Tian wasn’t sure how he felt after his first day of tutoring. Cranky, probably. It had certainly been educational, but being repeatedly poisoned was stressful. Nourishing. Very nourishing. He could feel the increase in vital energy seeping through his body. But unquestionably stressful.
It was interesting to see how the energy… he had to work to find a different word than “infiltrated.” How his body digested the grasses and turned that plant matter into streams of medicine, and how that medicine was endured by his body. He was used to seeing things as elemental streams, flowing from one place to another. Watching how those elements operated in the body was pretty interesting.
He could see what Voidcatcher was getting at, and why he considered this building a foundation in herbal medicine. It was one thing to know a plant was medicinal, another to know its elemental properties, but a third thing entirely to see how those medicinal properties interacted with the organs. He was inducing elemental imbalances within himself, and observing their progress. He really would have an excellent foundation in diagnosis after a while.
Tian had known, since he first started studying medicine with Brother Wong, that the elements were impossible to separate from both medicine and the human body. Both because everything was made up of the five elements, but also that the organs in a person’s body were elementally aligned. It was as close to an explanation as he had heard for why medicine worked. Your organs were unbalanced. Better drink some tea about it.
Why some medicines worked on some diseases but not others, despite having similar elemental matchups, still hadn’t been adequately explained to him. He had the sneaking suspicion that his teachers didn’t know either. There was a very great deal of medicine that seemed to operate on the theory that someone’s teacher had tried it and it worked for them so it would probably work for you. Beyond that? The theory of elements, yin and yang, and the intercession of your ancestors.
If even that failed, well, such is life. Hope you were good, better luck next life, remember to tip the Black and White Impermanences, they are public officials and underpaid.
The thought snagged his attention. On the one hand, as a proud member of the Brotherhood of Empty Pockets, he was against bribery. On the other hand, if he was remembering correctly, the Impermanences didn’t want paying in actual legal tender. There was paper Hell Money that got burnt, as well as incense and other offerings. He knew they worked at earning the favor of ghostly beings, because he had helped make Ghost King Zhong. Well, Zhong was already a meritorious ghost, a real pillar of the post-mortal community, but he helped pave the way for his elevation. He and Liren had worked on Senior Zhong’s sword together.
A smile crept across Tian’s face, as the idea took hold. Incense and offerings, shrines and talismans were all things that did cost money, yes, but were also things he could make. He wasn’t any sort of craftsman, but so what? If random peasants could make offerings, why not him? And since the offerings worked, why wouldn’t he incorporate them into his medical practice?
Why not make a project of it? Immortals loved working on projects. And what sort of project would it be if he didn’t invite Liren to make it with him?
That evening was awkward. Tian pulled the water up from the well, and it was indeed very heavy. He suspected the qi in it was dense enough to qualify as a Heavenly Realm water. Perhaps that was why it was so heavy- the exaggerated yin qi of the water was pulling down as he was pulling up. Still, it steamed the vegetables well enough, and the rice tasted very nice, even if it took an unreasonable amount of charcoal to bring the water up to a boil.
Liren helped with the chopping, though she still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Did you happen to ask what sort of beast your teacher is?” Tian asked.
“He told me first thing. A Xiezhi, apparently. Not a popular species, according to him. They tend to keep to themselves, unless they have made arrangements with a local hegemon. They are referred to as auspicious beasts, as the consequences of not being auspicious are very bad. For other people.”
“Oh?”
“En.” Liren looked like she wanted to fall back into silence, but Tian’s eyes pushed her to keep talking. “They are extremely sensitive to lies and injustices. To the level that it is impossible to deceive them. That’s before they start cultivating. As they advance in strength, their abilities become more comprehensive and subtle.”
“I can see why that would make them unpopular with humans, but why don’t other animals like them?”
“Because, despite those teeth and claws, Xiezhi are territorial herbivores. Ones that feel the best defense is a good offence. They tend to gore anything they feel is a threat. Then rip apart what they gored. Then trample it. Then tear the big pieces into little pieces. Just to be sure.”
“Ah. That… might do it.”
“And lies trigger the same instinct in them. So.” Liren’s lips twitched into the start of a grin before settling back. “Magistrates and lords tend to love them, though the lords try to keep them far, far from court.”
“Huh. What an interesting being.”
“Yeah.”
Silence settled down again. Liren shifted a bit.
“He can sense self deception, huh?”
“Yeah.” Liren buried her face in her hands. “And I know it’s all crap and I know it’s an attack on my dao heart, and the point was to see if I would crack. I managed to hold it together enough to pass, I guess, or maybe Teacher Merciless wanted someone who had my kind of damage. But I just can’t shake the illusion.”
“Because it felt plausible.” Tian concluded the thought, as he lifted the lid on the steamer basket.
“Yeah.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Well. We have time. And a new project.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow in the direction of the rice pot, which was at least in the general direction of Tian.
“I want to make bribing ghosts part of my medical practice.”
“Better go call your teacher, your brain is poisoned. Possibly has worms. Tian Zihao the point of medicine is less ghosts not more!”
Tian quickly felt the project was a massive success, even if they didn’t have so much as a plan by the time they turned in for bed.
The morning started with a sudden spike of alarm. “Liren! You completely forgot my birthday!”
“How can I forget your birthday when you don’t know when it is?”
“Nonsense! You are the only one who knows, because it’s a week before you were hatched. Or born. Whichever.”
“I want no guff from the person whose only unit of time is ‘Rainy Season’ and ‘Not Rainy Season.’ And who says I forgot it? We have been slightly busy.”
“Slander. I am keenly aware of both night and day. Besides, that’s all completely irrelevant to your forgetting. I have been working hard on your present, I will have you know.”
