Chapter 20 - A Fool's Fortune (Patreon)

Zhujiao tucked his coin pouch securely under his shirt before taking a deep breath and stepping out into the corridor outside his little apartment.

Today promised to be very interesting, or at least he hoped so. If it turned out that Lao Yi had been messing with him about teaching him how to cultivate correctly, he’d… 

Well, he couldn’t really do anything about it, but he certainly wouldn’t be happy.

He tugged somewhat uncomfortably on the sleeves of his new uniform, which his master had finally given him. The clothes were simple but of decent quality – a basic, pale green tunic with long sleeves, loose fitting grey pants, and a pair of sandals. 

He looked adorable. 

It was a little irritating, to be honest, and he really couldn’t wait until he finally outgrew the baby fat. He was a grown man, dammit; he wanted to be handsome, not cute.

As he turned a corner, he almost bumped into someone. Zhujiao took a step back, startled, only to see Liang standing there, a casual smile on his face. The older boy looked as relaxed as ever, leaning against a post with his arms crossed. Zhujiao felt a flicker of curiosity; he hadn’t expected to see Liang here, especially not at this time of day.

“Hey, Zhujiao,” Liang greeted him with an easy grin. “Heading to the clinic again?”

“Uh, yeah,” he answered before floundering for something else to say. “How’s work for you?” 

‘I’m really bad at conversation,’ he thought to himself, wincing.

Fortunately, Liang didn’t seem to mind. “Yeah, keeping me busy, but paying the bills. You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he began, his tone casual. “Would you be interested in hanging out sometime? I could introduce you to some of my friends. We usually get together after training.”

Zhujiao blinked, momentarily taken aback. He hadn’t anticipated such an offer, especially not from Liang. There was an age gap between them, after all, and it wasn’t like they had exchanged many conversations beyond a greeting here and there.

Still, the older teenager seemed like a friendly enough guy, and Zhujiao’s rapidly atrophying social skills could use all the help they could get. Not to mention that he had been saving reasonably well and could probably afford to eat out…

“Uh, sure,” Zhujiao finally managed, his voice tinged with uncertainty. “I’d like that.”

Liang’s smile widened, and he clapped Zhujiao on the shoulder. “Great! We’ll find a time that works for everyone. It’ll be good to get you out of the clinic once in a while, you know?”

Zhujiao chuckled awkwardly, not quite sure how to respond. He appreciated the gesture but couldn’t help feeling a little out of his depth. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, glancing down the street toward the clinic. “Anyway, I should get going. Don’t want to be late.”

Liang nodded, stepping aside to let him pass. “Of course. I’ll see you around, Zhujiao.”

Zhujiao couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder as he walked down the street, but the older boy was already gone. It was a little odd that Liang was going this far to include him, but it was hardly the strangest thing he had ever seen either. He shrugged to himself. 

Extroverts. Who knew how their minds worked?

Zhujiao pushed through the door of the clinic and paused in surprise. The front room had been rearranged, with the usual examination table shifted off to one side. There were two small tatami mats on the floor which he hadn’t seen before. 

Was this for a specific patient, or had his master rearranged the room purely for some cultivation reasons?

Even the shelves lining the walls had been cleared of the various remedies and creams that usually sat there.

“Master?” Zhujiao called out hesitantly, unsure why the clinic was so empty. “Is everything alright?”

Lao Yi poked his head out from the back room. “Ah, Zhujiao, you’re here. Sit down, sit down,” he motioned at the mats. “Perfect timing, really; I’ve decided to close the clinic for today.”

Zhujiao blinked in surprise. “Close the clinic? But why?”

The old man raised an eyebrow at him. “Because we need to sort out whatever mess you’ve made of your dantian, of course.”

Zhujiao felt a pang of guilt. “Uh, not that I’m not grateful for your instruction, but what about the patients? Don’t they need us?”

Lao Yi waved a hand dismissively. “They can wait a day. If anyone has a life-threatening injury, they won’t be dissuaded by a closed door, and anything else can wait. You, however, cannot.”

Zhujiao felt a little discomforted by the cavalier attitude but obligingly sat down cross-legged on one of the mats. “Why the urgency, Master? I get that my cultivating isn’t as good as I had thought, but it’s not like there’s any rush, right?”

