6. Peach Blossom Dream
Di Ram was furious.
He hadn’t been terribly worried at first. Wandering the forest outside the sect was a tradition for the young disciples, and it wasn’t uncommon at all for them to get lost. They had trackers sewn into their clothing for exactly this reason, although it was also tradition to force the students to spend a night outside if they failed to return to the sect before the gates closed.
However, Little Bug was Little Bug, not some random disciple. The boy’s spiritual senses were astonishing. Almost a little frightening. Di Ram had been cultivating for ninety years, and yet his own senses were almost dull in comparison to the boy’s. The test with the seeds had proven that. And his cultivation speed, now that he was in a Qi rich environment rather than the wastelands outside the gathering array, was on par with the most promising of geniuses. Even if he did have the foolish notion that cleansing his body was more important than condensing his Qi and opening his meridians.
That was fine. Genius and eccentricity went hand in hand together. The fact remained that Little Bug’s body cleansing technique was a silver level technique, and it had been developed by a child not yet twelve years old. The fact remained that he had mastered the Qi flows of a full body reinforcement technique in moments. The fact remained that, by the time the boy was twenty, he would likely have surpassed most of the elders in the sect, including Di Ram himself.
That was okay. Di Ram did not have to be the strongest. He would settle for expanding the influence of his sect, and his influence within the sect. If Little Bug remembered Di Ram as a doting teacher, then the investment of Di Ram’s time and effort in educating the boy would pay dividends once the child became the Sect’s next patriarch. Knowing the current patriarch, there would be little conflict in such an elevation. Di Ram was a patient man, and he was content to play the long game.
When the headcount was performed after the gates closed and seven disciples were missing, Di Ram was one of the only elders who showed any concern at all. If one of those disciples had not been Little Bug, he would have simply gone to sleep and allowed the juniors to worry about it in the morning. However, when he realized that his precious disciple was one of the boys who was missing, he immediately roused a search party to go out and track down the boy.
However, the tracking tokens sewn into the children’s clothing were not working. Di Ram became increasingly concerned as he dashed through the forest in the treetops, unable to find his quarry, or any quarry at all.
With the others searching in other directions, he could only hope that they had better luck.
Twenty minutes after the search began, he suddenly sensed a faint signal nearby. He rushed towards it, and interrupted Ko Ton, who was in the middle of cleaning himself after defecating. He cleared his throat, and the humiliated boy stopped what he was doing, pulled his robe back into place, and immediately bowed to the elder.
“This disciple apologizes to the elder for the unfortunate sight he has seen,” Ko Ton said. “I--”
“You were performing a natural bodily function. You have not shamed yourself. Were I not in a hurry to find my precious disciple, I would have waited five minutes longer and pretended not to have discovered you in the act,” Di Ram said, waving the matter away. “Where is Little Bug?”
Ko Ton stiffened, and Di Ram had his suspicions confirmed. “This disciple does not know.”
“What have you done?” the elder demanded.
“It was not I,” Ko Ton said. “We-we were together for a while. There was an altercation, several boys were involved. It got out of hand, and several of us were injured. Li Lee is badly hurt, I think that his chest is broken badly. He is having much trouble breathing. And--”
“I only care about Little Bug. What happened to him?”
Ko Ton swallowed, then he said “Yon Xian stabbed him in the belly with his pocket knife. I do not know how bad the injury is, as his friend caused a distraction and Little Bug ran off. We have been searching for him ever since. I knew that the elders would get to the truth and that the only way we might receive mercy was to swear everyone to secrecy and bring everyone to the healers together. But the others, the others think differently. They think--”
“Where is he?” Di Ram asked, furious.
“We thought that he had returned to the Sect by now. We were hiding because we feared the repercussions for our actions,” Ko Ton admitted.
“Not Little Bug. Where is Yon Xian?”
Ko Ton paused, uncertain. “The others are all in the cave. We were hiding--”
Di Ram ignored the boy’s further explanations, stepping into the narrow cavern, which opened a bit after the entrance. He saw six boys, one of whom was tied with strips torn from his own robe. Three of the others were already prostrating themselves when he arrived inside, having heard their traitorous companion ratting them out. The only other boy lie in the corner, struggling to breathe.
“Yon Xian. Stand.”
Nervously, the teenager obeyed, although his eyes did not leave the ground. He was silent, although he was quivering with fear.
“Do you deny the words of Ko Ton?” Di Ram demanded.
“We were all in on it,” Xian said. “Each of us. We should share the punishment--”
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Di Ram’s temper flared, and he slapped the boy, sending him flying into the stone wall of the cave and breaking the child’s jaw. He allowed his aura to flare out at its maximum strength, driving the children even further to the ground as the pressure washed over them. “You will all face punishment, but do not think that a burden shared will be a burden lessened. Little Bug is worth ten thousand of any one of you! If you are lucky, you will only be expelled from the sect! Now leave this cave and return. The other elders and I will decide your fate tomorrow, once the boy has been found.”
“Li Lee is injured,” one of the other boys said, “and so am I. Can we not receive help before--”
“If Li Lee cannot walk, then you should carry him,” Di Ram declared. “I can see your shoulder is dislocated, but the other one is fine. If you say one more word, I will dislocate each of your other limbs and then your friends will have two useless bodies to carry back to the compound.”
