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Chapter 23 - The Weight of Progress

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Running into Liang as he left his little apartment was awkward, to say the least. The nature of the cheap housing in which they lived meant that completely avoiding someone was all but impossible, but Zhujiao couldn’t help but wonder how much of a coincidence it was that Liang always left at the same time as him.

It was almost gratifying to see that the older boy didn’t know how to handle things either. Going back to their usual greeting felt too much like forgiveness, but ignoring him was unspeakably awkward, especially because they were both walking in the same direction for at least a few minutes.

Zhujiao miserably resigned himself to leaving earlier from then on.

As if to make extra sure that didn’t forget their little message, he found a rough looking man wearing a red armband leaning against the wall next to his favourite steamed bun stall.

The poor old lady running the stall was clearly uncomfortable, and by the looks of things her business was suffering as people picked other places to dine that morning. He couldn’t really blame them, to be fair.

The man made no moves toward him, but his eyes tracked Zhujiao as he walked past, head bowed. The message was clear – they knew where he lived, where he ate, where he went to work.

He picked up his pace, suppressing a shudder as his stomach churned. As tantalising as the aroma of freshly steamed buns was, he wasn’t really feeling up to eating right now.

The familiar sight of the clinic’s modest exterior brought a slight sense of relief, especially as it lacked any people wearing red armbands loitering outside.

The door was closed, just like it had been yesterday. Zhujiao couldn’t help but wonder how many people who were hoping for medical attention were having to look elsewhere.

Great. Now, he wasn’t just anxious about the whole ‘possible gang violence’ thing; he was also feeling guilty about depriving the poor and needy of the help that they needed. He toyed with the idea of suggesting to Lao Yi that they open the clinic for at least half a day before discarding it.

It was a nice thought, but judging by the old man’s reactions to him interrupting yesterday, he had no desire to push his luck today. Especially with the bad news he was bringing. It might have made him a bad person to put his own personal benefit above the needs of the many, but he consoled himself with the thought that it was really out of his control.

Zhujiao entered the clinic, the familiar creak of the floorboards beneath his feet providing a small comfort. The clinic was dimly lit, with the only light coming from a few scattered lanterns and the morning sun filtering through the small windows.

“Ready for another wonderful day of purging, my boy?” Lao Yi asked cheerfully, emerging from the back room.

Zhujiao was momentarily distracted by the thought that he didn’t even know where the old man lived. Did he just… live here, in the clinic? He shook his head, forcefully disrupting the train of thought.

“Actually, Master, we might have a problem,” he said hesitantly.

Lao Yi raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Taking a deep breath, Zhujiao recounted the events of the previous night, detailing his encounter with the Red Talons and their not-so-subtle threats. As he spoke, he watched for any sign of concern in Lao Yi’s expression, but his master’s face remained impassive, locked in an expression of polite interest.

When the young man finished, there was a pause that stretched just long enough to make Zhujiao wonder if his master had even been paying attention.

Finally, Lao Yi exhaled, a sound that was almost amused. “You look like you expect me to be surprised by this.”

Zhujiao blinked. “Well… yes, actually. Wait, has this happened before?”

Lao Yi chuckled softly. “Of course it has. They’ve had their eyes on this clinic since the day it opened. It’s not the first time they’ve made such threats, though it is the first time they’ve tried threatening someone other than me. Of course, I didn’t have an apprentice before, so they probably think it will be easier to go after the ‘people I care about’.”

Zhujiao wasn’t sure how he felt about the air quotes Lao Yi put around that last sentence. Sure, they weren’t exactly close or anything, having only known each other for a few months, but still. His master could at least pretend to care a little more.

“So… what do we do then?” he asked, a little sullen.

“Do, Apprentice? Who says we have to do anything?”

Zhujiao paused, wondering if his master was serious. “The fact that if we don’t, they’ll probably kill me?”

Lao Yi cocked an eyebrow. “That sounds more like a you problem than a we problem.” He chuckled a little, raising a hand to stave off Zhujiao’s indignant response. “Peace, Apprentice, I’m only joking. Tell me then, what do you think we should do?”

