"It is not your fault."
Daoist Enduring Oath regretted the words the moment he spoke them. A thoughtless kindness could be its own sort of cruelty.
Daoist Scouring Medicine turned to his closest friend. His face was a placid mask, without a shadow of tension.
"You think Li Hou did this to himself then?" He asked quietly, venom dripping from every calm word. "Proved himself nothing more than another Disciple Zhang?"
Daoist Enduring Oath held his tongue this time. Neither rhetoric nor comfort had ever been among his talents. Time and again fate had ordained he would avenge the fallen, not protect or comfort them. He had no words he trusted not to worsen his brother's temper. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw grass wither at his brother's feet. His terrible rage leaking out any way it could. A remnant of the path that had nearly seen him expelled from the sect and branded a demon, if not for the former sect master's intervention. The merciless arts that had saved him and Daoist Guarding Thunder half a dozen times.
"Xun. Control yourself."
Daoist Scouring Medicine took the rebuke without complaint, exhaling through pursed lips. His eyes never left his arm, where Li Hou still clutched, unmoving. Small stone fingers wrapped around an arm of flesh. His brother's disciple, made as a statue. A stone monkey, frozen forever in a desperate plea for aid.
A moment later, the earth around Daoist Scouring Medicine's feet ceased to wither and die. Daoist Enduring Oath shivered. Even his unfeeling constitution had not been immune to the his brother's venomous will.
"Break it." Daoist Scouring Medicine commanded suddenly.
"What?" He possibly couldn't mean-
"My wrist." Daoist Scouring Medicine looked up, meeting his brother's eyes for the first time since disaster struck. "Break it. Now."
"Hold on, the space left is so small there'll be nothing left by the time you-"
"Li Hou does not have time, for your fumbling attempts at mercy." His brother said. "If you care for him, obey me. Promptly and without question."
Gently, Daoist Enduring Oath reached over and squeezed. Two bones cracked.
Without any trace of gentleness, Daoist Scouring Medicine tore at his tendons and flesh with fingers. Blood poured freely, as he maneuvered the meat of his wrist through the small gap in Li Hou's stone fingers. Thin flakes of stone fell to the ground as Li Xun mangled his own flesh. Not from Li Hou. Scales of stone wound their way up his brother's arm like burns, from where he'd reached fearlessly into the active bath.
"I need to know how deep the transformation has penetrated." Daoist Scouring Medicine muttered to himself. "That will be the crux of it. If it's still in progress, it can be interrupted. As long as the state isn't complete, external forces could yet reverse it. Any incomplete transformation retains dao-marks from both states. But can we strengthen his fleshly aspect without feeding the bath that fed upon it? It shouldn't have progressed this fast, seeped this deep. There must be a factor I missed. Some fragment of his simian nature making him more protean than men? No, despite their varied morphology, even a line of spirit beasts should be less mutable than men, not more."
Daoist Enduring Oath had no answers to offer.
As he thought aloud, Daoist Scouring Medicine absent-mindedly reached into his spatial pouch with his remaining functional hand and withdrew a pill. Healing, or a painkiller perhaps. As the pill approached his mouth he paused, then returned it to the pouch.
Daoist Enduring Oath's eyes widened. Surely his brother was not that close to destitution. Or, was he going to stubbornly bear his newest injury as some twisted penance?
"Are you-"
"Silence." Daoist Scouring Medicine cut him off before Daoist Enduring Oath was even sure what he was about to ask. "I need to think. These first minutes may be crucial. Carry him into the workshop. I need to find those needles I had you make for Disciple Zhang's case."
Gently, Daoist Enduring Oath lifted the stone monkey out of the ruined cauldron. Li Hou's limbs were unyielding, frozen in a dramatic pose. He felt like he was carrying an eerily lifelike sculpture, not the curious disciple he'd grown so fond of.
Those first moments after disaster struck had passed like lightning. Too quick for reasoned thought. Li Hou had cried out, his desperate voice muffled by the liquid that clung to him like a vengeful ghost. Daoist Scouring Medicine had killed the fire in a moment. Daoist Enduring Oath had already been reaching for the monkey, when his brother shoved him aside. Reminded him, of what he'd said before they'd begun. That he, with his flawed core and earthen constitution, should not risk touching the activated bath under any circumstances. Lest he suffer a fate similar to Li Hou's.
As his brother had worked to extract the already petrifying monkey from the Tiger's Maw, Daoist Enduring Oath had moved on instinct. The terrible pain on Li Hou's face. The way one hand clutched at his brother, as the other worked desperately to clear his mouth. He'd needed to do something.
