News of Zhang Lifen’s arrival spread quickly, and by noon of the next day, the tournament was announced. He Yu balked at the news. When he told his father, He Gang’s only response was to grimace and set his shoulders. They had a mere three days to prepare.
He Gang took him out behind their house and told him to demonstrate his forms. The Qi Gathering manual he’d been using up to this point had included basic martial forms, and He Yu had been practicing them almost as diligently as he had the cultivation techniques. Based on his father’s reaction, He Yu hadn’t been practicing them diligently enough. Or even correctly.
In addition to the basic forms themselves, his father gave him pointers to improve the manual’s simple body reinforcement technique. While these basic exercises were a far cry from proper arts, they would lend power to his strikes, and strength to his defense during the tournament. He Gang didn’t think that any of the others entering would have proper martial techniques themselves, but He Yu would need to be able to use qi to reinforce his body if he wanted to stand even the slightest chance.
The cycling patterns themselves weren’t all too different than the method he’d been using so far, and he was able to adapt to them easily enough. Immediately, he could feel the difference. Pushing qi into his limbs gave him strength he’d never known, and his father told him that if he were able to learn proper body techniques, he could make himself even stronger.
After several sweaty hours, He Yu had at least managed to elicit a slightly less disapproving nod from his father when he ran through his forms and stances. He could only practice for so long before his stamina gave out, but He Gang still pushed him harder than He Yu had ever dreamed of pushing himself.
In between the exercises, he kept looking for ways to get his father to tell him about his time at the Shrouded Peaks Sect, but to no avail. Every time he broached the subject, He Gang would just ignore the question and demand that He Yu continue the exercises or meditate on the insights he’d gained during them. Throughout the afternoon, He Yu grew more insistent, and eventually, his father said, in a manner that brooked no disagreement, “Ask the disciple.”
That would have been all fine and good, had he been able to. When He Yu wasn’t hard at work drilling his martial forms with his father, or cultivating out behind their home, he’d asked around town about Zhang Lifen. It hadn’t taken long for rumors to follow the news of her arrival.
Master Dong Wei had been the only “real” cultivator in Shulin for as long as anyone could remember, although he wasn’t particularly well-liked. The most common talk said that Zhang Lifen was here as part of some quest and that her wanderings had simply brought her to Shulin by chance. Somehow, He Yu didn’t think that was the case. A number of people had seen her about—usually in the company of Master Dong Wei and wearing a long-suffering expression—but she seemed to spend most of her time either secluded inside Master Dong Wei’s school, or out alone in the forest.
Many of the young men of Shulin seemed to have become smitten with her and endlessly boasted about how they’d win her affection with their performance in the tournament. That, or they dared each other to approach her with some proposition or another. He Yu couldn’t deny she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on, by far. Aside from her conventional good looks—with long black hair, pale skin, and those startling blue eyes—there was a certain grace about her in the way she moved and carried herself.
The night before the tournament He Yu finally asked his father about that. He Gang had laughed and said there was nothing all that special about her appearance. Her uncanny movements were a product of extensive cultivation of water qi, something that He Gang claimed to be certain of. Her appearance, on the other hand, was simply a consequence of her advancement. The result of perfecting both her body and her spirit, and removing any imperfections she may have once had.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“She’d mentioned something about that,” He Yu said once his father had finished his explanation.
“Did she,” He Gang replied, his tone carefully neutral.
He Yu nodded. “When I told her about how Dong Wei said I was weak, she said that by the time I had stepped fully into the Second Realm, it wouldn’t matter anymore.”
“She isn’t wrong,” his father said, not looking up from his work of etching a basic formation into a tool he’d been making for a wealthier customer.
Rather than focus on the fact that his father had known all this time that He Yu’s relative lack of strength was no real obstacle to proper cultivation, he asked the other question that had risen in his mind over the past few days. “Does Dong Wei know?”
At this point, his father did look up. “Know what?” he asked. He Yu suspected that his father knew exactly what he meant.
“That it doesn’t matter.”
He Gang shook his head. “I doubt it. Just look at him. In fact, I’d expect that Zhang Lifen is just as old as Dong Wei, if not older.”
“You can’t mean that,” he said. His father must be trying to trick him for some reason. Zhang Lifen looked only a few years older than he was. She couldn’t possibly be old enough to be his grandmother.
“Which part?” He Gang asked without looking up from his work, apparently completely serious.
“Any of it.”
“Did you think cultivators are called immortals for no reason at all? There’s more to the Way than just martial forms and cultivating qi, and the benefits of just those basics are many. Zhang Lifen told you she was at the peak of the Fourth Realm? Most cultivators who arrive at her level do so only after decades of effort. Even then, it can take decades more to achieve a breakthrough. Although, I doubt she’s had that much trouble.”
“Why not?” He Yu asked. There’d been a note of what he could only describe as awe in his father’s words.
“As a core disciple of the Shrouded Peaks Sect, she would have to be an exceptional talent. I didn’t know her when I was there, which means she was likely already an inner disciple then.”
He Yu fell silent as he thought on what his father had just told him. While nothing had been said about the tournament prizes, He Yu had simply assumed that if he won he’d be able to study under Dong Wei.
It would only make sense that if he could prove himself in front of Dong Wei, the whole town, and most importantly Zhang Lifen, he’d be awarded a place at the school in Shulin. But over these past few days—ever since meeting Zhang Lifen, really—he’d begun to question if he still wanted to. He’d even begun dropping the “Master” honorific. He hadn’t done so intentionally and hadn’t even realized it the first few times. It just didn’t feel right anymore. At the same time, if he didn’t learn from Dong Wei, what other options did he have?
He supposed the only course left to him was to seek out the Shrouded Peaks Sect. Hearing his father talk about it—if only the few words he spared for his time there—had whetted his appetite. Much in the same way the manual he’d received for his fifteenth birthday had. In the two years since, the path of cultivation had always been like a locked treasure vault. The promise of power and ability beyond his dreams lay sealed away, always close but always beyond his reach.
Sure, he knew the stories of mighty cultivators of legend, just as any child did. Warriors capable of sundering mountains, splitting the sky, or rending the earth. Heroes and villains who could walk on clouds, call storms of fire, and seal away terrible and ancient powers. Figures of immeasurable power capable of defying the heavens themselves.
As he reached his adolescence and failed to grow as large or as strong as the other boys in Shulin, he’d taken refuge in his imagination. He’d cast himself as the hero of those stories and reveled in the fantasy of being someone important and strong. Someone powerful. With Zhang Lifen’s appearance in the only home he’d ever known, those fancies didn’t seem so out of reach anymore.
Even just a taste, he figured, would be enough. If the Shrouded Peaks Sect could produce cultivators that put Dong Wei to shame, he’d be an idiot not to at least try. If he only made it as far as his father had, cast out as a failure before passing the lowest of their ranks, he was certain he’d still learn more than he ever would staying in Shulin.
He’d give a good showing at the tournament, that much was certain. But even if he won, he wasn’t about to latch himself to someone like Dong Wei. A much larger world of cultivation awaited him, and this tournament was his gateway. He would fight, and when he won he would leave Shulin and seek out the Shrouded Peaks Sect.