Li Qingshui

Nothing happened when Daoist Li put her front foot through a gap in the bamboo trees, but the moment she was no longer touching the grey slate tiles that paved the Iron Road, her ears were assaulted by the sound of wind, rustling leaves and the mating calls of birds. She only learned that the formations maintained by her sect had been actively suppressing her senses when she no longer stood within them.

Li was relieved. She thought she was going to be whisked away into the forest, dragged by an unknown force, or to sink into the soil as though it were quicksand.

"So far so good," said Alice. David made a gesture she didn't recognize, a fist with a thumb raised at the sky. It looked vaguely offensive - at odds with his smile and the little nod that came with it.

"I can hear you," said Li, who'd expected otherwise.

The pair frowned at her.

"Did you say something?" But even as he spoke, he seemed to realize there was something wrong. They were only four paces apart.

Li stepped back onto the road. "I said I could hear you. Were you unable to hear me?"

David nodded, his eyes scanning the stone where the formation had been etched.

She had an idea. Daoist Li drew deeply on her qi, all but broadcasting her existence to the world. It flowed through her like blood, streaming from the hundreds of apertures where it could exit her body.

David had done this when she'd almost come to blows with Changshou in Dongjing. His qi had been invasive yet ethereal - contentious and circular. By comparison, her own felt thin and inconsistent. Previously, that was how she'd viewed the cultivation of her fellow disciples.

Alice reacted instantly with tense shoulders and a set jaw. This was a common response - flaring your qi was normally an invitation to fight or to run. One of the first lessons an outer disciple in any sect learned was to hide this reaction - it was a show of weakness.

But instead of schooling his features into something impassive like her peers would, David only crossed his arms, tilting his head from side to side, and tapped a rhythm into his biceps. A frown found its way onto his face. He gave a light shrug.

Alice examined Li as though she was a peculiarly colored bird. Her expression changed rapidly, as if she were having a conversation with someone invisible. Li realized that, unlike her companion, Alice only showed signs of being a cultivator in her unusually bright eyes and the way she passively pulled in the ambient qi of the world like all others who'd formed their foundations.

Li stepped off the path again and waited a few moments, looking at them expectantly. The rope she'd tied to her wrist danced to an unseen tune by moonlight.

"It's really faint," David said. "I can still feel it, but I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it, or hearing an echo."

Well, it was too much to hope that she'd be able to light herself like a beacon if trouble arose. Li stopped cycling the qi through her body and sighed, then slowly began walking deeper into the forest. She deliberately avoided touching the bamboo. There was nothing overtly strange about it, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Every few moments, she turned back to the Iron Road until she'd finally made enough distance so that she couldn't see a trace of the light grey robes that David and Alice wore any longer. There was a slight resistance from the rope - the constant sign that she'd be able to find her way back.

Alice’s voice floated through the trees. "What do you think she's looking for?"

They were talking about her. The voices were faint and faraway, but Li was a cultivator. Unable to resist, she stopped walking.

"Iron," replied David. Li could picture the way the corner of his lips turned upwards, the way he raised his eyebrows when he was trying to get a reaction out of Alice.

"But why?" Alice wondered.

That was a good question.

"How am I supposed to know?"

"You knew what happened during the game in the sky," Alice said, sounding petulant.

"So did you," said David, bewildered.

"Well, of course I did," said Alice. "Didn't you see the position on the board? That was completely lost for the last twenty moves. You weren't even looking at that, though."

Li wondered what they could possibly be talking about. She supposed it was some kind of coded analogy. It was rather peculiar, since they spoke a language no one else did. As if they’d heard her think it, they transitioned seamlessly into that other language. Li began to walk again.

If cultivators couldn't see in the dark, Li would have given up on this before she'd even taken ten steps into the forest. The moon lit the Iron Road in a warm, white glow because her sect's array kept the plant life from creeping onto the path. Just a hundred paces from the road, the bamboo leaves formed layers and layers of canopy that prevented any light from reaching the forest floor.

Even so, the warnings from both the sect's records and various hall elders kept her suspended in paranoia. But Li continued to walk through gaps in the bamboo despite her good sense. When they'd discovered the road muted sound and suppressed qi, it became clear to Li that whatever had called out to her in the forest in her moment of revelation had done so despite the arrays.

There was something satisfying about the scenario at hand. Just as the Iron Scripture's teachings had eluded the edicts - set upon the world in some way that erased it from memory - to find its way to Daoist Li, the voice of whatever spoke from the forest had eluded the array - set upon the Iron Road to blot out the senses.

Knowing that this was meant to be did not dull Li's senses. Cultivation was a journey of personal improvement and character and finding the Dao, but it was also a promise of strife. Before they came into conflict with the heavens, sects taught their disciples to fight with one another for teachers and resources. Nothing was received if it hadn't been earned. She was likely in danger.

