The Fourth Stage - Chapter 4 preview (Patreon)

Dinner that evening went long into the night, before the group broke up as the day began to fade. By common and unspoken agreement, they chose to speak only on lighter matters, catching Wu Ying up on the lives of his friends in the intervening time. Matters of greater importance, the changing landscape of the sect and the politics that surrounded them were left alone for another time.

More than once, the gentle pressure of a spiritual sense brushing over their auras were noticed. Not just the Guardian Pang, whose presence had never left the surroundings, but also the energy from over a dozen cultivators – some managing to watch over the group more gracefully than others. Yet, the interest of the myriad Elders of the sect was unmistakable, especially as the night’s revelries dragged on late into the night.

The next morning arrived all too quickly, the pair taking care to dress and care for their appearance with utmost detail. The journey to their destination did not take long, though Wu Ying chose to undertake it using a pair of palanquins rented from the inn itself than rather than traversing the muddy ground themselves. Early morning dew covered the leaves and bushes all around, whilst overhead the sun was hidden by the overbearing clouds which still threatened rain.

“And you’re sure they’re ready for us?” Yang Mu asked, worriedly.

“I am. They’ve been up for the last hour.” Wu Ying reached over to pat her hands, rough fingers gliding over smooth, pristine skin. It was funny, how his own hands had grown more calloused after his reformation. Almost as though he had expected to return with callouses.

Yang Mu smiled tightly at Wu Ying, fingers tightening on the purple cloth covered box she held on her knees. The entire arrangement had been artfully arranged, delicate silk embroidery on the edges of the cloth showing the lotus flowers that highlighted the edges.

“You’re sure the gifts are enough?” A head turned, to the other gift she had acquired. A sword from Nanyue, another masterwork weapon. Not a Saint weapon like the one belted on Wu Ying’s hips but a Spirit weapon. More powerful than anything his father would have ever wielded. “I could…”

“No. It’s likely too generous,” Wu Ying said, softly. “You know they are but Body Cleansers in the first stage.”

“They are your parents.”

“Yes. And their path to immortality was cut short long before my birth.” He sighed. “Perhaps in the next life, they might attempt more. But great fortune would be a burden to them, more than a gift.”

“You’ve said that before but I admit, I find that hard to imagine.” Yang Mu chuckled, ruefully. “Intelectually, I understand. I have seen what a tael given to a beggar does. And this is much the same. But… I still find it hard to imagine.”

“That’s because you grew up under the wide shelter of your parents.” Hands parted, opening to the ceiling of the palanquin they faced. “And a better shelter, I can barely imagine.”

“Do you envy me then?” she cocked her head to the side, searching his face. “Will they?”

“One man – or woman’s – fortune and fate is no concern of mine. Whether you grew up with riches or scrabbled in the streets for a grain of rice, all that matters is the choices you make and the actions that you stand for.” Wu Ying’s hand closed, his voice growing passionate. “And I know you, Yang Mu. Your heart is good and strong and true. That is all that matters.”

“Oh Ah Ying…” Yang Mu whispered the words before she leaned over to kiss him gently. The kiss lasted for a long time, his arm snaking around her waist and pulling her close, only to be interrupted in the end as the palanquin came to a stop. She pulled back with a gasp, a hand rising to her lips and then smoothing her robes. “You, like what you did. My makeup!”

“You’re the one who kissed me,” Wu Ying protested.

“Go!” She waved him to the door. “Give me a moment, to prepare myself again properly.” Already, she was conjuring lipstick paper to bite, her other hand flying across her robe to straighten and wipe down imaginary dust.

Laughing to himself, Wu Ying ducked out of the palanquin, pushing aside the cloth curtain. He alighted on a stand of air, using a slight flexing of will and chi to layer it all around the palanquin in case Yang Mu came out too quickly. After all, this was a farming village. Dirt, manure, rice discards and the like were ever present.

“PaPa. MaMa.” He smiled as he saw the two individuals standing before him, before the small house two winged hut that was their residence. His father was leaning against his cane, his mother standing beside him, barely above his shoulder. Yet, upon seeing them, Wu Ying felt a sense of incongorous.

Not just because they were older, though they undoubtedly were. Over a decade had passed since he had last seen them, and his parents had given birth to him late in their life. In the intervening decade, they had aged significantly and in their sixties, the passing of time had etched themselves on their bodies. Grey hair, his father nearly purely white now. Muscles wasted away a little, their skin tanned and wrinkled from years in the sun.

