Chapter 25 - Choices
“What do you mean?” Lu Na asked.
“This is a universal truth that you can’t tell anyone,” her spirit said. She was looking at her nails, chipping away the blood on it. “Anyone who knows this will trigger their spirit to kill them on the spot. So that beautiful and deadly friend you have out there in the human realm, you better not tell her. I’d hate to see her eaten alive inside out. Got it?”
Lu Na nodded.
“Well, I can’t leave it at that, can I? So what do you know about us spirits?”
“You bond with us and depending on the aptitude of the person, specific spirits are attracted to us. When we bond, we live peacefully together until we pass. Spirits give us abilities that we would never have otherwise, like being able to resist heat from a forge or to shape wood in unbelievable ways.”
“And I’m sure after the three days running from the Wintersweet Sect, you’ve seen all the other abilities spirits grant you humans. It’s not a secret that we give you powers beyond anything you could ever dream of, especially if you’ve learned and practiced the summoner arts. But if that were true, then what would we need you humans for? Why not take over this world and get rid of you weaklings?”
“I don’t know. I only heard it from my brother but he told me spirits need humans so they can anchor themselves in the human realm. Without us, you’d be trapped in the spirit realm. And one way you increase in your strength is through our worship and offerings to you.”
Her spirit laughed with a wide smile that showed off all her sharp teeth again. Lu Na scooted back a few steps from her. She didn’t want her to attack her out of the blue again.
“Oh, the lies are more delicious than anything I’ve ever seen. No child. We come to you in this human realm so that we can eat your life force little by little. Your worship and offerings are mere excuses for how we get our power. Your very life force is what we used to power all that magic and every time we sip from that well, we take a little more for ourselves. It’s why you have such short lifespans. Why do you think spirits can live for centuries while you live at most a pitiful sixty?”
“You’re all monsters,” Lu Na said. Although she didn’t need to remind herself of that. Her spirit was the scariest thing she’d ever seen in her life. She knew that if her spirit wanted to take her life and drink her soul, there would be nothing she could do to stop her.
“Yes, we are. And that’s where your mother comes in. She learned this truth the hard way when her own spirit told her. You see, your mother bonded with the phoenix spirit. One of the most rare spirits that ever was. Because of this bond, your mother could transcend the stages of a mere summoner. But this was after she had you and your brother. And the pull of motherhood is stronger than anything you can ever know. So she wanted to protect you two from having your life force devoured by a spirit. With the help of her spirit, she delved into forbidden histories of spirits and forbidden technologies. That’s where she found me. How old do you think I am?”
“Not that old, I guess.” Lu Na didn’t want to say anything that might offend the vain spirit. She could already tell that she prized her appearance and if she said anything about how old she was really thinking, her spirit might kill her on the spot.
“I am over three thousand years old. Your existence is nothing but a blip to me. When people die, their spirit brings all the soul essence they’ve collected from the humans back to the spirit realm and that nourishes us all, keeping us all alive. There are spirits that are many thousands of years older than me. Your mother found me amongst the ruins of an earlier dynasty, the Xia. They were trying to stop the spirits and there was an enormous battle between humans and spirits. That’s how I got trapped there. We ended that dynasty.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lu Na said.
Her spirit chuckled.
“Well, it was a pain to be trapped for thousands of years with nothing to do. But your life has made it interesting with all the men you keep meeting. That’s enough to keep me entertained.”
“But what does this have to do with me?”
“Your mother was on the run from all the spirits, either from the spirit realm or in the human realm. She made a deal with me and bonded us to give you those abilities and that hairpin. She told me that if you were ever to activate that hairpin, you would receive the clue to help you find the legacy of the Xia dynasty and continue their work to learn how to deal with the spirits.”
“So if I understand this, if I find this legacy of the Xia dynasty, then I can kill all the spirits?”
“No, child, when you find this legacy, it will allow you to command all the spirits. None will dare to oppose you, even the mythological ones. And with them, the summoners would follow. When you achieve that power, you’d have to ask yourself, do you want to rule over the world or would you free your humans from their endless suffering by the spirits?”
