Xoi Xam un­der­stood, silent­ly and with­in her own heart, that she was, at times, on the verge of mad­ness. Not be­cause of the med­i­cine--she was still now fol­low­ing her adopt­ed sis­ter Ki'el and Sect Broth­er Du to the Gale Pavil­lion, and the med­i­cine was safe­ly with­in her Space Ring. The Thou­sand Mile Wa­ter­fall Flower had been processed into a pow­der, which could be ab­sorbed a num­ber of ways--and un­til Broth­er Du had talked about this Pavil­lion, she had as­sumed that she would burn it and in­haled the smoke.

Per­haps... a place called the Gale Pavil­lion would be a bad place for that.

But for now, Xam was re­flect­ing on her life, with the most dis­tant and fa­mil­iar mem­o­ries need­ing lit­tle re­flec­tion. She'd been a clever child, but re­bel­lious. Loved her fam­i­ly, but was proud. Didn't take to their teach­ings, and re­fused to be held down sim­ply be­cause she failed their tests, re­ject­ed their Way. Joined the mil­i­tary... and fought, some, but too much of the time there had been wast­ed.

She had tak­en pride in her abil­i­ty to re­main a beau­ti­ful flower even in the dark­ness of the Bil­gish isles, and as such, she had been treat­ed like a flower. They had wished for her to bloom into a more beau­ti­ful flower in the fu­ture, and as such had been will­ing to lay some ground­work, give her med­i­cines and train­ing. But the dif­fer­ence be­tween a flower and a weed was only in the pass­ing fan­cies of the gar­den's own­er. Un­til she was a hard­ened war­rior, she was not tru­ly of use to the mil­i­tary, only a can­di­date. And she had irked some­one pow­er­ful enough that pluck­ing one or two weeds was a tru­ly mean­ing­less thing.

If she had not been a flower, would they have even giv­en her what they did? Would she have been re­turned to her fam­i­ly in shame? Or al­lowed her to die in a bat­tle­field above her abil­i­ty? Ground her into dust with train­ing that would pro­duce a war­rior, but re­move all traces of per­son­al­i­ty, his­to­ry? She didn't know.

From pride in her­self, to shame at not meet­ing her fam­i­ly's ex­pec­ta­tions, to pride in join­ing the mil­i­tary, to shame in be­ing eject­ed, dis­card­ed. Then she had been ap­proached by a pa­tron who wished for her to mar­ry--but not be­cause she was a pret­ty flower, al­though... her new hus­band Mian tru­ly did seem to ap­pre­ci­ate the beau­ty she found in her­self, and the ef­fort she went through to cul­ti­vate it, ex­press it, wear it like a sec­ond skin. But was this feel­ing that she held, about her mar­riage and him, pride, or shame? Or some mix­ture?

Now she was swept off to a Sect--a real one, one of the world's Twen­ty Great Peaks, if low­er on that list. But... al­though the Sect ac­knowl­edged her, or seemed to, it was her com­pan­ion that held their in­ter­ests most firm­ly. Every­thing that she had ever found in her­self to be proud of paled in com­par­i­son when she was pre­sent­ed next to this girl, who seemed more for­tu­nate than ge­nius, al­though... she did show great abil­i­ty of her own, as well as hav­ing, Xam would grudg­ing­ly ad­mit, a far pur­er heart than she her­self had.

Was Xam's whole life some­thing to be proud of, ashamed of? Was she reach­ing high be­cause she was pow­er­ful, beau­ti­ful, wor­thy? Was she be­ing car­ried along by the whims of yet an­oth­er per­son who would dis­card her in time? Was she even tru­ly valu­able to Ki'el and her mas­ter, or sim­ply a con­ve­nient No­ble child with which to en­act their plans?