But it was not just their aged appearance that had caught Wu Ying out. It was also their clothing for today, they were pristine new silk robes. Robes that the cultivator was suddenly certain were never taken from the closet, set aside even after having been gifted to them over a decade ago by himself.

What use did they have, for expensive robes? Even if Wu Ying could have provided them more. They were simple farmers, content to work the fields, to till their vegetable gardens and thresh the rice. Fortune might be theirs to call, but to wield it would have placed them above and apart from the very community they had grown within.

What use, chests of tael, if one had nothing to spend it upon or friends to share in the wealth?

“Ah Ying,” his mother was the first to speak. She always did, for his father was all too quiet. She stepped forward and before her foot had even landed, Wu Ying was beside her. He caught her hands, gave them a squeeze and released them. Then, overcome with emotion, stepped back further as he released the weave of air around his feet, dropping to his knees and kowtowing.

“Forgive me. Forgive your unfilial son, for leaving so long. I should have been here…” Wu Ying said, choked up suddenly. Yes, he had to leave. Yes, he had to travel to find the winds and his enlightenment. And yes, by choosing the path of the cultivator, he had chosen to abandon them too long ago.

But it was one thing to make a decision, and another to realise what it truly meant. To know that one’s friends and family would age and die before you. To see it in the lines of their faces, the slight twist in their body where pain existed. To see in the shrieks and cries of children all around, that the world had moved on without you.

Tears came unbidden to his eyes, and Wu Ying forced them down. It would be unseemly – it already was unseemly – to be this public. He would not shame them more. But head pressed to the ground, he could not see the cane that thumped on his head, though the wind told him of the danger long before it arrived.

“Fool boy. Get up. There is nothing to apologise for. Do you not know the honour you’ve brought us, the gifts you and your friends have given to this village?” Then, softer, his father’s voice, gruff and deep as always with the strength and surety of age and wisdom added. “Do you not know how proud we are, that you strive for immortality? The comfort in knowing that our child might never die?”

Wu Ying stood up then, blinking at his parents. He stared at his beaming father, at his mother who offered him a kindly and loving smile. His world tilted again, as the words his father had said permeated his mind and sent it askew.

Before he could reset himself, Yang Mu arrived, stepping forward now that the initial awkwardness was over. She glanced down at Wu Ying’s knees, his clothing and forehead and grimaced. A slight twitch of her fingers and her chi coursed over him, pulling at the mud. It sloughed off him like water, earth raining around Wu Ying.

His parents watched all this with a little awe. Even after all this time living beneath a mountain of cultivators, the majority of their interactions would be with those who could not so casually wield chi. Techniques were hard earned, trained over and over again till one grasped the very nature of the chi flows and the way each element interacted within and without.

Then, at the Core stage, such concerns fell away. Power made up for lack of understanding, even as a deeper connection to the Dao offered the cultivators an intuitive understanding of what to do. Techniques still offered a greater efficiency and wider range of actions, but smaller elemental adjustments like this – especially for elements that were closely related like Wood to Earth -were simple matters.

Another twitch, this time of hardened air poking into his lower back shifted Wu Ying’s thoughts to the present.

“PaPa. MaMa. May I present Yang Mu. She is my… my…” Wu Ying hesitated, finding his courage – courage that had seen off demons and Nascent Soul beasts alike – failing for a moment. He glanced sideways, to catch the quiet support and trust in Yang Mu’s eyes and he continued, firmer. “My dao companion.”

“Oh…” Now the smile grew wider. “Welcome, Cultivator Yang.”

“Please, Auntie. Call me Ah Mu.”

“If you call me MaMa.”

“Of course.” A head bowed, low in acceptance of the honor. “Thank you.”

“No, please. I have looked forward to this meeting for many months now. Ever since Wu Ying’s first letter complaining about you arrived,” his mother said.

“Complaining?” Yang Mu said, archly.

Wu Ying winced at the maternal betrayal even as his mother turned, leading Yang Mu by an arm she had somehow acquired to their house. All around, he sensed the farmers who had slowed – and in some cases, even stopped – their work began to pick up the pace once more. The drama was over, the initial meeting had gone well. Better than well. His stomach unclenched a little and he found himself following after.

His father joined him, falling in limping step. The pair shared a silent nod in acknowledgment and greeting further, only for Wu Ying to freeze as a dreaded sentence floated out of the house.

