“Well, there was a lice infestation. But we certainly didn’t use goat shit to treat it.”

Medicine Hall leader Chen Lei examined the puckered skin on Pengfei’s back that would eventually become a pronounced scar. A reminder of the day he came to Kunlun.

“I feel like I can still smell it.”

Pengfei remained bitter at the prank several days later. It was impossible to put it behind him when all the Jin disciples referred to him as ‘shithead’.

“Any tremors?”

“No.”

The physician had been diligent in his examination but found no lingering symptoms of the poison that had nearly claimed Pengfei’s life. Now, he shifted to a new task.

“Sit down on the floor and cross your legs.”

Pengfei did as he was bid and felt the doctor sit behind him and place palms to his back.

“I’m going to inspect your meridians and qi flow. I should have done it earlier but I wanted the poison to clear your system. Breathe deeply.”

--What qi flow? It’s not like I’ve ever learned such a thing… but doctor knows best I suppose.--

Chen Lei’s hands rested delicately against Pengfei’s robes in the same precise manner the man exuded in all his actions. But the light touch belied a great inner power that surged through Pengfei a moment later.

“Guuuhhhh!” he gasped as fire coursed through his chest and snaked its way down to his belly.

“Keep breathing!” the elder barked.

Pengfei regained his composure at Chen Lei’s urging. He closed his eyes and focused on his breath.

In. Out. In. Out.

The warmth invaded his abdomen and found an intangible cistern. The dantian. The invisible reservoir that held the body’s internal energy, from where it would wind its way through the major and minor channels.

Pengfei had never seen it before, did not see it now, but he could sense it for the first time. A tiny eddy in a darkened cave became a maelstrom with the addition of the elder’s energy.

The qi crept outward again from the center. It branched, occasionally encountering obstacles and flowing around them. One near the heart, another behind the eyes, with countless smaller ones here and there. The moving energy mapped out a web of meridians and their subsidiaries and blockages, lighting them up briefly before they faded into darkness again.

Then the heat retreated and left only numbness.

“Finished.”

Chen Lei was already standing and after taking a moment to reacclimate, Pengfei worked his way to his feet as well.

“Your dantian, your meridians…”

The elder had an inscrutable look on his face, sending a jolt of anxiety through his patient. A sensation much more jarring than when the qi had coursed through him.

“My meridians? What is it? Were they damaged by the poison?”

“…”

“…”

“…They’re completely average.”

“Average?”

“Healthy, balanced. Nothing extraordinary but perfectly serviceable.”

“….”

--This old bastard… I nearly pissed myself.--

But aloud, Pengfei only said, “Thank you for your care, Elder.”

“You shouldn’t have any problems learning the neigong of our sect. It’s a little late to begin cultivating internal energy but do not rush. Impatience will only lead to disaster.”

With a wave, Chen Lei dismissed the boy. Pengfei silently bowed to the master and left the Medicine Hall.

He walked slowly through the sect buildings.

The checkup had occurred after another harsh day of training and now the cold of an midsummer’s night in the mountains was upon him. The silhouettes of the peaks were visible in the darkness, outlined by the stars in the sky behind them. White snowcaps could be made out but the rest of the details were lost in shadow.

Normally he would have been more appreciative of the natural splendor of the scene, but Pengfei’s eyes were on his feet, his mind elsewhere.

He thought of the other world he had just glimpsed. The hidden side of nature, the dormant powers that were spoken of in religious texts and heroic sagas. The internal alchemy Pengfei had just experienced was a core practice of martial artists and Taoist priest. Even Buddhist monks would make connections to the practice in their own way. Perhaps the sorcerers from childhood nightmares were no longer out of the realm of possibility.

--I thought it was all metaphor and exaggeration…--

Never mind the farfetched tails of ascetic hermits reaching immortality. Qi and the practice of cultivating it from nature, neigong, was what could supposedly take a third-rate swordsman to a warrior of legend.

Personal experience had now confirmed what Pengfei had only seen indirectly before. The impossible movements of the the Qingcheng swordsmen, the killers and black, and Elder Weidao now made sense.

--Is that what I’ll be like in a few years? Could I?--

He pictured himself jumping across canyons and swinging a sword, burning with qi and cutting down foes.

--But the foes can use their qi as well. The cutting might not be so one-sided. I wonder if Feng ever really considered the possibility of dying in a swordfight…bleeding out on the back of a horse?--

Pengfei found his flights of fancy tempered by his brushes with cold, hard, reality. His friends’ reserves of internal energy had not been enough to save them against similarly trained opponents.

--All that power just to wind up on an even playing field in a fight to the death. If I wanted that kind of life, I could have joined the army.--

His absentminded steps had taken him to the edge of the sect compound. Wilderness stretched out in front of him.

--No point worrying about it. I have plenty of other problems right in front of me.--

He’d caught sight of the supernatural and lost the sense of wonder nearly immediately.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

*************************************************************************************

Pengfei stood at the dormitory’s door. Hesitant. Dreading.

