Chapter 7 - Too Stubborn to Quit (Patreon)

For all that Jin seems determined to act like a prick, Zhujiao is forced to admit he knows his stuff. 

Wei, of course, moves swiftly and silently through the forest, and though he’s able to match the older man’s pace, it’s only because he’s a cultivator. Jin, on the other hand, is a normal teenager lacking both Qi and experience, yet he’s able to keep up without looking so much as winded.

It is rather satisfying to see how confused the boy is with how Zhujiao is managing to keep up.

Before long they are further into the forest than he’s ever been and showing no signs of slowing down. His mother had always warned him about going into the forest, saying there are spirit beasts that live further in, but either that was a lie or the two hunters with him are confident enough in their skills to survive anyway.

He’s not sure if that’s comforting or not.

They don’t stop for hours, and by the time they finally do, he’s been cycling his Qi for half an hour just to stay on his feet. Even if the whole hunting thing doesn’t work out, learning how to send a trickle of energy to his limbs to stave off exhaustion means the trip has been worth it for him.

The look of begrudging acknowledgement he gets from Jin doesn’t hurt either.

Wei seems to barely acknowledge the effort, simply tossing him a waterskin and eyeing the trees like he’s expecting them to come to life at any second. Zhujiao would be worried if he wasn’t about to keel over. 

Jin pulls out some dried jerky and starts snacking on it, deliberately turning away from Zhujiao’s pleading gaze.

He sighs, but turns to Wei.

“Uh, I don’t suppose you have any spare jerky?” he asks awkwardly, suddenly wishing he had spent more of the last decade or so practising his social skills.

“You only eat what you’ve hunted yourself,” Wei replies tersely.

Jin sniggers quietly to himself, and Zhujiao feels a sudden urge to strangle him. If his legs would cooperate, he might have even given it a try.

A few – very short – minutes later, Wei stands up from where he was crouching by a tree, looks around, and without a word, sets off again.

Zhujiao manfully resists the urge to cry.

By the time they make it back to the edge of the forest, his arms and legs feel like wet noodles, he’s so hungry it feels like his body is trying to digest itself, and he’s been using so much Qi to reinforce himself that his dantian is flickering worryingly. 

He hasn’t even so much as heard an animal, let alone tried to hunt one.

At this point he doesn’t even care that he’s learned nothing all day. The only thing keeping him going is the thought of a hot dinner waiting for him at home. 

So he’s only half surprised when Wei slows to a stop before exiting the forest and turns to his two students. 

“What did you see today?” he asks expectantly.

Jin immediately began listing off animals and plants. “I saw rabbit tracks, a fox near the river, and deer tracks. There was also ginseng, star anise, and wild ginger.”

Wei nods once before turning to Zhujiao, who can only gape at him wordlessly.

How the hell was he supposed to notice anything!? He didn’t know the first thing about forestry; that was the whole point of having a teacher!

The man is apparently able to read his answer from the expression on his face, grunting once before turning back to Jin. 

“Jin, describe each of those things in detail for your fellow student.”

Judging by the expression on the boy’s face, he can’t quite decide if he should feel more smug at knowing things Zhujiao doesn’t, or irritated by having to explain things to someone he’s clearly written off as useless.

He tries to express both and ends up looking vaguely constipated as he quickly lists off the signs and characteristics of each animal and plant.

Zhujiao is too exhausted to care about what the older boy thinks of him. It takes all of his focus to pay attention to what he’s being told, and he knows that if it wasn’t for the discipline he’s had to learn while meditating he wouldn’t be remembering any of it.

Wei nodded once Jin finished. “Tomorrow, you will find these animals and herbs yourself,” he told Zhujiao. “Pay attention to the signs and details Jin described. We meet at first light.”

Having said all he cares to, the man walks off towards the town without another word. Jin pauses only long enough to sneer at him before following.

Zhujiao is left staring blankly at their retreating backs, struggling to find the words to describe how much he hates his life right now. 

When he finally gets home, his mother asks how his day was with an amused little smirk on her face, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from swearing at her.

The piping hot stew on the table does a lot to improve his mood.

Four days into this new hell and he’s seriously considering the merits of just… not getting up in the morning. Like seriously, what did the outside world provide that his bed didn’t?

Food? Water? The potential to learn skills that would serve him well for the rest of his life?

He hated how he couldn’t even win arguments against himself. By this point, he’s half convinced that the only thing Wei was getting out of this was the sheer joy of being able to torment a small child.

Even Jin was starting to look a little grim each morning. 

Zhujiao wasn’t an idiot. Well, not usually, anyway. He knew that the constant running through the forest was probably a mix of standard physical conditioning, a test of determination, and an attempt to get him to quit. 

