A Thousand Li Book 11 - Chapter 1 preview (Patreon)

What Came Before

Once banished, Long Wu Ying has returned to the Verdant Green Waters sect. His time away has seen him acquire knowledge of six of the seven winds and receive grievous injuries in the kingdom of Nanyue to the south.

Upon his return to the sect, Wu Ying finds that his presence is unwelcome to some. Too strong to be ignored, he is maneuvered by Guardian Pang and the Sect Head into forming the Department of Wandering Gatherers, much to the chagrin of the new Head of Gatherers, Elder Kim.

Setting up the department taxes Wu Ying’s resources, forcing him to rely on his friends in ever greater amounts. At the same time, he realizes that the quest for immortality has seen many fall by the way side. Tou He retreats into closed door cultivation, attempting to resolve his fiery nature, his own pacifism and Heaven’s demands. Liu Tsong has chosen to stay mortal, content as a Core Formation cultivator. And Fairy Yang, his martial sister ambles her way higher, building organisations for the betterment of all.

In the process of setting up the department, Wu Ying meets new cultivators. Bright and brash, some sent as spies by Elder Kim, they force the older cultivator to reflect on his own, past, shortcomings. As the year progresses, he continues their training, eventually culminating in an expedition of his own. There, his students take on an old enemy and gather herbs.

Their impetuousness opens Wu Ying up to further politicking and in a confrontation with Guardian Pang and Elder Kim, Wu Ying must defend himself and his choices. More than that, he must decide – to blow, like the wind, free of any constraints? Or to tie himself down, to heal and study and provide for the sect that had once been his home.

Understanding and decision arrive as Wu Ying resolves to continue in the sect as the Head of Wandering Gatherers. In so doing, he ties himself to the sect and to staying, a factor that drives a distance between him and Yang Mu.

Years pass and Wu Ying’s injuries heal, slowly. Returning from the wind has driven impurities through his body, forcing him to slow down in his madcap ascent. In the meantime, the world turns and the winds of war arise.

Chapter 1

Ominous black clouds gathered high above the mountain range, shading the land below and the Verdant Green Waters sect. They swirled, unnaturally and slowly, the beginnings of a funnel forming, the other end of the funnel aimed at Heaven Ascension Peak, the tallest and steepest mountain in the range.

A short distance way, the watchers stared with bated breath. Amongst the audience of this unnatural event were famed Elders of the Sect. The Fairy Yang Fa Yuan, she who commanded the feared Whispering Blossoms organization, a female led intersect coterie of individuals who sought to stem the abuse and corruption of the dark sect.

The former Buddhist monk Liu Tou He, Heaven’s Flaming Staff. He who offered both words of wisdom and compassion and the searing punishment of the heavens in equal measure to evil doers throughout the kingdom.

Department Head of the Verdant Green Water’s apothecarists, Li Liu Tsong, the Golden Hand. The weakest in terms of cultivation among the numerous watchers, but well respected for her outstanding knowledge and ability at apothecary.

More Elders watched too, none as close as these three to the one who sat upon the peak; but storied figures in their own right. Powerful personages whose presence would make even other sect heads quail at their presence.

And, one other.

An honored guest, an interloper. Yet one who had returned, again and again, to the Sect that none gainsayed her presence at this time. Nor would they dare, for it was her return this final time after long absence that had been the catalyst for the scene above.

Yang Mu, the Merchant Princess of Seven Kingdoms. The Golden Fan, whose wealth and network of contacts stretched across thousands of li and multiple kingdoms, even to fabled Nanyue and the frozen north. She stood apart from the group of three, tension wrapped through her body as she stared at the peak and individual who floated there.

The reason for the commotion, the cause of the cloud bank.

Long Wu Ying, the Verdant Gatherer, Head of the Department of Wandering Gatherers, Honored Elder of the Verdant Green Water sect, Wielder of Ren, Bearer of the Heart of the Jian and Seven Winds Body Cultivator.

***

Wu Ying could sense the crowds below him, the way the winds had to move around their bodies, the way they shifted with each breath and each impatient twitch of their bodies. Inhale and the world seeped into his body, the familiar scent of jasmine and tea, of honest sweat and soap beads. Grass and earth down below, the humid moisture of heavy clouds above. Twisting metal flame and hot air, pulsing in his hands.

