千方百计( Qiān fang bǎi jì) – a thousand ways, a hundred plans; do everything possible

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"So who would you suggest, shi fu? I realise you can't stay here forever."

Two people sat at a circular table, a dim lamp overhead and cups of hot tea nearby. The person who spoke was, of course, Chūn Zéyì.

"I do have someone in mind," Yuān Mù said, turning his cup. “Zéyì... you have to be clear about this from the beginning. Why are you seeking to take Chūn Yili's place as ruler?

Zéyì looked at her companion, then around at the room they sat in. The space was claustrophobic, dark, damp.

“Shifu, I won't deny... there's a part of me that burns for revenge. Trapped in a cold and dark place for so long... was... hard. Very hard. And to remember the truth, that it was my own mother that sent me there... How do I live with that? Information is another reason, therefore. Why did she do that? Was she somehow linked to the flooding curse? And to the drought curse over Zhū? Because Gong... Gong Lau Jan told me that Mother was from Zhū, originally.”

“Ha... So that's where she...” Yuān Mù let out an uncharacteristically bitter laugh. “I see.”

“See what, shifu?”

“No, please. It would take a while to explain. You finish first and then I'll speak.”

“Well, maybe I won't get those answers. Mother's been dead for so long, but there might be records somewhere in the palace. I want information from Chūn Yili too. Was the only reason why she accepted me so easily, then had me locked away, because she wanted to marry me off to the Zhang prince? Why is she so desperate for that to happen? Did my mother have the same thoughts when she tried to marry me off? I don't know.

“And last... You know, I see why you asked me this now, shifu... All of my reasons are selfish. It's not about the Chūn people, it's all my own self interest. But I'm so desperate. I need closure, and... I need power. I... want to help Gong Lau Jan. But right now, I'm a single person. Yes, I have some skills. But the ability to... fly on a lotus or fight a little well is not enough. I need more than that. I need the means to find out what happened to Queen Gong Ming Zyu. I need the power to scour the world for Zyu Ji Sang. I'm... I'm selfish.”

Yuān Mù smiled gently. “You know, the Second Princess Chūn Zéyì I remember was a foolishly kind young woman. She would risk her life to save a beggar's child in a flood. Pick fights with nobles on behalf of the poor. Channel her personal maintenance budgets into infrastructure works and healthcare.”

“It was all for my own self-satisfaction. So I could congratulate myself on playing saviour to the less fortunate.”

“Is that why you kept going even after the His Highness Crown Prince tried to have you assassinated?”

“Ha... That's... How am I supposed to answer that, damn it? You meddle too much, old man... Ugh...” Zéyì clapped the palm of her hand to her eye, grimacing. A trail of dark smoke seeped between her fingers. She might have accepted the demonic energy within her, but she still wasn't entirely sure how to use it, and it spilled out ever now and then.

“Zéyì, your medicine.”

“Give it here... shifu.” She took a small pill from him and he added some dried flowers from a pouch to her cup of tea.

“These are chamomile flowers. They've been used in Zhang for their calming properties. Traders have been bringing them along the Jade Road from countries in the west.”

She took a shaky sip. “Tastes nice. Like chrysanthemum.”

“Zéyì, do you know of the Mount Hua Sect?”

“Of course, shifu. Are suggesting... why would a person of the Mount Hua Sect come to the aid of rebels in Chūn? The political ramifications of a Shisuan-based cultivation sect aiding the overthrowing of a neighbouring country's ruler...”

“Indeed. We're treading in dangerous waters here, Zéyì.”

“So who are you suggesting we should send for?”

“His name is Zeng Guk Lung(1). He's the great-nephew of... an old friend of mine.”

“I hope he's more trustworthy than my great-nephew.”

“I will vouch for his moral character. I've known him since he was born.”

“If you recommend him, then I will follow your advice, Master.”

“You trust me so much.”

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“If I don't trust you, who do I trust?”

“It seems that characteristic of yours hasn't changed, even after everything you've been through.”

“Alright, I'll question you then. This Zeng Guk Lung, why would you recommend him? Why does he have a Zhū name? Who is this friend of yours that he's related to?”

Yuān Mù opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His eyebrows lowered and hid his gold and black eyes.

“Was that... My apologies, shi fu.”

“No, not at all, Zéyì. It was... a difficult time, and not one I like to think about much. But, in short, Zeng Guk Lung's great-aunt was a junior sister of mine. A very intelligent and capable person, and he has truly inherited her spirit. He's one of the smartest people I know, and has great skills in strategy and logistics. I'm not guaranteeing he will help, but I think it's worth asking him.”

“Then we'll have to find some way of contacting him.” Zéyì finally took a sip of her now-cold tea. “I was also thinking that I need to speak with the street people.”