“Ah, that’s where you are wrong, my young friend. Tell me, what do you know about cultivation?” 

Zhujiao took a moment to structure his thoughts. “Cultivation is the act of using Qi to become more powerful,” he settled on. An overly simplistic way of explaining things, but truth be told, he really didn’t know much about cultivation as a whole. 

Besides, if the way his master had shut down the entire clinic in favour of teaching him was any indication, he was clearly getting something wrong. Better to keep his answers short and be thought a fool than to open his mouth and remove all doubt.

Lao Yi huffed despondently. “…Well, the good news is you’re not wrong.” He heaved a sigh. “This is going to be harder than I thought. Very well then, a more specific question – what is Qi?” 

He paused for a moment before waving a hand. “And don’t worry about giving me wrong answers here; I don’t expect you to have a complete understanding. The important thing here isn’t what you know, it’s how you think.”

Zhujiao nodded, thinking the question over for a moment before shrugging. If there were no wrong answers… “I always figured Qi was some kind of ambient energy generated by living creatures that cultivators can tap into,” he said plainly. “There was a hunter back in my hometown that said cultivators have a separate organ in them that lets them affect the ambient Qi?”

Lao Yi blinked, clearly somewhat taken aback by his response.

“That’s… well, not what I expected at all, Apprentice.” He hummed to himself, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You have a very educated way of thinking. Very well, I can work with this. You are not entirely incorrect, or at least not enough to matter. I don’t know what led this hunter to believe that cultivators have an organ that interacts with Qi – that’s something unique to Spirit Beasts.”

He paused for a moment to take a sip from a cup of tea that Zhujiao could swear hadn’t been there a moment ago. “I suppose some things make a little more sense now. I believe you are operating under a somewhat common misconception. Tell me, Apprentice, what is the difference between a Spirit Beast and a Cultivator?”

Zhujiao shrugged. “I know I’m probably wrong, but I always thought that there wasn’t much of a difference at all.”

Lao Yi nodded. “Yes, I suspected that was the case. In a fundamental sense, you are correct. Both use Qi to advance, but they approach the process from opposite directions. A Spirit Beast will suffuse its body with Qi, strengthening it until it reaches a sufficient density to trigger an advancement. Cultivators, on the other hand, cannot hope to hold nearly as much Qi in their bodies.”

Lao Yi fixed him with an intent look. “Trying to hold enough Qi in your body to advance would kill you, Apprentice. It would boil your blood from the inside out.” He gestured at the closed door to the clinic. “That’s why this was important enough to close down for the day. You’ve gotten lucky thus far, but if you keep trying to cycle your Qi through your body like you have been, it’s only a matter of time before you do some permanent damage.”

Zhujiao opened his mouth to argue before thinking better of it, but the old man noticed his expression and gestured encouragingly. He cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly.

“Well, Master, it’s just that cycling my Qi like I have been feels so… natural. I was struggling to use it before, but as soon as I found this method every got so much easier.”

Lao Yi rolled his eyes. “Yes, and if I threw you off a cliff, you would naturally splatter when you hit the ground. I imagine that plummeting through the air would be incredibly easy for you as well, but just because something feels natural doesn’t actually make it useful or desirable. Besides, the whole point of becoming a cultivator is to gather incredible power and attain immortality – what about that process sounds natural to you?”

Right. That made… a lot of sense really, and Zhujiao couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for not having considered it. Oh sure, in the Before there were plenty of stories about characters that just ‘did what felt natural’ and somehow instantly picked up incredible skills, but this was real life. Nothing that came easy was worth having in the long run.

Still, he couldn’t help but think about how Lao Yi had mentioned that holding enough energy to advance in his body would kill him. After all, he had managed to advance – several times even.

Zhujiao hesitated, then cautiously asked, “But Master, if trying to hold enough Qi to advance would kill me, how have I advanced before? I mean, I’m definitely stronger and faster than before. Isn’t that a sign of advancement?”

Lao Yi burst into laughter, a deep, hearty sound that echoed through the empty clinic. “Advanced? You? That’s rich!” He wiped a tear from his eye, still chuckling. “Oh, my boy, if you had truly advanced, you wouldn’t be sitting here asking me such questions.”