The past few days with the other disciples had not been much better than the first. Granted, he had not been covered in animal feces again, but he was still just as isolated from the tightly formed cliques.

And then there was Jin Nanxi. He had laughed mercilessly the next time he saw Pengfei after his little prank. Red faced, gasping for breath, knee-slapping laughter. And he had not been alone.

--Assholes.--

Deep breath.

Pengfei opened the door and entered the raucous dormitory. The couple hours before bed were the only time the disciples had to themselves but they managed to pack a day’s worth of shenanigans into those scant few minutes.

“Shithead!” A chorus greeted him.

‘I’m going to have to do something about that.’ Pengfei sighed to himself.

He picked his way through the clusters of boys to his small rectangle of personal space. He picked his bedroll off the floor and unfurled it. A ball of goat crap went bouncing across the floor. Someone had rolled it up in his bedding, and it was no great mystery who had done it.

“He can’t get enough of it!” Jin Nanxi called out.

Peals of laughter.

--That’s not going to stop unless I stop it.-- Nanxi’s face was superimposed with those of similar figures from Pengfei’s past. People who had pushed until he pushed back. --I guess now is as good a time as any.--

Pengfei balled his fists and marched up to Nanxi. His tormentor was waving to his cheering friends. Pengfei grabbed the boy’s robes, spun him around, and swung.

His hand didn’t even complete half of its arc before Nanxi grabbed Pengfei’s throat and slammed him into a wooden column. Fingers coiled around his neck like snakes and squeezed the air out of him. Nanxi looked into his eyes with sneering contempt as the younger disciple clawed at his throat in an effort to breath. The older boy released his grip a moment later and with the same hand smacked Pengfei across the face, hard enough to send him to the floor.

“Learn to take a joke, shithead.”

Jin Nanxi walked away in the silence left from the scuffle. The conversations and laughter came back to life before he reached the other side of the room. Pengfei crawled back to his bedroll, either laughed at or ignored by the others in the room.

*************************************************************************************

Zihao surrounded and bleeding.

Feng on a funeral pyre.

Pema riding away alone.

He hadn’t seen any of these sights in the real world but they invaded his dreams again that night.

Pengfei woke before the others and laid silently on his bedroll. His contaminated blanket was crumpled up in a ball despite the cold.

--Shaolin, Kongtong, Zhongnan, Nangong, Emei--

There was no point repeating the words now that Pengfei had delivered the message to the leader of Kunlun. Still, it calmed him. He raised a hand to touch his bruised cheek. There was a dull ache in the flesh where he prodded it with his fingers.

--Now what? Am I going to find shit in my blanket every night?--

Pengfei waited for the other disciples to rouse and then donned a clean uniform for the day. He ate another simple breakfast at his own table while surrounded by a dining hall of chattering teenagers.

The morning training seemed to alternate between external and internal conditioning. One day there would be a treacherous run up and down the mountain path or calisthenics that would leave Pengfei weak and spasming for hours. The next day the disciples would use that same block of time to gather in a large open hall, then sit in meditation while the statues of the Three Pure Ones looked on.

Pengfei was thankful for the days without the intense physical training. Sitting quietly in the Veneration Hall, as he did now, was much more comfortable. He had only been to this room a couple times and was still unsure what he was supposed to do.

It was clear this was connected to qi. Even Pengfei knew that much.

--But how does sitting in the dark take me from here to there?--

He mimicked the lotus position that the other disciples had adopted but whatever inner techniques they practiced when they closed their eyes were completely unknown to him. The profundity of their concentration discouraged him from disturbing any of the disciples with questions.

The statues of Taoist deities were not the only observers today. An elder of the sect entered the hall and walked up and down the rows of seated disciples. Pengfei watched him through half closed eyes. This was one of the more ancient looking masters Pengfei had seen at the sect. His bushy white eyebrows and beard obscured most of his facial features.

Pengfei closed his eyes and sat up straight as the master approached, trying his best to assume the same attitude as the rest of the disciples.

Step. Step.

Stop.

“What are you doing?”

The master’s quiet voice sounded from above Pengfei. He hesitantly opened his eyes to find the Taoist looking directly at him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m … meditating?”

“Humph. Come with me.”

--What was so different that he noticed me?--

Whatever subtle clues that had led to his discovery went unsaid. The two made their way wordlessly out of the veneration hall and walked through the grounds to the library.

--Smaller than at Emei and Qingcheng.--

Pengfei’s limited experience in the Jianghu, the underground society of martial arts heroes and rogues, may have given him an unrealistic expectation of what a sect should be. The ones in Sichuan had been grand, palatial, containing tens of thousands of volumes written on paper or bamboo slips. In contrast, Pengfei now found himself in a moderate sized room with maybe a thousand texts.

The elder ran his knobby finger along a shelf and stopped on the spine of a particular book. He pulled it from its place and handed it to Pengfei.

