After that, the meeting didn't go very far. Instead of dwelling on how we were going to begin funding things, we decided to take the time to each bring a couple options to the table. We would reconvene in three days. The next one would probably be a bit shorter. But then again I never knew about these things. I was hoping that at least we would have a good spread. That wasn't going to be much of a problem as I had been tagged for it.

---

The next day, we had our first session with the intern. She promised to do her best. What we wanted her to really do was to sit and observe. What she heard was to watch them like a hawk. That didn't work out too well for people that had been up until recently treated like food.

But still she persevered. We also asked her to not take notes. It turned out that she did not need to take notes. She had an near eidetic memory. It was probably part of her theater training. I didn't question it but we did a fifteen minute debrief after the session. We had split the survivors into two groups of roughly equal size just to keep things simpler. So we would flow from one session to the next with a bit of a break for food and water and of course tea.

The second group, we didn't have to tell her to stop staring. We did have to tell her to stop moving around like she was a prison guard.

She finally got it and doing the second debriefing really helped her understand what we were doing. Lorenzo in particular was happy to teach. I love teaching. I love coaching people to get to higher heights than they could ever dream of. But this particular situation was really getting to me as they looked upon me with both some sort of savior meets hero. Once Lorenzo was 100% ready to go, I was going to dip out of this more regularly. I would still be there for support, but it was his game.

It was just part of my process to get away from the site. I was hoping that we will be able to use the old Red Fang compound as our new safe house. That hope was dashed when I realize that I would have to work nearby the larder.

After we were done for the day it was near noon time. I found myself walking back to the larder. On the inside. It was just as it was before. A cold dry storage area with a secret trapdoor that led to where dozens of humans had been kept.

I wanted to do something to consecrate the place. Or perhaps turn it into a memorial. I remember one summer as a teen we had gone back to the old country to remember those that had gone before. It was one of those places where time had stopped since the war. It was a somber reminder of how terrible things could happen once humanity went down a dark path.

And so I found myself irritated that I hadn't brought a handkerchief. I was mad that I had to even think about the final disposition of a place that had caused so much suffering.

I didn't really have to think about it.

It was not my job. I wasn't even from here. But it weighed on me, nevertheless.

I wasn't that long before I could hear the slow steps of two soft feet approaching. Since I had advanced to the fourth realm, I was much more conscious about little tells like this. I reached out with my nascent soul, probing to see if it was who I hoped it was.

I met a fair bit of resistance. I smiled at that.

"You can come out now."

"I heard you come down here."

"I needed some time alone to decompress after-after today."

Moon Lee put a hand on my shoulders.

"This place has so much hurt. I wanted to feel that. I wanted to feel something," she said.

We are taught in school about post-traumatic stress. We're also taught about burnout. If I could write a prescription for everyone here to go on a beach vacation I would do so.

"You know I never asked specifically but how? How are you feeling about all this? You did a lot."

She sat there next to me. I wanted to put my arm around her. So I did.

"Thanks, I feel like I spent so much time teaching you how to veil yourself and your power that it kinda- I think I was hiding."

"Hiding from who? Or what?"

" I don't know. Joe, it could have been anything. Take your pick. My sisters, the moon clan, our little group which don't get me wrong, I adore. Maybe I was just hiding from myself this whole time."

She leaned over, putting her head on my shoulder.

"What do you really want? Do you want to make them happy? Do you? Do you want to be happy? Because there's only so much you can do for the clan. And no one's going to accuse you of doing less than everyone else. You've done so much for me and the girls and..."

"I get it. I really do. I just feel more comfortable alone. Or with you. You don't have any expectations on me or at least not the way that my sisters do. I'm growing to appreciate that more and more. And yes, if you want to say I told you so or that boundaries are a thing that I should have set in place a long time ago then yes, you're right. But I didn't know any better. And I needed someone to help me get to that place."

"You're where I was a while back. You're ready aren't you. To take things to the next level I mean. What's holding you back?"

"Well a bit of it's me. That fear that it won't work out. And then if it doesn't work out then what? Then where are we?"

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I cocked my head. She was warm and I briefly wanted more but I pulled back.

"If it works out, then you continue on your path. If it doesn't work out, then you continue on your path. Either way you learn more about yourself and what you're capable of. Now there haven't been too many women that I could convincingly say that all ready to advance to the fourth realm. Honestly, you're the first one I know. But I know you're capable of greatness. I also know that you reserved closed door cultivation for some time this evening."

She pushed me not too hard. Then things felt a little awkward and I didn't want to lead her on. We separated. I still wasn't fully convinced that she even liked men. I knew that she was fond of me.

I was still heartbroken. This wasn't the time and it definitely wasn't the place.

"How did you find that out? Wait don't tell me."