That didn’t make it any easier to put up with, but it did help convince him to drag his protesting body out of the enticing comfort of his bedsheets. He might not be naturally talented at this stuff, but no one was more stubborn.

If Wei was waiting for him to give up, he should have picked someone less petty. He’s supposed to be a cultivator anyway; didn’t that come with an extended lifespan? If it took outliving the bastard to win, he was game.

Zhujiao is well aware that he isn’t being entirely rational about the situation, but spite keeps him going better than self-pity, so he’s sticking with it.

The news that he gets to take a single day off a week is such a relief that it takes him a minute to digest. His mother laughs, but he could see that she had been getting increasingly concerned as the week wore on and he started resembling a shambling corpse.

He sleeps for almost sixteen hours.

The next morning he’s confronted with the notion of going through another six days of that hell, and it takes every ounce of his willpower to force himself through his morning ablutions.

If it weren’t for the dogged determination he’d been forced to learn while stuck in the hospital for months at a time, he probably wouldn’t have been able to manage it. The urge to quit is almost physical at this point, but he knows that once you start giving up it’s almost impossible to stop. That’s a downward spiral he has no interest in retreading. 

So he girds his loins and sets off towards the meeting point, not letting himself think about the day ahead. 

As usual, Wei and Jin are waiting for him at the edge of the forest, with the cool morning mist swirling around their ankles. He forces a smile, though it comes out more as a grimace, and braces himself for another gruelling day.

To his surprise, Wei speaks first, his voice cutting through the morning silence. 

“You are more determined than I expected.” The man observes his forced expression, and a corner of his mouth twitches. “Or perhaps more spiteful. Either way, you have proven that you will not waste my time.”

The older man turns to Jin.

“I trust this puts the matter to rest?” he asks mildly. Jin looks away, scowling, but doesn’t respond. 

“Starting today, we’ll begin your real training,” Wei continued. “No more tests of stamina. Now, we focus on skills.”

Relief washed over Zhujiao, mingled with a sense of vindication. He glances back at Jin, whose expression has continued to darken. The older boy clearly wasn’t pleased with this turn of events. The fact warmed the cockles of his cold dead heart. What’s a little physical exhaustion in the face of proving your doubters wrong?

Without further ado, Wei turned and started into the forest, moving with the same quiet confidence as always. Apparently, passing the man’s test hadn’t made him any more verbose.

Now that he’s learning actual skills, the weeks pass quickly. The days get a little less exhausting, though not by much – he’s still entirely reliant on Qi reinforcement to keep up with the hunter duo. 

Lessons are conducted on the move and are always entirely practical. It might have been all the fantasy books he read in the Before, but he somehow expected discussions on the ‘cycles of life’, or how ‘we feast on the bounty of the forest, and one day it will feast on us’ or something like that.

There is none of that. Instead, he learns how to hunt. How to make basic traps and snares using nothing but a knife and what he can find, traps that kill quickly and effectively.

He learns to clean and gut smaller animals, three different ways to safely light a fire in the forest – and if he later goes back to adjust some things about his bonfire, no one will ever know – and most importantly, how to move in the forest.

It’s the lesson that Wei puts the most emphasis on. Every day starts with a mad dash through the forest, moving as quickly and silently as possible. The older man makes a game of it, too. One moment they will be walking calmly along, discussing how to better track small creatures, and the next Wei will be sprinting ahead, slipping through the dense brush with a well-practiced ease that Zhujiao cannot hope to match.

He learns slowly but steadily. It takes him weeks before he stops feeling quite like a drunken bear crashing through the forest, though compared to his companions, he might as well be wearing bells as he walks.

Still, it’s satisfying in a way that he didn’t know he needed. 

The process of cultivation might be more fun, but learning how to cultivate feels like beating his head against a wall, especially because he has no teachers. Being able to ask someone clarifying questions is a gift he won’t take for granted any time soon.

Some days are slower than others. If nothing else, hunting every day would disrupt the rhythms of the forest, the delicate balance of the ecosystem. Besides, there no way they could eat or sell that much meat and fur.

On these days, Wei leads them on long runs through the forest, stopping to point out useful or edible roots. He’s fond of games, little competitions between Zhujiao and Jin that push them to one-up the other.

As much as Zhujiao hates to admit it, Jin is legitimately incredible at finding herbs and roots. Every other step it feels like he’s pointing out or tripping over Star Anise or Valerian Root or a sprig of Solomon’s Seal.

Zhujiao learns that Jin’s family runs the apothecary in the town, and despite being something of a black sheep by wanting to become a hunter, Jin has managed to pick up a veritable encyclopaedia’s worth of knowledge when it comes to herbal remedies and cures.