“That sounds like a simple answer.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, of course. I’d stop the spirits from devouring human souls.”
“And no one would thank you for it. Think about it, you’d be taking away their powers. You’d be taking away the thing that makes them special. All those summoner sects throughout the land would hunt you down like a dog for your efforts.”
Lu Na didn’t think about that. While she felt she could live comfortably without her abilities granted by her spirit, what about the others that depend on that ability for a living? What about her brother? His martial prowess depends on his spirit.
“So what should I do now?”
“Nothing. As the saying goes, you haven’t even gotten one stroke of the brush done yet when there’s ten to go. Find the legacy first and then figure out how it works. Then, when you do, you’ll probably have to hide it or keep it somewhere safe so that no one else finds out about it. And you have to do all that while being a pitifully weak summoner with no training. Although I had the silly hope that you’d live the rest of your life without worrying about this.”
“But wouldn’t that mean you’d be trapped if I don’t figure this out? And why didn’t my mother give this legacy to my brother? What should I do?”
“I have no clue. The choice is ultimately up to you. While you think about that, I want you to consider the hairpin for a moment, as our time here is running short,” her spirit continued. “I don’t know what would happen when you activate it. Your mother never told me. But she mentioned that if you were to activate it in a place of high concentration of spirit energy, it would be the most effective. It would save you from whatever disaster that might affect you even from a mythological spirit like the Yellow River Dragon. Do you understand everything I’ve told you so far?”
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Lu Na nodded. But there was one nagging question in her mind that she had to ask.
“Are you devouring my soul right now? Is that where you go from time to time?”
Her spirit retracted her claws before she reached up to grasp Lu Na’s chin. Lu Na expected her to have cold, clammy hands like a snake, but they were surprisingly warm. It reminded her of her mother’s hands.
“My dear child, your mother has left a vast reserve of spirit energy within you. Even if I were to use all my abilities every day and night, I would never exhaust it before you die. I think she was hoping you’d develop your summoner arts in order to use it, but your father stopped that.”
Lu Na wasn’t sure if she should thank her father or not.
“Now, any questions before you go back?” her spirit asked.
“No. I just wanted to thank you for all this.”
“Child, don’t thank me yet. I’m only using you to get what I want. And if you really want to thank me, maybe find a man to marry and settle down. I would love to experience the closeness of another man after so long.” Her spirit smiled widely, this time with her mouth closed.
Before Lu Na could respond with disgust, she was pulled out of her own spirit realm and back into the human realm.
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a small girl staring at her. She held half an eaten moon cake in her hand that had red beans in a lotus paste. The corners of her mouth were a mess.
“Hello little girl,” Lu Na said. She looked around and saw Sun Ren was missing. “Do you know where the big sister sitting next to me went?”
The little girl nodded as she took another squishy bite from the moon cake.
“Where did she go?”
The little girl pointed at the entryway into the courtyard. The two guards were still standing there. Why did Sun Ren leave her? Was she okay?
Lu Na pulled out the piece of null metal in her chest pocket. The piece of metal was hot even while covered by the cloth. She felt her chest and realized that her clothes were burning hot. A small fear that it might ignite made Lu Na consider putting it somewhere else after this.
The piece of null metal was so hot that Lu Na was sure that it was fully charged. She checked how many wards she had left. She had eight spirit wall wards and only four earth wall wards left. She had run out of the yellow talisman paper after making these. For the moment, she put everything back in her chest pocket.
“Where is your mama?” Lu Na asked the little girl.
The girl pointed not too far away at a woman standing by a small tree. They both wore matching tunics in a light brown. In fact, most of the women there were wearing light brown tunics or dresses. The only people that wore anything different were the Wintersweet disciples in their light and dark blues.
This was how they were going to differentiate them quickly and easily. Lu Na was sure that after enough time, they would have made her wear that ugly color as well. She shook her head. Fashion sense was the least of her worries.
Soon after, Sun Ren came back. She walked over with a solemn face. She didn’t wear the dreadful brown, but her dark red tunic with “Sun” embroidered on it.
“Your face is telling me that there is more to worry about,” Lu Na said.
Sun Ren looked up.