So he'd grasped the cauldron, on both sides of the Tiger's Maw. Shouldered his brother to the side. And ripped. Copper had torn like paper before muscles like stone.
His brother had easily pulled Li Hou from the wreckage. It hadn't mattered. It was already too late. Save what small portion had eaten into his brother's arm, the monkey had absorbed the entire bath.
All his strength had done nothing except cost his brother the cauldron he might later need to heal his disciple.
Gently, he placed Li Hou atop the old wooden table. It groaned, beneath the stone monkey's weight, but held. His brother was already moving. Needles imbued with metal qi burned with steely light, as they slowly sunk into Li Hou's stony skin.
Daoist Enduring Oath fell back, collapsing into one of his brother's chairs. It too groaned, but held.
His spiritual sense was so useless he could hardly even see what his brother was doing. His good hand danced like a divine wind as it placed dozens of needles with flawless precision. He felt so useless. Might enough to shake mountains, and he was still as helpless he'd been the night his village had burned.
Li Hou's stone fur was so lifelike. Far beyond any carving, one could see the individual hairs that made up his fur. Yet the impossibly thin strands did not break, beneath the pressure of a hand. Neither did they bend as hair did.
"Months ago, you said I was playing with lives. Man and monkey." Daoist Scouring Medicine said, never looking up from his work.
He paused.
"Cabinet two-four. Break it if it's locked."
Daoist Scouring Medicine broke it. Handed his brother a small wooden pot of oily firebrick-red ointment.
His brother applied it to a small spot on Li Hou's arm. Nothing happened.
Daoist Scouring Medicine frowned.
"I am done playing. I will see him healed. Whatever it takes."
Daoist Enduring Oath wanted to say he would help. But his brother would not appreciate a lie. He could offer him little, save the materials of his own stores, so few of which would be useful. His brother already knew that those were his if he needed them.
"Yes." He said instead. "You will."
His brother's head did not turn to regard him. His eyes moved between Li Hou's frozen body and the paper he was jotting down notes on with his sole good hand.
But Daoist Enduring Oath hoped this time, he'd said the correct thing.
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Plip.
Plop.
Plip.
Plup.
Interrupted, a droplet of water spread outward, seeping into fur as white as driven snow. An eye cracked open. Today, it was colored a light blue, as cold as ice. A perfect match for the dim light of the spirit stones embedded in the walls.
Slowly, the eye closed once more. A dantian pulsed, and the aimless qi of the cavern found purpose once more, moving in unison with the fox's cultivation.
Plip.
Plip.
Plip.
Plup.
Formless-gleam growled, fully aware now, her cultivation interrupted. It must be raining on the surface. Normally, this spot was dry. She leaned back onto her haunches, then swung forward into a deep stretch. Distant heavens, but she was stiff. How long had it been?
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The fox's tongue lolled out, as she rejoiced in the simple pleasure of movement. Splayed claws itchy from stillness glided over the cold stone floor. She rolled over, then kicked a leg up to scratch behind an ear.
Much better.
The fox blinked. She was missing something.
Ah.
Formless-gleam closed her eyes again as a flash of foxfire engulfed her body. When the flare passed, her head was dry once more. Wet fur was the worst.
A memory leapt to mind, unbidden. One of her first, as a kit. From the hazy days soon after sound and sight had first come to her. Her mother's tongue passing over her fur. The first pass had ruffled it. She'd cried out, every feeling too big and new to bear. But then the tongue returned the other direction, and she'd felt so safe. Like the world was small and warm.
Foxfire was not the same. Its heat could burn, or evaporate water. But it did not warm the cold and lonely. Formless-gleam licked at her forepaw, evening the fur between her knuckles. Her mother was far, but today she wouldn't even have minded the company of one of her sisters. She almost wished that she had set out alongside Unstained-light or Buried-hunger.
The fox cast her eyes about the cavern she knew full well to be empty. She only had one guest these days, and for all his strange talent, he could not hope to hide from her longer than a moment.
She was not a fox given to sentiment. She did not miss orange-crest.
But her stomach might. As if listening, the traitorous organ growled. A sad sort of gurgle, wet and empty. It had been long, too long, since she'd last eaten.
Her mouth watered at the memory of those sausages. Cookery was perhaps the only true merit of human civilization. Well, that and their arts. They did produce such beautiful things, for monsters.
