“-She’s dying! Somebo-y s-ve h-r!”

“-ritual!”

“-but the child will-“

“h-ve no choice-“

000

I woke up in a cold sweat as Bai Guo roused me awake. “It’s your turn,” he said.

I nodded numbly as he went to his bedroll to sleep.

All the while, I still could not figure out what I had just seen. Was that truly a dream?

It felt too real, like a memory, only it was as if someone erased every fourth word or letter, giving you a holey account that made little to no sense.

But one thing was as clear as day.

Something had happened to my mother before she died. And whatever it was… it could be connected to what was wrong with me.

000

“I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make sense,” I said to Deng Ming as we walked, my voice slightly hushed. “I know I don’t have some kind of flimsy will, so it doesn’t make sense that my Chi becomes Heavenly energy instantaneously. There’s something wrong with my body.”

Deng Ming sighed. “Are you hearing yourself? Just because you’re not getting one technique right doesn’t mean that there is a bodily deformity preventing you from reaching spectacular heights!”

“No,” I said harshly. “I can’t even materialize Divine Wood outside my body.”

“I thought that was just some hallucination,” he said.

“No, it happened,” I said. “And the peach was real, too.” I added quickly. “There’s Divine Wood inside my Core. Thing is, I should be able to materialize it outside of my body, but for some reason, I can’t at the moment.”

Deng Ming stopped me by placing one hand on my shoulder. We let the others pass us, citing that we had something to talk about in private. I ignored the concerned look from Yu Jie. She had been giving me loads of them after we came down from Huangshan.

“Can I share something with you?” He asked.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been behaving strangely since we came down from that mountain,” he said. “Now, I know something unexplainable happened, and I won’t doubt you. I’ve seen stranger things, now. It’s just… you’ve not been you,” he said. “I see you meditating, anxious, angry, and it’s been affecting the way you’ve interacted with people.”

“Look,” I said. “If it’s about Taishan-“

“You still haven’t told me what that was about,” he said, then raised his hands defensively. “And I’m okay with that. It’s your own issue, and you can choose who to share your issues with. It’s just… that doesn’t work if you’re the leader. If you do things just because you want them done, when it makes no sense to your travel companions, you’re inviting calamity.”

“Okay,” I said, not liking the whole lecturing tone. “Fine. We’re crossing Taishan anyways, so you don’t have to complain about that. Now, my body.”

“Your body is fine.”

“No, it’s not,” I said, leaning towards him. “Listen very carefully, Deng Ming. I know you think I’m stupid. You think everyone is stupid, and yes, compared to you, that might actually be correct, and honestly, I don’t care. As long as you don’t treat me like I’m stupid.” I held his shoulder, clenching it only a little, enough to discomfort him. “Check me out. You’re the most qualified medic in this party, and if there is anything actually amiss with me, you’re the only one I know that can find that out.” I let go of his shoulder. “Yes, I know I was being selfish. Yes, I know you don’t deserve to experience the consequences of my selfish actions. Whatever. It’s done. And if I’m being volatile or aggressive, it’s because I’m not being taken seriously when I’m telling you that there’s something not right with me.”

I stared him in the eyes, and eventually, he looked away. “Fine. I’ll do an examination. Also,” he turned to me, bashfully. “I’m sorry if I was treating you like a lesser being. I… struggle with arrogance.”

I nodded. “At least you’re self-aware,” I said. I began to walk. “Let’s catch up with the others.”

He followed behind a little uncertainly.

Fuck, I shouldn’t have threatened him.

But… it was all just getting to me, now. The Divine Gardener had said that my body was abnormal, and as much as I hated to admit it, it terrified me to believe that this would really be the extent of my journey in the Martial Path, to be utterly stymied by my inability to even use the blessing I had Awakened.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not when my Mentor relied on me so much.

I held the Jade Slip in my hand, thinking of her. Wherever she was, I hoped she was doing okay. She must have had a good reason to be away from me for so long. I just had to trust in my mentor.

000

We had gone a ways away from the camp we had set up for this situation. I couldn’t hide what I was intending to do from Yu Jie, who had come with both out of curiosity, and possibly concern. She was a good… friend.

Friend.

The word filled my heart with both warmness and longing, yet I couldn’t understand it. Ugh, not important.

With me were the Monk and Deng Ming. I laid flat on the ground, waiting.

“Assume Enlightenment,” Deng Ming said. “The Monk and I will examine the state of your body, as well as the quality of your Chi.”

