Chapter Four: A Grave Disservice to Raw Sewage

Emerald Vale was a frontier town of sorts, with mile upon mile (or maybe li upon li?) of farmland to the south and nothing but forested foothills leading to a jaw-dropping mountain range to the north. Cloud-wreathed and pointy-peaked, they were even more impressive than the Sierra Nevada mountains! I ran along a well-worn path wending its way through the hills and soon found myself in the gloom of dense forest. As I made my way through the green-tinted world, my pace slowed to a jog and I took time to really take in my surroundings…

This was not a safe and sanitized state park of the sort I was used to in coastal southern California. There might be wild animals out here, or bad people…

Well, I guess there were bad people in California's state parks, too, but they were usually too high on something illegal to pay other folks much mind. Certainly nothing like the roving gangs of rapacious bandits that I envisioned. My rule for the time being: stay away from anyone and anything.

I considered what I really wanted out of my escape from Emerald Vale, and the immediate response was: to keep Lee Dan from killing me. The man was completely unhinged and had it in his mind that I'd sullied his good name. Quite the contrary - people were inclined to believe bad things about the man because he was an insane rage monster. Part of me felt a little bad for him, because I suspected that he might be a war veteran with PTSD and a bunch of other mental and emotional issues. But that didn't give him any excuse to beat a little girl to the point of serious injury and threaten to murder her in public.

I forced myself to stop for a breather - I was getting emotional and starting to tear up. No, what I needed was some 'me time' and maybe a nice smoothie. Or, barring that, a cool glass of water. Or, barring that, any water that wouldn't make me shit my guts out for a week.

I found myself in a bamboo glade, the late afternoon sunlight filtering through like a green-golden haze. Breeze hushed through the leaves, and beyond the path I spotted a dark and burbling brook. I figured I probably wouldn't find a better stopping place than this, so I wandered off the trail, pushing my way through the denser stalks, and found myself at a placid pool fed by a cool, glacial stream.

I knew it was a bad idea to drink water in the wild. It could have dangerous microorganisms or, even worse, environmental toxins and microplastics. But there probably wasn't any industrial runoff in this world and you couldn't get much cleaner than a stream made of melting ice. I certainly wasn't about to wait until I got back to town before drinking anything - I'd be dangerously dehydrated by then - and I didn't have any way to boil the water. Reasoning that flowing water was probably safer, I tromped upstream a ways until I found some faster water and I drank right from a tiny waterfall. It didn't taste like anything, so I suppose that was good.

With my thirst quenched, I returned to the pool to bathe and then sat to meditate.

The wind hushed through the trees, birds twittering above. Insects buzzed past like little streaks of gold in the fluttering sunlight, none of them paying me the slightest mind. Small animals scampered through the dry leaves of the glade floor, and all around me the bamboo gently creaked as it swayed in the breeze.

My awareness turned inward, toward my inner light. With some surprise, I noted that the tangle of energy I'd soaked in the night before was still there, if slightly muted… or maybe not muted. No, it was smaller, but the multi-hued threads were still there, now carefully woven around my inner light like nylon threading around a smartphone charger cable. What's more, now there were more luminous, numinous threads resonating with it and eager to join in the tapestry…

I had no idea what the threads represented, but I didn't see any harm in what was, essentially, an interesting meditation game. There was a bright, royal blue thread vibrating ecstatically to the burble of the brook, a smaller spring-green one that wavered to the puff of breeze, and an even smaller one in terracotta that was as constant as traffic jams on the five. Beyond them were dozens more, wavering and indistinct, their colors almost too faint for my inner eye to make out.

Slowly, carefully, I resonated my inner light, its vibrations expanding into space like a soundless sonata. First, the weave of multihued light around it seemed to compress, its light intensifying as it did. Then, slowly, so slowly, the nearby threads began to approach and curl, gradually inserting themselves into the growing fabric around my core…

I had no idea what any of it meant, obviously. But it was fun and pretty and a way to take my mind off my recent experiences… a hundred times better than Netflix and chill. Five stars. Highly recommend.

Engaged in that quiet, meditative 'game', I was scarcely aware of the passage of hours, of animals coming to drink from the pool and continuing on their way, or of the sun slowly sinking and the big gibbous moon rising in the sky.

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Day passed into night, the pale yellow moon rising high in the sky. As it did, its own wan energy waxed and I added it to my collection. The cool of the night and the settling of dew was an inky midnight, and I added it to my tapestry, too. Crickets chirped, their song sparkling in my inner world, and that was a sort of energy, as well. As the hours passed, a deep and fulfilling calm settled into me, and I continued meditating…

Then things changed. It was almost like a phase transition, like when an ice-cold soda left in the freezer suddenly becomes a slushie and then explodes. Well… it was like that, but in reverse and with dozens of myriad threads of energy visible only through my inner eye.