The old man was clearly trying to turn this into a learning opportunity of some kind, so Zhujiao gave the matter all due consideration. The answer seemed obvious, which probably meant it was wrong, but…

“Well, it wouldn’t probably just be easiest to pay them, but I’m assuming you’ve been paying them already?” He turned it into a question, to which Lao Yi nodded. “So if you’ve already been paying them, but they keep asking for more – it’s a lot, isn’t it? The new fee, I mean, it’s more than what’s reasonable.”

Lao Yi nodded again, a small smile playing across his face.

“Can we even afford to pay them?” Zhujiao asked, suddenly realising that he didn’t actually know how much money the clinic made. Lao Yi never seemed particularly concerned about money, and even as an apprentice, he was making a decent wage. However, surely, working in the slums couldn’t bring in that much money, right?

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Lao Yi’s gaze sharpened slightly, though his tone remained light. “Afford? That’s the wrong question, boy. Of course, I could pay them if I wanted to. But that would be playing right into their hands. They don’t actually care about the money. Not really.”

Zhujiao blinked, trying to follow. “Then what do they want?”

Lao Yi leaned back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. “What they want is control. They want to create a situation where I can’t pay so they can offer me a ‘solution’—working for them, under their thumb, indebted and trapped. Paying them would only make them more interested, not less.”

“… Because you shouldn’t be able to pay them off. That’s the whole point.” Zhujiao finished, trying not to sound too worried. Knowing why the situation had developed was all well and good, but it didn’t actually help him do anything about it. And considering it was his safety on the line, he really wanted to do something about it.

He ran a hand through his hair, turning the situation over in his mind. By the looks of things Lao Yi wasn’t willing to work for the Red Talons – understandable, considering the nature of the gang and the fact that he was a cultivator. His master was also unwilling to pay the new protection fees, which, again, made sense.

“So… what am I supposed to do when they figure out that you’re not willing to play their game, and they come knocking at my door?” he asked, a vague sense of dread settling in his stomach.

“I would advise investing in a lock,” his master suggested helpfully. “Alternatively, you could simply grow strong enough that it simply doesn’t matter what they want. It’s what I did, after all.”

“And how long would that take me?” Zhujiao asked. Cultivation was many things, but speedy was not one of them.

“Well, my student, that depends entirely on you, doesn’t it?” his master responded archly. “A fitting challenge, I believe. You wanted to learn things the fast way, and nothing promotes speed like necessity. As such, I will leave this matter in your hands – you may deal with it however you wish.”

“Great,” Zhujiao muttered sarcastically, “thanks, Master.”

“Think nothing of it,” Lao Yi assured him, the corner of his mouth twitching in an aborted smirk. “It is a master’s duty to provide learning experiences, after all.”

***

His breath came in measured, steady rhythms, even as sweat poured down his back. He hardly noticed it; the intense feeling of his Qi roiling in his dantian drowned out the more physical sensations. He was deep into the process, guiding the fiery, unstable energy through his meridians, careful to keep it under control.

The tainted Qi, if it could even be called that, felt anything but tainted. It felt powerful, almost intoxicating, an echo of the beast he had taken the core from. It surged through him with a wild intensity, a raw force that was difficult to master but incredibly potent. For a second, his focus slipped, and he could almost feel the doubts slipping in.

‘What if I could learn to use the power,’ his mind whispered, ‘it’s such a waste to just get rid of it. Think about what I sacrificed to obtain this.’

He would like to say that the thoughts were some kind of malevolent consciousness from the core, a remnant of the beast he had to overcome. Unfortunately, there was no one to blame for the thoughts but himself.

Pride was a vice he had struggled with in the Before, and being apparently reincarnated as a cultivator had done his ego no favours. The truth of the matter was that nothing special about him was a result of his own actions. He hadn’t chosen to wake up after death, hadn’t accomplished becoming a cultivator.

He wasn’t an overpowered protagonist who would be able to use the energy from a beast core when no one else could. Not to mention that ignoring the advice of a teacher when he’d finally gotten one would be the height of stupidity.