Grain liberation was proving harder than formless-gleam expected. There was no shortage of power here, but it took more than just an abundance of qi to subsist without food. With the first true stone of her foundation yet to be set, the technique brought strength to her limbs, but did not quell the gnawing ache in her belly. Her cultivation was in an awkward place. A liminal state between her instinctive beginnings, and the arts her mother had bestowed upon her. The Crimson Absolution Scripture was her favorite, but coveted-calamity would not have given her kits so many of her legendary techniques if she expected them to devote themselves blindly to any one of them.
It was funny, in a dark way, that even her mother called the art of subsisting without food grain liberation. No fox's diet was built upon a foundation of cereal grains. Yet, the ideas of man had leaked even into the true-tongue. This was man's world. The rest of them but lived in it.
Her mother said that even the mighty loongs took human forms amongst the deities. Not fully human. Oft they retained their scales and claws. But was that not proof enough? Even the proudest of all creatures bent their necks before the dominion of man.
Formless-gleam paced through the cavern, enjoying the way the clack of her claws echoed ever so slightly in the silence. The utter stillness, interrupted only by the occasional drop of water filtering down from above. This seclusion had been more than merely beneficial. It felt like home, like her childhood in her mother's immortal cave. Here, time did not feel so close and pressing as it did among the humans of the roads and cities.
And it was not the only small comfort she'd found among the Azure Mountain.
It was refreshing, interacting with a monkey so blind he didn't understand how complete the dominion of man was in this age. More optimistic than even her softest sister. A remarkable talent with a background so provincial that he didn't understand even his supposedly mighty king kept his head low before a mortal emperor, let alone the Heavens.
Perhaps together, with her skill and venom, and his blind faith and foolish fortune, they might shift that. An idle dream for centuries hence. The foolish fire-hair probably wouldn't even make it that long. Perhaps he already had succumbed, and that was the reason for his sudden absence.
It would be difficult to get down, without orange-crest. Even with the rope he'd left behind for her. There was nothing near the entrance she would trust to secure it. She could leave. It would be difficult, but doable. She would simply need to trust in Li Hou's continued existence and benevolence in order to return.
Formless-gleam snorted. She would of course, not be doing that. She liked the foolish monkey. But there was only one person to which she would trust her fate.
The fox paced back to the driest spot in the cave, circling twice in place before she sat down once more. Her stomach groaned pathetically, but it took a very long time for a cultivator to starve.
And suffering a hunger that would not kill was perfect practice. One could not bestow the Crimson Absolution on a full stomach, after all. It was a fox's nature, her mother said, to want and be wanted. A vicious symmetry that could only ever birth tragedy.
Formless-gleam returned to her cultivation. She was close, now. By the standards of a cultivator at least. Mere months away. Men would call it foundation establishment. Formless-gleam felt no need to borrow yet another of their words. She would manifest a third tail and emerge in wrath and glory, or she would starve here.
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Yang Wei fell to the ground, defeated.
Two hundred and seventeen pushups. It was practically nothing. He tried to do at least five hundred of his chosen exercise for the day before bed. He wanted to move on to more difficult variations, like the hand-stand and single-arm pushups his uncle had demonstrated. But he refused to do so, until he had trained enough that their basic cousins were effortless.
He could practically hear his uncle's voice in his ear, booming and cheerful as it pronounced him weak.
"If you cannot perform a technique while you are exhausted, you cannot rely upon it in battle. A warrior dispatches his lessers with skillful arts. Battles between equals are always decided in the mud."
It had been a long day. He'd risen early, working a task assigned by the Mission Hall. It was a poor joke, to call it a mission, but he was not above stacking stones to repair a wall. His family's stipend provided everything he needed, but Yang Wei was loathe to take more than he could give, so the coins kept piling up in his purse.
He would happily spend his family's money like water once he was strong enough to act as pillar of support for them. Until then, it felt unfilial, even if it was freely given. That said, he was not above consuming the spirit stone they included each month with the coins. It was a welcome compliment to the small pills provided by the sect. It was one thing, to draw on their resources to grow stronger. Another to spend them for his own comfort.
Yang Wei had not found a senior martial disciple to barter pointers from today, so he'd cultivated until Disciple Chang's class. He knew he should dedicate more time to meditation, but never did he feel closer to the dao then when he danced with a weapon in hand.
Li Hou and Xiao Long were both absent from Disciple Chang's class, so he'd had no fitting opponent to hone himself against. He'd tried challenging Disciple Chang himself, but his senior would only condescend to spar with Yang Wei one day in three. He could hardly blame him. No doubt Disciple Chang found training with Yang Wei as fruitless as Yang Wei found sparring with the other initiates.