I nodded. With my eyes closed, I grasped tranquillity and fell into the old rhythm of Enlightenment.

000

“Pay attention to her body,” Deng Ming said to the Monk as they crouched over Kang Yilan’s prone form. “Everything from her biology to her Chi.”

He nodded. Slowly, they both eased into letting their senses go, before letting it flow into Kang Yilan.

She was more opaque than the last time he had done this, when she had just come out of her fight with the Dragon of the East, like her entire body was suffused with Chi, but her Core shone magnificently, almost overpoweringly.

But it was unnatural. It was like a room filled with light, without a single shadow to be seen, like an amateur painter who could not identify a source of light in their work, so they opt to completely white-wash the piece, effectively ruining it.

Yes, indeed, there was something wrong with her body. He could feel the Heavenly energy enter her body, and somehow split. One part would be discarded, while another would be kept to her core.

The phenomenon was completely alien to him, but there was something in the deepest recesses in his mind that… that could put a name to the process, the components that were kept by her Core, and the components that were discarded.

His sensitivity frayed, he shut down his sight into the girl’s body, ignoring the more sordid implications that it carried, and sighed. The Monk was still hard at work, face bent in stone-hard concentration as he, too, tried to piece together the puzzle from the available pieces.

And as Yu Jie looked at her expectantly, no doubt wanting to demand what was wrong with her ‘friend’, all Deng Ming could think was what type of experiences she went through to mess her body up so severely.

Steeling himself, he straightened out his mind, retuned his sensitivity, and cast his senses into the girl once more. He would have his answers, or he was not the most proficient scholar of his generation.

000

When I woke up, the three that had been present in my ‘medical’ examination all looked at me in varying degrees of worry, Yu Jie the most.

I swallowed. “Spit it out.”

The Monk gestured towards Deng Ming, not willing to be the bearer of bad news. How contradictory it was, then, that his creed would encourage honesty, and at the same time discourage hurting someone’s feelings even though the two may overlap.

The scholar gathered his thoughts before speaking. “We have… confirmed that there is something wrong with your body.” He crouched over to the dirt and drew a circle, the same exact symbol I saw on the exit of the Divine Gardener’s garden. “Chi exists in duality. Much with the Daoist symbol, Chi has two parts; Yin and Yang.” I nodded, following his train of logic. “Yin can be described as ‘soft’, while Yang is generally ‘hard’. Yin is female, yang is male,” I scoffed a little, but let him continue. “Yin is thought, yang is body. The ephemeral, soft external, and the concrete, hard internal.”

Realization hit me like a physical blow. “I have no Yin Chi!”

Deng Ming nodded gravely. “Your body simply does not allow for the existence of Yin Chi in your body. Chi comes in a duality, and most people will never even know that there are two parts to it, but you will always have just the one. Meaning, to you, external Chi materialization is impossible.”

The word hit me like when Mentor grew extra frustrated with me. For a moment, I couldn’t even breathe.

It felt like the entirety of my future was collapsing before me, disintegrating. What the hell was I supposed to do if I couldn’t even develop as a Martial Warrior? External Chi was basics. Now… now I was forced to crawl where others could run.

Dammit!

I got up slowly and turned away from the three, waiting to centre myself and not betray the inner turmoil that I felt.

Yes, this was a setback, but screw it all, I wouldn’t just break down because of it. Let them have their cloud-stepping and weapon-hardening and whatever. A simple one-two hasn’t failed me, yet.

I wouldn’t let it fail me.

I took a deep breath and turned around, meeting the concerned looks on the faces of the three. “You all look pitiful,” I said frankly. “Do I look like a cripple to any of you?”

Yu Jie’s slightly affronted expression turned to a barely perceptible smile that glowed minutely with pride. Deng Ming just nodded, but the Monk didn’t look convinced at all. Yeah, trust him to see right through my ruse. Yes, I was upset, but showing it helped no one.

“Deng Ming,” I said. “I guess I’m being a little too hopeful if I ask if there’s a cure?”

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He sighed forlornly. “The Complete Yang Body, as I have taken to calling it, is congenital. It means you have carried it since birth. To change that is to completely revamp your body from the ground-up, which is simply impossible, and… I believe the deformity runs deeper than just your body.” He took a moment to compose himself before continuing. “It’s in your soul, Kang Yilan, and there is no amount of medicine in this world that can change your soul.”

Well, in some twisted fashion, that was… reassuring. It just told me that I wouldn’t have to pine over looking for a cure. Less drama, less worry. These were the cards the Heavens dealt me, and I would just have to deal with that.