“Yes. I just heard from one disciple that Sect Leader Wong has become more unstable since they brought you here. He’s yelling that he is going to kill all the Lu maidens now before the moon reaches its zenith. At the moment, the elders of the sect are calming him down.”
“That’s frightening. Was he stable before? When I first saw him in Jianye, he looked like he was sick.”
“He is sick with spirit energy addiction. At high concentrations, it corrodes your mind.”
“That’s what my spirit said, but I do not know what that really means. Is it like when children eat too much candy and they go crazy?” Lu Na peeked over at the little girl that was still staring at her, now with a new sweet pastry in her hand. Lu Na waved at her, but received nothing back other than a glossy look.
“Something like that. You need to constantly absorb concentrated spirit energy. Or else they go crazy. What’s worse is that sometimes it’s how summoner sects train by forcefully absorbing it to empower their spirits. Their techniques become enhanced.”
“That sounds dangerous. It doesn’t sound like something that is worth it.”
“It’s not. It’s why almost no summoner sects do that except the really crazy or evil ones that have a warped sense of reality.”
“Well, I have good news and bad news from my little chat with my spirit.”
“Oh?”
“Remember, you can’t tell her about your abilities. Keep everything vague or else your ‘friend’ will turn on you as easily as any other summoner,” her spirit reminded her. “And if you don’t, I will keep you quiet my way.”
An echo of claws scraping on rocks bounced around in Lu Na’s head. There was phantom pain from the cut on her chin that wasn’t really there, but felt real all the same.
“The bad news is, my spirit is actually a cruel, mean thing that wants to scare me half to death,” Lu Na said.
Sun Ren smirked.
“Yes, our spirits look a certain way out here with us, but in our spirit realms their true form is revealed and it can be quite frightening. I remember the first time I saw my Baihu. You’ve seen her in her cute little fox form. In my spirit realm, she had beautiful nine tails and the predatory face of a fox that could devour me in a second. She threatened to chew me slowly if I didn’t achieve greatness.”
“That’s pretty scary.”
“Heh, well you saw your spirit as a grown woman. I saw her when I was twelve, after I reached the second stage as a summoner.”
Lu Na nodded. She did not know what that really meant with the stages and levels, but there must have been some ranking system of power that she did not know about. It wasn’t much different from the wards she made.
“The good news was that my mother left me some sort of inheritance. It’s in my hairpin.” Lu Na gently took it out of her hair. Out of all her usual accessories, the silver phoenix hairpin looked the most mundane. It had no colored jewels and one had to look closely at the hairpin to see all the details of it. “The challenge now is figuring out how to make it work.”
“You better figure it out quickly because the disciples told me that the Elders might lose control of Sect Leader Wong soon.”
“How are you getting these disciples to tell you this?”
Sun Ren reached into her chest pocket and pulled out a small sack of silver.
“Money can even buy ghosts to do your bidding. Meanwhile, what do you have? I know you should have made some wards before you were captured.”
Lu Na smiled. It surprised her how well Sun Ren knew her by now, yet they’ve only met as grown women a few days ago.
“I have a few spirit walls and earth walls. I thought we could create a commotion and hopefully the others would take that opportunity to flee.”
Sun Ren surveyed the crowd in the courtyard.
“I’m not sure if that would be enough. These people are now too comfortable here and some of them are so poor that staying here has been better than living their own lives out there. I think they need something more drastic to get them to run.”
“What were you thinking about?”
Sun Ren pulled the hairpin out of her head. She unsheathed a small dagger from it that fit into her palm.
“I’m going to cut someone and run. Once I get far enough away, I’m going to use a flare. What I need from you is a powerful distraction that drives these people out once they realize that they’re not safe here.”
“I’m not sure—”
One woman by the trays of food at the center smashed a plate onto the ground.
“This is not what I asked for. My father will hear about this poor treatment of her daughter. He’s a captain in the Marquis’ army. Don’t put me together with these poor people.”
One of the Wintersweet disciples in light blue came rushing over. Inspiration hit Lu Na as she watched the disciple’s face pale as the young woman continued to scream at him.
“Actually, I think I know how to give you a distraction.”