“I can’t believe how miserable this all is,” Qen Hou grumbles as he sloshes water out of his boots for the third time in a day. “Couldn’t you have picked a pilgrimage to someplace more interesting? A city, maybe, with some more trustworthy sect you could con your way into?”
She chuckles at that. “Don’t be such a baby, senior brother,” she laughs. “What am I going to find in a sect except another five to ten years before either of us is even let in? I only got into the Purple Flame long-name sect because of my master and a record of my training, and you don’t exactly have great accomplishments. But wandering cultivators are the work of legends and epics, of heroes! Out in the wilds, that’s where the real knowledge lies, not locked away in vaults by those who don’t understand what they can’t control. Plus, surely you’ll be able to find some mighty beast to slay out here, no?”
Qen Hou chuckles at that. “This isn’t the fourth ring,” he says. “Most of the wild beasts out here keep to themselves and each other, lest they be hunted. Any beast with a legend out here is either a myth or on its way to death.”
“All the more reason for you to find one for yourself before they’re gone!” she insists. “And give me the pieces after so I can learn how they work!”
“Is that really the best use of your skills?” he questions. “Learning how monsters tick and bleed, rather than pursuing the right texts or training on other ailments?”
“I mean I’ll be doing that too!” Li Shu corrects him, hands on her hips and overstuffed bag of medical supplies on her back. “We’ll find villages along the way that could use a healer, surely! But if I only pursue the knowledge everyone else already knows, I’m not really doing anything someone else couldn’t do just as well, could I?”
Qen Hou snorts. Then, he pauses. Then, he shrugs. “Your journey is your journey,” he says. “Who am I to doubt your cultivation?”
“Merely the busboy, junior brother,” she smiles. “Merely the busboy.”
Qen Hou, meanwhile, just chucks a muddy pebble at her, making sure to have their supplies between him and her before she can properly retaliate.
Qen Hou is nearing the very start of the Core Formation realm, and each step forward is always exponentially more difficult than the one before. Even as she is, near the midway of the Foundational realm, she holds not a hope against him in a direct battle, nevermind the fact that her techniques and strengths are designed almost entirely for healing at this point. Well, healing and curses, maybe, if she can properly use what she learned with Raika’s ritual, but that’s a ways away.
Still, the journey has brought them a bit closer. The fact that Qen Hou is still rather smitten and not shy to admit it likely plays a factor, but in truth, he’s been surprisingly patient about his affections. Li Shu gets the impression that he hasn’t had many friends before, and the freedom to act like a person and not a disciple seems to be doing him good, aiding not just in his cultivation but in the lack of the constant tension and the sense of propriety he always seemed to exude.
She can’t quite say the same for herself, but she still feels the change was worthwhile. Without consistent daily schedules and texts to pore over and dream of, Li Shu has been feeling antsy for days now, even as they explore and travel through deeper and wilder parts of the woods. So far, Qen Hou’s assessment has held true; they’ve run into only a single beast, and it seemed like a starved and desperate thing. While she’s found that violence does little for her cultivation of her peace of mind, the death of the creature was more than worthwhile, pulling her into a trance of dissection and examination. Each organ had been so distinct from the human norm, its blood properties and mechanisms so distinct, the very structure of its bones somehow deeply and fundamentally different, latticed in a whole new way than what she’s grown to understand as possible.
Yes, she’s certain she made the correct choice, even if she doesn’t thrive in this environment like Qen Hou seems to.
She marches away from him in a huff to wash the tiny spot of dirt he’s left on her healer’s robes, utterly determined to keep them as pristine as she can despite their surroundings. Behind her, Qen Hou begins to set up camp, unpacking one and half of another of the bulging backpacks she’s dragged along and foisted onto him.
Which he should be grateful for! It’s not like he brought anything of his own besides a single fricking bedroll!
It’s no wonder they say wandering cultivators are crazy. She’s happy to provide an example of the sanest of the lot.
Yes, Li Shu thinks, scrubbing with water from a stream at the minute spot of dirt on her robes, using a small towel from amidst the bulging bag of scalpels, blades, tweezers and poisons she’s brought along. Definitely the sanest one between the two of them.
The weight of the certainty of her sanity, however, lets her be distracted for a little while.
“Why hello there!” A voice crows from across the stream, close and loud enough that she shoots upright and gasps.
Before her is… a cultivator, perhaps. Someone in the foundational realm, same as her, but dressed in old workman’s clothes, left open at the shoulders to highlight a broad chest with a couple small scars on it. The man before her is pale, despite the sun’s best efforts, his frame holding a full beard and bright eyes beneath an uncombed mop of hair.