Zhujiao’s cheeks flushed, a mix of embarrassment and confusion. “But I feel different,” he insisted. “I can move faster, react quicker. It has to be something, right?”

Lao Yi seemed vastly amused. “Oh? What feats of strength or speed have you accomplished then, Apprentice?”

“Well, I lifted our heavy table up by myself,” he started to say indignantly before slowing. Seeing his master obviously try to suppress his laughter made everything worse. That sounded a lot more impressive in his head. And it had certainly felt impressive at the time, but in hindsight… 

Well, it might have been impressive for a child, but it wasn’t like his mother couldn’t have moved that table by herself. It would have been a struggle, sure, but hardly a feat worthy of a cultivator.

Lao Yi shook his head, his amusement subsiding into a more serious expression. “What you’re describing are just the most basic enhancements that come from circulating Qi through your body. Even your crude technique would boost your physicality enough to see some obvious improvements, but that is far from a proper advancement.”

That… was a bitter pill to swallow. He had felt so impressive, figuring out how to cultivate all by himself. He had felt strong, independent, and special. 

Lao Yi could read the despondency on his student’s face, and his expression softened. “Don’t feel too bad, my boy. That fact that you have sufficient control of your Qi to not die instantly while using it like you did is impressive.” He paused, suddenly curious. “How did you even gather enough Qi to use that technique of yours anyway? I can’t imagine you would have the finesse to use environmental Qi.”

“I, uh, used a bonfire at first,” he responded, forcing himself to shake off the sting of failure. “Once that stopped working, I managed to find a beast core.”

Lao Yi stared at him with fascinated horror. “You used a beast core to fuel your technique? And survived!?” The old man shook his head, incredulous. “Truly, the Heavens favour fools,” he muttered. “Using a beast core in that manner is one of the most reckless things you could have done, and it’s a miracle you’re still alive to tell the tale.”

The memory of fiery Qi scorching through his channels, burning his skin, his room catching fire… his mother’s death came rushing back, unbidden. Reckless indeed.

Lao Yi seemed to sense the shift in Zhujiao’s mood but continued, unaware of the specific reason. “The fact that you’ve survived this long with such reckless methods is impressive in its own right, but don’t delude yourself into thinking it’s anything more than luck. True cultivation requires a deep understanding of Qi and a disciplined approach. You can’t just throw yourself into it and expect to come out unscathed.”

Zhujiao nodded, feeling the sting of tears behind his eyes but blinking them away. He clenched his fists, trying to ground himself in the present. The weight of his past mistakes, especially his mother’s death, felt like a physical burden. “I understand, Master,” he said, his voice low. “I’ve been reckless. But I want to learn, to do things right.”

Lao Yi nodded sharply. “Good. That’s the right attitude. We’ll start from the basics and build a solid foundation. But let me make one thing very clear, Apprentice.”

The old man leaned forward, and the air in the room seemed to grow heavy. Zhujiao felt a sudden pressure, like the weight of a mountain pressing down on him. His breath hitched, and his heart pounded in his chest. The normally jovial old man before him now exuded an aura of terrifying power.

Zhujiao’s throat went dry, and he struggled to meet Lao Yi’s eyes, which seemed to bore into his very soul. The room felt charged with an invisible force, crackling with a tension that made his skin prickle. Every instinct screamed at him to lower his gaze, to submit, but he forced himself to stand firm, his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

“You may think you’ve been through hardships,” Lao Yi began, his voice low and cold, resonating with an unspoken authority. “But let me make one thing abundantly clear, Apprentice. Cultivation is not a game. It is not a path for the weak-willed or the reckless. The power you seek is not something to be trifled with or misused.”

The weight of Lao Yi’s intent pressed down harder, and Zhujiao felt his knees tremble. The room seemed to close in around him, the walls feeling suffocatingly close. His chest tightened, and it was all he could do to keep breathing, shallow and rapid. The pressure wasn’t just physical; it was a palpable reminder of the power difference between them, a warning of what could happen if he stepped out of line.

Lao Yi leaned closer, his expression unreadable but his eyes burning with intensity. “If you ever act recklessly with your cultivation again—if you ever endanger yourself or others through your foolishness—I will deal with it. Permanently.”