Chapter 5: The Squirrel’s Dream

  Song Shu dreamed again.

  In his dreams, the forest was always green, thick with the scents of dew and sweet pollen. Tall trees stretched endlessly into the sky, and the soft rustle of countless creatures filled the air like a comforting lullaby. He had been a small thing back then, barely larger than a human’s hand, with fur so bright it seemed to capture the sunlight itself. The Verdant Tail Sect had been his home, his world… a place where beasts of all shapes and sizes lived, learned, and grew together under the guidance of a philosophy few understood.

  “What’s it like to be a squirrel?” a voice giggled, clear and playful, as he scampered up the great elder tree with his closest companion.

  He remembered pausing, chattering his teeth in thought, and then answering in a burst of innocence, “It’s like being the wind… small, fast, and happy!”

  That special person had laughed so hard they had fallen out of the tree. Song Shu remembered rushing down in a panic, only to find them laughing even harder, flat on their back, unhurt. The Sect had been small, looked down upon by the powerful beast-taming sects and human clans, but it had been his. It had been family.

  Until the bad cultivators came.

  They arrived not in the spirit of competition, but conquest. Human cultivators dressed in the banners of strength and arrogance, faces twisted in mockery and contempt. They called Verdant Tail a "zoo" instead of a sect, laughed as they plundered their modest treasures… spiritual herbs, cultivation manuals written with paw and beak, and even the sacred acorns that contained their ancestral energies.

  They humiliated them, turned the proud beasts and kind humans into little more than trophies and slaves.

  Song Shu could still smell the smoke from the flames that consumed their sacred forest. One by one, his friends fell, fighting tooth and claw against enemies far stronger than they could hope to defeat. He had seen the elder badger… once the unshakable rock of their Sect… fall to a single blow. He had seen the blue jay trio, guardians of the forest’s sky, shot from the air like common birds.

  In the end, only Song Shu had survived, dragging his battered body into the roots of a burning tree, listening to the last cries of his sectmates echo into the uncaring heavens.

  ‘Why?’ he had asked back then. ‘Why was it wrong for us to dream, too?’

  Song Shu woke with a jolt at the sharp clack of beak striking stone.

  The old squirrel blinked, momentarily disoriented, before remembering where he was. His dwelling, a cozy burrow carved into the great tree at the summit of the Sacred Hill, greeted him with its familiar roughness. He shook himself awake, stretching his stiff limbs, and then climbed to the branch’s edge to peer down.

  There, below the tree’s roots, his disciple practiced the Earth Breaking Spade.

  The young strange bird, plucked raw by the awakening of his spiritual roots, looking more ridiculous than formidable… was entirely focused, mimicking the motions that Song Shu had hammered into him day after day.

  The old squirrel’s mouth tugged into a tired, proud smile.

  He no longer needed to sleep often; at his current cultivation of the Foundation Establishment peak, he could remain alert for days without pause. Yet age was a thief that no technique could fully deny. His faculties dulled when he rested too long. His muscles, once taut and precise, sometimes trembled when he moved too quickly. Even his Qi, while abundant, had begun to slow and thicken.

  Song Shu sighed and leaned against the tree, tapping the hilt of his greatsword lightly against the bark.

  "My disciple," he murmured, voice carrying only to the listening wind, "grow strong. Find your own way. Where I failed... you must succeed."

  He watched as the dodo, his only disciple, performed the Earth Breaking Spade again, more confident this time, breaking apart the earth with a loud, satisfying crack.

  There was hope.

  Even if they were small, even if the world ridiculed them, even if history itself tried to bury them, there was still hope. The Verdant Tail Sect’s dream did not have to end with him.

  It could begin anew… through the one being foolish and brave enough to believe that a beast could carve its own destiny.

  Song Shu sprang from one branch to another, his small body moving with an energy that belied his age. His movements were nimble, almost dancing across the limbs of the great tree, until he landed squarely on top of a giant stone where his disciple was practicing. The stone had clearly seen better days; fresh cracks and gouges marred its surface from repeated strikes.

  “Working hard, I see,” Song Shu remarked, his bushy tail flicking behind him in satisfaction.

  The strange bird… still nameless despite all this time… looked up and immediately greeted him with a deep, respectful bow. “Master, I’ve done my exercises!”

  “Good, good!” Song Shu chattered approvingly, though inside, a twinge of sadness gnawed at his heart. He felt sorry for the bird. There was so much he still wanted to teach, so much knowledge he wanted to pass down. Yet the truth weighed heavily on him. His time was running short. He could feel the fraying threads of his lifespan with every breath he took.

  ‘If only... if only he could reach Qi Gathering before I leave,’ Song Shu thought, clenching his tiny paws tightly around the hilt of his greatsword. ‘If only, I could teach him the necessary arts to survive.’