“Oh boy, two whole rats all for my very own?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, do you think I can afford two rats?” Tian was severe.
“I can wait.”
“You mean-”
“I don’t. Here. You… damned fool. Happy birthday. May your fortune be as vast as the Eastern Sea, and your life longer than the Southern Mountain.” Her voice cracked at the end.
She shoved a scroll bound in red paper into his hands and raced to the edge of the garden around the residence. She hopped, then rose into the air. Tian struggled to see how she was flying. Liren was clearly struggling to keep her balance so she was standing on something, but what, he couldn’t tell.
He looked down at the scroll. The paper was clearly bought for wrapping, bright red, edged with gold and tied around the scroll with golden string. He carefully untied everything and stowed it away neatly. Such things must be hard to come by, these days. He would consider them part of the present as well.
Tian gently unfurled the scroll. Liren wasn’t a very good painter, in much the same way Tian wasn’t a very good musician. It wasn’t a trade they were trying to earn from, but a way for them to express their hearts when words weren’t enough.
The painting was of Tian in a peasant’s blue linens, sitting… somewhere. If he had to guess, it was a garden, but it could have been a forest clearing. There was bamboo growing around him, shading him as he sat behind his little table. There were cups stacked up, a waiting teapot, and a kettle on a little stove next to him. Cushions were scattered around. He was expecting company, but no one was there. His white hair fell down his back, long and free, as he looked up and admired the clouds.
At the very edge of the picture, peeking around a clump of bamboo was a tall woman wearing a broad straw hat. Her face was hidden, you could only see her back and even the hands gripping the bamboo were covered with gloves.
He stared at the picture for a long time before a shudder ran through his body and he started rolling it up. His fingers were careful, steady and gentle. It was a very precious gift, after all.
“She must have painted it before we came. Oh Liren…”
He tossed out the enchanted leaf. It grew to the size of a table, and waited for him to step onboard. Tian was a bit leery of the thing, but he didn’t have any alternative so on he went.
The Holy Land was a bit difficult to describe, in large part because the beings on the ground valued their privacy. The trees and grasses looked faintly blurred, or were covered in illusion arrays. It was beautiful, he was confident in saying that much. The trees were ancient and mighty, the flowers bloomed joyfully, everything was colorful. It was just, if you pinned him down on the specifics, he would have a quite hard time telling you which tree was mighty, and where he saw the beautiful flowers bloom.
Voidcatcher’s cultivation ground was an exception. The pond looked rather small from so high up. It seemed much bigger on the ground. He had flown on the back of Burning Heaven often enough to know it was a trick of his eyes, but it somehow felt poignant.
A pond of water so qi-dense it reached the Heavenly Realm or higher, small enough for him to scoop up in a single hand. Just because he was looking at it from a higher place. The pond hadn’t changed, but he had. That, too, was probably one reason the Heavenly Realm cultivators adventured as much as they could. All the old familiar places must seem so small, making the memories bittersweet.
Well. He was still a little ways from all that.
The leaf drifted down, depositing him next to the giant toad. Tian bowed respectfully to his teacher and stowed the leaf. “Tian Zihao greets Teacher, and hopes his rest was dreamless and peaceful.”
“Peaceful enough. Ready to make your first batch of medicine tea?”
“Yes, Teacher. I am quite eager to learn.”
“Good. You can keep this recipe, incidentally. It’s best on toadskin, but it does fairly well on human skin too.”
Making the medicinal tea for Voidcatcher wasn’t too difficult. The herbs and water he was provided were worryingly potent, and the charcoal for heating it up was even more so, and the alchemy furnace was downright alarming, but like jumping down a cliff, eventually, you got used to the constant risk of death.
That’s what he told himself, anyway. Besides, it was a comparatively pleasant diversion from “weeding the garden.”
“Yesterday was a day for getting to know each other. We will begin properly today, with a small goal of ten correct identifications. I’ll let you pick which you want to try, but as a friendly reminder, not all the plants that need weeding are in the Earthly Realm. Heavenly Realm herbs would be a… well, at least I would have a bit of free entertainment. For a little while, anyway.”
“Teacher’s concern moves this little student almost to tears.” Tian muttered, as he started carefully examining the plants near him. The qi difference between the Heavenly and Earthly was usually highly obvious, but Voidcatcher wouldn’t have said anything if there wasn’t a decent chance of him screwing up.
“Concern? When Heaven Trampling Duke Gu discovered that the Ten Thousand Year Snow Ginseng he bought was merely a five hundred year old root that had been doctored with Frozen Blood Elixir, I was concerned. When the Sky Tearing Wolf of the Endless Steppe descended on my humble caravan, demanding to know who sold his junior sister Supreme Dragon Chasing Divine Dream Paste, I was concerned. When Mount Infernal Torment started erupting while I was still plucking fire lotuses from the magma within, now, that was concerning! This is more like anticipation.”
Tian decided on a patch of small greenish-white flowers to start with. They had a pleasant smell, at the very least. “Did the fire lotuses have an owner, Teacher?”
“They were a treasure of heaven and earth, who could claim to own such a thing? Other than that fool of a Feiyi, I suppose, because snakes are stupid that way. ‘You live on a mountain full of copper and jade, and you are hiding around the lotuses? Are you stupid, or are you dumb?’ is what I asked him. The ungrateful wretch chased me out. Tsk, tsk. I do wonder how he’s getting on these days. Life is hard for the stupid.”
Tian carefully ate the little flowers. As the fragrance filled his nose, his muscles locked up and he felt his heart beginning to slow. It seems his teacher was right.