“So, when can we expect a son?”

***

It was late afternoon when the pair finally managed to leave the village. Wu Ying had to turn down entreaties by the village elder to look around, Elder Tan looking even more aged than ever, his voice tremulous and shaking with his entreaties. They had managed only to leave after Wu Ying promised to return as soon as he could after finishing his duties in the sect itself. As it was, they had to spend a few hours lighting the joss sticks to the ancestral tablets that their father had brought along from their original village.

In truth, Wu Ying would have preferred to stay longer. The village had doubled in size, both from new families joining the farming enclave and the number of births in the intervening years. Dozens of children ran amok through the fields, playing and working on chores in equal measure, their laughter rising high and shrill and filled with joy and the assurance of safety.

It was not, of course, entirely safe. But with simple formation flags embedded in the surroundings built to warn the community of demonic beasts that might approach and almost every other villager carrying a weapon of some form, it was safer than most other locations. The dangers, the true dangers, that the villagers might face were the kind that would challenge the sect and ruin their settlement as an afterthought.

“That went well,” Yang Mu said, simply. In counterpoint to her words, she was smiling broadly, a skip to her step as the anxiety of the introduction faded.

“Very well. You and MaMa got on well.”

“We did. And you and your father?” she cocked her head to the side. “I noticed you left after lunch, soon after.”

“Lessons,” Wu Ying said as explanation. He felt his heart clutch at the recollection, of his father standing before a dozen children, all of them studying hard. He remembered himself, and even had brief recollections of his friends having joined them before. All too quickly, his friends had given up under the harsh tutelage of his father, the exacting requirements he had set upon them.

Entirely unlike the way he trained the children now. Games and forms and repetition, sweets as prizes and even, shock of shock, praise.

“Ah Ying?” She looked at him in concern, having caught the strange tone in his voice.

“I’m fine. It’s just strange, to see him teaching others. And for them to enjoy it…” Wu Ying said softly. “For the elders and family to encourage it.”

“Oh?”

“I guess…” He hesitated, then looked upwards to the mountain above and the sect. “I guess proximity has given them hope.”

“Opportunity too.” She gestured around, turning a little so that she encompassed the fields that they had left behind. “The chi here, the environment is much stronger than in most places. The spirit food you send down, even the infused rice that they consume, it all aids them. And, of course, the knowledge that is imparted to them, from the townsmen and your friends and the books you’ve passed on.”

“I’ve done little enough,” Wu Ying said, hunching his shoulders a little as guilt assailed him once more. “I’ve not been here for so many years.”

“And those books you’ve sent on, the cultivation manuals and techniques that many have hidden in their residences. Are those nothing, then?”

He grunted, cornered by her words.

“Do not discount what you’ve done for them Ah Ying. Your village, your people have an opportunity that many would kill for. That it is not everything…” She smiled then, suddenly. “Take it from one who did receive all the opportunities one might want in cultivation. It is not always the smoothest of journey’s even then.”

“Oh?” Now he echoed her earlier words.

She was silent for a time, the pair turning up a mountain path and heading to join the main pathway to the sect. It was long minutes before she spoke again. “I was never meant to be a cultivator. Not in this life.” A hand reached across her body, touching the left arm on the outside. “My lung meridian. It was blocked, significantly so. For any other cultivator…” She trailed off, then rolled her sleeve up, turning her arm sideways so he could see it more closely. A long, extremely thin scar, so faint that only now when she pushed a little wood chi into her arm and he was paying close attention did he notice it.

“They cut it open?” Wu Ying said, surprised.

“Cut it out.” Now, her voice was cold, remote.

He hissed, then added. “How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

Wu Ying’s breath caught. He held it, as did any reactive utterances as he considered the entirety of her words, the image of an eleven old Yang Mu, beautiful and feisty and mischievous he was certain being held down as a blade cut and cut, and blood flowed and she screamed…

“How could they?”

“I asked them to.” She sighed. “It never occurred to me not to. We were cultivators. That was what we were. My younger sister had already opened her third meridian and I…” She shook her head. “I could not be less. Would not.”

“And they cut you open, cut it out and replaced it?”

“Yes.”

Silence then, as the pair continued their ascent. Wu Ying reached out sideways, offering her his hand. She took it without a word, and for a time, they walked.

Ascending to a sect and the troubles that awaited them there, as memories of a difficult past hung about them both.