  There was so much still left undone.

  Song Shu straightened, hiding his emotions behind a firm voice. “Follow me, disciple.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he leapt from the stone to the great tree’s trunk, claws digging into the ancient bark as he scurried upward. The bird squawked once in surprise but obediently flapped and clambered after him, wings flapping awkwardly and feet slipping here and there. It was clumsy, but it was persistent. That was enough.

  The climb was a long one. The trunk of the sacred tree was wide enough to house a small village, and the climb to its upper branches could take the better part of an hour for an untrained beast. But soon enough through much struggling, squawking, and a few hearty curses under his breath, the bird made it up to the peak, where Song Shu waited.

  Song Shu pressed a paw against a hidden hollow and pushed aside the overgrown moss, revealing a small entrance.

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  “Come,” he said, motioning for the bird to squeeze through.

  It took a few more minutes of frantic pushing and helping… the bird was a bit rounder than most natural climbers… but finally, they made it inside.

  And there it was, the place Song Shu wanted to show his disciple.

  A library.

  It was a modest place, compared to the grand repositories he had seen in human sects. Still, there was a sacredness to it, a reverence. Scrolls made of bark and animal skin were stacked carefully on the curved wooden shelves. The air smelled of old parchment and the lingering traces of spiritual ink. Small, glowing mushrooms provided faint illumination, casting gentle light over the scrolls.

  Song Shu spread his arms grandly and declared, “Here, my disciple, lies one of the greatest treasures of the Verdant Tail Sect. Now, it is the treasure of the Magical Beast Sect!”

  The bird gawked, staring wide-eyed at the sheer amount of knowledge stored in such a small place.

  Song Shu turned to face him, his voice growing solemn. “I will teach you to read. To write. To speak! To understand the cultures of the world outside. Strength is important, yes. But knowledge? Knowledge will carve your path through the heavens.”

  He hopped down to the nearest shelf, pulling out a scroll carefully tied with a vine string.

  "These scrolls," he said, patting them with a paw, "contain everything the Verdant Tail Sect managed to preserve… martial arts, spiritual philosophy, poetry, history, beast wisdom. This is our legacy. This is what the world tried to erase."

  Song Shu’s gaze sharpened, and he pointed at the bird. "You will learn these, disciple. Not just to gain strength, but to become worthy of it. A brute can tear down a tree, but a scholar knows how to grow a forest."

  The bird nodded seriously, though it was clear it didn’t fully grasp the weight of Song Shu’s words yet.

  Song Shu allowed himself a small smile.

  He carefully laid out the first scroll, simple and straightforward, filled with the basic characters of the common script. He sat down, tapped the ground next to him, and beckoned the bird closer.

  “Now, repeat after me…”

  And so, as night fell and the stars began to glitter outside the library hollow, the old squirrel and the strange, determined bird began their first lesson together… patient, clumsy, and hopeful.

  Song Shu unrolled the first scroll with great care, smoothing it with his tiny paws. The parchment creaked softly under his touch, releasing the faint scent of aged ink.

  “Now,” Song Shu said, adopting his most stern teaching tone, “this first character is heaven — it means the sky, the heavens above, the great expanse.”

  He tapped the character sharply with his paw.

  The bird leaned in, tilting its head this way and that, squinting at the complex strokes. Then, with great seriousness, it chirped, “Hen… ven?”

  Song Shu’s left eye twitched.

  “Heaven,” he corrected, drawing the sound out slowly and clearly, as if speaking to a particularly dense chick. “Repeat: Heaven.”

  “Hee… ven?”

  “No! Heaven! Hea-ven!” Song Shu squeaked, his tiny voice rising a pitch higher than he intended.

  The bird gave a sheepish chirp and tried again, “Heav… an?”

  Song Shu closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out. ‘Patience. Patience. You are a Master now, Song Shu. Losing your temper at your first and probably will be your only disciple is undignified.’

  He opened his eyes and coughed into his paw. “Good effort,” he said with forced calmness. “Let’s move to the next one.”

  He tapped a new character.

  “This is earth. You live on it, you stand on it, you dig into it. Earth. Very simple.”

  The bird bobbed its head eagerly. “Urth!”

  “Earth,” Song Shu corrected.

  “Erf!”

  “No, Earth.”

  “Urf!”

  Song Shu resisted the very real urge to slam his head against the scroll.

  “Close enough,” he muttered, ears flattening.

  The bird beamed proudly, chest puffed out, utterly unaware of its Master’s crumbling sanity.

  Thus passed the next few hours, with Song Shu painstakingly teaching basic words and his disciple absolutely mangling them in the most enthusiastic and innocent ways possible with an avian accent. Despite himself, despite the growing headache pounding between his tiny ears, Song Shu found himself smiling as he watched the bird try, fail, and then stubbornly try again.

