Time remains elusive, given the lack of a clock or window. Meditation cycles provide little help as well – mainly as it is difficult to remember things as I become absorbed into it. However, I had a backup plan as well: the daybreak and nightfall double-hours supposedly boost my cultivation speed, but I have yet to notice any changes at any point in my cultivation. Just one constant speed. Must be because I’m underperforming and yet to reach my peak or something. Instead, the best indicator of time seems if the blonde lady is nearby or not, since she is the only one who ever leaves the room.
Sleep is also rather confusing. The length of time varies and the paralysis already screws up my sense of time, but add on my own embarrassment about being breastfeed and using the bathroom where I lay, leaves me with precious little interaction. Not to mention that my stomach is about a quarter of the size it needs to be. Just how pathetic being a baby almost placates this sudden loss of freedom. At the same time, it grates me the wrong way to know giant sections of my life and day are out of my control; and what little of it is inhibited by my physical abilities and sensibilities.
My hope for any meaningful interaction with my family was dashed within moments – a language difference and inability to move were difficult to overcome. However, Accumulation has seen some progress. My soul has regained half of its pre-breakthrough size. Spiritual benefits, like memory improvements and mental techniques, like Qi Awareness, are on their way, if I would only spend some time practicing them. However, I can only seem to practice them while interacting with others, and leisure meditation has already claimed that time slot.
But my boring life does not last long. On one inconspicuous day, mother slips me into a fancy green-and-red robe. It must be Christmas because all my previous attires have been oversized hospital gowns. My joy, like most of my hopes, dies in moments when I realize that the robes are less ninja cloaks but complex artistry of layers of silk, held together by various belts. And that’s only the outer layer and the easiest step. The inner layers are even worse. And to top it off, I get the sense I’m much smaller than expected – the hospital gowns were a bit of a giveaway, but the robes bring that sentiment home. The robes need to doubled up in every conceivable way to fit me – so much so the dragon and phoenix flying up the sleeves disappear once I wear it. As if wearing the adventure wasn’t a travesty in and of itself, mother then slips a sleeping mask over my eyes.
Muffled murmurs replace my vision and my body shouts and screams, calming ever so bit to the coos of mother, but only just barely. A bestial snarl rattles my bones and empty my bowels, even as mother attempts to calm my body down. A gentle breeze brushes against me, bringing up another strange sentiment: I have not felt the wind in almost a year, maybe more. The smells that follow – mismatched perfumes, smoke, grass and animals – soon become overwhelming. I want to pinch my nose or stop breathing for a moment to let it all stop, but my body simply cries. Wonderful.
A door slams, then the sleeping mask comes off. A carriage, of rather fine design. Two rows of decadent cushions elevate golden wooden seats. The moving shadows on the blinds show that the carriage is moving, but the runes and inscriptions carved throughout cancel the turbulence and bumpiness. Hard to imagine it is moving at all. The window blinds do not simply block outside light – that would be too pedestrian. Made of pure green silk, they cover each door perfectly so that the outline of the windows encapsulate the family sigil: a ruby cauldron, coiled by a golden dragon three times.
Father sits across from us. No sight of the Ascetic or the blonde lady. Guess they weren’t invited.
No sooner I get a grasp onto the surroundings, mother starts feeding me. Great, just great. I am about to turn to deep meditation when father starts speaking. Mother scowls immediately. Father tries, unsuccessfully, to placate mother whose words have an edge to them. She draws me a little closer and father presses his hands together, giving a short but long bow, before mother relaxes and speaks. Delighted, father speaks fast and happily for a few moments before mother cuts that short. Still, father wears a smile on his face for the rest of the trip.
I honestly want to look outside, but I can’t move my body to indicate that and once we do go outside, the mask makes its return. The walk is short – the gentle breeze is a bit chilly and I end up sneezing unleashing a lot of snot, something that happens a lot more than I wish it did. Between being unable to burp by myself to save myself from suffocation and being unable to clean myself, my pride, and its definition, will need to be reconsidered.
When my mask is taken off, the three of us are in some type of living room. The room isn’t particularly big, but enough for the two sofas separated by a coffee table. My cloth diaper is finally changed, thankfully, while I lay on the table. Portraits of the elderly seem to be feature of the room. The fanciest ones hang over the fireplace, with a jade plaque underneath them with a paragraph underneath it. The other portraits only have a single line of scribbles on them.
