roared. “DO YOU KNOW WHY THERE STILL IS A WORLD? MORAL EDUCATION AND THE LAW!”
The old man, who looked no more than forty, suddenly calmed down and laughed quietly.
“And you can’t teach that to someone who can’t comprehend the idea of risking themselves for a stranger. Who has no instinct whatsoever for empathy. There was a real question about whether you were a high functioning psychopath or something. But you aren’t. So we don’t have to make any really ugly decisions. Which makes us all happy.”
“This was a test, Senior Brother Su?”
“Your whole life is a test. It was yesterday, it is today, and will be again tomorrow. The good news is that if you fail, you can come back in a few years and try again in a new life. That’s what living as a cultivator is, Brother. Endless challenges, endlessly overcome. The first and greatest of which is yourself. I think you are going to thrive.”