“Don't worry about Zeng Guk Lung, I'll contact him. Be careful while on the streets.”

“Yes, shi fu, I know.”

“Well, don't go just yet. I have something for you that you might want to spend some time getting used to before you go.” He placed a scroll on the table between them.

Zéyì took it slowly, contemplating its bamboo strips without unrolling it. “What was it you wanted to say earlier? About my mother?”

“Only that I visited Zhū many, many years ago. Now I that I think about it, things seem to be falling into place. Man Jiang... Mun Gong... The Mun family were semi-important nobles with a distant familial relationship to the royal family. It's suspicious that your mother was at two places at times when major calamities occurred there.”

“If I could find some records of hers... journals, perhaps. Or the records of the palace intelligence group... Of course, they're very smart. No one seems to know anything about the Head of Intelligence. Not their name, their gender, their age. I'll have to see if anyone on the street knows anything.”

“Make sure you have a look at the scroll before you do,” Yuān Mù reminded her, finishing his tea. The scroll was still unopened in her hand.

“Oh, of course.” She opened it slowly, eyes widening. “This... This! Shi fu, how...?”

“I haven't just been sitting around Huang doing nothing, you know.”

“But for the Wudang Sect to give you this method of cultivation...”

“It's only partial, of course. Only the basics. But I think if it's you, Zéyì, you'll be able to use it.”

Zéyì looked at the scroll again.

A tàijítú dominated the centre, five circles one above the other. The first circle was empty and unlabelled, the second containing the swirling forces of Yīn and Yáng. The third held the five elements of the world, and Zéyì's fingers lingered on the symbol for Water. The fourth contained the characters for Heaven and Earth, and the last was surrounded by four characters: huà shēng wàn wù -Ten thousand things are born through transformation.

The remaining space on the scroll was filled with lines of text. She read the first few.

We begin in nothingness. The process of living brings chaos. That which is cold, dark, wet, passive, resting, dying, and that which is warm, light, dry, active, moving, living, battle each other. When one learns not the fight these opposing forces, when one learns that these two sides, apparently irreconcilable, are truly complementary, balance will be found. Yīn and Yáng will find peace and sink back into the calm of nothingness.

“Shi fu...”

“What do you think, Zéyì? Do you think you can do it?”

The part of her she had been calling Fàn Bì'ān, that which was dark, was stirring with excitement. They were both... no, every part of herself was excited, in a way she hadn't been in such a long time. She felt alive.

Balance will be found.

“Yes. Yes.”

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For a week, Zéyì sat in the underground room, the bamboo scroll laid out before her. Part of her wanted to rush out and do something, but it was an easy impulse to quell. She had been alone at the bottom of a lake for a hundred years. She could be patient for a week.

The temporary relief she felt with the medication was subsiding into something else, as she had felt when Yuān Mù had first helped her accept her darkness. When the voice she had called Fàn Bì'ān's whispered in her ear, she spoke back -

Help me. I've been too weak all this time. I want to be stronger.

It's okay. We'll get through this together.

- until she was no longer sure whose voice was whose.

Well, weren't they both her, in the end?

Light in the dark, dark in the light. Stillness begets motion. Motion turns to stillness.

All of it is me.

Trying to balance two cultivation paths was easier than it seemed. The Still Heart practice carried her through the everyday, with the YīnYáng Art managing the extremes of her emotions. Her dark eyes, previous strewn with flecks of black, began to show signs of pale grey, the hues mixing unevenly at first until her irises seemed to be made of marble.

At the end of the week, she cut her hair.

With the ends of her hair brushing her shoulders, she began to frequent the streets in the evenings, a cloth mask drawn across her face and wearing the robes of a street merchant. If soldiers stopped her, this young woman with the sleepy, marbled eyes and short hair, with thick eyebrows (produced with soot), simply said that she was distributing her excess wares amongst the needy, and after carefully checking her eyes and testing that her hair was not a wig, they let her go.

After all, how could a person change their eyes in such a way? And why would the Second Princess cut her hair, that gift given to her by her royal parents?

She watched them go, her mind blank of any thought other than her job of delivering the excess food to people living on the streets. And then she would do just that, handing out buns and rice to the children who ran up to her, to the men who drooled and stared and occasionally ranted to themselves, to the women who clutched pregnant bellies pitifully or scratched hectically at thin arms.

One night, she was placing some food beside a pile of rags when it stirred. The voice that spoke was high-pitched, but somehow couldn't be comprehensively determined as female. A pair of bright eyes peeked out from between the rags.

“So who might you be, lady? You've been out and about a lot, these nights.”

“Just a charitable person. Please enjoy your food.”

“I will, once I know who you are. My name's Hán Yā(2). I know a thing or two about this place. Why don't you put your burden down for a bit and have a talk with me?”