The Fourth Wall - Chapter 18 preview (Patreon)

It was strange, speaking to a cultivator whose entire existence contradicted the very basis of cultivation that Wu Ying had grew up upon. Not to say that he had not understood it was possible – those who ate immortal peaches, who quaffed the wine of immortality or whose bloodline had grown in prominence that they gained the strength of beasts – they all had similar backgrounds. 

More than that, heretical cultivators of all kinds had been part of his past. Individuals who had sought progression through the enlightenment of everyday existence or through conjugal relations or even via connecting themselves to spirits.

Yet, he had never truly spoken to another. Too busy with his own experiences, too worried of being led astray. His path forward had always been a linear one, without turns or diversions. He might have traversed the land around the path, but it had always been the same direction. He had never paid attention to those others who might have taken different, unorthodox trips.

Now, though, Wu Ying found himself adrift. In uncharted lands, with no way forward to his destination.  He had no signposts, no guide and no time. 

Or all the time in the world, for he finally found himself here, seated by Fung Wan. Learning to fish. Not in the way that he knew, with nets and spears but with a fishing pole. A single long stick with a line and hook hanging off the edge of the boat, attempting to lure fish to them.

“And no chi?” Wu Ying said, once again.

“It defeats the purpose,” Fung Wan repeated.

“Of catching dinner?” 

“Of fishing. Do you not know, that the point of fishing is not to catch the fish but to spend time trying?” 

“I have never heard that.” Wu Ying eyes crinkled in humor as he continued. “When we fished, our goal was always to acquire dinner.”

“You were a farmer then? Or a huntsmen?” 

“Farmer.”

“Ah, the sport I speak of, it is more common among the nobles. Among those in the east and in the deep ponds and fishing holes, for the fish that are larger and more precious to acquire.” He smiled grimly, as he continued. “Not the carp and mudfish that farmers care for, that swim between the shallows and amongst your rice plants.”

“And yet, you do not use your chi to acquire any.”

“I do not. Do you know, that doing so will also scare away those demonic and spirit beasts that are sensitive to chi? They are smart enough to understand the difference between a lure and the real thing.” Fung Wan sighed. “To catch the masses, it does not matter what method you use. But to catch a rarity, to acquire that rare beast - patience is required.”

Wu Ying grunted, waggling the end of his fishing pole. 

“You could say, that is my viewpoint on it all I guess. Cultivation, enlightenment, immortality. Even our place in the heavens above, when we have to spend all time if we are fortunate. So many of us try to choose a path that is narrow enough not to anger the heavens, to make ourselves small enough to be accepted. And I would rather find something, somewhere, else.”

“Yet, if you stay there, without pushing yourself, without striving for more - how can you ever expect to make your way to that final destination? Are you not giving up all opportunity and leaving it to chance and fate itself?”

“And do you think your own journey has not been heavily influenced by chance?” Fung Wan shook his head. “Every cultivator, every individual’s life is tossed and turned by the storms of fate and luck. I-” A jerk on his line interrupted the cultivator as he yanked backward automatically, sinking the hook in properly. Eyes wide at the strength of the pull, the way his own fishing pole bowed over, Fung Wan stuck his pipe in his mouth and took hold with both hands firmly.

For the next few minutes, an exciting battle between cultivator and his watery prey was conducted. Wu Ying forgot his own pole as he watched, never to realise that his own bait had been cunningly removed during the thrashing battle beside him. Chi flooded out of his companion’s body, Fung Wan now seeing no reason not to reinforce his pole and string alike as he strained against the railing and his unseen opponent below the water.

Water splashed around as the entire boat rocked downwards and upwards, moving to the pull of the creature below. The captain, contrary to Wu Ying’s expectations, had only shouted a series of orders to his sailors, many of them working to stabilize the ship with oars and adjustments of sails as the vessel was cast about. Clean river water, the churning of white foam and the splash of something below intemingled with the shouts of sailors as they threw orders between one another.

Eventually though, the creature was extracted, a massive horned eel rather than a fish; an evil-looking thing that tried to wrap its tired body around Wu Ying as it was hauled aboard. Only a quick dodge and a stunning blow on its head saved the wind cultivator from taking further, more lethal steps to defend himself.

In short order, a spike was driven into the creature’s head and the ship’s cook arrived, rubbing his hands together. Cultivator and cook stepped aside, having a quick discussion about the contents. In short order, Fung Wan had extracted the core and the cook had the creature trussed up, a slit opened down its body to remove its innards and begin the draining process. Unlike most other, lesser, creatures; everything was saved - from the guts to the blood that dripped into wide bowls and the scales of the eel as it was carefully stripped 

After all, a creature around peak Energy Storage - or perhaps even low Core Formation - had value in all its parts. As Yang Mu, coming out of her room after the jostling, was quick to act upon as she spoke to captain and cook.

“Did you just gift the entire body to the ship?” Wu Ying asked to confirm what he had overheard.