“Thank you Elder…”

“Chen Mo.”

“Thank you, Elder Chen Mo.”

The old man turned and left without another word.

‘Mystical Heaven Infinite Skill’

Pengfei read the characters written elegantly on the cover and leafed through the pages curiously. Silhouettes of men with the meridians outlined within were accompanied by detailed explanations written in a highly technical verbiage. A manual on neigong.

--Qi, Jing, Shen… Governing and Conception Meridians, three Dantians… what is all this?--

There was an overwhelming amount of information. Pengfei walked back to the veneration hall to rejoin the others as he absentmindedly flipped through the pages.

*************************************************************************************

The ‘Mystical Heaven Infinite Skill’ did not yield any answers in the short time Pengfei studied it before the midday meal. He stuffed the book in his bag of personal possessions when he got the opportunity and joined the rest of the Jin disciples in training their martial arts techniques on the stone floor of the training ground.

Chen Rulan led the practice every day and seemed to delight in the rigorous methods of his instruction.

“Again!”

The Elder barked out instructions to the entire group of disciples but stood directly beside Pengfei to correct the new disciple’s form. Unfortunately, he did this with the scabbard of his sword, mercilessly slapping any limb that was slightly out of place.

Crack!

“Hughhh!” Pengfei grimaced as another strike bit into the underside of his arm and raised his fist to the appropriate position.

“Jin Neng!”

“Yes Elder!”

“Lead this one through the Heaven Shaking Fist again. The rest of you, take up your swords!”

The rest of the disciples moved off to retrieve practice swords from weapons racks on the side of the training ground. Only Pengfei and Jin Neng remained to practice the empty-handed techniques.

“I’m…”

“I know who you are. Come on, go through the postures.”

Neng was a bit below average height and a full head shorter than the lanky Pengfei but had no trouble reaching and slapping the taller boy’s face when an opening presented itself.

“Ah, shit!” Pengfei blurted at the contact.

“Keep your hand up to guard while the other strikes.”

Pengfei made the adjustment but many more followed.

“Turn your hips with your punch, you’ll get more power.”

“To the side more.”

“Don’t cross your feet. Do you want to fall?”

When Neng saw Pengfei in an awkward position, a push-kick sent the new disciple to the ground in a demonstration of his instability. The hands-on lesson continued while wooden swords clattered against each other nearby and shouts of the other boys echoed off the buildings surrounding the great courtyard.

The physical pain from Jin Neng’s corrections was no less than those from Elder Chen Rulan but they were more informative. Each chastisement came with a justification, even if it was in the form of an insult.

“Fuck…hghhhg…that hurt!”

Pengfei’s wheezing came after a punch to the stomach demonstrated the importance of keeping the core tight and exhaling with every attack.

A distant bell signaled the end of the training and was simultaneously a call to dinner. Pengfei and Neng walked ahead of the others who were replacing the weapons to their racks.

“Thanks for the instruction.”

Neng looked over and appraised Pengfei.

“I didn’t think you would last until the end.” His words carried a hint of approval.

“I learned a lot.”

“…”

“You were kind of a dick though.”

“Hah!”

*************************************************************************************

“So, how do you tell the difference between the Conception Meridian and the Kidney Meridian?”

“What are you even talking about right now?”

Jin Neng looked up from his food to stare blankly at Pengfei. Neng had not objected when Pengfei had followed him to the dining hall, through the queue for dinner, and then to a table. Nor had he objected to the stream of questions Pengfei had posed in an attempt to avoid awkward silences. This query was just the latest example of this tactic in action.

“I was reading a book about -”

“Sounds like something you would have to talk to Elder Chen Lei about. Or one of his students. I don’t know about any of that stuff.”

“Fair enough.”

Pengfei had turned his attention to his dinner when a slap to the back of the head startled him and sent his food flying from his chopsticks

“Eat up shithead!”

Jin Nanxi and the twins, Tianwei and Tianxun, walked by with laughing glances cast back behind them.

“Well, do you know what to do about that?” Pengfei asked Neng while rubbing his head.

“Nanxi? He’ll lose interest in you eventually.”

“Oh yeah? How long do you think that will take?”

Neng paused for a moment to do some internal calculation.

“There’s not much to do out here. Maybe a year or two.”

“Fucking hell.” Pengfei cursed under his breath despondently until a sudden idea lifted his spirits.

“Hey, what about you? Do you think you could take care of him for me?”

“Take care of him?”

“You know…take care of him.” Pengfei winked conspiratorially.

“What? Screw him?”

“If you think it’ll help, go for it. But I meant fight him for me.”

“Fight him or fuck him, you’re going to have to take care of it yourself.”

“I’m saving myself for someone I love. And I tried fighting him the other night; it didn’t go well.”

“Nanxi? He’s nothing. Just keep training and you’ll beat him in no time.”

“Alright, how long do you think that will take?”

Neng paused for another mental calculation.

“Maybe a year or two.”