Li concentrated on the flows of qi in the air. Forests were often good places to cultivate. Master said it was because, like human beings, trees also breathed through their many leaves. When she opened her gan, the meridian associated with the liver, in search of her nascent soul, she would be able to sense such things without effort.

But the gan was often chosen as the last of the twelve gates to besiege, to be the Question answered by the Earthly Tribulation. That would be many, many years from now, and only if she survived the night. Master would have scolded her for even thinking about such things before she formed her core.

And her master would have been correct to scold her, because even as Daoist Li reached for her qi for guidance, she found she only needed her eyes. Three paces ahead of her, there was a familiar rope of white silk on the ground, like the border on a map. She’d passed this exact part of the forest before. In fact, she’d done so more than twice, if the way the rope crossed over itself could be believed.

Was she really so absentminded she’d only just noticed passing over the rope for the first time?

“I need iron,” Li said, aloud.

Silence. She didn’t think it would be that easy.

What was the correct choice here? She could follow the rope back to the path and try again. When Li emerged on the Iron Road, her companions would be very impressed she’d accomplished nothing. She would surely be able to look them in the eye.

She would rather cripple her own cultivation.

Li stared at the white silk that led in many directions. This time, she wouldn’t step through the nearest gap in the bamboo like an imbecile. But what could she do instead?

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She’d gotten to this moment by moving without direction, hoping that her newly elevated comprehension would be enough to pull her along to her foundations. Li didn’t even know what she was looking for.

And she’d never known. She’d spent five decades not knowing, and hoping for a sign from the clear blue sky as she wasted away.

Li had been the only one to awaken in her village. She had been the victim of a water-based plague and had clung onto life like a cockroach. She had been the first in five generations to receive the Iron Scripture.

She’d watched her friends and rivals across the continent pass away or pass her by. Even Changshou, who followed neither master nor scripture, had stepped through the world and sailed the seas to liberate villages from men and cross swords with monsters.

What said the Iron Scripture on Aimlessness?

Red to white hot - forgotten plan, delving daughters - swing the hammer. We forge swords to please the dragon. Once dull minds must pick the locks, condemn our sons.

Just an hour ago, she would have let the words slip from her mind like water through a sieve, but she’d watched a boy of seventeen spite karma and stand unbowed. If David could take offense to allowing the stars to decide what he could know on nothing more than idle curiosity, then what would Li be if she let the idea of heaven cow her in her own thoughts?

She would be a dull mind. Li was anything but dull. Every peak master and hall elder had admitted she was brighter than their own disciples. Li had half a century on David. Surely she could reinterpret the words of the Scripture as well?

“Our children die for the swords we make, to please the great men who keep us chained. We toil because we’ve forgotten freedom, when our hammers can break our chains.”

Li winced. She had rhymed the word for chain with the word for chain, and not a single line had the same number of words to begin with. The only resemblance her words had to poetry were the snooty little pauses Li had inserted randomly. It was also not in another language, and carried less meaning than the original words of the scripture.

David had an unfair advantage. Establishing his foundations on poetry must have made him far more competent - Li focused on more important things, like cultivation. Besides, she had no idea what he’d said, it was probably just as poorly put together as her own attempt. Li didn’t need to do this - she was special, really special. She didn’t need a trick to remember the Iron Scripture.

After another minute and a few more excuses, she realized the answer had been in front of her the entire time.

What said the Iron Scripture on the Pursuit of Treasure?

Beneath the strait - tunnels asleep, rumours of wealth - starve the senses. We hold our breath to hear the secret. Ways writ in stone must not be learned, rely on shortcuts.

She wondered how deep the mines in Anvil Mountain really went, and if there was any truth to the early records that insisted the Wave Dancing Scripture cultivated by the Still Waters in Minghai to the south had been stolen from her sect. But these were concerns for another day.

Li took a deep breath, closed her eyes and held her palms over her ears. She didn’t exhale - instead, she concentrated on the qi which swirled around her. Nothing changed at first, and she didn’t expect it to. Even those at the early stages of Qi Condensation could go minutes without breathing.

Breaking through into Foundation Establishment freed the body from the needs of food and water - but also air. Master had beaten her for nearly training herself to stop. Breathing nourished the fei - and cultivators who’d given up on the habit usually died when they opened that meridian.

She didn’t wait for something unusual to present itself to her senses - Li learned from her mistakes. That’s why she was the best. One of the best. She dug through the patterns which saturated her senses more and more.

A hive of bloodbees lived two hundred paces to her left. A trio of bamboo stalks surrounded one which had been born slightly different - it needed less water, so the trio had gladly taken its share until there was not enough. Ants carried leaves back to their homes. Sparrows flew until they reached that circle and diverted course, because it was old and powerful and-

Li began to walk in the direction of the circle because even though she did not draw in the air into her lungs, she smelled iron. It smelled warm and thick, rusted and sad. Yin-that-fades.