“Okay,” I said. “So… we’ve answered the ‘what’, so that leaves only the ‘how’.”

He pressed his lips together. “You don’t want to kno-“

“Don’t,” I said, raising my index finger. “Do not tell me what’s good for me, Deng Ming, if you know what’s good for you.”

“I found a trace of sorcery on you,” he said quickly. “Powerful Daoist magic, something only an expert could cast. From my conjecture, it was cast at birth, at the one single moment of your life where your soul could be easily modified. I don’t know the exact details, I don’t even know why someone would charm you at such a young age.”

“-losing both – b-by and m-ther.”

“-no choice-“

“-Do it-“

I staggered back at the intrusive thought, or… memory? There was simply no way to actually tell the difference. It was much too disjointed, incoherent, wrong, and yet… yet it carried a certain set of emotions that an idle thought wouldn’t, like I was feeling an intense grief I had never even felt before.

Why would… why would I be charmed by some kind of magician, anyway?

Why would… my family know a magician?

“-you okay?” Yu Jie asked. I nodded absently, not looking at her.

“I’m fine, I just…” I trailed off. “I think I’m remembering something, something from…”

Someone crying. Was it me? A face… I couldn’t recognize it. I couldn’t even make it out.

“A while back,” I completed flatly.

This wasn’t working. The memories were worth complete dog shit. If I… if I wanted to learn of my origins, get answers to these questions, then…

It was so difficult having to consider even doing this. I could live a full life pushing through in my Martial Path, forgoing External Chi in favour of the simple things like Amplification, Lightening and Stabilization, become a consummate warrior who doesn’t have to rely on stupid cloud stepping.

But… there would always be a part of me wondering, agonizing over the question of why I was like this.

I couldn’t live with that glaring hole in my knowledge.

And oh-so-fortunately, we were just half a day’s travel from where I was born, the shittiest place in the world, in fact.

“You sure you’re okay?” Yu Jie asked.

“Yes, yes I am,” I said. “We’re stopping by a village,” I said. “I have someone I want to talk to, there.”

“And what are you guys conspiring about?” From the tree line, Wei Chow exited, along with Bai Guo and Lin Leng. “Is it, like, something important or…?”

I sighed and turned to them all. It didn’t help to hide it from them, anyways. We were all on the same journey, so I explained my little problem.

000

Every step felt like I was traversing through mud, the resistance choking my forward momentum and making it all that much more tedious.

But I carried on, showing no outwards sign of weakness. Yu Jie cast ever-so-‘discreet’ looks my way, looks she probably thought I wouldn’t notice, but I did. On any other day, I would appreciate her concern, but I didn’t need concern right now. I needed strength.

We arrived in the outskirts of the backwater village, just the way I remembered it, so close to the forest that it almost morphed into it, trees growing incessantly around the area. Kids were out and about, milling with no real sense of purpose, while men were gathered in corners, bottles in their hands, drinking themselves into a stupor as their farm work was over.

The village was lazy, bringing out the worst of everyone. There was just barely enough food to feed everyone, and everyone was okay with that, coasting by on a ‘barely enough’. They were belligerent, prone to violent outbursts and brawls, the only thing left in them from their dreary existence their incessant machismo.

If they couldn’t have tofu pudding every day, they sure as hell would break the jaw of whoever looked at them wrong, because it took much less planning and hard work to hurt someone than to feed one’s children.

Never, ever, for even a single, errant second of my time in prison, and my time with Mentor, did I miss this steaming shithole. Mentor had brought me down to the deepest levels of agony, preparing me for the journey ahead, and yet I wouldn’t trade even the worst of her treatment to another day in this heaven-forsaken place.

Why?

Because there was no direction in this village. Time stopped moving, and space was only an illusion. A day was a year, and a meter was a million miles, so even if you thought about going away, you could never truly muster the will to.

This place wasn’t even like Huangshan. The sky was blue, vivid even, but the fields were desolate, ruined from over-farming, and the simple knowledge required to correct their mistakes was beyond their idiotic kens.

As we entered the village, I recognized many faces, though I was certain they didn’t recognize me. My childhood was spent trying to ingratiate myself with the people, but when I no longer could do that, I stayed in my house, where my only oppressor was that bastard of a father.

I only went out when the hunger proved too insistent, debasing myself by begging for scraps to whoever would listen, and occasionally, some would.