“Not gifted, just shared. We will dine on the meat for the rest of the trip after all,” Fung Wan said. “I have no use for so much meat, do you?”

A slight shake of the head admitted he had no space for such things. Not anymore. Once, perhaps, he might have sought to acquire the guts, the blood for his World Spirit Ring. Once before, he would need as much as he could acquire, taking in the chi of the world, water and earth and wood and metal all to supplement the ring’s own production. 

Yet, now...

An aching hollowness, a sense of loss and grief rose up within him. Wu Ying found himself short of breath, a pain in his chest as he was struck for the first time with what he had lost in truth. For so long, he had struggled with his own injuries, with his search for a solution to his own problems, his imminent demise that any thought of what else he had lost had been driven aside.

Here, now, suddenly he was struck by the awareness of emptiness on his left middle finger, a void of a weight. Forced to contend with his own sacrifice for the good of all. Once again, giving up everything for what reward? What benefit beyond injuries that he might never recover from, a broken soul and body and a longing that refused to fade.

Wu Ying turned away from Fung Wan, wiped at his ears as they teared up, felt his breathing twist in itself. The pain, that background pain that had become a facet of his life lurched into conscious perception, pressing upon his will and drawing a hiss of exhaled air. Movement behind him and instinctively, he turned and struck out, beating aside the reaching hand of concern.

Fung Wan stepped back, holding his arm in pain, wary now.

“I... sorry,” Wu Ying said, his gaze swimming in unshed tears and the corner of his vision rippling in light and darkness as time moved on.

“Ying.” The words were gentle, soft and arrived moments before she did. Comforting and familiar arms wrapped around him, gripped him tight. Yang Mu offered a single nod of thanks to Fung Wan before she stepped and stepped again, taking him to their personal room.

A minor movement had him on the bed where he curled up, agony dancing through his form. Which came from grief, which from his injuries to body or soul, it was impossible to tell. 

Some hurt, some loss, was so deep it mattered little.

***

The pain came in waves, crashing against the redoubt of his will. It washed him away into an ocean of agony, such that he could only contend to survive from moment to moment. Wake, eat, cultivate, sleep. Breathe, through aching joints and stabbing pains, drinking herbal remedies that dulled the edge of torment, troubled dreams causing him to toss and turn.

Visions of a world, being consumed, except at times it was not a world or a ring but his very self enterring that void. Sweat, pouring from his body, wounds on unmarred flesh breaking open to close eventually under pressure of soul and body and cultivation. Grief and despair, turning over his mind again and again, as the realisation of wasted years, decades wore at him.

Worse was the realisation of loss potential, of a world and future that no longer existed - could never be. All the dreams, all the plans he had made, consumed by the hunger of a never-ending ambition. Thrashed by the dreams of another who could not, would not, accept anything but everything.

Days and nights muddled together, Wu Ying unable to conjure sufficient strength to do more than survive the thrashings of his broken body, gripped in the throes of revelation and grief. 

By his side, wiping at his sweating forehead, washing him down with damp cloth and carefully binding or releasing wounds were the gentle hands of his lover, murmured words that never truly reached him always there. Words whose meaning permeated even in his pain drunken haze.

“I’m here. You’re not alone. This will pass. You are strong enough. I’m here.” 

And most of all. 

“I love you.”

Like lifelines cast into the water, like flotsam and broken boards, they gave Wu Ying moments of rest and a way forward. Understanding that permeated his consciousness, that this was a bad day, a bad series of days, a week. Eventually, the pain would pass, his grief would lessen.

Not because the loss was any less devastating, but because it was, in the end the nature o humanity to heal. To pave away calamity with the dreary morass of boredom and mundane days. To allow routine to mortar together cracks in personality and existence, such that in the end, a man might stand.

Broken, beaten, bereft - but erect.

***

When he made his way over to the stern of the ship once again, Fung Wan offered no words of recrimination or enquiry, only an extended fishing pole. He waited till the wind cultivator had taken a seat beside him, gingerly, before he murmured. “One shouldn’t leave a pole unwatched. It is all too easy for it to slip away.”

“Understood. I-” would apologise, but the sidelong glance told him it would be unwelcome. “-will remember.”

“Good.” A gesture at the small bucket, strips of meat that radiated an oily, watery chi rising from the pile of bait. “Well, get on it. If we’re lucky, we might just catch another.”

It took Wu Ying a little while, trembling fingers unwilling to fixate on this minor task before he managed to place the bait and toss the line overboard. Silence reigned between the two, before a small cup of rice wine was added to the deck. 

Perhaps there was a wisdom to stillness, to basking in the moment and waiting, for that moment of enlightenment and opportunity. When striving only saw one broken on the wheel of ambition, when injuries accumulated beyond the body’s ability to heal, then a time of rest and relaxation might be necessary.

Like a plant, waiting for spring to arrive. 

Or a fisherman, allowing his prey to come to him.