Xam had no trou­ble pulling her at­ten­tion back to the path be­fore them as they made the fi­nal ap­proach to the Less­er Gale Pavil­lion. In truth, she had seen it sev­er­al times be­fore, on mis­sions for the Sect, but nev­er ap­proached. In part, that was be­cause there was no path to the is­land--those pow­er­ful enough to be able to use it were ex­pect­ed to be able to car­ry them­selves, or pay some­one else to pre­pare a tem­po­rary path--but she also felt some com­bi­na­tion of shame and piety that stopped her from ap­proach­ing a place she was un­wor­thy of reach­ing.

For now, when they reached the edge of the is­land, Broth­er Du sim­ply waved his hand, and con­jured forth a mas­sive hand of light, palm up­wards, and they all stepped on it long enough to be car­ried from one is­land to the next. She spent no ef­forts fo­cus­ing on Broth­er Du's meth­ods--she doubt­ed her own path would be in any sense a re­flec­tion of his--but fo­cused on the is­land and build­ing that was the Less­er Gale Pavil­lion, as it came into full view.

The Pavil­lion it­self could be un­der­stood as a build­ing, al­though it had no struc­ture, ex­cept a floor of stone blocks, and a few care­ful­ly shaped and en­graved pieces of flat stone that were po­si­tioned at key places along what should be the walls and ceil­ing of a large, oc­tag­o­nal build­ing, one that she was sure had one di­rec­tion ori­ent­ed due north. These stone pieces float­ed with mas­sive gaps be­tween them, both held by and sus­tain­ing the bar­ri­er that de­fined the edges of the pavil­lion, while the gaps chan­neled wind and qi from the out­er world in an in­tense and steady stream.

It felt... good here. Bet­ter than good. From the mo­ment she stepped in­side the bor­ders of the Pavil­lion, she felt fresh qi all around her, live­ly and dis­tant, very dif­fer­ent from that of the rest of the Sect, just as Broth­er Du had said. But... for the most part, that fresh qi re­mained just as dis­tant as qi al­ways did, sep­a­rate from her­self. She un­der­stood just from that how valu­able a prop­er cul­ti­va­tion tech­nique was, though she was loathe to en­gage hers un­til giv­en per­mis­sion.

A few flick­ers of qi made her glance ahead to where Ki'el and Du stepped for­ward to­wards what must be a Sect El­der or oth­er wor­thy in charge of the pavil­lion, a thin man with glass­es and robes that seemed too large for him, who gave off an au­thor­i­ta­tive air that was dif­fi­cult to mis­take. What­ev­er con­ver­sa­tion was made, was made with in­tent alone, a tal­ent that Xam en­vied, un­til Broth­er Du bowed, and said aloud, "Thank you, El­der Sang."

Ki'el bowed as well, and Xam fol­lowed suit, but it was only a pass­ing thing, and then Broth­er Du turned to her--to them.

"The Gale Pavil­lion is in­tend­ed to both fun­nel fresh qi to each per­son here, but also, to iso­late the ef­fects of each per­son's cul­ti­va­tion from each oth­er. The marks on the ground show the dis­tance apart you must main­tain, and it is best to re­main in the cen­ter of your own, un­less you have a rea­son oth­er­wise. Ki'el, in your case, you will want to re­main with­in Broth­er Mian's space, so that you may mon­i­tor his spir­it, but do not dis­turb the flow of qi un­less you need to."

Ki'el nod­ded at that, but Xam's glance went to her hus­band. Broth­er Du had, while they had wait­ed for Ki'el to fin­ish speak­ing with El­der Gol, told them all that he ex­pect­ed Ki'el to mon­i­tor Mian for signs that he was too much un­der the in­flu­ence of the Hun­dred Hearts Ton­ic, and pull him out if he must. Xam... felt that should have been her job, if she only had the tal­ent nec­es­sary. A part of her felt jeal­ous, and an­gry, that she couldn't be at her hus­band's side in the case of an emer­gency, be­ing the one that he thanked, the first face he saw. Al­though... she was un­sure yet whether she tru­ly loved her hus­band, if such feel­ings were to grow, like a flower, they need­ed to be nur­tured, the world built around cre­at­ing those mo­ments that gave them strength.