Exhale and with his breath his aura stretched further, expanding across the mountain peak and the slopes below, the skies above and the clouds that funneled energy down into his body. He wove this energy through his body and around his aura, before directing it to what he clutched.

Golden runes floated around him and across his hands, swirling together and coming apart as he guided the formation through sheer will alone. Formation flags and stones sunk into the land around him had long cracked and broken under the intense heat output by the item he held. All the while, he tore the energies from the heavens to him, encompassing the pulsing heart that sat between his hands, beating still but no longer bleeding, burning but never shrinking.

Every breath, his body wavered, threatening to spill across the barrier of material and immaterial. Every moment, wounds blossomed across his body as old injuries were burnt away and torn apart, only for skin and flesh to reform from swirling wind.

Winds, familiar companions, danced across the peak and brought with it knowledge of far events and nearby tragedies. From the south, a civil war brewed as a corruption deep within a kingdom spilled forth; staining the very air with the smell of old tar and rotting meat. From the west, dessert sands and hot spices flew, reminding Wu Ying of lands he had never visited. The memory of chants and benedictions arose, even as a golden light played across his skin.

Cooling winds of the north chilled the air, controlling the boundaries of heat and joining the mix of the central winds as it rose, pulling the heat skyward to deepen the depths of the clouds above. Most of all, of the mortal winds, the eastern wind whispered to Wu Ying, of marching armies and training men.

Yet it was the the supernatural winds of the heavens and the hells that Wu Ying focused upon, feeling their pulse and beat around him. The winds of the thousand hells scoured the wind cultivator’s body, burrowing deep within and ripping clear burnt flesh, twisted meridians and cracked bones of his injured form. Punishment, benediction, cleansing. The winds of hell offered it all, and then some.

Afterwards, as it left Wu Ying bleeding and injured, heavenly winds returned. Wrapping wavering form in celestial light and the dao of order and synergy, passing on blessing and recrimination in equal order from the celestial bodies above. Five heavens, five blessings, five punishments.

Lightning flashed down the sky once again, striking at Wu Ying’s seated body. It tore through rising wind and shimmering heat waves, lightning dancing along unseen pathways in the air to crash into him before passing through to ground itself in the earth below.

On delicate winds, Yang Mu’s whispered words rose to Wu Ying’s ears, even as burnt flesh sloughed off and blinded eyes reformed. “Three.”

Heart clutched in hand, enchantments and arcane glyphs and characters reforming in golden light as Wu Ying cajoled the chi of the world to do his bidding. He could feel the heartbeat slowdown, the energy imparted reduced by a notable degree for the first time.

Pain was a companion, a nagging and constant companion that Wu Ying had grown used to. The moment he began the process of rebuilding his body with the aid of the jiufeng(1) heart, Wu Ying knew, he could not stop.

How Yang Mu had managed to even acquire a single heart was a story in itself, but the powerful celestial-phoenix heart would give Wu Ying a single chance at fixing himself. Nine human heads to navigate the wind cultivator back to the perfected human form while the heart from the chest of the phoenix was the center of mercy and the union of yin-and-yang.

A powerful ingredient, along with the formations and techniques to entirely rebuild a broken mortal; to bring it back to the state of flawlessness required to step across the river of mortality. Though Wu Ying could have existed for centuries as a mortal cultivator, that would have all that he could ever be.

Perfection was required, for the celestial bureaucracy would allow no obvious defect. Not to its vaunted halls, not amongst the immortals that oversaw the Middle Kingdom. A flawless mien of order and perfection, turned to mortal and immortal alike.

Flames sprang anew from the jiufeng heart once again, wreathing Wu Ying in its flame. Fire destroyed, but what left behind in the fallow earth would renew. Wood chi, woven through the formations in his aura and floating about him surged, entering his body and mixing with water chi funneled from the heavens above.

Cycles of destruction and renewal wove themselves through Wu Ying’s body and through the air around. Flowers and grass sprouted, burnt off and fell apart in rains of ashes, even as water soaked into the earth to catch upon deep seated roots, causing the plants to spring aloft once again.

