Fates Parallel Chapter 334 - Persistence (Patreon)

Lee Jung had no idea what she was doing. She hadn’t for a long time, but this was an entirely new realm of unfamiliarity.

She was relying on senses she’d never experienced before, flexing metaphysical muscles she’d never known existed, and completely unable to interpret anything she was feeling. To say that Lee Jung was confused would be a dire understatement.

What she did know was that she was still dying. She’d felt Lin Xiulan as a cold presence within her, holding her metaphorical hands and moving them in the inscrutable patterns of cultivation. With each motion, the pain receded and Lee Jung felt her own essence more clearly.

Thanks to Xiulan’s intrusion and Jia’s lessons, Jung knew what her essence felt like, and how to move it. She could sense, somewhere deep within her, the source of her ongoing agony. Most importantly, she was able to continue doing so after Lin Xiulan’s presence vanished.

It hadn’t been the first time—Xiulan had come and gone several times throughout the exhausting process of Jung’s treatment—but something told her it was the last. Jung couldn’t put it into words. It was just a strange feeling—a vague intuition that she nevertheless knew to be true. Jia had taught her to trust such feelings.

So Jung was on her own, but her treatment hadn’t yet ended. It was up to her to figure things out from there.

Alas, Jung was not a genius like her precious daughters. She wasn’t the one destined to shake the world or challenge the heavens. She was just Jung. A common prostitute who’d somehow managed to end up with two of the world’s most amazing people looking up to her.

She didn’t deserve it.

Perhaps, that was why she’d gotten ill. Heaven’s way of punishing her for grasping so far above her station. Her childhood dreams were supposed to be fantasies—a far-away hope that made her life feel just that littlest bit less bleak. They weren’t meant to be realized.

Let Lee Jia and An Eui shake the earth. Let Narae challenge the heavens. Jung had no place in their destinies. Her fate wasn’t even to die here—it had been to die back in Yangye, in a tiny forgotten shack, discarded and useless.

Her little girls, with their reality-defying destinies, had rejected that. Refused to leave her—refused to let her die. As a result, Jung had seen things she’d never imagined possible. Mansions and palaces, magic beyond belief, traveling the world alongside people whose choices could reshape the entire continent.

Not to mention, she’d found the last thing she’d ever expected—love.

Yumi had been a pleasant surprise. Jung hadn’t considered taking a woman for a partner before—much less a foreign noble—but they’d found a connection that neither of them expected. Yumi loved her students as dearly as Jung did her daughters—although she was far more shy about it.

So much had changed in so short a time. Perhaps her tryst with Yumi was doomed, and perhaps her daughters had gotten in over their heads. Maybe the coming cataclysm couldn’t be averted, and the world was doomed to be collateral damage in the battle for dominance between deities beyond her comprehension.

Jung hadn’t bothered entertaining such possibilities, knowing that her time was limited. She’d been prepared to die without ever seeing the answers to those questions. It was easier that way.

Yet now that she was here—she wasn’t ready. She wanted more time with Yumi, even if it could never truly work out. She wanted to see Jia overcome the impossible odds, the way she always did. She wanted to see Narae thrive in the new world her sister would carve out for her.

Jung wanted to live.

But how? All she could do was follow the instructions Jia had taught her, when Narae was still practicing to become a mage. Jung breathed exactly the way she was supposed to—she’d practiced—and focused on the new senses that Lin Xiulan had so helpfully highlighted.

She sensed the labyrinthine pathways of her meridians, and the qi flowing through them. But none of it meant anything to her. What was she supposed to do?!

Jung could remember the way her qi had moved under Xiulan’s influence, but repeating it was another story. Each failed attempt sent a spike of unimaginable pain through her soul and threatened to break her precious concentration.

There wouldn’t be a second chance—Jung had to get it right now, or not at all. So she just kept trying. With nothing but hard work, hope, and sheer stubborn determination, Jung persisted—testing and probing her way through the process of...whatever it was she was doing.

It didn’t matter. She would survive. She would see her daughters again, she would finally break Yumi out of that insufferable shell of stoicism, and she would seize her undeserved place in a world that did not want her.

Jung didn’t have a plan—she didn’t have a method or a technique. In theory, she knew that she needed to open a path to her dantian, but she may as well have tried to pluck the sun from the sky for all the good that did her.

All she had was what hurt, and what didn’t. That much she could understand. Jung clung to it desperately, like a beggar’s last precious coin—the only thing standing between her and starvation.

Stumbling in the dark, feeling her way through the endlessly complex labyrinth of her soul, Jung inched ever closer to her destination. She didn’t know where she was going, or what she would do when she got there, but she was determined to see it through to the end.

Then she arrived, and everything went still. Jung could feel it as though it were a physical thing—the source of her pain and misery. An oily, sticky, hateful substance threatening to spread through her soul until there was nothing left of her.

In that moment, so deep within her soul that her physical body was entirely forgotten, Jung understood what the heart of corruption was. It wasn’t the source of her pain and misery—it was her pain and misery. All of her hatred, all of her anger, all of the things she squished down into the depths of her soul to ignore.

Years of pretending it wasn’t there—hiding the pain behind charming smiles and boldly defiant pride. It had taken a life of its own. A dark reflection of cultivation that weakened and destroyed instead of empowering.

Jung seized the heart of corruption without thinking. Ignoring it was what had caused it to grow out of control in the first place. How could disposing of it ever help her?

