Chapter 39

Tan was walking through a palace. The imperial palace, he knew somehow. He didn’t know what the imperial palace looked like, having never been there, but he knew that the dream looked the way that the imperial palace should look. If the imperial palace looked differently than his dream, then it was the palace that was wrong and not the dream.

Beside him was a friendly old man. The old man was talking nonsense, but he was very friendly and congenial, and Tan liked him and trusted him implicitly. If he listened to this old man, then he’d go far in life. He just had to follow the path laid out for him and …

And …

“I’m dreaming,” Tan said suddenly, interrupting the words of wisdom that the old man had been bestowing on him.

The old man paused. “Yes. You are. Very good, Tan. You’re a very clever boy. This is a dream, but it’s also real. I am real, and you are real. And I want to help you become who you are meant to be.”

“Zephyr? Are you there?” Tan asked.

“Never mind your spirit. Bonding a spirit is a crutch. A necessary one in order to start cultivation in childhood, but the true cultivation starts with the formation of the Core, and you—”

“Zephyr!” Tan shouted, ignoring the old man for now. “Zephyr, where are you?”

“Tan, listen to me. She can’t reach us right now. We’re in a liminal space. I had to bring you here to talk to you, and she’s still bound to the world,” the old man said. “It’s okay. She’ll be there when you wake up and—”

“Who are you?” Tan demanded, turning on the old man. “I don’t know you. Who are you and what are you doing to me?”

“I am your grandfather,” the old man said. “My name is—”

“Both of my grandfathers are dead. They died before I was born.”

“This is a dream. The boundary between the living and dead is looser here. It’s the only place that I can advise you for now,” the old man said. “As I said, my name is Haoatonian Shen—”

“I don’t care. Let me go. I want to wake up now,” Tan said. He paused as a thought occurred to him. “I don’t remember going to sleep. The last thing I remember doing was powering the formation that was supposed to protect my sister.”

“Yes, your sister. I helped her too,” the old man said. “She didn’t have the strength to bear the purification procedure. It would have taken ten or more repetitions, and it would have scarred her in more ways than one. So I gave her the strength to get it done. She’ll recover, and like you, become who it was that she was always meant to be due to my help and influence.”

Tan turned to the old man. “You helped my sister?”

“I did,” the old man said.

Tan bowed to him formally, clasping one fist in the other hand before him as though he were paying respect to a sacred ancestor. “If that is true, then I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now please let me go.”

“Tan, I am trying to help you. You have so much potential, and your father has started your guidance. But he is—”

“I’m sorry. I’m not certain that you are my grandfather. Do you have any proof?” Tan asked.

The old man sighed. “The proof is that I was brought here by the Four Gates of Heaven Fate Defying Formation. There is a reason that the formation is called the Gates of Heaven, Tan. It literally opens the way to the afterlife and appeals to the ancestors to intercede on the behalf of their descendants, changing their fates. While the formation was erected to protect Safron Shen, you were caught in it as well. Your fate has been changed. For the better. Now, as I was saying—”

“I’m sorry. I believe that you are more than a figment of my imagination, but that only makes me more suspicious of you. I—”

“Tan,” the old man said, his voice growing annoyed. “Stop being an impertinent brat. I’m your grandfather, and I know what is best for you. Listen to me and follow my—”

“Zephyr! Zephyr!” Tan called.

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“She can’t hear you here,” The old man repeated.

Then a strong gust of wind arrived, shaking the walls of the palace. The old man glanced around, a concerned expression crossing his face for the first time. “That shouldn’t be possible,” he muttered. “The inner palace is impenetrable.”

The wind howled and gusted, and the windows of the palace began to shatter.

“Zephyr! I can’t hear your voice! Where are you?” Tan called out.

The old man began making hand symbols and chanting. The wind continued to howl, but the palace was reinforced by a force which Tan did not understand. Rather than attempting to fight back with a force that he didn’t understand, he called upon his intent.

He used his intent not on the old man, but on the palace.

And he ripped it apart from the inside.

The palace shattered around them like so much glass, leaving only the old man and Tan standing in a field of rocks and ragged spires. The wind continued to howl.

“Why can’t I understand her?” Tan asked.

“Tan, stop this. Why did you destroy my home?”

“This is my dream. I never gave you permission to build a palace in my dreams,” Tan said, turning to the old man. “If you truly helped my sister, I shall be eternally grateful. But you had your life, grandfather, and I do not consent to you living mine for me. Whatever path that you wish me to follow is not my path. My path is the one that I shall find myself.”

“What nonsense is this?” The old man said. “Tan, listen to me. I know what is best for you. I can see so much from this side of the veil, and—”

Tan stopped listening. He began chanting the words to an exorcism.

“I call upon the one truth to banish this false apparition. The light of the one truth and the one path guide me, and—”

“Tan, stop this nonsense,” the man said, but as Tan continued to speak, his form changed from the congenial old man. He continued to speak, but his voice changed into sibilations and growls. Tan nodded and continued to speak his incantations, which came to him even as he dreamed them into being.

The old man changed into a furious red Asura. With Six arms, it had two swords, a chain-whip, two axes, and a spear. It screamed.

“You think that because this is a dream that you are safe? If you will not accept my guidance then I shall take your body by force!” the Asura threatened.

Tan reached out his hand and suddenly the blade that his father had given him was there. He reached out his other hand and another weapon was there. A key. He threw it into the air, and a dragon appeared behind him.

The dragon roared, and the force of the wind appeared. The Asura charged at Tan, but Tan stood his ground.

“This is my dream , Grandfather,” Tan said. “And you hold no power here.”

They fought. Tan took wounds, but felt no pain, for it was only a dream. He died a thousand times, for the Asura was skilled in combat even with the wind blowing it off balance and the dragon snapping with tooth and claw in defense of its master, Tan simply wasn’t skilled enough to defend himself.

But it was just a dream, and he’d died in dreams before. He was unafraid.

And for every hundred wounds that he suffered,

He inflicted one.

And with each wound he inflicted, the Asura screamed and raged.

When he had inflicted ten wounds, the Asura vanished, and Tan stood in the middle of the desolate field.

“Zephyr, are you there?” he asked

A beautiful young woman appeared. “Tan, I was so afraid for you. Do you know who that was?”

“My grandfather?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what he said. I need to tell my parents about this dream, I think.”

“Yes. Try very hard to remember it when you awake.”

“That’s not a problem,” Tan said. And he awoke remembering everything that had happened since he became aware that he’d been trapped in a dream.

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