It felt like a cal­lous dis­re­gard of their re­la­tion­ship... but also, Xam knew, it was the Way. She could do noth­ing, and Ki'el could. But also... Ki'el was in no way com­pet­ing for Mian's af­fec­tion, and she knew it. Her anx­ious­ness was noth­ing more and noth­ing less than see­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to grow clos­er that she could not take. But even say­ing that it was noth­ing more... that was enough.

"For those of you who have nev­er tak­en In­sight­ful Med­i­cine be­fore, a bit of ad­vice," Broth­er Du con­tin­ued, and Xam found her at­ten­tion dragged back to the man, by his will, al­though she agreed with the ac­tion en­tire­ly. She had too much to wor­ry about to fo­cus on such small things now. "What you will ex­pe­ri­ence when you take In­sight­ful Med­i­cine is not real, and it is most­ly not true. But it re­veals truth, if you can dis­cov­er those pat­terns deep with­in the throws of hal­lu­ci­na­tion. Your task is not to use your spir­it or your qi to try to con­trol the world that you per­ceive--it is to use your spir­it and your qi to mas­ter your­self, as you search through the ex­pe­ri­ence to find pat­terns that give you in­sight into the pat­terns you have al­ready seen in the real world, but which are cur­rent­ly a mys­tery to you."

That... Xam fo­cused on the words, in­tent on un­der­stand­ing, al­though she sus­pect­ed that she would be ful­ly im­mersed in her ex­pe­ri­ence and would find it dif­fi­cult to re­mem­ber the words. Sis­ter Jian had praised the qual­i­ty of her spec­i­men of flower, and boast­ed that she would pro­duce a high qual­i­ty med­i­cine from it, though in truth, Xam had no un­der­stand­ing of med­i­cines in gen­er­al or what the dif­fer­ence in qual­i­ty would mean. But she was cer­tain that Broth­er Du un­der­stood what was hap­pen­ing far bet­ter than most peo­ple she'd met, and any ad­vice from him was pre­cious.

"For you, Sis­ter Xam," Du turned to her, and Xam fought back the blush on her cheeks, ig­nor­ing what she thought of the man for now, in spite of cer­tain in­stincts. "Your med­i­cine is not at its great­est ef­fi­ca­cy when in­gest­ed. There are censers in­tend­ed to al­low burn­ing of pow­ders with­in your space--"

"I would very much pre­fer that," she read­i­ly agreed, be­fore he even fin­ished. "I was... a bit wor­ried that would be im­pos­si­ble."

Broth­er Du smiled, and Xam cursed her­self for be­ing charmed by it. "We would be a poor sect if we couldn't at least pro­vide such a means. I have no­ti­fied the el­der, and whichev­er place you take, you will find a censer there. Do not put the med­i­cine in it un­til you are ready."

She bowed to him, though again, she won­dered--was she crazy? To be so dis­tract­ed now by thoughts and feel­ings that were mean­ing­less? Where was her pride? Should she even have pride?

Du spoke briefly with Sis­ter Chi­an, who... who Xam, if she were hon­est, still did not like or trust, al­though the girl seemed agree­able. Know­ing that she was of a Spir­it Beast blood­line made Xam think of the beasts--Star­beasts, but also, less­er spir­it beasts--that she had fought be­fore, and all of them had been mon­strous things. The mil­i­tary made great strides in prepar­ing its army only by hunt­ing down those things, giv­en pow­er but un­wor­thy of it, and plun­der­ing that which should al­ways have be­longed to hu­man­i­ty.

Chi­an... no, she couldn not take the time to think about this now.