Yin and yang, death and rebirth. The Dao encompassed it all, and neither was right or wrong. As the heart burnt, traces of human souls crossed Wu Ying’s perceptions and he used them to guide his own; restoring portions twisted by his own mangled transformation from immortal wind to frail human.

Like birth, like death, this period was marked by pain.

There was no gain without price, no benefit without cost. As Wu Ying was rebuilt, again and again, he inched towards perfection. Guided by the souls of those long before, wreathed in the balanced Dao of the phoenix.

Lightning, formed from above, struck again, brightening the surroundings. Skin and flesh and bone were highlighted for a brief moment, blue-white light accompanied moments later by the roar of a thousand drums. It echoed off mountain slopes and along the valley, sending rocks tumbling and water shaking.

“Four.”

Wu Ying heard her, once more. He was uncertain if she counted for his sake or hers, even as the shuddering heart within his hand began to fail. There was not much energy left within the heart, the souls captured within exhausted and on returning to the wheel of reincarnation.

As for his own body, for his own needs… it was not enough. Wu Ying could feel the changes that had been enacted upon him had burrowed deep, turning out bone and marrow and organs, but it was incomplete. Started from outwards and flooding within, the changes had come slowly.

Realisation washed through him on a wave of pain as skin and flesh reformed. He could not take it slow any longer, could not wait for the heart to complete its job. On the edge of the immaterial, he would have to take one final step and risk it all.

He hesitated, spiritual senses wrapping tight around his friends, his family who watched the striking heavens far below. Students clustered around the entrance of the department, staring upwards in consternation, hoping for the best from their teacher. Most of all, as he hesitated, knowing that a single mistake would see his true end, see soul and being scattered across the seven winds; never to reform. To risk it all, or to end it now.

Wu Ying inhaled, and once more, searched for his resolve. Would he, could he risk the harm and the grief he would cause if he failed. Was it not enough, to live his life as an Honored Elder? To wile away long nights with a loved one, to watch his parents pass on and join friends as they too aged?

He searched for his resolve, for his certainty. And found it, once again in the whispers of the wind. Of lands far away, of old friends he had yet to meet again and new, unknown acquaintances. A world left of experiences untasted.

In finding his resolve, Wu Ying’s aura hardened and sharpened. His resolve multiplied through the surrounding area, layering itself across the mountain range and suffusing the air. A boy, in the middle of a fight found the energy to block a thrust, stepping forward and headbutting his opponent. Moments later, his own weapon fell to the ground as enlightenment arrived along with the resolve.

An outer sect cultivator, pushing against the pain of cleansing a meridian and nearly failing found the resolve to struggle onwards, forcing chi through the meridian and shattering the blockage. In doing so, he damaged his cultivation base and altered his destiny.

Apothecarist pills, in the midst of forging, delicately brewed were ruined. Weapons in the midst of forging gained an aspect of sharpness and resolution as the dao ran through them. All across the sect, the actions of a single man resounded.

And there, high above on another peak, a Sect Head raised his head. He frowned and extended his own dao, suffusing the clouds above. Heavenly lightning gathering was held back for a moment, buying Wu Ying a moment.

A moment was all it took as he released his grip on his mortal form. Fire burned through his immaterial body, sweeping deep within all the way in. Here, there was no barrier of flesh and bone, no way to stop the flames from finding the parts of him that had returned wrong. Here, heavenly chi and hellish chi could find their way in, healing and punishing in tandem. All of it guided by the fading heartbeat of a celestial creature.

Long moments, before Wu Ying pulled himself back to existence. This time around, he followed the heart, the template it offered him as he reformed his mortal body. This time around, the missing wind of the thousand hells guided his rebirth, for it was in the hells that man was reborn. This time around, when he reformed, he was whole.

Heavenly lightning, held at bay for a fraction of a moment, crashed through the dao that held it back into its target, eliciting a scream of savage agony. Once again, the light of the heavens returned to the Middle Kingdom and expressed its full displeasure.

Footnote:

1 - Jiufeng (Nine Phoenixes) was a god with nine heads, all its faces being human atop a bird’s body. The jiufeng was supposed to snatch the soul’s of those unfortunate enough to anger it.