It was a dark and stormy night, and a young Hong struggled through the rain. He had been called out late in the evening on an emergency repair quest - a cultivator had paid a surprise visit to a brothel and, finding the entertainment lacking, had done what cultivators usually do.
“Wait,” said Mu, “a brothel?”
“Yes. Many a protagonist has gone to visit them, presumably because they’ve confused them with noodle shops and not because of any other, more nefarious reasons. I hear they’re especially popular places for Isekai Protagonists.”
“Makes sense.”
It was a dark and stormy night, and a young Hong struggled through the rain. The brothel lay before him - a gaudy and frankly rather repulsive structure, but one which fulfilled the needs of its profession adequately and which sent the appropriate message to all who saw it.
The interior was pristine, untroubled by the vicissitudes of cultivators; but from the noises coming from within, Hong knew it was a false calm, and one which merely presaged a storm.
His knowledge was not mistaken. The inside of the brothel was all a shambles - the tables shattered, the chairs tossed halfway across the room, the musical instruments broken upon the floor. The prostitutes were mostly cowering in the corners, except two who were remonstrating with a reedy and effete cultivator in the midst of the room. The first, a tall one, was explaining to the cultivator in a clear and strident tone that his actions were no way to respond to the unaesthetic nature of the building; the other, a short one, was heard to loudly exclaim that she thought the aesthetics of the building were none of his business in the first place.
The cultivator was raising his voice to respond, hand on his sword hilt, when Hong walked through the door. The latter wrung the water out of his wangjin cap, then offered a polite greeting to the group.
The cultivator was unimpressed with this conduct and politely informed him of it, demanding that he behave in future in a way that better fit propriety. Hong accepted the rebuke with a good grace and repeated the greeting in formal fashion, but to his surprise this made the cultivator even madder than before.
The cultivator began to remonstrate, in great detail, explaining in voluminous detail that Hong had completely mistaken the forms and manners of courtesy for genuine sincerity. When Hong pointed out, his tone very moderate, that he had been completely sincere in both his original curt remark and the ensuing more formal one, the cultivator responded by declaring that neither was real sincerity, because both lacked the spontaneity of free expression.
Hong’s brows drew together as he tried to puzzle out this declaration. Finally, he asked the cultivator - who was, he had now learned, the Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect - what he thought a greeting involving the ‘spontaneity of free expression’ looked like.
The Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect was happy to demonstrate, and promptly spit on the ground, then cursed at Hong. Hong politely indicated that he could deliver the greeting whenever he was ready. The Young Master, angered, declared that he just had; it had been a sincere greeting, by virtue of possessing none of the features of a formulaic one.
Hong slowly puzzled out this line of reasoning, finally concluded it was false, and concluded at the same moment that the cultivator was one of those of whom the Italian poet said, “The rivers of humanity overflow with stupid people.” Consequently, he made no move to disagree, instead merely declining his head in a nod.
This, however, made the Young Master even more irate. For reasons which even Hong was never quite able to understand, he thereupon entered a furious argument with the then-youthful noodle shop repairman, grilling him on his attitudes to propriety and moderation and his inability to move with the winds of history and appreciate “modern art” - evidently some transmigrator custom or other.
Determined, at least, to match the cultivator in interest if not in passion, Hong began to calmly articulate the views of transmigrator cultivators on spontaneity and courtesy, hoping to meet the Young Master on his own ground. But this, too, proved an article of annoyance to the Young Master; and when Hong asked him, cordially, to leave the brothel, he responded by challenging our intrepid noodly protagonist to a duel to the death.
This was no duel on the field of combat, of course. The Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect was an artist, as he was so fond of reminding everyone; and he purported to duel Hong (who had offended him by proposing that he not involuntarily redecorate the brothel) on the field of the arts.
Hong, who was more than fed up with this farce but needed an excuse to get rid of the man (and who was not yet at the point where he could safely fight him), accepted, but only upon the condition that the prostitutes be allowed to judge the dispute.
The Young Master accepted; the rules were decided upon; and the two prepared for the fight. They had settled upon four bouts, namely: painting, calligraphy, singing, and statuary. Were the two to tie then there would be a fifth bout, involving dancing.
The first bout began. The Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect whipped out his brushes and began spattering paint against one of the undamaged walls. Hong rolled up his sleeves, whipped out his paint roller, and started to work on the rest of the walls.
The Young Master glowed with a wild light, fizzes and sparks flying off his body as he slapped his paintbrush about with frenetic energy. Hong’s qi was softer, more gentle, smooth waves pouring off in tune with the even strokes of his roller.
Unbidden, uncalled for, the prostitutes stepped out of the corner, slowly walking towards the noodle shop repairman. Their jaws dropped as they watched his brilliant application of that deadliest of the Noodle Shop Repair Sect’s secret arts, the Uniform Painting Technique.
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Smooth line after smooth line appeared on the wall as Hong slowly repaired the patchwork and faded paint job, originally done some years ago and recently damaged by the capricious whims of the distraught cultivator. His technique was methodical and even, each line made with a meticulous and loving care.