When at last they broke apart, she took a place where she was close to her Mian, but chose not to look in his di­rec­tion, for fear that her eyes would open just to dis­tract her. As she set­tled down onto a com­fort­able pad on the ground, a small aer­at­ed bowl ap­peared in front of her, and she un­der­stood its meth­ods in­tu­itive­ly. She had only to load the med­i­cine and ig­nite it with her own qi, but...

...But, there was prepa­ra­tion be­fore she took the med­i­cine. She had nev­er been un­der the throws of a pow­er­ful one, but she had tak­en mi­nor med­i­cines be­fore. Be­fore she be­gan, she walked the area, and faced the place the qi seemed to come from, sens­ing its depths, try­ing to un­der­stand where the qi she would ab­sorb came from. And she also with­drew and stud­ied the med­i­cine it­self, try­ing to be aware of how the med­i­cine felt, try­ing to un­der­stand what she could ex­pect from it. And fi­nal­ly, she set­tled, and stead­ied her­self, and cleared her mind, and only then did she pre­pare and ig­nite the med­i­cine. And for a few min­utes af­ter, she sim­ply... steeled her­self, hold­ing on to her mind and forc­ing it back into a state of seren­i­ty.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

But seren­i­ty was dif­fi­cult to find, once her jour­ney be­gan.

The first drops of the Thou­sand Mile Wa­ter­fall felt to her like me­te­ors falling from the sky above her. If they had been phys­i­cal, Xam knew she would have been thrown into the air, and per­haps im­me­di­ate­ly killed, but they were only drops of essence. But... the drops that splashed near­by in­creased the qi avail­able for her to cy­cle, and she did, greed­i­ly drink­ing in the essence along with the qi.

That greed cost her, or per­haps, only hur­ried her along her path.

The more of the essence she cul­ti­vat­ed, the more that drops from the Wa­ter­fall fell, but more than that, as she gath­ered that qi, some part of her be­came the falling wa­ter, and was not sim­ply med­i­tat­ing in the place where the drops were falling. Still con­scious of what Broth­er Du had said, she did her best not to pan­ic as she be­gan to ex­pe­ri­ence--over and over again--the feel­ing of be­ing a wa­ter droplet cast away from a great height and falling, falling, falling... to­wards what Xam knew, just as the wa­ter knew, was an in­evitable end­ing.

When the first of her men­tal/spir­i­tu­al pieces land­ed in a dev­as­tat­ing crash af­ter years, or mo­ments, of falling, she very near­ly lost her trance, ex­pect­ing the crush­ing im­pact to be the end of that part of her--but it was not. The wa­ter that fell was not de­stroyed by land­ing, nor could it be. Al­though it sensed an­oth­er part of her­self falling--and that part of her felt the ground ap­proach­ing, sensed its sis­ter part splat­tered across the ground--she was pow­er­less to pre­vent the im­pact, pow­er­less to con­trol the in­evitable, in­ex­orable col­li­sion.

That im­pact also did not end her. And al­though the two pieces of her that had met at the bot­tom were dif­fer­ent pieces of her, they merged ef­fort­less­ly, seam­less­ly. But she was more than one or two drops of wa­ter, now--there were per­haps six pieces, per­haps eight or ten, and the num­ber was only grow­ing. Xam was... only dim­ly aware that the flower was not Thou­sand mile few-wa­ter-drops flower. That it was not the Thou­sand mile light-sprin­kle-of-wa­ter flower. Was only dim­ly aware of what the flower was.

But the process could only be halt­ed if she gave up, and she did not, would not.

As the drops went from a few to a dozen, Xam be­gan to rec­og­nize that from with­in the falling droplets of wa­ter, she could sense her­self, sit­ting there sep­a­rate from where that part of her was, sep­a­rate from who that part of her was. And she watched the mas­sive drops of wa­ter, most of them also her­self, head­ed to­wards that ar­ro­gant young woman rest­ing on a padded cloth in front of a small burn­er. Al­though the drug showed her no more of the world, she could not have fo­cused on more than her­self... and her­selves.