They coalesced around my inner light, compressing into a blindingly-bright band that thrummed with energy. Afraid that something bad would happen should the thing destabilize, I focused all of my attention on it, stilling my inner light as much as possible and slowing the chaotic convergence. Tiny bands of light swept in from all around, so faint I could barely perceive them, wrapping into the nexus and adding to it like gossamer streamers of gas sucked into a black hole. And then, like a nascent solar system, the density of threads reached critical mass and flared to life so blindingly that, even though it was all fairly metaphorical stuff being perceived through my mind's eye, my head pulsed with pain and my physical body struggled to contain it.

I gasped and my eyes shot open.

My whole body burned, sweat soaking my clothes despite the cool air in the early dawn. I took in great breaths, gasping, lungs on fire. Panic clenched in my chest.

"What… the actual… fuuuu-" I groaned. Suddenly, I felt a great bodily urgency.

I barely managed to make it to the placid pool and hike my dress up in time, whereupon my body suddenly decided to revolt and began ejecting truly foul stuff out of both ends. It was deep brown, almost black, slightly-clumpy, and absolutely the most disgusting substance I'd ever encountered. Likening it to raw sewage does a grave disservice to raw sewage. Even more toxic than Bailey's gaslighting ex, Travis. Just… I can't even…

begin to describe how foul it was.

In the aftermath, I just looked at the ghastly stuff, clumpy, faintly-bubbling, and slowly swirling out of the not-so-placid-anymore pool.

"Sorry, pool," I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

Thankfully, I hadn't gotten anything on my only article of clothing - my plain dress, a hand-me-down from the Xus' adult daughter. I trekked upstream, puzzling over what had just happened. The burning still resided in my chest, slowly spreading but not getting especially better or worse. The dress, which had been loose, sat strangely on me as if my whole body was bloated. As I rinsed my mouth out and wiped myself clean, I came to the horrible realization that I'd been poisoned.

"It was the fucking water," I hissed, spitting out a mouthful. Like a complete idiot, I'd gulped down about a gallon of spring water the afternoon before and now my chickens were coming home to roost. Something terrible had been in this very brook, and now I was paying the price. It was the only possible explanation.

I didn't feel like I was dying - far from it - but I knew how dangerous symptoms could sneak up on a person. I remembered reading stories of people with COVID walking around with only minor chest tightness and then collapsing and dying of walking pneumonia a few hours later. I was out in the middle of nowhere, and now I was dying. Probably.

Lin's psychotic uncle had basically banned me from Emerald Vale, but he was just one toxic dude. Surely, I could sneak into town and see Granny P about getting medicine. I didn't really have a choice - it was either that or death. Ginger kale smoothie-tasting medicine or more disgusting, oily filth coming out both ends. The choice was clear. I was going back to town.

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There wasn't much going on at the town's north gate.

I guess the very fact that there was a north gate said something - first, that people occasionally had the need to go north and, second, that something out here was dangerous enough to warrant surrounding a whole town of five or six thousand people in a twenty-foot stone wall with iron spikes at the top. What were they afraid of? Enemy armies? Wild animals? The babadook? I honestly had no idea.

Whatever reason the town had for a defensive perimeter, it wasn't being actively enforced. Two guards in green-lacquered leather armor conversed with one another, waving me inside with hardly a second look. As I passed one of the guards, I guess I did get a second look. He set his spear to block my path.

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"The entry fee is one yao… or a kiss," he said.

The other guard guffawed loudly.

I glared at the men. It wasn't that I'd never experienced inartful and lowkey aggro pickup lines before - far from it. But here I was, in the body of a deformed girl barely into her teenage years and a grown-ass guard was pestering me for a kiss? I nudged the spear out of the way to the guard's obvious surprise. "Pervert," I spat, honing my glare on the offender.

Part of me was worried that things might descend into violence and I'd have to flee again without seeing Granny P, but the guard seemed genuinely remorseful. Shocked, even. "Y-yes, entrance is free, of course! This one has caused offense! I'm very sorry, miss!" And he bowed to me, if you can believe it! I guess the culture here wasn’t as toxic as the antics of 'Uncle Dan' had indicated.

From the north gate, I made my way to the little rundown neighborhood where Granny P lived. I assume there were other healers in town, but Granny was the only one that Lin was even vaguely aware of and, frankly, the only one that I trusted. Who knew what other medieval nonsense they would peddle. Leeches? Crystals? Acupuncture…

Actually, my cousin Crystal once told me that acupuncture really works, so maybe that would be ok - but probably not for acute poisoning.

I navigated to Granny P's place and pounded on the door, checking my pulse (which was definitely elevated) and pacing back and forth. Was my dry mouth and the tightness in my chest the result of running several miles while being increasingly stressed? Or was it the result of deadly toxins and microbes slowly spreading in my body? I had no way to know.