How many wins was it? Two dozen? Three? A nigh wasted day, trying to substitute quantity for quality. He'd learned so little. Even if he limited himself to the forms Disciple Chang taught, few disciples could manage more than a couple exchanges with him. So many of them had picked a single stance. Usually rhino or monkey these days, though a few of the young women favored crane. They focused on the transitions and combinations within the stance, failing to see they were all part of the same whole. It made it so very easy to pick them apart. Rhino's footwork was poorly suited to recovering from an overextension on the attack. Monkey stance kept a disciple mobile, but it was easily bowled over by a well timed rushdown. It kept the feet too wide and the staff too low to reliably block a heavy flurry of blows.
He wondered what Li Hou would have to say about the monkey stance. A balanced stance focused on mobility and great smashing blows that Disciple Chang had only begun introducing these last few weeks. Probably a complaint that it hadn't been the first one they were taught, as it would obviously be superior.
The monkey's prideful boasts made him few friends among the other initiates, but Yang Wei did not fault him for it. Unlike Yang Wei, he did not have other initiates proclaiming his talents until it grew tiresome. He hoped Li Hou was working hard, whatever strange path the monkey's master had him pursuing. He would like to at least make it a year with the sect, before needing to look to his seniors for rivals.
Yang Wei rose again. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up-
His arms collapsed once more. There was a point, at which cycling his qi further could not longer restore strength to his shaking limbs. He still had qi in his dantian, but his body was too exhausted to transmute it into further strength.
Yang Wei stood, and began toweling himself down. He had a small home all to himself. It was but a single modest room, but all the common born initiates were forced to share the same modest dwelling with one of their peers. It was a small luxury, afforded to him by his status. But one he did not disdain. Every disciple should be afforded a place where they could keep their valuable without fear of a light-fingered roommate.
He opened a drawer, and withdrew a spirit stone. One of the ones Li Hou had been so kind as to donate to his cause, with his ill-considered wager. The small stones matched the cut of the sect's allotment. He wondered who the monkey had taken them from. He doubted they were from its master's treasury. Rumors about Daoist Scouring Medicine abounded, few of them positive, but he doubted the embattled man gave the monkey his own funds to wager on a foolhardy challenge. More likely they were liberated from some disciple or other. He never did get the full story behind how Li Hou had come into those stones.
Yang Wei settled down onto a cushion, the stone resting in one open palm.
If he couldn't exercise, he would simply have to cultivate. It was not yet the hour for sleep. It was a simple existence, his life at the Azure Mountain. Narrower, than the many diversions afforded by his childhood at the Yang clan's capital estate. But Yang Wei found that he did not dislike it. There was a purity, in the pursuit of growth and refinement.
He just wished the Azure Spirit Method came as easily to him as martial arts did. He looked forward to the day his uncle judged him ready to pursue a spear cultivation method in earnest.
His mind wandered, as he sought the stillness more conducive to cultivation. It flowed down many tracks, but it often returned to the monkey and its master. He was curious, why Li Hou was still absent even as spring bloomed and the snow receded. And he wondered if the monkey's master might have any insight into why Yang Wei could only restore the strength of his arms half a dozen times a day before no amount of qi could move him. If it was a matter of simply needing to advance his cultivation, or if there were other ways he could improve his endurance, that he might train longer hours.
Yang Wei had complicated feelings, about his privileged station. His uncle and father had very different views about the nature of nobility, and how a man should deal with his lessers and betters. But Yang Wei's martial talent and family name together opened a great deal of doors for him, and he saw no reason why he should not exploit those connections to their utmost.
The sect master had lost interest in him, when he'd intimated that he would follow in his uncle's steps fully. He disliked Elder Lu. The grasping man would be happy to assist him, but he would certainly expect something in return. And Elder Xun was almost as busy and widely travelled as Yang Shui. But the embattled Daoist Scouring Medicine would likely welcome a potential noble connection, even if he promised nothing. Li Hou might even have spoken well of him. They were not close. But they were not distant either. He would not be surprised if he was the closest thing to a true friend the monkey had among the outer sect. It would not be a lie, to say the reverse was true.
His next free day, he would seek out Daoist Scouring Medicine's home. See what Li Hou had been working on.
Two hours later, Yang Wei's eyes opened.
Interesting. His cultivation came easier, for the resolution. Perhaps his mind was not as firm and certain an implement as he'd thought it.
Again, his honored uncle's words sprung to mind.
"A man should be like a spear. Flexible at need, but ultimately existing in support of a single point of sharp principle. In peace, we can be many things. But war strips away all lesser virtue, and reveals what we cling to, when all else has fallen away."
Yang Wei smiled.
Another thing to work on.