Those wa­ter drops were her­self, and in many way, they were so much stronger than Xoi Xam.

It was not only their re­silience, not only their sheer mass. Al­though there was no in­tent be­hind the wa­ter smash­ing like ham­mers into the ground be­low, scat­ter­ing into small­er drops, and re­form­ing, there was some­thing. Wis­dom, per­haps. In­sight. But it was also in­com­plete, or Xam did not un­der­stand it, not yet.

But a dozen droplets of wa­ter were be­com­ing two dozen, and Xam be­gan to un­der­stand that her­selves were greater than her­self. So great that if they wished, they could crush her. And she wres­tled with her qi, and her spir­it, and her­self, and won­dered, and ag­o­nized.

Am I even wor­thy? The ques­tion, when re-en­tered her mind, de­light­ed her­selves. It felt like a weak­ness, like--

But no, Xam hitched her breath and did her best to re­cen­ter her­self, know­ing where she was, what she was do­ing. She could see her­self, in that vi­sion, an ar­ro­gant woman, and she knew that the ar­ro­gant woman in her vi­sion was the real her, the real self. Only... no, she ar­gued. The her in the vi­sion was it­self only a re­flec­tion; she was her true self. But she was not wa­ter.

Two dozen wa­ter drops be­came six dozen in only a few breaths, and the wa­ter drops that were her were only a small frac­tion of them, now. At last, the wa­ter that de­scend­ed around her de­served to be called a wa­ter­fall, if only a small one. A small trick­le of wa­ter break­ing up into droplets as it fell. But... why break up? What was her in­tent--the wa­ter-her's in­tent? Or was there no in­tent, again, only a truth?

Or was it even truth? Du had said... some­thing...?

The wa­ter con­tin­ued to pound, a trick­le in­creas­ing into some­thing more, a tiny brook in the for­est, but Xam mea­sured her breath, try­ing to re­mem­ber who she was, even as she--but more, the essence of the flower with­in her--tried to ab­sorb more and more of that essence, bring­ing more qi into her than she felt ready to ab­sorb. Still none of the drops had ac­tu­al­ly struck her, each land­ing around her, as though the flower--or her own soul--were pro­tect­ing her from the ef­fects. But the qi, the flower's qi, was thick­er, wider, more.

Xam re­al­ized--a small bro­ken part of her--that this was what med­i­c­i­nal ef­fec­tive­ness meant. That there was more of this. More flower with­in her to draw in the qi with­out her con­sent. But she didn't try to scat­ter the pow­der from the censer, didn't try to flee from the il­lu­sion of the falling wa­ter. In­stead, slow­ly, as she grew used to the mas­sive weight of the falling wa­ter--al­though that weight and the wa­ter­fall con­tin­ued to grow--she be­gan to push back, her spir­i­tu­al per­cep­tion push­ing back against it and be­gin­ning to ex­plore the world of the il­lu­sion, be­gin­ning to grap­ple with it.

Sis­ter Be­nai, a spir­it beast that Xam thought must have been far old­er, far wis­er, far more ma­ture than Sis­ter Chi­an--had said that this flower would lead her on a path to Wa­ter Qi... and also, move­ment. But while she was ab­sorb­ing a great deal about wa­ter that sim­ply fell and smashed head­long into the ground, she could not find any in­sight about move­ment in the il­lu­sion.

Was she miss­ing some­thing? Was there... what had Broth­er Du said... a pat­tern?

The droplets fell, and fell, and fell, and Xam be­gan to med­i­tate on the flow, her spir­it slow­ly be­gin­ning to reach up the wa­ter­fall, be­gan to rec­og­nize droplets as be­ing 'her­self' soon­er, but she could not reach the source of the flow. By the time the wa­ter was near the ground, it had ceased to have agency, ceased to have con­trol over its des­ti­na­tion. Would she find mean­ing at the top? An in­tent, a de­ci­sion to be­come an un­stop­pable force?

