“To cultivate is to rebel against the heavens,” Qian Shanyi lectured, “This principle lies at the heart of all orthodox cultivation.”
She looked around the sunlit lecture room, making sure her audience was following along. She was the only cultivator there, seated on a wide pillow in front of a low table holding her personal tea set. Two dozen students - most of them men, ranging from as young as ten to as old as forty - kneeled in front of her on smaller pillows, dressed in the gray robes of outer disciples. All of them were new to the sect, and she was supposed to teach them about the world of cultivation. A good third of them fidgeted, clearly unnerved at being in the same room as an actual cultivator. They would adjust quickly enough.
Out of all her duties in the Luminous Lotus Pavilion, this was the only one she found tolerable, as seeing a person learn always brought a smile to her face. Occasionally, someone even happened to ask a good question, letting her lecture about something outside of the narrow confines of what was prescribed by the sect Elders.
“When the father of modern cultivation Gu Lingtian rebelled against the Heavenly rule”, Qian Shanyi said, “He sought justice for many, but instead of responding to his challenge, the Heavens barred their front doors. But there were twelve other ways into heaven, and he would seek out every one of them.”
She paused, bringing a cup of tea to her lips to take a sip.
“Only in one thing were the Heavens united with him: they would both rather see the world cracked in half than accept defeat”, she continued, “To lock the first two gates, the deities made the suns set and never rise, and shattered the moons into a rain of stone and dust. Not giving up, Gu Lingtian traveled the world, from the northern oceans, to eastern jungles, and even dug deep into the earth, but all the paths spoken of in legend broke at his touch. In the south, he stared into a candle flame for seven weeks without blinking once, but when he comprehended its truth, Heavens extinguished all fire in the entire world lest he find his way in. In the west, he forged a gate out of the purest metals from the mines of Kunlun, but when it opened, everything within a dozen kilometers was obliterated by a fiery light. When he painted a bridge out of his familial love, Heavens erased his family, and made it so that he was an orphan all along. He studied the flows of the written word, gathered every Queqiao bird in the world, and even descended down into the Netherworld in desperation to force the demons to help, but everywhere he went, Heavens were a step ahead of him.”
The youngest disciples listened in rapt attention, while doubt filled the eyes of the older ones at the fanciful tales. They would learn to trust the wisdom of the youth, in time.
“Finally, he forged a personal invitation from the Heavenly Emperor, and for a brief moment, he stepped into Heaven - but immediately, he was thrown back down to Earth,” she continued, “Twelve were the ways to enter Heaven, and they have barred them all. Then, in a rage, he took up his sword, and cut his own, thirteenth way inside. The blood and ichor flowed in rivers, and it is said that the sounds of slaughter drove all within a hundred li into madness, but after seven days, the Heavens have bowed to his demands.”
“How did he do that?” one of the older disciples asked her, “How do you just…cut a way into Heaven?”
“Nobody knows,” she shrugged, “and any records of what occurred were wiped after the fact. If any remain, then perhaps only the libraries of the Imperial Palace hold them. Many have tried to find this answer, to various results. For example, it is said that all sword cultivation techniques trace their ancestry back to what he did back then - but how much stock to put into this, I could not say.”
“But why did he rebel?” asked the outer disciple who brought up the topic. She didn’t remember his name. Li-something?
“Heavens demanded strict obedience to their unjust laws,” she responded, “among them, they only allowed a select few ‘pure’ bloodlines to cultivate. Whenever anyone else would become a cultivator by chance, a heavenly tribulation would immediately strike them down. Only a lucky few could survive.”
She stretched her hand out, pointing to every outer disciple in the room in turn with her tea cup.
“You should be grateful,” she said, “Gu Lingtian’s rebellion is the only reason any of you may become cultivators at all, no matter how slim your future chances. Of course, the Heavens still bear a grudge. To this day, the heavenly tribulations of cultivators advancing in realm are much stronger than they have been in the past. But at least now, you get to try.”
“My parents always said that the will of the cultivators is the will of the Heavens,” a younger disciple piped up, “They hold its power and this is why we should serve them.”
This one, she knew - Tan Lin, accepted into the sect barely a week ago. He came from a family out in the countryside, where the old ways still held purchase.
