The Fourth Wall - Chapter 2 preview (Patreon)

Yang Mu watched as Tou He came back down the stairs, joining the group in the cultivation room that they had set aside for the procedure. He eyed the formation flags, though she knew he had only cursory understanding of the skillset. It was not an area of expertise for the laidback monk. Sometimes, she wondered how he had managed to climb this high, for while he was a dedicated cultivator; she found pinning his dao down harder.

It was, perhaps, because he followed the six fold path still to some extent. Like everything, the philosophy involved was part of the Dao; and so following that path to immortality was just as viable as more traditional soul cultivation methods. Yet, she also knew that he had been exiled for his love of meat, of his willingness to get his hands bloody. 

His was not the peace and openness and mercy of the traditional Buddhist monks, but a harder and bloodier path that spoke of mercy with one hand and reprimanded the wicked with the other. A path of compromise between the high ideals of peace and retreat and the practicalities of the jianghu.

She did not envy him, his path.

Nor the woman who did know formations, at least enough to desire to inspect the work that Yang Mu had laboured over for weeks. Even in this private place, Fa Yuan moved with an elegance and economy of motion that was beautiful to watch, each gesture a part of an intricate dance whose beat only she could hear. Even bent over, she angled a little, posed such that her great beauty was ever more present. Motions so engrained over decades of practise and an instinctive understanding of eyelines, that the Fairy of the Verdant Green Waters was still courted far and wide, though she had never taken a suitor.

Her martial sister might be a dabbler in the arts of formation and chi gathering, but the Elder of the Verdant Green Waters had a skill of her own. She could see the balance of the flows of chi, and this formation which sought to rebalance Wu Ying, her own dao could aid them greatly. Even now, she could see Fa Yuan adjusting formation flags by a quarter cun, a fraction of a fraction to bring things further into line as lines of power and chi danced before her eyes.

"Your esteemed parents, Yang Mu?" Tou He asked, curiously. He had dropped the Cultivator portion of her title, but even ow, a decade later since they had met and fought; he still fell back on formality at times. 

"Resting. As much as they can." She tried to hide the tremble of fear in her voice, the exhaustion that threaded through her. She had not slept well for months, for she had to keep an eye on Wu Ying, Ensure he did not pass in the middle of the night, that he did not injure himself as he slept, battling his inner demons. Worry and focus had drained her, such that she was but a pale imitation of herself; a wilting flower before the resplendent sunrise of Fa Yuan.

"And so should you," Fa Yuan murmured. "You will do no one any good if you collapse."

"I will not." Yang Mu closed her eyes, a wave of exhaustion roaring through her before she pushed it aside. "I would, Elder Sister, but each time I close my eyes, I see it again. That fight... Wu Ying, coming apart in my arms like his ring..."

She did not see Fa Yuan move, but she felt it. Her body, wrapped in warm and comforting arms. And then, a moment later, another; wider and larger from another angle. She stiffened only a little at the inappropriateness of the touch before she relaxed.

Regret laced his voice, muffled as it was as it spoke into their bowed head. "I should have come. I should have been there."

"You were cultivating. You had to balance yourself."

"I still should have been there."

"If you did... you might not have affected anything. And we would have no chance to fix him." Yang Mu pushed away, staring up at the bald man's grief-stricken eyes. "Your flame, it is all that makes this a possibility."

A tired smile, acknowledging the point. Then, he pointed to a spot with a simple woven mat. "My place."

"Yes."

"Then I shall rest and settle my mind." He walked over and sat down, legs crossing before him and eyes half-closing as he got into the lotus position. He was not cultivating, instead focused on meditating and calming himself.

Yang Mu watched him, silently, trepidation in her eyes. She felt a hand on her arm, squeezing it gently and she looked over to Fa Yuan who offered her a kindly smile in turn. 

"He will be alright," Fa Yuan said.

"How can you know? You haven't seen him." Yang Mu said, angrily.

"Because I know Wu Ying." A slight crooking of a smile. "If there's ever a man who has been blessed by the heavens, I would say it was him. Look how far he's come." There was no anger or pettiness or jealousy in her voice, though Yang Mu knew that Wu Ying had long surpassed his elder martial sister. Though she might stand at the Peak of Core Formation, it was still a step she had not taken; even after all these years. 

Perhaps wisely, if Yang Mu considered Wu Ying's own predicament.

"Blessed by the heavens..." Yang Mu shook her head. "Perhaps the opposite. For his trouble is because he refuses to bow to them."

"And perhaps that is the problem. He has long benefited from their largesse, and now he rejects it." A twitch of her shoulders, as she let the grip fall away. "He still will be well. I refuse to let him die, and he is too stubborn to go easily."

Stubbornness. That was the problem, was it not? That he refused to compromise, now, in the face of his dao and the winds and the heavens. He would not, could not, accept anything less than what he desired; though Yang Mu wondered if he even knew what it was that he sought.

One last look, around the room, as Fa Yuan returned to adjusting the formation. She did not understand what he needed - could not -  but she could at least provide him aidin resolving this fracture. What he did afterwards, none of them knew. Wu Ying was treading unbroken ground, or if not unbroken, rarely traversed. 

***

They brought his friend in on the cot. It hurt his heart, a little, to see his great friend laid low. Yet, there was still a glint in the man's eyes, a determination that refused to compromise even now. It was a course of action that Tou He could sympathise with, for he too had trod that same path not so many years ago.

