Once they had all calmed down, the rest of the offerings were burnt. Hao Ning was careful not to jostle or even nudge Xiao Fan as she ate, a humbler, more careful girl than she had ever seemed. Furtive glances towards the other woman were the best form of communication she seemed to be able to muster; she couldn't bring herself to speak, or even give her a nod, or look her in the eyes. Every time Xiao Fan tried, Hao Ning looked back to the floorboards, ears reddening like ripe cherries. Xiao Fan didn't really mind, honestly - Hao Ning seemed to be feeling better than she had before she'd had anything to eat, at least, and that was what mattered to the rice farmer. So what if her whole torso ached like she had been beaten black and blue?
That was a different sort of issue - one that Xiao Fan felt unequipped to deal with, and even somewhat alienated from. It had felt like an eternity since she had felt true, real physical pain. Sure, Hao Ning had poked her wrong with the needle for a moment the other night, just to be a bit of a little shit... but it had been brief, and was remedied straight away. The pain hadn't had time to set in at all, and Xiao Fan hadn't had time to grow accustomed to the feeling of the pain she had been thusfar denied. It was a bit of a bother, she thought - and the presence of items like this, ones that could damage the soul as easily as the flesh? They posed a new complication.
Surely Tang Shun wouldn't have something like this. This was the artifact of a powerful demon bestowed upon a similarly powerful martial master. He had ruled a whole mountain school, likely for all two-hundred or so years that Zhichao Tingfeng had mentioned... He must have been quite a sight to behold. Xiao Fan thought back to the story Zhichao Tingfeng had told her in the storehouse. Six lightning strikes. The tribulations of heaven had been endured six times by one lone man, in the middle of a fight to the death, and still he was only barely defeated. Surely a lowly bandit like Tang Shun didn't have access to that kind of thing...
Her eyes fell to the blackwood needle, where it now lay before the brazier - away from both her and Hao Ning. Zhichao Tingfeng had taken the liberty of ensuring it was secured somewhere where neither of the girls were going to accidentally stab and kill themselves a second time with the demon-cursed needle. Xiao Fan couldn't really express the relief this put into her, but it surely put her mind at ease.
She didn't want a repeat of Hao Ning stabbing her in the chest with the needle. That had fucking hurt, and she still ached... Eugh. Training couldn't come soon enough.
Hao Ning finished with her offerings, then, her eating having slowed with every progressive bundle of paper and food. She finished the final bundle with a loud, satisfied burp - followed by a coy, girlish giggle. Xiao Fan rolled her eyes at her ghostly sifu, leaning away just in case. Unlike a ghost's howling and a ghost's happiness, a ghost's burp didn't seem to do anything. Thankfully. Xiao Fan leaned back over towards the three of them after just a moment to ensure no chaos ensued; when she did, she turned to Zhichao Tingfeng, tapping his shoulder to get his attention.
"Ah, sifu Tingfeng. Sifu Ning is done eating... Perhaps we should begin to clean up? I, ah... My chest still hurts from where I was stabbed. I'd like to get to acupuncture training as soon as possible, if only to soothe this burning, aching sensation." She wasn't exaggerating, to her credit - the ache had become a burn, like when you hold flesh to a piece of ice for too long, so cold it feels hot and aches as if struck. Zhichao Tingfeng nodded with a restrained smirk, waving his hand over the cauldron-brazier. When it didn't immediately go out he sighed, loudly. The handles on either side were taken in his powerful hands as he stood, rolling his shoulders to ensure he was limber after so long sitting.
"Alright, simei. You two get to your training - I'll clean up myself. I know it's unusual, but you're injured... And I would be quite a terrible host and sifu if I ordered you to do chores for my sake while you were injured, wouldn't I?" He winked, the restraints on his smirk lessening, his brows lowering to narrow his eyes at the two women - or, well, just the one. He still couldn't see Hao Ning. Xiao Fan bowed deeply where she sat, suppressing a pained groan that came from moving her torso in such a way. Her whole spine felt like she had thrown it out of alignment just from the kowtow, but she held back the sounds she wished she could make.