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“There are some perverted cultivators who still follow Heavenly commandments, yes,” she answered, “as long as it does not break any laws, the empire allows it. The path of karma, they call it, and are called karmists in turn. Their tribulations are much easier than those of orthodox cultivators, which, in their eyes, justifies the practice.”
“Then why should we rebel against Heaven?”
“If you don’t want to be a cultivator, then why are you here?”
“Of course I want to be a cultivator.”
“Then there you go. Heavens don’t want you to be one.”
“I mean - ” Tan Lin stumbled, but regained his composure, “I want to be a cultivator, but you said that these karmists follow Heavenly commandments, right? And if their cultivation is easier - why should we make things harder for ourselves?”
”Not everything that is easy is just.”
“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s just the way of the world. Don’t they say that the big fish always eats the small fish?”
“It would have been easy for Gu Lingtian to give up at any point on his path, for he had to fail a dozen times before succeeding once. If he did, you would have been born a slave. Would you have preferred that?”
“But he only got his way because he was stronger than the heavens.”
“You think that if you are strong, then whatever you do is right?”
“I mean -”, he paused, then continued, “yeah, I guess. Isn’t this why cultivators cultivate?”
“Hmm, I see,” Qian Shanyi tapped her cheek theatrically, then stood up, “well, why don’t we see how this works? Go pick up the cleaning bucket near the door, hold it in your outstretched hands, and stand on your toes. Do this until the lesson is over.”
Several other disciples laughed. Tan Lin’s face grew red with embarrassment.
“What?”
She leaped through the air, faster than the eyes of the mundane disciples could follow, unsheathing her sword on the way. Tan Lin’s eyes widened all too late as she landed and pressed her sword to his neck, and he scrambled back, falling on the floor. She stepped after him, keeping the sword pressed against his skin just short of drawing blood. Some scattered exclamations resounded from the other disciples, but she ignored them.
“You argue?” she raised her eyebrows mockingly, “I told you what to do. Go do it.”
Sweat poured down his forehead, his eyes flickering between the sword pressed against his neck and her face. She smirked.
“Well? Go on,” she said, bringing her sword away from his neck and sheathing it, and he scrambled back towards the doors, doing as he was told. She returned back to her seat and poured herself a new cup of tea.
“Tan Lin, why am I punishing you?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard clearly across the room.
He was quiet at first, and she threw a questioning glance in his direction. His face was rapidly going from shock, to fear, to embarrassment and then back.
“Because I asked too many questions?” he finally said.
“No, questions are good. The more of them, the better you will learn your lessons.”
“Because I argued?”
“I do not mind it when outer disciples argue with me.”
“Well, then I don’t know.”
“There is no reason why I am punishing you,” she said, smiling, “I simply felt like it, and had a sword, while you didn’t. Doesn’t this feel incredibly just?”
A couple more disciples laughed at that. She glanced through the student list, noting down their names.
“What do the rest of you think?” she asked, looking around the room, “Does this feel just to you? Would you rebel, if this was your life, or perish like a dog?”
The discussion went on for a while, and she made herself another cup of tea. This was quite far from what the sect Elders wanted her to teach, but if they wanted her to speak of something different, they should have come down here themselves.
“But if to cultivate is to rebel against heavens,” one of the rare girls asked, “then why do we have to follow the orders of our seniors in the sect without question? Isn’t that contradictory?”
Because most cultivators are hypocrites at the best of times, she thought, but knew she couldn’t say it out loud. That would be going too far.
“You follow the orders of your seniors because they have more experience than you,” she said, falling back on that common lie, “if they tell you to do something, there is a good reason, and often it is that if you do things differently, you will die, without even being qualified to know what killed you. This is doubly true when you are working in one of our alchemical workshops, or in the herb gardens.”
The lesson moved on, back to discussing history. She ended it when she saw Tan Lin’s hands start to give out from pain and exhaustion.
“Tan Lin, you are free from your duties for the rest of the day,” she said, packing up her tea set into it’s lacquered wooden box, “Feel free to visit the outer sect library to relax. Those of you who have laughed at Tan Lin, you have double shifts for the next three weeks as punishment. Maybe that will make the actual lesson stick.”