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Once I’m prepared, the three of us sit on a single sofa. Father taps his foot and finger, eyes forward but darts constantly to the door while mother’s mood darkens by the minute. Finally, a servant comes in and brings us to a balcony filled with people wearing silk. Not something normally important, but if I do remember correctly, the Colorful Peaks valued silks as noble-only clothing.
Mother brings me to the end of the balcony, where I see a blurry mass of people below. Their clothing seems considerably more muted than the reds, blues, greens and purples that parade on the balcony. And if I thought my screaming was loud and obnoxious, a mob of annoyed babies was set to top it.
Some slow, methodical chants, strangely reminiscent of the Spirit Like Water sutra, begins to the beat of a drum. Mother and the other adults all close their eyes, bowing. In solidarity, I do as well. For a few minutes before I get bored.
Eventually, another servant arrives and guides us through a maze, incessantly talking. Perhaps it would be interesting if I could understand it, but mother isn’t impressed, so perhaps not. The statues we pass are much more interesting, almost sentient and alive. But that too gets boring, given everyone’s propensity to bow to each statue – which does not sound too bad until we pass the twentieth one.
By the time we reach the end of the hall, it’s bed-time. My eyelids sag and I feel like I just wasted hours that could have otherwise been in deep meditation. I’m dressed up in robes and this is what we do? Come on.
҉҉҉
My nap stops short of me drowning. Flailing as I try to swim, I realize the water acts like quicksand, dragging me deeper the more I struggle. I should float, give how much of my body is fat and not muscles, but physics is hard to learn while drowning. No matter what I do, I only sink. Other newborns and children sink nearby.
Unless everyone decided that sacrificing their newborns to appease a water god or dragon is the best idea, I doubt that this is some mistake. I have not heard of any water-dunking exercise for newborns in Overthrowing the Heavens. Maybe if Xin Feng stayed around long enough for his children, I would have heard something about it, but he was busy with revenge and saving the world. So I will give him a pass on that.
It does not feel like I’m underwater, if I am honest. No water pressure, enough air to breath comfortably, and no impaired vision. Anger overcomes me until I realize that the water around me is pure, unadulterated liquid qi, a veritable gold mine for cultivators. Then I touch the ground, mud that quickly hardens around my ankles. The water riots, smashing into me…like gentle rain? Then a dense feeling of qi envelops me like when I’m around my parents, so I start deep meditation.
Qi throughout my body begins to rush through my meridians, which are all clogged at the moment, rushing towards my forehead. They expect resistance, for they stop just before my mind palace, congregating instead. Except they find no wall and harmlessly splash against the spirit orb that is my body. One taste of that qi and I am overcome by an insatiable hunger. Qi pours into my spirit orb, eclipsing my previous months of work within moments. I sincerely regret not practicing Awareness, because it would be extremely helpful at the moment.
My soul greeds for the liquid qi, throwing any caution of ‘capacity to the wind as it devours whatever qi present, without even bothering to convert the liquid qi to gaseous form – thankfully, as I get a moment to study it, since this step has been confounding me for longer than I would admit.
Some critical mass is reached as I’m distracted. The moment gaseous spirit qi, which was the only type of qi my soul had known up to this point, dipped below fifty percent, my spirit begins to collapse upon itself. After all, the gaseous qi maintained my soul’s boundaries and took up a much greater volume. The incoming liquid qi cannot compensate for the volume difference – for my soul has the mouth of a clam trying to drink the ocean, one that somehow does not decrease along with the size of my soul.
Once my soul reduces to the size of an orange, it stops shrinking. Finally. My soul begins to expand once more and I resort to damage control, trying to create then weave spiritual threads to fill all the holes that such rapid expansion causes – a speed a few steps slower than the shrinking speed. Just as I feel like I am finally recouping from this grievous debt then the flow suddenly is cut off.
I open my eyes in protest – my free meal had yet to be finished yet, how are we already done? I’m no longer in the lake, but within mother’s encompassing arms. I’m still wet beyond belief but I’m finally getting the situation. Hundreds, if not thousands, of children and their families arrived here, wherever this lake is, for the opportunity to cultivate here but it seems that the opportunity has been exhausted. The nobles seem to be notified first, as other families still allow their babies to remain within the water.
It seems my guess is right because a guide soon arrives and escorts everyone on our island away as shrieks and shouts of confusion echo from the other islands. What an odd day this has turned out to be.