"Thank you, sifu Tingfeng! Your graciousness will forever be etched upon my hea-aaaarghhh!" As she went to rise, the stifled sounds broke through the wall of her will. Zhichao Tingfeng broke as well, though he simply broke into laughter, not sounds of agony. He found a space within his own amusement to address his simei, trying not to watch her writhe about on the ground for fear of making himself laugh even more.
"Simei! Xiao Fan, please... Such formality... I understand that it is customary to behave in such a way, and use such flowery prose, but come now. We're all... We're all friends here. I may be your teacher, but you are the only sort-of-living companion I've had in years. Don't, haha, don't push yourself too hard!" And then he couldn't hold back further cackling, turning to step down the corridor and out of the grand hall while Xiao Fan rolled around on the floor. It was a saving grace that he left when he did - he may have fallen about himself if he had seen Xiao Fan roll into the incense tree, hard enough to draw a deep tone from the wood.
Hao Ning wished she could laugh - however, the knowledge that she was responsible for Xiao Fan's current misery was enough to temper the specter's tongue. Instead, she snatched the needle from where Zhichao Tingfeng had left it - slipping it into one of the folds of her robes, rather than deep in her throat where it usually held residence. She wanted to minimize the chance of any sort of self-inflicted needle usage; in fact, she knew that later, when she was alone, she would probably have a nervous breakdown about the whole thing. Having been a hungry ghost for as long as she had been, with this blackwood needle inside her throat?
She could've killed herself on complete accident. She never realized it had such an effect on one's spirit as much as their body... But given that Xiao Fan could feel it when the needle was misplaced, it was a shocking wake up call for Hao Ning. After a few more seconds of writhing and performative, self-serving groaning and moaning, Xiao Fan calmed down enough to lay still. She put a hand down to try and push herself to a seat, at the least - put Hao Ning put her right palm to Xiao Fan's sternum, gently enough to not hurt her, but certainly with enough force to ensure she stayed down.
"Ah, a-Fan, c'mon... Let me fix you a little before we get to the actual training, yeah? And then, uh... Hm... You can try on the... I think there's a dummy in that room, a cotton one for practicing. You practice on that while I go scour the sect library for the proper manuals..." She spoke with all the sternness she could give, though it was all tainted by her own timidity. She didn't want to upset Xiao Fan... At least, not right now, when she was still suffering. This, Xiao Fan appreciated. She nodded, staying down so that Hao Ning could do what needed to be done.
Hao Ning shuffled forward along the floor, straddling Xiao Fan at the waist, placing one hand beside her simei's head to prop herself up as she observed the lower girl's injuries through the skin. The needle was drawn one-handed from her robe with a deft maneuver, arm thrust forward with force enough to send the needle flying out - only to be caught by Hao Ning's hand on the same side. Xiao Fan would have been impressed if their position didn't seem so... unusual to her. She held her tongue, bit her lip, and looked away - both to avoid seeing the needle do its work, and to avoid looking Hao Ning in the eye.
A breath to prepare, a shuffling of fabric, a dragging of wood upon silk... and then the needle was thrust down and in, pushing aside flesh that had only just begun to rot, piercing veins and fat that were putrefying below the skin. Once the tip of the needle had reached its new temporary home, these processes stopped in their tracks - the putrefaction halted, the rot was stayed. And then, miraculously... Xiao Fan could feel her flesh put itself back together, returning to a state of purity and togetherness, the living image of health if not for the fact that she had been killed. An important detail, she figured.
Once it was almost completely fixed, but the ache remained in a small pocket (Xiao Fan figured about the size of a cherry, or perhaps an unripe plum), Hao Ning drew the needle free. Even the cheongsam was undamaged, upon further observation - perhaps the needle's power worked on more than just flesh? Or maybe it had more to do with the fact that Hao Ning was, of course, a ghost. She had no physical presence... So maybe neither did the needle, when in her hand? It would explain why she had never seemed to use it on anyone or anything else in her many years of afterlife.
