Huan’s hands trembled slightly as he entered the mayor’s residence, a modest structure of faded stone and weathered wood that belied the wealth behind its walls. The scent of various incenses and medicinal herbs hung in the air, thick with the desperation of a man who feared for his son’s life.
Huan could sense the anxiety radiating from Lao Yun’s every movement. Despite his lack of talent, despite his own failures in the path of cultivation, Huan could not help but feel a cold sense of detachment. Like his failure was somehow different from the mayor’s son’s, and he knew that Lao Yun’s desperation would either lead to salvation or destruction.
Huan followed the mayor up a set of stairs, the smell getting progressively stronger while the lights gradually dimmed to a level that was habitable for the sensitive nature of one who’s crippled. Huan’s eyes were drawn to the furthest door from the staircase which was cracked open. He could hear the faint, muffled sound of a fireplace. The mayor stopped outside the door, sweat collecting on his brow as he looked back at Huan.
As he slowly pressed the door open and stepped through the threshold, the oppressive silence and warmth of the room engulfed him. The youth who looked to be in his 20s lay on a low bed, his face pale, his breathing shallow. His mother kneeled at the bedside, holding his hand in hers.
Kneeling beside the boy, Huan placed his fingers on the boy’s wrist and attempted to collect his own qi in an attempt to probe into the boy’s body. He gathered all the qi he had available into he fingers, and a bead of sweat hung on his furrowed brow. Stringing his qi into the hand and then up to the shoulder, he encountered the first meridian he knew of, and yet, it was nowhere to be found, as if it hadn’t been opened on the body. Not having such a basic meridian open would place the boy in the Qi-Gathering realm according to the information that was bestowed to him by the jade slip. “Well, if this meridian isn’t open…” Huan muttered to himself, finishing the thought in his head: the error must be closer to the dantian. But as he tried to probe further, his qi strained. He had reached his limit. He could go no further.
As Huan withdrew his qi and his conscious thought returned to the present, Huan found his face covered in sweat, his body feeling as drained as his spirit.
Lao Yun stood behind Huan, his face downturned and masked by the shadows cast by the fire in the corner of the room. “I beg of you—help him. We’ve tried every sort of incense and herb, but… nothing works.”
At the mayor’s words, the words of a father, not just some politician concerned for his succession, Huan’s downward thought process halted. Would he just keep on getting saved and never save anyone himself? Huan cycled his pitiful qi through his body, refreshing himself as he thought. He couldn’t probe the boy so how could he determine the fault let alone fix it? He clasped his hands together, feeling each of his own fingers as he deliberated—until, for some reason, he felt off. His ring finger? Huan let out a breath of realization: his body was very sensitive to qi, and qi was in all things, even the unliving, and especially in cultivators, even if they had crippled themselves. He didn’t need to use his qi to actively probe at all, he could just passively detect the machinations.
Huan once again reached out to the boy, placing his fingers over the boy’s chest, feeling the faint pulse of qi. The boy’s dantian—the seat of his cultivation—was nearly still. The qi that should have been flowing through his meridians in steady currents was locked and remained stagnant. He closed his eyes, focusing on the flow—or lack thereof—within the boy’s body. Qi was not simply energy. It was life, movement, the pulse of the earth. Even someone who had not cultivated for a day would have more qi flowing through their body than this. For it to stagnate like this meant that something fundamental had gone wrong in the boy’s cultivation base.
“How long has he been in this state?” Huan asked, needing to ascertain what could have caused the issue so he could fix it at its root.
“Three days,” Lao Yun replied, struggling to maintain a calm voice, “He was attempting to establish his foundation to break out of the qi-gathering stage, but—something went wrong. He- he just collapsed.”
Huan’s brow furrowed. Establishing one’s foundation is done in order to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, but that was only done after the Qi-Gathering Realm, wasn’t it?
The Foundation Establishment realm was the first major step for a cultivator. A time when they turned the power they collected and refined from the outside world into something structured, allowing it to be more greatly controlled. But if made with unrefined Qi, the foundation would be weak and unable to support further breakthroughs. However, the boy’s qi was in such disarray… Huan’s mind raced through possibilities. He hadn’t read anything that said unrefined qi could cause crippling past preventing one from breaking into the next realm…
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Up until now, Huan hadn’t thought much of the differences between the cultivation technique of the Tianyun Sect, the Misty Mountain Technique, and the one that was bestowed to him by the jade slip, which he had begun to call the Jade Technique in his mind, but they seemed to diverge after the Foundation Establishment Realm, with the Misty Mountain Technique proceeding into the Tarn Realm, while the Jade Technique proceeded into the Spiritual Crucible Realm. Both Realms, though named differently, served the same purpose of holding the Golden Core which would be formed in the subsequent realm, which led Huan to believe that they were effectively the same thing, but if they are in fact different, that would mean there wasn’t just one way to cultivate immortality, so couldn’t other techniques theoretically diverge earlier?