At last the pair were finished. To one side was the Young Master’s painting, a perfect paragon of abstract art - paint spattered willy nilly all over the canvas. To the other was Hong’s painting, if painting it could be called - he’d simply repainted the wall.
“Behold!” cried the Young Master, pointing to his abstract art.
“Enh,” said the prostitutes.
“Behold!” said Hong, copying what the Young Master said, and pointing to his wall.
“Ooh,” said the prostitutes. The shiny new wall sat there, a paragon of normality, a veritable beacon of what the rest of the brothel might look like when Hong finished his work.
The vote was unanimous. Hong Yu, noodle shop repairman, was the superior artist.
The calligraphy bout proceeded much the same. The Young Master’s calligraphy failed to initiate a response in the prostitutes, likely because it was written with Cyrillic. He was reduced to staring in stupefied rage as Hong unveiled his own piece of calligraphy - a brothel sign, with the calligraphy acting as a cultivator repellent talisman.
“Behold!” cried Hong, motioning to his normal sign.
“Ooh,” said the prostitutes.
Fortunately, thought the Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect, he still had two bouts with which to tie Hong; he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he could reach the dancing contest, he would crush Hong utterly, squishing him under his patent leather booties.
And crush him he must. It was not simply that Hong had humiliated him; it was how Hong had humiliated him. He, the great Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect, who had walked the Dao of Painting until he’d reached nearly the Third Circuit (where he’d stagnated for two hundred years), was losing in a battle of the arts against a repairman.
The cultivator’s commitment, however, was unequal to his capacity. The third bout was yet another catastrophic defeat on his part, as he recited his three hundred stanza epic tragedy about the ultimate meaninglessness of life to a complete lack of reaction on the part of the prostitutes.
Hong pulled out a teeny tiny scroll from his pocket, coughed, and began to recite.
Dull fire of moonlight
Reflects in the cup of tea.
Tastes best when with friends.
“Ooh,” said the prostitutes, eyes shining. Clustering about Hong, they enthusiastically asked for copies of the poems for them to peruse and use later, something Hong was only too happy to provide.
And so came the final round. The Young Master knew now that he had no chance of victory, and hoped only to salvage himself from a complete defeat.
The last bout was statuary. The challenge was simple: use clay to make something. And make something the Young Master did. His hands glided across the clay as a masterwork of modern art took form. Limbs grew out of nowhere, heads multiplied by the dozen, and the entire thing took the shape of something between a snake and a wildebeest.
Hong made some teacups, carefully following the dictates of mingei. Each set was as simple as could possibly be, lovingly handcrafted, and completely mundane in nature.
At last both disputants were done. Carefully, they exhibited their artworks to the gathered prostitutes. First came the Young Master, to the usual silence and crickets. Then Hong exhibited his teacups.
The prostitutes went wild. They leapt up and down for joy, enthusiastically cheering and clapped their hands. The short prostitute was so delighted that she asked Hong to visit her later.
“And did you?” Mu asked.
“Did I what?”
“Accept her offer.”
“Of course not. Soliciting a prostitute is immoral; so I married her instead.”
“Oh, I see- now wait just a moment here. You’re married?!”
Hong looked at him in confusion. “Well yeah I’m married. Where did you think I was going, when I went off at night? Alone to cultivate on some secret and forbidden hill? I was visiting my wife.”
Here he produced a small heart-shaped locket from within the folds of his robe, opening it to reveal a picture, lovingly drawn, of Hong standing beside a short woman. She had a soft smile and a warm grin in her eyes, and was leaning against Hong.
Hong snapped the locket and tucked it carefully back into his coat.
“Huh. Never would have guessed you were a married man,” Mu admitted.
“Oh? Haven’t I introduced you to my grandkids yet?” Hong asked in surprise. Mu just stared at him.
“I haven’t? How strange. I’ll have to introduce you - my youngest is having her two hundredth birthday this fall.”
Mu’s face made a strange contortion, his eyes moving to leap out of his head. “Wait - hold on - hold up just a moment here - your youngest grandkid is older than I am?”
In a rare show of emotion, Hong stuck out his tongue. “The wonders of cultivation, my dear apprentice. But I return to the story-”
The prostitutes went wild. They danced for joy, they leapt about, the short one started her road to marriage. At last - at long last - finally - they had working, cultivator-proof teacups!
After finally extricating himself from his adoring fans, Hong went to communicate to the Young Master of the Kindness and Love Sect that he thought he had won… but in vain. At the sight of the prostitutes swarming the cups the cultivator had finally lost it; he had spit blood once and sunk to the floor, dead.
“Lies!” cried the lead cultivator, back in the present. “Everyone knows you killed the artist by moving so fast that nobody could see you.”
His other partners appeared puzzled, one of them whispering to the other, “Wait did we just listen to Hong tell an entire story? Why is it so late?”
Hong, however, paid them no heed. Instead he blinked, puzzling the lead cultivator’s complaint out. Finally he spoke. “I’m afraid you’re incorrect. I did nothing to him; he died of his own accord.”
The cultivator at the forefront of the Kindness and Love Sect hit squad spit. “You think you can lie to us about this? Hah! Well, it matters not; you have courted death for long enough, and death has at last come.”