Hao Ning leaned to the left and pitched her right leg backwards, getting off of her simei, allowing Xiao Fan her freedom. Xiao fan was more than thankful for this, though she said nothing - at least she could find the bravery to even look at her female sifu again, if not address her. That came after a moment to gather herself. "Hao Ning... I've been wondering something. Have you ever heard of a man named Tang Shun? Just a no-name bandit, I'm sure, but..."
Anything to break that awkward silence. Hao Ning screwed up her face and looked skyward, mulling it over for a few moments, forefinger pressed to her lower, puckered lip. "Hmm-mmm-mmm... Tang Shun... No, no, I can't say I have. But... Oh, Tang Shun - maybe he's the son of Tang Li? He was a great warlord when I was alive... A terror of the southern country, said to be able to withstand a hundred arrows and stay standing. You... You aren't going to fight Tang Li, are you? Or, well, someone related to him?"
The look of amazement and worry she gave Xiao Fan in that moment was enough to put the quasi-dead woman's heart to an icy winter chill. Suddenly the room felt frigid. "Wha-?! Oh, I...! I had no idea, they, they might be... There are a lot of people in the Tang lineage, after all...! Maybe they're not even related - maybe they've never even met eachother!" She scrambled for anything she could think of to try and justify her crusade to herself. She didn't need to justify it, per se... But to validate the hope she felt in her chest. To cling to that powerful golden sphere of love and determination - formed through her brief training, but more from witnessing the results.
Her friends, of course, had helped her. They had helped her more than they would ever know. However, right now? Hao Ning was scaring the shit out of her. The idea of going against a grizzled veteran warrior of the savage southern lands, one who could apparently withstand being pierced with one hundred arrows and remain upright? Xiao Fan thought of what Zhichao Tingfeng had said about other martial schools - ones that trained their dantians, and acted through them, rather than their base minds. Was he one of them?
Hao Ning laughed nervously, going to grab Xiao Fan by the bicep and begin to drag her to a seat, and then a stand. "Come on, Xiao Fan...! You have so many advantages over a guy like him, there's no way he'd be able to beat you. Come on, come on, let's... Let's go practice, get your mind off of things! Ha-ha-ha! Ha!" It was pretty obvious that her laughter held little joy - it was simply a frantic reaction to the suddenly-souring mood in the room. An atmosphere best left avoided, if possible - and so now, Xiao Fan allowed herself to be dragged.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
As they walked, they talked, Hao Ning began first, speaking rapid-fire, trying to get both of their minds off of the concept of a southern bandit-tyrant warlord who had trained at one of the mountain schools. "So! The first thing you've gotta know about acupuncture are meridians! Do you know what a meridian is, Xiao Fan?" The question hung in the air like the sword of Damocles, threatening to fall loose and drop upon Xiao Fan's credibility at any moment. The revenant girl stammered and scrambled for an answer, wracking her brain. Eventually, however, she had to admit defeat.
"I have no idea, sifu Ning... I've heard it used a few times, of course. It's... Got something to do with medicine, right? Your qi, maybe? Er Xin didn't exactly have a dedicated doctor... We only ever got traveling healers from the capital on the way to the larger cities of the south and east. So, uh... No clue. Sorry to disappoint, sifu..." She let her head fall in shame, a rather played-up display she only hoped could garner some sympathy. Thankfully, it worked.
Hao Ning responded almost as quickly as she had spoken initially, trying to ensure that none of Xiao Fan's feathers were ruffled, and that everything remained smoothed over. "Ah! That's okay, a-Fan! I only learned what a meridian was when I first joined the Tian Lei sect with my brother, hahaha...! Ah, same with a dantian! We can go over a quick introductory course when we get to the - oh, the infirmary, right here! Please, make yourself comfortable - I'll light some candles, ha ha ha..." She didn't wait for a response from Xiao Fan; instead, she rushed back out into the hallway, going to find the nearest portable fire source she could get her spectral hands on. Xiao Fan didn't want to think about how that worked.
So, instead, she gazed about the room - and drank in what she saw as best she could in the dimness. Long beds were laid along the far wall, the headboard against the wall and the other end extending outward. They each had about two or three feet between them... and little night stands, and curtains, in between. Away from them, medical diagrams were depicted overtop of massive sheets of paper - some of them seemed to be multiple single pieces of paper overlaid on one another, even. They showed rudimentary anatomy on one, and that was at least in some general sense familiar to Xiao Fan... But then she looked to the ones beside the first, and was blown away.