The corruption was pain given form, and it hurt Jung to take hold of it. Twenty years of suffering, condensed into a single mote of pure agony that ripped through her soul like a tidal wave.

She screamed until her throat was raw and bloody. Her body thrashed beyond her control, and she would have torn her own eyes out if not for someone holding her in a vice-like grip and whispering soft comforts into her ears.

When Jung finally came to, she was barely even aware of the seizure she’d undergone. Her memories were hazy, but the sensation within her soul was unmistakable—somehow, she’d succeeded in awakening.

She blinked away the crusty remains of dried blood around her eyes and realized she couldn’t move. Yoshika still had her wrapped up tightly within her arms.

“J-Jia...”

Jung’s voice was barely a croak, and her throat made her regret even trying. Yoshika gasped and delicately set her back down on the cot.

“Jung! You did it! I knew you’d make it!”

As much as she wanted to reach up and hug her daughter, Jung felt closer to death now than she had before the treatment. The best she could do was give Yoshika a tired smile before the exhaustion caught up with her and she fell into a deep and restful sleep.

—-

“Her condition is stable, the heart of corruption is...dispersed, and her soul has awakened. She suffered some backlash from the process, but that’s easily treated. She’ll need to recover after this, but Lee Jung has gotten through the worst of it—she’s cured.”

Yoshika let out a sigh of relief as Lin Xiulan provided her prognosis.

“You sound almost surprised. After all your reassurances, was it really so close?”

Xiulan pursed her lips.

“I take great pride in my work, but Lee Jung has been a difficult patient. That she has managed to awaken is impressive, but for all the wrong reasons.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Your sister is...untalented. Perhaps it’s uncharitable of me to say so, but the most remarkable thing about her is how unremarkable she is. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to cure her entirely—and my best efforts are very good. She had the Empire’s premier foundation building technique, with multiple experts almost literally holding her hand through the process, and she barely managed to awaken.”

Yoshika scowled, wiping some of the dried blood off of Jung’s face with a damp cloth.

“Cultivation isn’t everything.”

Xiulan smiled softly and nodded.

“Indeed not. The point I am trying to make is that Jung had the odds stacked against her. A constitution that is particularly prone to corruption sickness, living circumstances which were all but certain to provoke it, and such an utter lack of cultivation talent that she practically resisted any attempt to cure her. Yet she persisted. It couldn’t have been easy.”

“I honestly can’t tell whether you’re insulting or praising her.”

“Let me be more clear, then. I usually select my disciples for talent, but Lee Jung has gained my respect. I know cultivation methods suitable for her unusual physique, and I would be honored if you allowed me to take her as a core disciple.”

Yoshika chuckled and shook her head.

“Lin Xiulan, you’re a lot more down to earth than most of the xiantian cultivators I know, but you still think too much like one.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. Lee Jung isn’t mine to give away. If you want a new apprentice, you can ask her yourself when she wakes up.”

Xiulan shrugged.

“Fair point. Anyway, she’s safe to move now, so I’ll have a few disciples come by to transfer her back to your guest house soon. Will you be staying with her?”

“I think I’ve hogged her time enough for now. I’ll give everyone else a chance and return to the peak for a bit to resume my training.”

“Quite the work ethic—but don’t forget that you are allowed to take breaks. We’ve been missing sessions while you focus on training, but there’s no reason you couldn’t attend with this lovely new avatar of yours. I could also visit you at the spring, if you prefer.”

Yoshika bit her lip. Xiulan’s soul healing sessions were intense, but undeniably helpful. They also tended to leave her feeling emotionally drained.

“I—we’d appreciate it if you could find the time to visit us at the peak, when you get the chance.”

Xiulan bowed graciously.

“Of course. I’ll be sure to give you adequate warning.”

Soon the disciples Xiulan called for arrived with a palanquin to carry Jung back home, and Yoshika made her way back to the mountain—avatar and all.

She would send it back to Eunae later, but Jung’s treatment had left her feeling overwhelmed, and she needed a bit of time to decompress before dealing with people again—even good friends.

As such, Yoshika was extremely unimpressed when she arrived at the peak to find a strange old man frowning over her physical bodies. Her reflexes kicked in and time slowed to a near halt as she processed the scene through her Absolute Awareness.

She should have been able to sense him, but if not for the fact that she could see him right before her eyes, he might as well not have been there. No physical presence, no sound, no scent, and not so much as a hint of essence or even a domain. He stood in flagrant violation of her domain, but her domain couldn’t sense or touch him.

Who was this man?

Time resumed its normal pace as Yoshika approached cautiously and the image turned to meet her. He had long white hair, bushy eyebrows, and a thin beard that went down to his navel. He was dressed in red and gold finery, and stood with a sort of imperious self-importance that reminded Yoshika of her old teacher Qin Zhao.

The man inclined his head ever so slightly in greeting.

“Ah, there you are. I was beginning to worry that I had missed my timing. May I assume that you are the gestalt entity composed of the dao companions Lee Jia and An Eui, who refers to herself as Yoshika?”

Yoshika did her level best not to scowl at the man, consciously holding herself back from crossing her arms as she addressed the man as politely as she could manage.

“That’s us. Who are you?”

Stressed as she was, she didn’t do a great job, but the man didn’t seem to take offense at her curt demeanor.

“I am Prime Minister Qin Yongliang, First Prince of the Qin Dynasty. May I take a moment of your time?”