Huan, pursuing the only possible lead he had, continued to ask, “What technique was he cultivating?”
Both mother and father looked taken aback at the question, but Huan waited persistently; despite knowing it was treading on social norms, this piece of information should be a great help.
Lao Yun shifted awkwardly, “It was… the Flowing River Technique.”
“Flowing River, huh,” Huan turned back to the boy while pondering.
Doesn’t seem to be flowing very much… river, river, riv- a blocked river?
Huan was reminded of a time that must’ve been 30 years ago. In his small hometown, Huan had noticed that the small river that ran through their town had grown slightly wider. When he had asked his parents what had caused it, his father had said that there must’ve been a new tributary river further up the source, so Huan sought it out. However, nothing stood out to him up-stream, but when he checked downstream, he had found a new community of beavers had set up.
Following that chain of thought, Huan would just have to discover where the qi was pooling up where it wasn’t supposed to be, a task more simply stated than performed. Each living thing has different paths of qi throughout its body, and with the size of the human body, there are many permutations that could occur in the pathing. However, since Huan only needed to find the build ups, he could just try to sense a difference in qi.
Huan would have to put his all into detecting qi, so he sat in a half lotus position to minimize the feeling his legs, closed his eyes so he couldn’t see, dried his mouth so he wouldn’t taste, and held his breath so he wouldn’t smell. He held out his hand over the boy laying down, feeling the density of the dantian as well as the uniform levels of qi surrounding it, but as he felt further away, the boy’s qi was drowned out by the passive aura surrounding his mother and father as well as Huan himself.
Huan tried to account for the levels, but a crackle from the fire broke him out from his sensing state. He took a deep breath in and then out, returning his breathing to his normal technique.
“I’ll need the fire extinguished, and the two of you to step out for a moment,” Huan said without opening his eyes or budging.
The fire was put out, and the two concerned parents slowly exited the room.
Huan held his breath once more, putting his focus on feeling the qi around the boy’s body. The room was silent as he observed the qi density levels, though as he moved closer to see if there were differences, he felt his own ambient qi interfere with his detection, and though he didn’t want to do it, Huan resolved to slowing the flow of qi through his body.
Immediately, it felt as if he was suffocating, but he knew this was the only way he could do this. There were 12 spots around the body where the density of qi was higher than elsewhere, but Huan needed a way to open the blockages. He reached into his bag, quickly pulling out the solution to the problem: fine acupuncture needles, crafted from metal infused with trace amounts of spiritual qi.
They had once belonged to his sect’s alchemists, before… there’s no time for this.
Huan unfurled the parchment holding the needles onto the bed beside him. He felt for the first needle, significantly weightier than its small size would entail, and looked towards the closest blockage.
The first needle entered the boy’s skin at the base of his neck, slipping into the exact point where the blockage began. Huan could feel the thick density of the qi he was piercing into, but he guided it gently, coaxing the needle into the pocket. Another needle, this time lower, near the boy’s heart. Slowly, methodically, he began to insert more, each one placed with precision.
Sweat covered Huan’s body as he worked, but he shut off the feeling of his skin. The slightest misstep could send the qi spiraling out of control, tearing through his meridians and leaving him dead—or worse, his soul permanently crippled. Huan’s hands trembled after inserting the 12th needle, but he forced them steady. There wasn’t any time left for hesitation now.
He needed to connect all 12 needles together to open them at the same time. Any difference in level would cause a burst of qi in that direction, leading to an explosion. Huan felt for a string from the acupuncture set, and as he held it, he could feel its aptitude for qi, feeling almost as if it was pulling qi out from his closed body. Huan felt lightheaded as he tied the needles together, before activating the string by providing a small amount of qi.
As he finished his process, he fell backwards with a thunk, desperately opening his body to qi from the surroundings, as if gasping for breath. Simultaneously, the patient awoke with a start, jolting to a seated position as he found himself in a dark room.
Huan stood up with difficulty, his sweat drenched clothes feeling as if they were filled by the ocean itself, and made his way to the door, opening it and allowing the dim light from the hallway to creep into the room. Lao Yun and his wife rushed in, their faces brightening with joy as they saw their son awake. Together, they huddled around him, a wave of quiet relief filling the room. The couple turned to Huan, lowering themselves to their knees, their eyes brimming with gratitude. Huan nodded back, feeling a warmth settle in his chest.