A depiction of the human body from the front, arms outstretched to either side, was the first she laid eyes upon. However, the torso was devoid of any features recognizable as human, or even organic. Instead, down at the man's loins, there was a flame made with flecks of gold. Upon closer observation, it seemed to be less of an uncontrolled flame, and closer to a furnace. It was... Xiao Fan felt herself cringe as she imagined what the furnace was meant to represent on a man. She had never laid with a man to discover firsthand what such things were like... But she could do some guesswork about what the furnace meant.
Above the furnace, all the way in the center of the man's chest and even with where his heart would have been, was a cauldron. The cauldron bubbled and boiled, with a selection of various pills and powders seeming to have already been drawn from its depths, laid out below it. The logic wasn't hard to understand, and was far less unappealing than the initial furnace concept: the furnace fed the cauldron, which produced the pills. The pills were physical health, perhaps? Or aptitude? Ability to resist disease, or heal from injury? She knew she'd be here all night if she let her mind gnaw at that question for too long.
One final piece of the puzzle found itself at the man's head - between the brows, on the lower half of the forehead, sat a large pill of a muddy brown color. It was, however, given a halo of great power by whoever had illustrated this diagram - and arrows were drawn from the pill outwards to the corona of the man's head. One led to a calligraphy brush, one led to a pot of tea, one led to a flexing arm... And one led to a ceremonial jian, dripping with blood. Okay. That was... quite the leap from the furnace and cauldron, Xiao Fan thought, but as Hao Ning had yet to quite return, Xiao Fan had time to consider it.
The furnace was where it began. The furnace feeds the cauldron, which is where one's alchemy occurs, maybe. Or, whatever, something close enough to alchemy that the original artist felt that this was the best way to depict it. Moving on. Once the cauldron had done its work, it enhanced various parts of your life... Represented by the many pills and elixirs, keeping you healthy, improving your physical ability, so on and so forth.
And then, finally, the greatest pill of all was produced. Or,. she assumed this pill was the greatest of all - it wouldn't make sense to have it separate from the others if it was mediocre, would it? This final pill, this muddy pellet, was the ultimate product of one's internal alchemy. It was the final, exceedingly potent medicine which would enhance all aspects of one's life - from the more refined facets, such as poetry and scholastic pursuits and even tea ceremonies, to the more physical facets, like... well, like violence. Like killing. This would make you an apt killer, unparalleled, or so Xiao Fan assumed.
So then what could it mean?
She looked down at herself, eyes drifting to the front-tabard of her cheongsam. It had slits along either thigh, and she was tempted at first to see if she could explore what this furnace may represent - but hearing Hao Ning down the hall put all such thoughts from her mind. She resolved to see if she could have her wife assist her in discovering the secrets of internal alchemy once she was safe and sound... If either of them remembered. Xiao Fan smiled, then - remembering her wife, and how they had spent many a night in their little farmhouse, far enough from Er Xin to be isolated but close enough to be nearby?
It wouldn't take much convincing, if any, to get Daiyu Zhang to help her out. She nearly slapped herself to free these thoughts from her lovestruck head as Hao Ning drifted back into the room, holding a chunk of smouldering wood from one of the braziers in her hand. Xiao Fan raised a brow at the fact that her sifu had even found something she could get her hands on, much less something able to create heat and flame, but she said nothing. Instead, she just sat and waited as Hao Ning lit the candles in the room.
Once the room was lit, more of it was discernible, where once there had been darkness. A trio of wooden tables sat near the center of the room - with small cauldrons, mortars and pestles, drinking gourds, and pill molds. Xiao Fan was shocked - a feeling she was becoming tired of feeling, but unable to fully stop herself. The Tian Lei sect had been making pills in a serious capacity, it seemed - at least, serious as far as the one-time rice farmer could tell. Maybe it took five hundred pills to reach immortality? In that case, they'd have been pretty slow...