On the other hand, Zhujiao is better at hunting creatures by far. Even Wei is surprised at his proficiency, and it takes him longer than he would like to admit to realise he’s been falling back on his Qi senses. Small woodland creatures are faint, barely perceptible flickers compared to people, but it’s enough to give him an undeniable edge.

Jin is not impressed at falling behind in any of the skills, and although he’s gotten more tolerable once Zhujiao proved he wasn’t dead weight, he’s still irritating enough that Zhujiao gets a little rush of satisfaction every time he finds a fox or rabbit faster than the older boy.

It’s on one of these slow days that Wei starts a lecture out of the blue. Despite the man’s near pathological aversion to words, he’s actually a fairly decent teacher. 

“What’s the most dangerous thing in the forest?” he asks abruptly, stopping in a small clearing.

“Bears,” Jin answers shortly, taking advantage of the break to reach for his waterskin.

Zhujiao turns the question over in his head for a moment, doing the same. “Us?” he settles on, knowing the answer is probably incorrect but not wanting to parrot Jin.

“Not even close.” Wei huffs, amused. “Spirit Beasts are the most dangerous creatures in the forest, bar none.”

Despite their animosity, Jin and Zhujiao share an excited glance. They have been asking about Spirit Beasts for weeks now – longer, in Jin’s case.

Zhujiao’s mother has been warning him about Spirit Beasts in the forest for as long as he can remember, but he’s never been able to get a solid answer on what they actually are. The stories are all vague enough as to be useless, talking about how they are ‘larger than a man grown’ and ‘ferocious and savage’. 

Considering nobody he’s asked has any information either, he’s started to think that maybe Spirit Beasts are the equivalent to the boogeyman – a scary story parents tell their children to stop them from being naughty.

Wei continues, his tone as gruff as ever. “Spirit Beasts are animals that can cultivate.”

Jin chokes on his water, doubling over in a coughing fit.

“M-Master! You shouldn’t compare honoured cultivators to beasts!” he exclaims nervously, looking around like he expects a cultivator to step out from behind a tree and start punishing them.

As amusing as Jin’s reaction is, Zhujiao is more interested in the information itself. Animals can cultivate? Obviously, he doesn’t know enough about Qi in general to make a fully informed judgement, but he refuses to believe the average bird or rabbit is smart enough to figure out meditation.

If nothing else, his pride couldn’t take the hit.

The older hunter ignores the interruption. “Cultivators don’t like that little fact being pointed out, but it’s true. They like people to think that being able to use Qi makes them better than everyone else, like they’ve been chosen by the universe to wield power.”

This is the most Zhujiao has ever heard him speak in one go. Clearly, Wei has a bone to pick with cultivators, and he finds himself nervously shifting where he stands.

“The only real difference between a cultivator and you and I,” he gestures to their little group, “is that cultivators have an extra organ in their bodies that interacts with Qi. Oh, sure, they give it all kinds of fancy names; ‘the golden stove’, the ‘dantian’, the ‘locus of power’.”

The man snorts, waving a hand dismissively.

“But the reality of it is that they are flesh and blood like we are. And that’s all a Spirit Beast is too – it’s an animal that has an extra organ and a fancy name.”

Zhujiao blinks, feeling a mixture of fascination and scepticism. He’s no scientist, and it’s clear Wei seems to believe what he’s saying, but… something about it doesn’t add up. 

Oh, the dantian being nothing more than a part of his body that interacts with Qi makes sense, sure – though it’s a little discomforting to learn that he has an entire extra organ somewhere inside him – but he’s pretty sure there’s more going on here than just biology.

“What about Beast Cores? Aren’t they made out of crystal or something?”

Wei nods. “Close. When a Spirit Beast dies, the Qi left over in its dantian crystallises. Don’t ask me how it works; I have no idea.”

He pauses. “And don’t get any foolish ideas about hunting a Spirit Beast, cutting out its core, and getting rich,” he says sharply, pinning both of them with a glare. “A Spirit Beast would tear the both of you apart as soon as look at you.”

“Have you ever seen one?” he asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Wei’s eyes narrow, and for a moment, Zhujiao thinks he might have overstepped. But then the older man nods. “Once. Barely got away. Lost three good men.”

The man’s expression closes off, and it’s clear that he considers the conversation to be over. They set off again at a slightly brisker pace than before, and soon Zhujiao is almost too busy focusing on keeping up to wonder about the topic any more.

Still, he can’t shake the part of him that really wants to see a Spirit Beast, see if he can sense its Qi and learn anything from it. The scrolls he’s read mention using them as fuel for cultivation, and right now, he’s stalled out on that front. 

Maybe… maybe he should see about tracking down a Beast. Just to see what it’s like.