Say what you want about prison, when I was sent there, I was finally living for myself, mining ores for food, and I could mine like nobody else’s business. I no longer had to beg. I just had to work. And all it took was killing three men.

Although they didn’t recognize me, a group of drunkards from a corner came before us anyway, furious expressions etched on their faces. One of them stepped forward and slurred, his breath smelling of alcohol. “We ain’t in the business of hostin’ travellers, so if y’all wanna stay in the area, fuck off outside the village why don’tcha?”

Yu Jie moved towards him, but I held her back by her shoulder. I turned to look at the bastard. “Where is the chief?”

“You deaf, girlie?” He asked, leaning towards me. “What the fuck did I just tell you?” He leaned back and chuckled a little. “Alright, alright,” He said magnanimously. “I suppose I’ll let you into the village if you do a lil quid pro quo, you know what I’m-“

I grabbed him by his throat and lifted him up easily. He tried to claw at his hands, but his finger nails could find no purchase on my skin, sliding off as if it was granite. The others behind him had seen it, and they all stepped back, as they should.

I let the asshole go and grabbed him by his collar. “Where. Is. Your. Chief?”

“Yilan,” Lin Leng said. I turned around. “I’ll be gone for a second.”

I nodded, and turned back to the asshole. “I-I-I’ll take you there!” He said. “Please don’t hurt me, Forest Spirit!”

He really was an absolute fucking idiot.

I turned back to the group. “I’m gonna see him on my own.”

Wei Chow shrugged. “I’ll go help out Leng.”

Bai Guo nodded. “He could possibly use assistance.”

The Monk just sighed. “These people are clearly in need of the Noble Eightfold Path.”

Deng Ming said nothing, just nodding.

“No,” Yu Jie said.

I turned to her abruptly. “What-“

“No,” she repeated. “Whatever this is, it’s eating you up. I’ll support you, but you can’t push me away, alright?”

“Listen,” I said.

“No, you listen,” she repeated, walking towards me. “I want to help you, alright?”

I just… didn’t want her to see me so weak. That wasn’t who I was, not anymore. I left that behind when I went to prison.

“Whatever happens,” she said. “I won’t think any less of you, alright?”

I froze. She wouldn’t… think any less of me? Even I would think less of myself if I ever broke down over something as stupid as things from the past. How could she just ignore all that, anyway? “It’s complicated,” I said.

“We all have our demons,” she pressed on. “You don’t have to face yours alone, alright?” She reached for my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I could just lose myself in her hold.

With a deep breath, I spoke on the exhale. “Fine.”

000

I threw our navigator away, sending him scurrying away from us, and proceeded to kick down the door of the house in front of us. The inside was dimly lit, a man over a table nursing a gourd probably filled with alcohol.

He was middle-aged, just a hair’s breadth away from being considered elderly, and yet, he couldn’t help his immature impulse of sending himself into a stupor. Deep down, he had to have known how absolutely fucking pointless his existence was, just like the existence of the village he headed was also pointless.

I strode over to him and grabbed his gourd. He looked up at me, eyes red. “Sober up,” I said to him.

He scoffed. “The bottle is not as potent as it used to be. Bad harvest, probably.”

“Alright, then,” I said, sitting across from him. “Do you remember who I am?”

He was about to shake my head, before leaning towards me a little closer, realization dawning in his eyes. “You’re the devil child, aintcha?”

I resisted my murderous impulse to throttle him only by the thinnest of margins, Yu Jie’s hand on my shoulder. “Yes. The devil child,” I said. “Now, I’m going to bargain with you. I’ll let you live only if you tell me the full truth. What happened the day I was born?”

He reddened in anger. “You think you can just threaten me you little sh-“ I grabbed him by his thinning hair and pushed his face into the table, enough to have his nose bleeding, and to rip some hair directly from his scalp into my hand. It didn’t even bleed, like his hair was never long for this world to begin with.

“Now,” I said. “You will talk. I will listen. Failure to comply won’t just result in death,” I said. “I will do unto you what this village has done unto me for sixteen years, in the span of one long, agonizing hour. You hear me?”

“D-d-devil!”

“Speak.”

He held his mouth almost immediately, doing his best to compose himself. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I would torture him to death. He didn’t deserve anything less for all the trouble he had put me through.

Then… then he opened his mouth, and a story came flowing forth, a story that explained so, so much.

000

Time and experiences had worn away the memories, applied grime to an otherwise pristine painting, but as far as I could trust the bastard chief, he was mostly telling the truth. After all, you wouldn’t lie when death was on the line, would you?