“What a delight it is, to find myself faced with such a beauty!” says the stranger, smiling wide as his voice echoes through the woods. “Truly, this one is honored by the presence of what must surely be a jade princess! Come now, princess, what brings you to these parts, all alone?”
She frowns at him, a bit confused by his odd mannerisms. “I’m a cultivator and honored healer,” she says, sitting primly and giving a small bow. “This honored one is named Li Shu, and I find myself on a journey as a wandering cultivator, hoping to improve my talents and assist those in need. How may I address you, honored stranger?”
The man throws his head back and laughs, long and loud. “Ah, a healer!” he exclaims. “I should have known as much from your fine robes, young miss. Or perhaps from that rucksack you carry there! Why, the thing must be full to the brim with your concoctions and tools! I’m sure they must have been so terribly expensive.”
She frowns. “I earned these tools from my master,” she says. “Any expense is simply a requirement for a healer to be able to do all they can. I’m certain I’ll be able to return them to her one day, that I might pursue my own tools in my practice, but they’re more than enough for me to practice my meager skills.”
“Oh!” the man grins. “So… one might say they’re not even yours, eh? Ready and willing to be parted to the company of another?”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“To the company of my master,” Li Shu says, standing and stepping a bit closer to her bag. She’s starting to think that perhaps this man might not be a pleasant stranger at all. “And on the subject of what we have, you have yet to tell me your name, stranger.”
“Ah, my apologies!” the man laughs. “This one’s name is Hao Nera, hailing from the far northlands of this glorious end of our empire, and I’m merely a wandering cultivator myself, eager to find my fortune in my travels!” His eyes sparkle. “And you, milady, are quite a fortune indeed.”
And then, without warning, Qen Hou crashes through the trees into the stream in front of her.
His breath leaves him in a gasp, and she can see the front of his robe is cut open cleanly, like with a blade, the wound beneath it flowing freely. His eyes are dazed, but they refocus as he sees her, his Qi flaring as his aura begins to glow with magenta-hued flames.
“LI SHU!” he screams. “RUN!”
The panic in his voice scares her, but he is bleeding, and it is not the healer’s job to run away from someone bleeding.
She takes a hesitant step forward, unsure of herself, when the sound of a blade cutting through the air has her flinch and just barely move out of reach of the edge of a sword.
She looks, and for the first time sees what she’s surrounded by. All around her are a dozen figures, all of them dressed in similarly rugged clothes to Hao Nera, all of them wielding swords, daggers, or simple clubs. Their Qi flares up around them, and she counts more than half of them in the Foundational realm alongside her and Qen Hou.
She has significant faith in her traveling companion and his techniques. For a Foundational realm cultivator, he punches hard and fast and with fiery harm.
But there’s twelve of them.
She can’t move. She hesitates.
Qen Hou, to his credit, does not.
In a burst of Qi that costs him likely more than half his reserves, he washes a wave of flame over the trees and terrain near them. The plant-life catches immediately, scorched into tinder by the heat of the flames, but it barely holds back most of the crowd. Some of them simply duck and dodge past the flames, some manipulate the water of the stream with their own Qi, some of them simply shove unshaped energies at the fire and inefficiently clear an area around them. Still, it’s enough time for Qen Hou to move.
In a move she hasn’t seen before, his aura condenses, wrapping around his hand and then extending into a blade of bright red and purple fire, which he swings with abandon. At first, he catches their attackers on the back foot, untrained as they are, but he can’t defend himself and Li Shu both, and there’s a moment of hesitation as he slips while trying to track all the weapons flying and the bodies moving in her direction.
Someone grabs her by the arm, and she panics.
She snatches a scalpel out of her bag and slices blindly at whoever’s grabbed her, earning a curse and a splash of blood onto her robes, and then she’s using her own Qi in a wave around her. The man who grabbed her has a wound, and her techniques are designed for those, and as she reaches for his Qi the panic of the battle makes it almost impossible to tap into it.
Almost.
He screams as the wound widens, then widens again, his own body betraying him and gushing as much blood towards the damage as it can under Li Shu’s guidance. She’s panting, eyes wide, terrified, looking down at her hands, at the scalpel, refusing to look at the man she can hear screaming right next to her.
And then another man is there, and he has grabbed her by the hand holding the scalpel, and she can’t swing it because his Qi is so much stronger than hers.
But her Qi doesn’t need to be strong. It needs to be quiet, and calming, and subtle, and able to slip in unnoticed and guide another’s form and body.
She can’t help it. She bends over double, almost choking on her vomit, as she convinces his heart to stop.