“Remember,” Lao Yi’s voice was somehow audible even when the rest of the world had faded to a haze, “purging yourself of the taint from your mistakes is not just about expelling the Qi. You must scrape your dantian clean of any lingering influence.”

Zhujiao nodded, even though his eyes were closed. Lao Yi had repeated the information almost a dozen times by now, and he doubted the old man would do so without cause.

Unless he found it funny, of course, but that was another matter.

He tightened his mental grip on the energy, guiding it in the familiar cycle around his dantian. The process was startlingly similar to his reinforcement technique, though with the opposite effect. While he would usually allow the tendril of energy to pick up speed until it was somewhat self-sustaining, now he had to carefully keep it moving slowly.

Lao Yi had explained the process as ‘like calling to like’. While Qi wasn’t fully bound by natural laws – such as gravity and inertia – it was influenced by them. When Zhujiao allowed the cycle to pick up speed, the centrifugal force of the rotation allowed the energy to spread beyond the confines of his dantian and suffuse his body.

Or close enough, anyway. He was still a little shaky on the details, but then, he’d never really cared about them anyway.

Moving his Qi slowly around his dantian acted as something of a magnet, drawing the energy back from his body and into his dantian once again, where he could expel it properly.

The fiery Qi flowed through his meridians like molten metal, leaving a tingling warmth in its wake. It resisted every step of the way, reluctant to leave, but Zhujiao persisted. The mass of energy roiling in his dantian was growing larger as it absorbed more from his body, and as it did so, his mental grip grew increasingly tenuous.

When the strain finally grew too great, he would be forced to expel it from his body and start the process again. How much Qi he could hold before getting rid of it was the deciding factor on how long the process would take – starting from scratch took time, and the more energy he could hold the greater the attractive force.

“That’s enough for now, Apprentice.” Lao Yi’s voice was calm and steady, and for a moment, Zhujiao wanted to stubbornly push forward, but he held back. Lao Yi’s words echoed in his mind—control, not force. Slowly, he felt the last remnants of the fiery Qi reach the point of expulsion. With a final, careful effort, he pushed it out of his body, feeling it dissipate into the air around him.

The sudden absence of the Qi left him feeling hollow, as if a part of him had been drained away. The warmth that had coursed through him moments ago was gone, replaced by a deep, pervasive emptiness. He opened his eyes, blinking against the dim light of the clinic, his vision swimming for a moment before settling.

The world seemed muted, the colours less vibrant, the sounds less sharp. He felt numb, both physically and emotionally, as if he had been hollowed out. But beneath that numbness, there was something else—relief, maybe? Or was it clarity? It was hard to tell in his exhausted state.

Lao Yi watched him with an unreadable expression, his eyes sharp as he assessed his student. “How do you feel?” he asked, his tone neutral.

Zhujiao hesitated, searching for the right words. “Empty… but better, I think. The Qi—it didn’t feel tainted when I was using it. It felt… powerful. But now that it’s gone, I feel… clearer.”

Lao Yi nodded, a hint of approval in his eyes. “That’s to be expected. The Qi you purged was indeed powerful, but it was not meant for you. It was foreign energy, unstable and ultimately harmful in the long run. Now that it’s gone, your body can begin to heal and cultivate your own pure Qi. The emptiness you feel is temporary, a necessary step in your progress.”

Zhujiao processed this in silence, still adjusting to the strange sensation of being without the fiery energy he had grown used to. “So this is normal?” he asked, more to reassure himself than anything else.

“Quite normal,” Lao Yi confirmed. “You’ve made significant progress today, but now you need to rest. Your body and spirit have been through a lot. Go home, recuperate, and tomorrow we’ll continue.”

Zhujiao nodded, rising slowly to his feet. His legs felt unsteady, his entire body weak from the exertion. He gave Lao Yi a tired smile, grateful for the guidance, even if it had been a gruelling experience.

“Thank you, Master,” he said quietly.

“Think nothing of it,” Lao Yi replied, a faint smile touching his lips. “A master’s duty is to guide, and a student’s duty is to learn. You’ve done well today, Zhujiao. Rest, and be ready for whatever tomorrow brings.”