He did not spare any of the sordid details, in fact going into length describing them all. Yu Jie was my strength, my anchor, my lifeline. I knew, intuitively, that the past could not change, but it still didn’t stop me from wanting to exact justice… no, revenge on the man.

Like all stories, there were central characters. The Chief, named Shu Hie, sixteen years ago, had been in love with the much younger Na Yan.

My mother.

Na Yan’s mother, my grandmother who I just learned about, was something of a guardian angel in this village. She was a ‘Daoist magician’, apparently, a Martial Warrior that focused all of their skills on sorcery.

Every year for the last fifty years, the harvest had been bountiful. Her charms had provided for the people, and there was not a single hungry face in so long.

My grandmother… I felt a pang of sorrow at the thought, and a small measure of pride. That was my grandmother.

Na Yan was, unfortunately, not in love with Shu Hie. She was in love with Kang Du Min, my father. That did, indeed, anger Shu Hie, the conceited bastard.

So he, in his infinite wisdom, decided to take Na Yan for himself, and…

Well, he had his way with her.

Enraged, my grandmother cursed the village for a year of a horrible harvest. The village had soon turned their ire on her, ostracising both her and her daughter.

And when the year of penance was over, everything went back to the way it was, my mother scarred for life, and my father resentful of the Chief. Though my grandmother had tried her best to explain to the villagers why it was that they were going hungry, Shu Hie’s influence was far too pervasive, and the men of the village would never side with a woman over a man, willing to die for the sake of their shallow chauvinism.

But his animalistic desire was not sated. As Kang Du Min and Na Yan did their very best to recover, trying to put the Chief out of their minds, he only grew more agitated by the lack of face he was given.

She became pregnant, a joyous occasion, but one mired in muddy waters. Everyone knew that the Chief wanted Na Yan, so they were too leery on celebrating.

The Chief met with Na Yan once again, on the cusp of giving birth, to try and win her over. When he couldn’t convince her, he tried to seize her, but my father had been present, along with my grandmother. They fended him off and sent him licking his wound.

Enraged, he had sent his men to kill them. My grandmother had come too late to save my mother from the beating, but when she had come, the assailants died almost instantly.

My mother was on the cusp of childbirth, now, but the reality was clear as day. She would not survive. She had been weakened far too much by the beating, so the death of both mother and daughter was an inevitability.

If she could not secure the life of both, she would work hard to secure the life of one, so she performed a ritual.

It shook the trees and darkened the skies. Day turned to night as she brought the full weight of her power to bear, sapping the little life-force her daughter had left, transferring it to her granddaughter, who had needed it. The ritual had to be imperfect because of what had happened to me, or there was a side-effect to her spell that rendered me a cripple.

Still, I was alive, when by all accounts, I should not have been.

The Chief knew that once my grandmother was done delivering me, she would turn her ire to him, and to the village, so for the ‘good of the people’, she stabbed her in the back the moment she was at the lowest point of her power.

Kang Du Min had pleaded to save my life, and the Chief, in his hubris and hatefulness, decided to allow it, taking his resentment out on both of us for so long, twisting my father from one who loved me to one who saw me as a burden. Hearing this story, I finally understood him.

I was more trouble than I was worth, and in his weak-spirited nature, that was enough to sever his love to me.

I, a product of ‘dark magic’, was another obvious target of harassment, and remembering the better days that the villagers had had before my grandmother ‘went awry’, they never really stopped hating me.

When they should have hated him.

I shed no tears when I stood up, Yu Jie to my side. “I would kill you right now,” I said. “But that would be a mercy. I want you to continue living this empty life, knowing that it was you who fucked it up for everyone. I want you to always remember that while you are here dwelling about like an ant looking for scraps, I, a Martial Warrior, will be soaring towards new heights every day, but…” I leaned towards him. “I still think that’s too easy for you, so I’ll let you go with only some slight mutilation.” I pulled him up by his neck and slammed him back first to his table. “Pull off his pants, Yu Jie. You know what to do.”

His pants were off, ripped straight off of him, revealing his meagre manlyhood to all who would watch. Yu Jie brought to bear her spear. It was a quick cut, and his screams were music to my ears. Uncaring, I grabbed the cut off piece of himself and almost broke his jaw trying to pry it open, shoving it inside his mouth.

I left him there, walking away, Yu Jie following after swiping the spear through the air, throwing away the tainted blood.

There was nothing left for me in this hellhole, now.

Nothing.

And when we left the chief’s house, all hell had broken loose.