Di Ram paused, noticing the identity of the sixth boy for the first time, the one who was bound. That one was Little Bug’s friend, and the fact that the others were keeping him prisoner was proof that he was not responsible for the prodigy’s disappearance. Di Ram sighed. “Untie Hien Ro. I will bring him back with me directly so that I may rouse a greater search party. I promise you, if Little Bug dies because of this foolishness, you will wish that he had killed you instead.”
~~~~~~~~
I awoke in the morning and ate another three peaches. I was collecting the pits in my pocket, and I had promised the tree that I would plant each of them in gratitude for the sustenance. I believed that it answered by dropping another one of its fruit to the ground, one that was juicier and tastier than all of the rest. And the others were already the most delicious fruit I had ever tasted.
While each of the pits were alive, the one which the tree had dropped once I had made my pledge was especially dense with Qi. I put it in a pocket by itself, then sat with my back against the tree and began to cultivate once more. With the Qi dense fruit in my stomach and the naturally dense ambient Qi, it was the perfect environment for it, better than even the concentration rooms which the others used at the sect.
I’d had a strange dream the night before. I had dreamed of cultivating, and I was trying to recreate the method I had used in the dream. It was a complex cycling method which complimented the breathing technique that I had already learned, but it was several times more complex than the simple cycling method which I was supposed to use.
There are nine key meridians. One for the head, each limb, the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. The students of the Six Mountains Sect were taught to cycle to each one in turn, slowly gathering more power in their core and eroding each meridian. The exact order in which they were opened didn’t matter too much, although most children rushed to unlock their limbs because of the increased strength that doing so granted.
However, opening each meridian made opening the remaining nodes more difficult. It was a matter of pressure; opening a meridian was like opening a relief valve in a series of pipes. Children were advised very sternly to consider opening their heart, liver, lungs or kidneys first due to the benefits that they gained from cycling to those organs. Some listened, others didn’t. Ultimately it was the child’s decision, their first one of significance in their journey of cultivation.
I disregarded both the advice I’d received on the ideal order, and the technique I had been taught to do it. Instead of sequentially imagining a flow through each meridian in turn, I condensed as much of the ambient Qi as I could in my core, focusing it down and down and down. I gasped when I felt a sudden rush enter me from behind me; Qi that tasted of earth and wood. The Peach Tree was granting me some of its strength in thanks for my earlier promise.
I was slightly worried that the Qi the tree was granting me would aspect my own Qi, but I quickly realized that the flavor was just a flavor, and the Qi was in fact quite pure. Almost as pure as that of the fruit I had eaten, and I hadn’t even paused to consider not using that energy.
Suddenly, I sensed that I had passed a threshold. As hard as I pressed, I could not condense the Qi any further. More importantly, when I let up the pressure, the Qi stayed condensed.
Without opening a single meridian, I had condensed my Qi to the point where I had reached the energy gathering realm. I smiled, because this was the first part of what I had done in my dream. It had not been easy; it had been perhaps the most difficult thing I had done in my life, taking all of my willpower to accomplish it. But it was worth it.
The second step of my dream cultivation was much simpler. It was a specialized full body cycling technique. Its purpose was twofold; to open my meridians and to expand the channels through which Qi flowed at the same time. If it worked as I dreamed it did, then it would be the technique I would use until it was time to enter the Qi Condensation realm.
I could have used this method earlier, but it would have been less effective without condensing my Qi first. I hadn’t harmed my cultivation by skipping the opening of my meridians. Rather, they would open on their own now that I was in the energy gathering realm whether I cultivated or not. However, each opening would have released a wave of toxins and impurities into my body had I not purified myself first, something which it seems I had instinctively understood.
I cycled with the Peach Blossom Dream cultivation technique, as I had decided to call the method I had dreamed up, and I sensed each of my meridians snapping open under the new pressure of the method, one after the other. Before the sun had reached its zenith, I was fully in the energy gathering realm. I continued to cycle until my channels were sore from the pressure of my newly dense Qi flowing through them, and then I performed my body cleansing technique one more time.
I had thought that I had cleansed my bodies of all of its impurities before, but this session was worse than any of the previous ones. I continued to cleanse myself until I could stand it no longer, then I once again bathed in the stream. I had wisely stripped to my undergarments before performing my body cleansing technique, and I discarded the soiled rags rather than put them back on once I had scrubbed my skin clean.
Satisfied, I put my robes back on and walked over to the spiritual peach tree.
“Thank you,” I said to it. I pressed a hand against its trunk and gifted it back a measure of my Qi. “I will keep my promise and plant each of the seeds I have gathered.”
I sensed a measure of peace and well-being emanating from the spiritual tree, and a sense of loneliness. It was a peach tree, and yet it was out here in the middle of the forest instead of in an orchard. Its fruit was being wasted rather than enjoyed.
“I’ll take as many with me as I can,” I promised, “And I’ll show the others where you are. From now on, someone will come every year to harvest you, and when they realize how special you are you will have an entire forest of children.”
The tree seemed to like that promise. Or at least I sensed that it did, but maybe I was imagining it. I picked as many peaches as I could. I had lost the basket which I was supposed to be carrying for mushrooms, but I had plenty of pockets.
Eating one last peach, I left the clearing and went searching for the sect’s main compoound.