"Lee, they are your family. They are feeding me information. Sometimes they won't shut up about what's going on. Sometimes I want to not listen. But like a good boy, if they want to spill the tea, who am I to not listen."

"Are you telling me that my family has tea about me? And not only that, they tell you the tea?"

"You can't spell treason without tea."

"Oh you!"

"Come on. I'll walk you back," I said grabbing her hand and pulling her up to me. I noticed that she didn't immediately pull her hand back now. And was she blushing? She turned away too quickly for me to get a good read.

If she was single by choice I could understand that. She was definitely getting a lot of heat for not settling down. It helped that she was strong as fuck. Might did make right here. No one was going to tell me what to do. Except maybe the Mandarin. And even then, from what he said to me, we aligned on a lot of things.

" Not just yet. If you please. I want you to tell me how you did it. Can you?"

" I-I guess I can. Madame Kang she explained to me what she did and how she taught. She went wrong when she well you know what happened. And so I don't know."

"You don't know what you did?"

"I just felt ready. And like I knew who I was. So. If you are in touch with who you are like that base identity, then you can use that image of yourself. Who is that person?"

"Who am I?"

"I think it's more accurate to say what is the identity of the person that you have been? What is the identity of the person that you are now? And then? What is the identity of the person that you want to become?"

"Can you give me an example?"

"You know who I am. I am first and foremost a dad. I'm a family Guy or at least I was. Here. It's a little different but that's what it was before. Now? I'm still that person but it's-it's changed a little bit."

She curled up on herself. Both of her arms enveloped her knees.

"There's this concept that we have back on earth. Some people have difficulty taking up space. And by that I mean they don't feel welcome or they don't feel like they can be bigger than they are. Like they need to be a smaller person for whatever reason, probably because society dictates right?"

She gaze went from far away to right back to me. I got up and started pacing.

"Because back where I'm from, women are conditioned to take up these roles. It wasn't long ago that women were expected to take care of everything in the house. And now it's kind of flipped where everything is everyone's responsibility. Things still need to happen but the men don't well. They haven't been conditioned to take up the slack yet. So they might see themselves as a provider, but they're only really providing a source of income for the house. Your value and your identity are more than just your ability to be a good wife and or a good mother."

I stopped to raise my hand to make a point and she was locked on to me.

"So I ask you, who are you? Are you the kind of person that goes through steps methodically on her path? Do you walk on someone else's path? Or do you take the best pieces of what you see and put them together so they work for you?"

"I had never thought of it that way."

I let the silence fall.

"I guess I'll have to see won't I."

"But in a more practical sense, you're going to be hungry and sweaty so plan to go right to bathe and shower."

"See that's helpful also. You got any more like that?"

"What's your favorite food?"

---

It didn't take her as long as I expected to advance. My prior experience led me to believe that 16 to 20 hours was to be expected and the norm. She did it in eight. She was clearly over prepared for the test with all the answers memorized. I wasn't there to see her walk out but I was alerted almost immediately.

I joined her as she was soaking in the tub. It was a process of rinse twice then soak. The moon clan had a large public bath where the genders mixed.

Now I know what you're thinking but it really wasn't like that. For one we weren't the only ones there. Second yeah it wasn't anything and I didn't want to make it anything, except for wanting people to look at me when I got out of the water and then having an anime style nosebleed or something when they saw me get out. A man has needs, and being a total daddy is one of mine. I had worked on my dad bod.

"I saw the future laid out in front of me. I imagined what it would be if I didn't have to think about what my sisters said. It felt good. I wanted to think about what life would be like, without all of that."

We bobbed in the warm water, our heads the only thing above.

"What did you figure out?"

"It would be lonely I guess. But I would feel more secure. The whole thing about boundaries-I don't think they would understand it and just insist on smashing through them."

"But if they didn't then you know that they would be better sisters for it. Either way you are better off. You don't need people in your life that will trample over sensible boundaries."

"I saw that. You make it sound so simple."

I had to hold myself from saying how simple it actually was to her. I was a bit distracted by let's say the situation as two women and two men walked in naked as the day they were born. Damn those puritans for really drilling into the old American psyche. Then one of them snatched a child from what had to be near death as it barreled into the deep end, and the mother tearfully accepted her son back.

"I also saw that I could think about my pathway in the same way. I could see myself as the matriarch of the Moon clan with all of the clans norms and values in the exact same place and I shuddered. I had a vision of my children's children growing up the same way and it really struck me how much has changed since I met you, so thank you. Then I saw the-I don't know if it showed like this to you-but the tendrils of my nascent soul started pushing out and I let myself cultivate and embrace the next realm."

She was quiet for a while. One of the attendants put some more coal on a fire and I was glad that we had shown up at the time where the water was heated. We weren't close enough to a hot spring, and the heat was really doing wonders for my back.

Suffice to say that we had a really good talk. And my back thanked me for the time.