The effort expends most of her reserves. It drains her like nothing ever has, like only a whole day of triage managed to do during the Festival of Cold Sun, and she can’t help it, falling over in sudden exhaustion and nausea at what she’s done.
But she can hear Qen Hou fighting. She can hear the sounds of grunting, and metal flying through the air, and the screams of those he hits with his flaming sword and the sounds of pain he makes when they cut him right back.
She spits, forces herself to breathe despite the smell, and reaches into her bag.
She can hear more footsteps as their attackers move around her, ignoring them as they come closer, closer as she rummages, trying to find what she’s looking for. She hears an ugly chuckle and feels an aura pulse close to her just in time to duck down, the weight of the club hitting the back of her head reduced but still leaving her reeling and opening up a cut. She swings the scalpel again, wildly, screaming at them to get away as she searches, tosses things aside-
And finds what she’s looking for.
Medicine is an interesting thing. Enough of one thing, and it’s for healing. A bit more of another, and it’s a poison. The addition of a third thing, and it might be neither and both at once.
She’s not sure it’ll work, but in her hands is a small cloth of powdered anesthetic, ready to be mixed into an injectable solution, and a smaller cloth of wind’s nettles. It’s a small plant, but if used right and properly ground into a larger mixture, makes for a very effective way to maintain said concoction’s potency while airborne. She grabs them both, stabbing at the foot of the person nearest to her and throwing both of them at Qen Hou with all her might. She infuses every last bit of Qi she has into the mixture, feeling it begin to take, begin to infuse, and screams.
“QEN HOU! BURN IT!”
She does not hear if he responds. Someone grabs her by the hair and she is thrown back into the stream, the water soaking against the blood on her robes, even as more of the brigands close in. There’s four of them with her, another four handled by Qen Hou alone but he’s well outnumbered, he looks exhausted, he’s covered in cuts-
And she sees him see what she threw.
He shoots out a single flame, a small burst of fire straight at the falling powders, and their whole corner of the woods explodes with a cloud of pale greenish-white powder.
Some of the cultivators laugh, looking at each other, but the smarter ones immediately try and back off, try to run away, but it’s too late. Most of them take an entire faceful of anesthetic dust and can’t help but inhale.
She sees Qen Hou burn it away around himself, one final quick burst of his flaming aura as the others around him try to move, redirecting water or boosting themselves with Qi, only to still blink, slowly, and stagger, and fall.
And then, Li Shu feels a burning hot splash of blood hit her face.
She turns, still on hands and knees in the stream, to see Hao Nera, a sword she hadn’t seen him carrying before through the chest of one of the brigands staring down at her, hand outstretched and just out of range of the explosion of powder.
He smiles, their would-be attacker, and she sees Qen Hou, a bloodied mess wreathed in cuts and burns and his own flickering flame, staring down the older cultivator, his moves shaky but his stance set as he strides across the battlefield to stand next to and over her.
“Now now,” Hao Nera says, grinning, dropping his blade. “Aren’t you happy you had me around? A moment longer and your girlie here wouldn’t have been around to feed you any more clever plans.”
“Back off,” Qen Hou growls. “I’ve killed six men today already, I’ll not hesitate to add a seventh.”
“Now now!” Hao Nera whistles. “I don’t doubt ya, good sir. In fact, couldn’t be happier you’re here at the young lady’s defense, but… well. I’d hate it for you all to be lost out in the cold, here, and I’d rather not find myself hunted by whatever sect you lovely young masters so flourish under. All I ask for the life of your friend here-” (he gestures at Li Shu, trembling, cold, half conscious from the dregs of the powder and the amount of Qi she’s used)- “and for the even trade we’ve made of it-” (he gestures to the dead man at his feet)- “is that we just discuss the fact that I happened to not have attacked, or aided in your attack at all. In fact, you might say I facilitated your survival by not participating! And all I’d like in exchange from you powerful young masters is that you let me go to live my life a changed man, having aided you and then left you in peace.”
Qen Hou hesitates. He takes a half-step forward, his blade skinnier now, his glow dimmed. Then he seems to make up his mind, stepping forward fully-
And stumbling as Li Shu holds onto his leg.
He looks down at her.
“No more,” she whispers, tears tracking down her face.
He says nothing.
But she feels something in him shift. A fall towards its center, like his Qi is suddenly wrapping tightly around itself.
He lets his fire dim, reabsorbing both back into himself.
“Go,” he growls. “And don’t ever let me see you again.”
Hao Nera just bows, and before she can even see him leave, seems to step into the shadows and be gone.
And Li Shu starts to sob, openly, ugly, desperately, as Qen Hou just holds her.