Was a wa­ter­fall re­al­ly in con­trol of its own move­ment? Could it be? She knew the an­swer be­fore she reached the top, but spent no time try­ing to un­der­stand what she al­ready knew, in­stead med­i­tat­ing on what she would find.

When at last, her bat­tered spir­it found some­thing above that was more than mere­ly wa­ter, she all but em­braced that sen­sa­tion, but as she firmed her will and pulled her­self up onto the ledge that had been so far above her, so far that it might as well have been the moon, she found what she should per­haps have ex­pect­ed, but which she didn't un­der­stand.

She found her­self. An ar­ro­gant woman, sit­ting be­neath an­oth­er wa­ter­fall, the runoff from that wa­ter­fall now a rag­ing riv­er that threat­ened to sweep her off the edge. If she let her­self fall, now, she knew what would hap­pen. She would...

She would end up right back here, at her­self.

She would dash against the rock, pick her­self back up, and let her­self be swept over the next edge, to fall and meet her­self again. Whether she fell or whether she rose... she would only find her­self.

When she re­al­ized that, for the first time, the wa­ter­fall ceased to avoid hit­ting her. The tor­ren­tial flow crashed over her head and shoul­ders, tore at her cloth­ing, ripped away the heat, tried to re­duce her to noth­ing. But she al­ready was the wa­ter­fall, and she could bear her own weight. She stud­ied that scene, look­ing at her­self from the edge of the cliff, and then looked up wa­ter­fall, see­ing an­oth­er her far above, who looked up at an­oth­er wa­ter­fall, and an­oth­er.

And she turned and looked down, see­ing her­self be­neath the falls, and her­self at the cliff, look­ing down at her­self be­low, and again at her­self be­low.

And as she be­gan to ac­tu­al­ly, prop­er­ly med­i­tate on those thoughts, she sensed some­thing else, some­thing that--again--she should have ex­pect­ed, but didn't. A spir­it, in the shape of a flower. Not wise or all-know­ing, but... a plant, in tune with one sim­ple thought about the uni­verse. But when she some­how, word­less­ly asked the flower how to trav­el some­where, how to move like the wa­ter­fall, the flower had the only an­swer that she could have ex­pect­ed.

You can't go some­where that you haven't al­ready been, and go­ing some­where you've al­ready been is as easy as let­ting go. You don't move to a place that you al­ready are, you sim­ply are.

In an­oth­er mind, in an­oth­er world, the thoughts would have meant You can­not trav­el. It is the only an­swer any plant could have to such a ridicu­lous thought. But Xam was split into a thou­sand, per­haps a mil­lion pieces, and re­dis­cov­er­ing her­self as the many pieces of her­self co­a­lesced into a whole. She ceased to be a woman un­der a wa­ter­fall, ceased to be some part of the wa­ter swept along by the flow... and be­came the en­tire il­lu­sion of wa­ter flow­ing over the edge of a cliff, un­der which a woman med­i­tat­ed.

You can't go some­where that you haven't al­ready been meant some­thing very dif­fer­ent when her mind was split into so many pieces. She could be any­where that she al­ready was. And that re­al­iza­tion was, in her mind, some­thing fun­da­men­tal. Al­though she couldn't quite grasp how to turn that into a tech­nique... she was pos­i­tive that be­tween that idea, and the prop­er­ties of wa­ter, there was a core, some­thing foun­da­tion­al, some­thing true.

And she med­i­tat­ed, and her spir­it gath­ered qi, so much that it filled her whole body, and some parts of her squealed in protest, but she en­dured, let­ting the qi flow out when it was too much, and flow in when it was too lit­tle.