Hao Ning's voice broke through Xiao Fan's mental wandering, raising a brow and putting her hands on her hips, leaning forward to give a taunting, bemused look at her simei. "Oi-i-i, simei~! What are you busy thinking of? Come on, it's time to learn how to stab people until they're healed! I mean, uh, acupuncture, hahaha!" She gestured to one of the beds, where a dummy made of old burlap and stuffed with cotton lay, minding its own business.
Xiao Fan noticed as she walked over to where Hao Ning had indicated that there were also a variety of cabinets in the room - with lattice-filled cutouts on the doors, and shelves piled high with myriad little bottles, bags, and pots. She looked back to Hao Ning and the bed with the dummy - she knew well that if she focused too hard on the pills, she'd end up overthinking it and wasting time, like she had with the diagram. Speaking of the diagram... She cleared her throat to grab Hao Ning's attention, then gesturing at the diagram on the other side of the room, trying to look like she was casually curious.
"Sifu Ning, what's this? A furnace in your loins? Is this to do with meridians, or is it...?" She trailed off - whatever ending for that sentence one could imagine, it was just as likely as the others. Hao Ning gave that taunting, smug face again, leaning back and laughing with her chest rather than her throat. It was more than a little performative. "No, simei, you silly farmgirl! What are they teaching the people of Er Xin nowadays?" She paused then, in an attempt to let the playful jab sink in further. Xiao Fan saw an opportunity for a bit of her own snark and took it, pouncing on it like a socially-minded tiger.
"Not much, since they're all dead." The deadpan way Xiao Fan delivered the line struck Hao Ning like a blow from a woodsman's axe, splitting the oak of her taunting persona and returning her to the earth. Now humbled, and scrambling to recover from the response, Hao Ning's eyes spread wide like the moon in spring. Her worry was nearly palpable; as well, it was almost as intense as it had been when she had used the blackwood needle on Xiao Fan.
"Oh-! Oh, simei, nonono, no no, no, I, ah...! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean...-!" All the haughtiness of her early attitude was swept away as sawdust from the carpenter's workshop; she had been laid low with absolute impunity, and now she was staggering. The sound of laughter which bubbled up from Xiao Fan's throat, and the hand Xiao Fan offered her sifu to pull her into a hug, both helped to alleviate the suddenly-imposed worry. Hao Ning had to breathe hard for a few moments to calm down from the verbal strike; she buried her face into Xiao Fan's torso, shutting her eyes and tightly returning the offered embrace.
Eventually, however, she did come to her senses. "O-Okay, simei... S-Sorry about all that. Let's... Let's get to training, shall we? Okay, ah, here..." She slipped free from Xiao Fan's arms, now looking over to the dummy, both to free herself from the bittersweet closeness and to bring her focus back on what they had come here to do in the first place. She gestured to the dummy, making sure Xiao Fan was watching. However, she remembered Xiao Fan's question, making sure to touch upon it before continuing with the acupuncture lesson.
"So! First. The thing you asked about? Those are your dantians. The lower dantian is around where your perineum is, and it's the golden furnace that feeds your internal alchemy. It, ah... Creates qi out of your jing, which then rises up to the crimson palace - your middle dantian. The middle dantian is the one where the qi turns into shen." She drew one of her hands from her lap to her heart - wiggling her fingers to emulate flames, at first, then once to her chest she put her palm atop her heart. Xiao Fan nodded, following as closely as she could - these were all new concepts to her, and she was a bit worried she was missing something.
Hao Ning continued, then, her hand going up from her heart to trace a rather embellished line from her heart, up her neck, to the place between her brows. "You know what qi is, of course... It's the life force that permeates everything and allows living things to live. So. Once the qi becomes shen, the shen rises to the upper dantian, that muddy pellet. Here, it becomes wu wei. Wu wei is... It's the energy that allows you to act without thinking, to do without doing, to force without forcing. Inexertion is another way to think of it." The hand she held at her upper dantian formed a loose fist, and then extended and stretched the fingers to simulate an explosion.
That was... A lot, Xiao Fan thought. And that wasn't even what they had been talking about. She felt a sense of schoolgirl's dread forming in her core...