Unlike his friend, he had come to an agreement, a moment of understanding and a resolution to the disparate needs of heaven, his flame and his own dao before it became a true conflict. Unlike his friend, he had not broken his own cultivation; though it was the same research, the same documentation and techniques that would be utilized to help him now.

That, and his flame. A dragon's flame, a dragon's chi, a cleansing fire that had once threatened to scour the world of chaos and demons, now softened by compassion and mercy, by a human's understanding of warmth and hearth and mortality. It was hard, for a dragon, to understand such things for they were born imperious and grand and could not understand weakness or failure. 

It had taken years for Tou He to realise that, to comprehend the blood that had become part of him and that danced to the tunes of the heavens. It had taken years, for him to realise that it was not a lack of compassion but understanding that hampered the development of mercy within these flames. Even more years, to extend the blood and the raging dragon ego the empathy he offered another human, and in so doing, have it become more part of him and softer.

Now it was time to turn that mercy and understanding, the flame that grew from it on another. To aid him in burning away his impurities and injuries, to guard his soul during the process of refinement and merging. To help Wu Ying find that balance that he struggled with right now, even as he destroyed portions of his cultivation. It would weaken him, greatly; but it would allow him to survive.

They lay his friend down on the stone floor without bedding, arranging him so that he could lie there. Wu Ying looked around blearily, muttering thanks as  he was set on the ground; returning the kiss offered to him weakly. The two great cultivators arrived moments later, taking their spots along the formation. 

Tou He regarded them for a moment, gauging their strength through his spiritual aura. Like Elder Yang, he too was on the verge of breaking through and stepping into the next realm. If he dared, that was. He would have upon their return, if not for the urgency of their mission here. But to do so now, would to put his friend in danger; for it would take months if not years to stabilize his cultivation after the breakthrough.

No. Better to wait, until this was over. Then, one way or the other, it would be time to take that next step.

Looking over, he noted much the same degree of resolution in Fa Yuan's eyes. They had delayed, they had stalled, not daring to take that final step. Not wishing to be wrong, needing to clear up blockages in their dao or understanding. Feeling the need to verify their enlightenment before taking that final step.

It was not wrong, it was, perhaps looking at their own friend - the right thing to do. But it also had come at a cost, the price being their friend's injury, for Wu Ying had taken on the burden of protecting the Sect and themselves on his own broad shoulders. 

No more.

It was a silent resolve, that they would do better. They had stopped climbing, for their own reasons; but now those reasons seemed shallow and foolish in the face of the reality of their dying friend. Now, it was time to act once again, to grasp the impetuousness of youth and resolve of cultivators.

"It's time. Are you ready?" Yang Mu asked, checking on Tou He. Of them all, she had the least to do now. She would not control the formation, though she was its maker. It would be Fa Yuan, whose very dao would guide Wu Ying to find the balance point within him, while wielding the scalpel of Tou He's flame. All of it, backed up and empowered by the pair of Nascent Soul cultivators. Of them all but Wu Ying, she had the greatest to lose. 

"I am." He offered her a smile, and he knew it was a little strained. Even so, he smoothed his emotions out again, stilled it and waited for the signal.

One last kiss, a grip tightened on his friend's hand. Then, she left, stepping out of the formation carefully. She nodded to her parents who began to concentrate their chi and their auras, bringing their attention and power to focus around them. For a time, that was all that happened, as the massive strength of the paired cultivators tightened around them. It was impossible, even for Tou He on the inside, to tell where each of their auras stood by themselves, so tightly interwoven were they. A pair of true dual cultivators, such that neither could - or would - take a step forward or back without the other.

When the aura was trapped within the room, when their energy began to leak through the formation lines to him, Tou He allowed it to rise upward. In his spot, he was the furnace that would heat and refine his friend, he was the flame that would test him. Allowing it to be empowered by the energies coursing through him and around him, the fire cultivator allowed his flame to emerge from his breast, to spark and race down the formation lines to the stone bed that Wu Ying lay upon.

The flame that sparked to life came full form, containing the entirety of Wu Ying's body; burning hot and bright. It stripped him of the outer layer of clothing and the bedding he lay upon, burning so fast and cleanly that only bare ashes were left behind. Only his thin underclothing, silk from fire-elemental silk worms lasted; a precaution taken for this very moment. 

Immediately, his skin reddened, dirt and blood and remnants sweat and scum burning away. It filled the air for a brief moment with an acrid stink that threatened to choke them all before a wind swept through the room, taking it away. Tou He considered, in a deep and impartial portion of his mind, which one of the seven his friend spoke of was that one. Probably a mortal wind, for it was those that his friend had always had the best connection with.

As though a door had opened, the winds came howling in to the formation. Mixing with his flames, threatening to take away his control, threatening to make him burn hotter and faster. He could sense the edges of the dao in some of them, in particular the dao of the heavens. There was anger there, disdain for a mortal that had defied them and a desire for correction. Punishment was the domain of the hells though, and though Tou He had portions of that dao himself in his flame; he was less attuned to it. 

Purposely so.

Clamping down on his control, focusing deep within, the monk felt as though he was standing on the edge of a cliff face, balanced on a single leg with his staff extended before him. Only control, decades of practise and a willpower to refuse to bend or alter allowed him to hold firm. Even as the winds threatened to tear control of the fire from him, Tou He concentrated on feeding his flames at a steady state. He would not let his friend be harmed any further, not if he had any say in the matter.

In the meantime, as his flame burnt, he felt another presence in the formation. Moving delicately and deftly, guiding flame and aura.

Now, Elder Yang Fa Yuan made her presence known, and with it; the true test of their formation and Wu Ying's healing.