Xoi Xam had thought that she was at the peak of Gold Qi be­fore. But when she had en­dured the pound­ing of the wa­ter­fall for a thou­sand years, en­dured the crush­ing weight of en­tire worlds on her spir­it, when she fi­nal­ly be­gan to feel the ef­fects fade, the qi no longer dive so read­i­ly into her spir­it, when the vi­sion fi­nal­ly be­gan fad­ing, Xam knew that she was past the peak of Gold Qi, that she was ready to sim­ply ask to be al­lowed to move on, and she would.

There was no thought of shame in her mind, the idea ban­ished at least for now. Be­cause she was far ahead of where she was sup­posed to be, had en­dured more than she was sup­posed to be able to. She had been test­ed and found ac­cept­able, but not for the next step. She should have been swept ahead long ago. Per­haps she could not leap and touch the moon, but she felt that she could walk up a moun­tain.

Even a thou­sand-mile one.

When at last Xam felt en­tire­ly at peace, she opened her eyes, to find that the Pavil­lion be­fore her was no dif­fer­ent. But when she looked around, not all was the same, ei­ther. Da Chi­an was sit­ting in a sec­tion con­cealed be­hind black walls, al­though Xam felt that her own will was a key that might have al­lowed her to see in­side. In­stead of look­ing there, though, she turned to look at Mian.

He... did not look well.

His face was a mask of pain, and even from a dis­tance, Xam could see ir­reg­u­lar qi flows through his body. Ki'el was next to him, her hands on his back, her eyes closed. And Xam... could be­lieve that what­ev­er was hap­pen­ing, Ki'el was like­ly able to help. Even as she watched, ex­pect­ing Mian's ir­reg­u­lar spir­it to ex­plode, ex­pect­ing him to lift his head up to the skies in a pained scream... at worst, noth­ing hap­pened. And at best... she could be­lieve that he was sta­bi­liz­ing, if very slow­ly.

Xam didn't ex­act­ly feel her break­throughs swept away, but her good mood and sta­bil­i­ty dimished rapid­ly. And al­though she felt she should prob­a­bly con­tin­ue to med­i­tate, she got up and left her space, but stopped short of the bound­ary of Mian's. And she knelt there, watch­ing as close­ly as she could, watch­ing, study­ing. She... be­came cer­tain, af­ter a few mo­ments--Ki'el was pu­ri­fy­ing some of Mian's spir­it, and it was hold­ing back ef­fects that were too strong. And... Mian was also be­com­ing stronger.

She stud­ied his qi as well as she could from this dis­tance, but she was cer­tain of it. The man had only just en­tered Gold Qi, and was so far be­hind that he should have been a thou­sand miles away from reach­ing Peak Gold, much less chal­leng­ing the Tribu­la­tion. She was... hes­i­tant, even now, about ac­cept­ing that he need­ed to at­tempt it. He had told her that he was fine with her be­ing stronger than him, that he idol­ized and re­spect­ed her strength as much as her beau­ty. And... she was will­ing to go through some dif­fi­cul­ty to car­ry him along with her, as long as he con­tin­ued to of­fer not only gen­uine praise, but con­cern and care as well.

Whether that was love was not quite the same ques­tion, but it seemed a far less in­ter­est­ing ques­tion to her. Mar­ry­ing a man who would sup­port her and al­low her to flour­ish seemed far bet­ter than mar­ry­ing a man that she loved, if the one that she loved would not sup­port her or al­low her to flour­ish. And she had met many men, even ones that gave her heart thrills, who seemed con­tent to leave her be­hind, to be­come noth­ing while they ad­vanced. If de­ci­sions of the heart had to come down to whether she want­ed some­thing or need­ed it, she must choose that which she needs.

Star­ing now at Mian as he strug­gled to catch up, strug­gled to sur­vive, she be­gan to feel a sense of de­ter­mi­na­tion. She closed her eyes, med­i­tat­ing for sev­er­al min­utes, try­ing to put her spir­it in or­der, but then, fi­nal­ly...

She stood up, and moved into Mian's med­i­ta­tion space.