  ‘This foolish bird,’ he thought, fondness warming his chest, ‘is more diligent than half the so-called geniuses I’ve seen in human sects.’

  Yes, it would be a long road.

  Yes, it would be an exhausting road.

  But Song Shu no longer walked it alone.

  And somehow, that made all the difference.

  It had been just shy of a year since Song Shu found the strange bird.

  During that time, Song Shu had come to realize many things. His disciple might have a short memory retention and an attention span comparable to a mayfly, but he was cleverer than most. What the bird lacked in polish, he made up for in dogged perseverance, always bouncing back no matter how badly he mangled a lesson. Song Shu often had to adapt, teaching him on the spot and using analogies so simple that even the densest of forest critters could grasp them. It wasn’t the traditional path of a master and disciple, but it was their path.

  When night fell, as it often did on this quiet corner of the world, the two of them took their customary break. They sat by the bonfire outside the giant tree, the same sacred place that had become their home. Above them, the stars gleamed like the scales of a great celestial serpent stretched across the heavens. Song Shu had caught a few fat fish from the nearby river, and now they roasted on sticks, popping and crackling above the flames.

  The bird pecked enthusiastically at his portion, struggling a little to pull the fish apart with his beak, but managing somehow with stubborn determination.

  As they ate, Song Shu gazed into the fire, letting the warmth seep into his old bones. A certain nostalgia stirred in his chest, and before he knew it, the words began tumbling out.

  "Disciple," he said, voice soft with memory, "have I ever told you the story of the Verdant Tail Sect?"

  “I think you did, but…” The bird paused mid-bite, cocking his head curiously. His wide, innocent eyes gleamed with interest, and he chirped, "No, Master. Please tell me."

  Song Shu smiled faintly, a mixture of pride and sorrow threading through his heart. It was good for the boy to know. Even if their Magical Beast Sect would carve its own path, the roots of the past still mattered.

  "The Verdant Tail Sect," Song Shu began, "was founded by a human and his beast companion long ago. In those days, the idea of humans and beasts cultivating side by side was unheard of. Humans saw us as tools, mounts, guardians, or at best, amusing pets. But this man… he saw something different. He saw partners."

  He paused, watching the fire crackle and spit.

  "The Sect grew. Humans and beasts lived together, learned together. They became disciples, elders, masters, and even grandmasters. The humans learned our instincts, our wisdom of the land. We learned their languages, their arts, their cultivation techniques. We grew stronger together."

  The bird leaned in closer, almost toppling face-first into the fire. Song Shu quickly tugged him back by the scruff of his neck with his paw.

  "Sorry, Master," the bird chirped sheepishly.

  Chuckling, Song Shu continued, "For a time, it was beautiful. We created arts no other Sect had, forged bonds so deep that humans and beasts fought as one mind, one spirit. But the world outside was not kind."

  The old squirrel's voice turned bitter, each word slow and deliberate.

  "The greater Sects, the old clans, the beast tamers who saw their bonded creatures as mere property — they grew jealous. They called us heretics, traitors to our kind. They feared what we might become."

  The bird shifted uneasily, his feathers ruffling.

  "And so," Song Shu said, voice a low growl now, "they came. Bad cultivators, the ones who valued only power. They humiliated us, stole from us, and when that wasn’t enough, they set our sacred forest ablaze. They butchered my brothers and sisters, both human and beast alike."

  There was a long silence. Only the fire crackling filled the space between them.

  "What happened to your… your special person?" the bird asked hesitantly, voice small. “You must have one, right? If it is a Sect built upon companionship between human and beast, you must have one, right?”

  Like Song Shu said, clever…

  Song Shu stared into the flames, seeing another time, and another place. The face of a young human laughing under a tree, a hand extended to a tiny squirrel who knew nothing but fear. The promise of forever.

  "They fell," Song Shu said simply, his throat tightening. "Fighting to protect what we built."

  The bird lowered his head, solemn and silent.

  Song Shu gave a weary sigh but forced a smile. "That is why we will build anew, my disciple. Our path will be different. Our Magical Beast Sect will not be bound by old grudges or tired hatred. We will be better. We will be free."

  The bird's chest puffed out proudly. "I will help, Master!"

  Song Shu laughed, a rich, warm sound that pushed the old ghosts back into the shadows.

  "Such a curious bird," he said fondly, reaching out to pat his disciple’s head. "You will be the pillar upon which our Sect stands tall one day. Remember this feeling, disciple. Remember this dream. It is yours now, too."

  Above them, the stars spun slowly in the night sky, and two unlikely figures sat by a fire, dreaming of a future only they could see.