I ran through the night without stopping. My legs pumped like pistons, impossibly long strides eating up the ground beneath me. There was none of the exhilaration of running down the mountain, the road was flat, with few landmarks visible in the darkness. I’d never hated running, but I’d never loved it either. The wind in my hair, the effortless power of motion was nice, but after two hours, it was just boring.

Dusk truly had been in the middle of nowhere. I kept running. An hour passed, then another. I’d planned at first, to just run through the night. Then I saw the lamplights in the distance. As I approached, I saw that the place wasn’t much. It was humbler than Dusk, small cottages with thatch roofs clustered around an inn that towered over them. I could hear music, a mournful tune from one of the many asian string instruments I could never keep straight. On a whim, I slowed to a mortal pace, and headed over. I’d changed already, swapping robes to a well worn gray linen set I’d found in the ring.

All I needed was a name. Ideally one that was actually appropriate for my gender. I thought through the various male disciples and elders I’d met, picking a pair of names at semi-random. I would be… Fang Tao. Best not to use an elder’s name. I pulled a strand of cash coins, and popped a few off the rope that held them and added them to my pocket. My sword went into the ring as well, and my disguise was as complete as it was going to get.

The door of the inn was propped open, warmth and light pouring out. I wasn’t sure what time it was now, it had to be at least three in the morning, between the goat’s and the monkey’s hour as they reckoned things here. Still, the voices of half a dozen men chatting mingled with the sad tune of the music.

I stepped inside, and the conversation quieted, as six men and one woman turned to stare at me. I ignored them, as best I could, and made a beeline for the bar.

“Water, please.”

“You sure? The beer’s not bad this year.”

“The water will be fine.”

“As you wish.”

There was a pause, as he grabbed a glass and filled it from one of the many barrels set into the far wall.

“A pair of cash.” The bartender said, passing me a ceramic cup. It was probably good it wasn’t glass, it did a fair job of concealing the subtle brown tinge the water had.

I collected my cup and paid him, then settled in at the open table in the corner. I wasn’t really sure why I was here. Chatting up strangers in bars, whether to get laid, get the lay of the land, or just shoot the shit, had never been my forte. All I really needed to know was what town this was, to confirm that I was moving in the right direction.

Once I sat down, the table of four that had been the majority of the noise in the bar returned to chatting with each other. The musician, a woman of forty five or so, had never stopped playing her erhu. But the last man in the bar, to my mild surprise, rose and stepped over to join me at my table.

“Haven’t seen you round town before. Did you just roll in?” He asked. He was an older man, close to sixty, a little portly, with a flushed face. His shoulder length hair was beginning to gray, but despite his age and the hour, he seemed full of energy. “Name’s Zhao Xue, by the way.”

“I did.”

“Not often we get lone travelers around these parts, dangerous walking the roads late at night. All sorts of things prowl them these days.”

“Good to know. I found them surprisingly quiet tonight.”

“Looks like fortune smiles upon you then. Hopefully the emperor, long may he live, will be able to clear them properly soon, just as soon as that madness in the south clears up. What brings you to Xiamen?”

“I’m just passing through on the way to the capital.” I said with a smile. There it was, the name I needed.

Another man stumbled through the open door, clearly already well into his cups. I didn’t think I saw another open bar on the main street. He must have been drinking at home.

“You staying the night in town then?” Zhao Xue asked.

The drunkard headed right for our table.

“What the hell are you doing Zhao, jawing off like that to a wandering cultivator!”

Again, the conversation died, as the table of four started watching us out of the corner of their eyes. The music continued though.

“What!” Zhao Xue blanched, and his speech shifted immediately in a far more formal register. “Forgive me for my excessive familiarity, honored cultivator. It is now clear to this blind one, that the mortal dangers of the road would mean nothing to one such as you. I meant no offense.”

“Relax.” I said with a halfhearted wave. “I wouldn’t be sitting at a bar if I was going to be upset if someone started talking to me. Good survival instincts though, we can be a prickly lot.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” The newcomer asked, joining us at the table. I’d hoped that simply refraining from actively using my cultivation would prevent people from sensing me, but if a random man in a small town noticed me from dozens of feet away, that seemed unlikely. Perhaps I was still leaking qi from my run, like sweat? I wondered what his history was, to immediately peg me as a cultivator. He couldn’t be too powerful, even focusing carefully, I didn’t sense any qi from him.