Was it a weapon? It must have been. In the Ancestral Hall, encased in the iron of the walls, had been a blade with no name that had taken the head of the Smiling Sister - the third and last of the Moonrise Sect’s ascendant immortals. The Moonrise passed on the final verse of their Eight Phases to only one disciple in a generation. Her death meant the stories of the Waning Crescent parting sea and stone would always be just that - stories.

The Ancestral Hall was closed only one night each month - when Hall Elder Qiu would raise the arrays to keep the blade corporeal, and its qi would blanket Anvil Mountain - until that warm summer night the arrays had failed. Warm and thick, rusted and sad. Yin-that-fades.

Her excitement grew. It was fate. As the inheriting disciple, she would reclaim a treasure thought to be lost forever. It was so perfect, they would think she’d stolen it, to produce upon her triumphant return.

Just shy of ten paces from the edge of the circle that the wildlife avoided, Li ran into an unforeseen issue. The white, silk rope had run out of length.

What said the Iron Scripture on Risk?

The images set in iron did not come to her, but words from an immortal did.

“How could the skies fear anyone who creates a safeguard for a failed tribulation?”

In moments like these, the immortals of old would hear the screaming disapproval of the heavens - thunder that preceded lightning. These claims were, without doubt, little embellishing details to paint over real-life events with a sheen of mythos.

Without opening her eyes or uncovering her ears, Li spun on her heel.

What said the Iron Scripture on Drawing the Sword?

Fast to fly - thoughts anew, approaching freedom - divide the-

Li had passed the qi from her apertures too early, without internalizing the entirety of the verse. Even with practice, this would war with her natural impatience. The Iron Scripture allowed her to draw on the experiences of others, but it was clear that some experiences would be closer to her than others.

It still did its job, shearing through the rope with ease as her qi passed through silk easily.

She stepped forward slowly.

Iron, came the whisper - soft and low, warm and raspy. It contrasted with the somber yin qi which pressed down onto her as she entered the circle. She would have to be sure the blade with no name did not consume her. There were many stories of yin artifacts that fed on their owners until they changed hands, leaving bloody legacies.

Li let her hands drop to her sides, opened her eyes and took a deep breath.

She gagged.

The clearing smelled of rotten fruit and slaughtered livestock.

She had expected to see a thematically appropriate altar of pure white mutton-fat jade, with a naked blade buried in it at an angle, in the glow of pale, blue moonlight. Perhaps there would have been some words of welcome for her, carved into the jade - greeting the disciple of the Iron Scripture.

Instead, as the moonlight passed through the formations, it bathed the clearing in rotten pus-yellow. The grass here had likely never been green - it grew bruised-black and tired-blue and sparse. A little pond sat just on the edge of the clearing.

Set centrally was just one object - shaped from cast iron.

It was a cage as high as her waist and about as wide. It was shaped like a birdcage, with eighteen bars by her count. Some of the bars shone in the off-yellow, off-green ambience, a more lustrous black than the others.

The luster was also iron and Li was certain it had been another color once - red. Blood.

The cage was empty, but its door yawned invitingly. There was a key in the lock, but it would not turn.

Had Li not been a cultivator, she thought she would already be inside the cage.

The cage said nothing.

“I need iron,” Li said to the cage.

Iron, it whispered.

Li clenched her fists. “I need water.”

Water, it whispered.

Daoist Li had not discovered the iron she’d desired, but had learned why merchants no longer travelled the Iron Road. She had learned why children tended to disappear in the bamboo forest.

Li

A cage stood open beneath the moon when the woman wandered into a clearing in the bamboo forest, dreaming of better days.

She was well kept and dressed in robes of a sect. The color in her eyes had gone dim with failure. She was a Daoist, a student, a child without a family. A plain sword hung at her hip. When she stood over the cage, she was glad she’d found it - she didn’t mind the way it stank. She’d asked for the name of its owner, but it had long been forgotten.

She asked if it wanted a meal.

The cage swung its door to and fro. The daoist asked if it was sure. It swung again.

The Daoist took a blade of grass and ran it along the bars of the cage until it was powdered rust red. She dug her fingers into the ground beside the cage and found its heart, a sliver of iron that fit in her hand. She walked to its pond and dropped both of them in. Then, she took its key and dropped it into the pond too.

The Daoist drew iron from the pond, clear white and bright, and turned her cupped palms over the cage.

The cage shrieked as it melted away in the moonlight. The clearing lost its pallid yellow glow one shade at a time, each bar withering to the foundation. Finally, the Daoist dipped both hands into the molten pool and from its remains established a little knife. It was warm and thick, rusted and sad. Heavy and strong and dark - and unyielding. It was iron.

My name is Li Qingshui.

Li as in leave. Qing as in please. Shui as in sleep.

I am she who believes in Iron.