There was no answer, so I pounded on the door again. "Granny P! I need help!"

The door cracked open. "Go away, crazy lady! I'm not open yet!"

I was tempted to muscle my way in, but that would have been incredibly rude. "Granny, it's me! Please let me in! I think I've been poisoned!"

"'Me' who?"

"Lynn! Lee Lynn!"

"One minute, please!" Granny called back. The door shut. People jostled about inside, hissing in conversation. I probably could've made it out if I put my ear against the door, but I didn't want to offend my only chance of help.

A minute later, Phuong Fu answered the door. "Lin, what's… uh… oh… Lin?"

"Can I please come in?" I whined. Something was definitely… off…

Fu furrowed his brow. "Uh… yeah. I think you'd better."

He saw me inside, at which point I quickly figured out what, exactly, was off. It was me. I was off. Yesterday, as he walked me home, Fu had been close to a head taller than me. Now I was several inches taller than him. In fact, my hair brushed against the top of the small doorway to the cottage - any more height and I'd have bumped my skull.

"I…" I scrunched my face in thought. "I'm not poisoned, am I?"

"I think not," Granny P said. "In fact, I doubt there's much out there that could poison you. Have a seat and let me check you out, Lin. Fu… go and fetch my mirror, would you?"

"Sure thing, granny." Fu's voice was subdued, almost as shocked as I felt.

I suppose I was very fortunate that I had such distinct eyes, because otherwise I'd have had a hell of a time convincing anybody that I was Simple Lin. I turned Granny P's hazy mirror back and forth, trying to make sense of the impossibility that I was looking at. Almost as impossible as astral projecting into a different body in a different world… possibly in a different… what was the word? Multiverse. I might be in a different multiverse, because I was observing some weird magical bullshit firsthand.

"I… I don't understand," I said, prodding the supple skin of my face.

The only resemblance I had to Lin was the same metallic silver eyes I'd had yesterday. Otherwise, I looked almost exactly like my old self, right down (up?) to the willowy 5'9" height that tended to make guys self-conscious for some reason. I looked like me. Generically pretty biracial Eurasian features with coloration that suggested a tasteful application of subtle makeup, even though I obviously wasn't wearing any. Straight brown hair so dark it was very nearly black, but not quite. Slightly flat button nose. Cheekbones just a bit too high and wide… at least I'd always felt they were. My slightly-pursed lips gave me a bit of a 'resting bitch face' look. But, really, I was a friendly person! I looked just like I had on Earth but, somehow, even more so.

I came to terms with my transformation while granny saw to her first patient out in the front of the cottage. A few minutes later, Granny P slid a stool up to the cot where I was sitting and took a seat. "Lin… you took a pill, didn't you?"

I blinked in confusion. "A pill?" Did she think I was on drugs?

"A pill," she repeated. "It would be about the size of a chickpea, maybe a bit larger. Red flecked with black?"

Fu handed both Granny P and me a small cup of tea and pulled another stool for himself. "Granny, it wouldn't be a Divine Awakening pill. I mean…" he gestured at my body in a way that made me very mindful both of my unexpected transformation back into something like my old body and the fact that I had a lot more size and muscle tone than my dress was built for. No wonder I'd felt bloated back at the peaceful little brook. "It has to have been a Fortress of the Spirit pill, right?"

It was all gibberish to me. "Divine Awakening pill? Fortress of the Spirit pill? What are you two talking about?"

Granny P nodded. "I've never seen one, so I can only guess what they look like," she said. "You swear you didn't take a pill? Maybe you thought it was a candy?"

"Granny… I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I spent the night out in the bamboo woods after my uncle chased me out of town and I thought I was sick from drinking the water out there…"

Granny chuckled. "No… no, that doesn't sound likely, though it may explain things. You see, when a soldier enlists in our exalted emperor's army, they sign on for a quarter-century term. That's twenty-five years…" she paused as I rolled my eyes - maybe basic math wasn't commonly taught in Emerald Vale, and Lin certainly hadn't known it. "After their term, they and their family receive a small pension for a century, but they rarely have trouble finding far better employ. You see, in order to be useful to the emperor, the soldiers are given spiritual pills to advance them one or more stages in cultivation."

"Stages of cultivation?" I furrowed my brow. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I wasn't stupid. "So… magic steroids. That's why Uncle Dan is so fast and strong?"

Fu nodded. "At the end of the Divine Awakening stage, it's said that a cultivator is twice as fast and strong as a common person. The Divine Awakening pill advances soldiers to the end of that stage. For soldiers promoted to sergeant or lieutenant, they receive a Fortress of the Spirit pill that advances them to the body refinement stage. And for those few captains and higher officers who aren't true cultivators, they receive a Flame of the Spirit pill to advance them to the qi refinement stage. I'm a bit of an expert in these things."