Seemingly reassured I wasn’t about to start killing people, the other table resumed their conversation. I was starting to wish the bar was a little bigger, everyone staring at me every time I twitched was starting to get annoying.

“We were a pair of men in a bar, it wasn’t important.”

“Not important! Hah! I haven’t heard many cultivators say that before.” The newcomer was younger than Zhao Xue, younger even than my new body, perhaps in his mid or late forties. He had the sort of body you saw on men who labored hard in their youth, then took a little too much to alcohol as they aged. His shoulders were broad and strong, but he carried a sizable beer belly.

“You talk to many cultivators?” I asked, curious.

“Not anymore. Qin Wenyan, formerly a sergeant in his imperial majesty’s eastern army.” He said, proffering his hand.

I shook it.

“Fang Tao. Wandering cultivator.” It was true technically. I was a cultivator, and I was wandering around.

“You do this often? Walk around pretending to be a mortal?” Wenyan asked.

“I find it reduces the number of people asking me for things.”

“Hah, I can see that.”

There was a pause, all of us a little unsure how to proceed.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“A beer for me, Little Yang.” Wenyan said, waving a pair of coins at the bartender.

I took a sip from my water, as he waited for his drink. It was tricky, pinning down exactly what the strange taste was. I was leaning towards silt, but it was a little too… Organic, for that. Perhaps residue from the wooden barrel?

“What was it like, serving in his majesty’s army?” I asked.

“Hah, never felt half so alive, as I did in those days. Never felt half so afraid neither.” He took a big swallow of his beer. “I served under the Rising Dragon, back in the last war with Shan. Now there’s a cultivator. Honorable, righteous, always led from the front, no matter what storm we were charging into. Some of the silkpants from the sects though, not so much. The big three are alright, but I swear, some of those boys from the smaller schools didn’t have nothing on their minds but fighting and fucking. They'd've fit right in with the rest of the soldiers really except they didn’t have the discipline not to make it the captain’s problem.”

“Kids are the same everywhere.” I nodded. “Adding cultivation to the pot just makes them more of what they already are.”

“Hah, ain’t that the truth. Saw an Ironheart boy get his balls popped like grapes by a Glass Flower. Dumb little shit didn’t understand that no means fuck off. Shame his treasures couldn’t take the same punishment as his fists.”

He paused.

“You didn’t get your start at one of those small sects here did ya?”

“I did not.”

“Good, good. I forget myself sometimes. No captain around to bail me out if I stick my foot in my mouth these days.”

“And you thought to warn me, about jawing off to a cultivator.” Zhao Xue laughed. He was starting to relax again now. “Perhaps you should take your own advice.”

“Hey, at least I know when I’m sticking my head in the tiger’s mouth.”

“Realizing it afterwards doesn’t count for much.”

“Oh fuck off.” Qin Wenyan said without much heart. “Used to think I’d reach Foundation Establishment one day. I was so close, when I left the army. Made the eighth stage, when my son was born. Never did take those last few steps though. How high did you climb, if you don’t mind an old fool asking.”

“Old fool?” I said, with a raised eyebrow. “Pretty sure you’re the youngest one at this table. You can ask whatever you like. Can’t say I’ll answer them all though.”

“Fair enough. Least you ain’t getting pissy I asked. We used to compare our progress every day back in the army, pump ourselves full up with qi til our dantians were fit to burst, see who could put the biggest gash in a tree. The sects never did get into it though. They always did like to keep their tiles close to their chests.”

“We cultivators do like our secrets.”

Qin Wenyan paused, staring at me.

“That your real name, Fang Tao?”

“Nope.” I said with a smile.

“Well, can you tell me what sect you’re with at least?”

“I could.”

“Hah! I should have expected that.” Wenyan said with a great belly laugh. “Fine, be that way. Keep your secrets.”

The tavern quieted, as the music of the erhu reached a climax. Two strings sang of cruel fate, and lost love. Seven men listened intently, each staring at a memory only they could see. Then it ended, and six men clapped. Little Yang tapped his feet in appreciation, his hands occupied with a keg. I wondered what the story was there. He wasn’t a small man.

“You got any family, Fang Tao?” Zhao Xue asked suddenly.

“I hope that I still do. They were well, last we spoke, but fate has carried me far from my home.”

“No wife?”

“They call them dao companions, in the sects” Qin Wenyan interjected.

“There was a woman I hoped to spend my life with, but circumstances intervened.”

“I see even cultivators are not spared the tribulation that is women.” Qin Wenyan said.