"He means he's read all about it in his pointless adventure stories," Granny P said with equal parts amusement and acid. "Even the lowliest of these pills is prohibitively expensive, equal to what a peasant family makes in several years, perhaps even a decade, and a single Flame of the Spirit pill's cost would equal this whole town's output for several months. A Fortress pill is somewhere in-between. Thus, if you 'accidentally' swallowed a pill, whoever possessed it and whoever it was intended for will notice it was missing and will take pains to discover who consumed it. If it was the emperor's pill, you will be conscripted, and if it wasn't… well… then it was probably illegal, and criminals don't take well to having fortunes stolen from them. So, when you claim you didn't take a pill, even accidentally, I need you to be very certain, Lin-Lin."

Was it possible that I'd accidentally consumed an ultra-expensive pill? In the scheme of things, anything was possible, but I was virtually certain that I hadn't. I suppose it was possible that 'Uncle Dan' had such a pill in his possession and had it hidden in his messy stash of rice and dried peas… but I was just as virtually certain that if he had access to such a pill, he would immediately consume it for the increase in power, or else sell it to fuel his angry, drunken benders. No, I hadn't had access to or opportunity to take a valuable magic pill. I shook my head.

"I'm certain."

Fu seemed pleased by this. "Those who take pills aren't true cultivators, anyway. It's a shortcut that cripples their ability to advance. It would be like advancing a young child to take the imperial bureaucratic exams. Even if that child had the potential for greatness, the only way forward for them is to leave the academy and start from the beginning in literature school. Granny… does this mean that Lin is a genius?"

"Do you think Lin is a genius?" Granny asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Frankly, I was offended. I mean… I'm not a genius. Not even close. But I did graduate CalOc with dual majors in kinesiology and dietetics and a 3.35 GPA! It would be nice to at least be considered in the running for geniushood!

"No," Fu said with a defeated sigh. "So… how?"

"Lin, you said this happened when you were…" she cleared her throat… "'meditating' out in the bamboo?"

"I can hear the sarcasm quotes, you know," I said. From the confused expression, I could surmise that scare quotes weren't a thing in the… empire, I guess. Granny P had said they had an emperor. "Never mind. So I take it you have some other theory?"

Granny sipped at her tea. "I do. Beyond the bounds of civilization, one can occasionally encounter the spirits of the earth. They are mysterious and inscrutable to us, but it is said that they sometimes gift mortals with their favor, or even…" she mumbled to herself. "It couldn't be, could it?" She chewed at her thin lower lip. "Occasionally, they inhabit a mortal's body and subsume them - that is to say, they possess the body, and only a very powerful spiritual expert can expunge them without damaging the host's soul."

"Uh…" My memories flashed to my metaphysical yoga studio, where (if my theory held) I'd literally consumed poor Lin's soul. Completely accidentally, but that hardly mattered for Lin. Still… if I was a 'spirit of the earth', then I wouldn't have 31 years of memories from Earth. Unless… "By 'spirits of earth', you don't mean the residents of another specific planet thousands of light years from here, do you?"

"A what?"

"Never mind… I don't think I'm a spirit…"

"I didn't think you were, either," Granny P chuckled. "You're far too earnest to be one of those wily beasts, child. But I do think one passed a blessing onto you, perhaps taking pity on your plight. You're a very very lucky girl, Lin, but almost certainly not a cultivation genius, and I say this as a cultivator myself."

"You're a cultivator?" I'd been picturing bellicose brutes like Lee Dan, not kindly, sprightly older ladies.

"Not much of one, I'll admit, but I can sense qi well enough, and you've still got it roiling off you, seemingly at random. If you were a cultivator, it would be restrained and orderly, not a mishmash of dozens of powerful strands packed together and trailing their residue off for any old cultivator to sense. No, I'm fairly certain a magnanimous spirit beast just packed your dantian full of the stuff and called it a night."

I was about to ask what in the hell a dantian was but was interrupted…

"Um… I can come back later," a meek voice called in from the front of the cottage.

Granny P gasped and shot out front far faster than an old woman had any right to move… though it now made sense in light of the fact that she was apparently some kind of low-tier superwoman. "Mrs. Pun! I apologize - I didn't hear you come in! Um… how long have you been eavesdrop… er… have you been waiting?"

"A few minutes," the woman said carefully.

"Ah… well… I will gladly see to you today free of charge if you would kindly not repeat anything you may have heard about our private conversation."

"And free next week, too," Mrs. Pun stated.

Granny P grumbled. "Of course… next week free, too, for my discreet friend, Pun Baozhai!"

"Of course, Healer Phuong!"

Phew! It would have been pretty bad if the wrong bits of that conversation got out…