“No, it wasn’t that.” I said, shaking my head. “I loved her dearly, and she loved me, but the whims of heaven can be cruel.”

“Ah, that they can, that they can. No surer sign you’re a foreigner, no man of Qin would ever need a reminder of that.” Qin Wenyan sighed, then wiped at his eyes. “Don’t lose hope, if you love each other still. My own wife is in her bed just down the street, but she might as well be ten thousand li away.”

“Thank you.” I said quietly. An image leapt to mind, unbidden. I crushed it, pushed it down into the dark. It was too soon. I could still see the goofy smile on her face as she stretched a ball of sourdough into a long rope, wiggling it around pointlessly, getting flour all over the kitchen. They say the only difference between medicine and poison is dosage. This soon, I knew, trying to hold onto any hope at all would be poison to me.

“What about you, Zhao Xue? Any family?” I asked, desperate for a distraction.

“As you said, heaven is cruel. I lost my sons to war and my wife to fate.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. I have made my peace with it.” He shook his head.

“I wish I could say the same.” Qin Wenyan muttered, leaning back in his seat. He threw back the rest of his beer. “Little Yang, another.”

We sat together companionably, drowning our sorrows, and drowning in them.

Eventually, Qin Wenyan broke the silence.

“I often wonder, if my life would have been different, if I became a cultivator. The Ironheart Sect offered to accept me as an outer disciple, after I served my decade, earned the right to bear the name Qin. Said the seventh stage of Qi Gathering before thirty was nothing to sneeze at. I was young, arrogant. Thought the world was my oyster, I'd make it on my own. Build a foundation, build a family, join the Sublime Spear School as an inner disciple. I thought I’d have all the time in the world, without the responsibilities of the army.

“And then I blinked, and fifteen years had passed, and I had nothing to show for it but a single stage of advancement, and a wife and son who hated me. Even if I reached Foundation Establishment now, even the small schools would laugh at me. Who needs a disciple that will die in twenty years? Fuck, I don’t know what my question is. Did I ever have any chance at all, or was this always where it was going to end?”

“I don’t know. I can’t assess your talent with a glance, any expert that says they can is lying. All I can tell you is that you’re not dead yet. Until you are, your fate is yours to change.”

“It’s not that simple.”

I snorted. “It never is.”

“It was pretty fucking simple when I was a young man. Fight, survive, do it again tomorrow.”

“The world didn’t change. You did.”

“You think I’d have made it then, if I kept with the army? That I needed the fighting to rise? Should I sign up again, give those Shan bastards another chance to claim the head they missed for ten years?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you just needed to give all that you had to raising your family, the same way you gave everything you had to the war. Or maybe you just needed more ambient qi, or a better cultivation method.”

“Fuck.”

“Or maybe you just needed to drink less, and cultivate more.”

“Fuck you.” He said without venom.

“He’s got you there, Wenyan.” Zhao Xue cut in. “If beer were qi, you’d have pissed out enough to raise an immortal by now.”

“What, that’s the secret, sobriety? You sound like one of those Transient Vessel turtle eggs. That why you ain’t drinking, Fang Tao, it’ll get in the way of your path to immortality?”

“Nah, I just don’t like beer. Never did.” I said, grateful for the lighter subject. “Don’t know why the rest of you insist on drinking wet bread.”

‘You gonna be around here long? I’ve got some harder stuff, back at the house.”

“Can’t. I’ll be pushing off in a few minutes. Perhaps on the way back, if all goes to plan, I’ll pass by here again two nights from now, early in the evening.”

It was a risk, revealing my schedule, even to some friendly mortals, but I liked them. Qin Wenyan was a veritable font of information about the Qin and Shan. Plus, I was downright curious, if mortal rice wine could even get me drunk. I’d always enjoyed a drink or three, but it would have been a rather large violation of my wise elder persona to purchase a cheap drink that couldn’t even affect me back home.

But everything was a risk these days, and this seemed like a smaller one than most.

“You’re not a bad egg, for a cultivator, Fang Tao. I’ll be here, in two days. Take care that you are too.” Zhao Xue said.

“Hah, I’ll drink to that.” Qin Wenyan said, raising his refilled mug.

“You’ll drink to anything.” Zhao Xue rolled his eyes.

“To Fang Tao surviving his mysterious errand.” Qin Wenyan proposed. “Ganbei!”

“Ganbei!” We echoed. I drained my mug. Yeah, that aftertaste was definitely wood.