“ Again.“ Madam Lou commanded. Again, she raised her whip in dissatisfaction. Nine barbed tails flickering in warped moonlight. There was no anger in her voice. No emotion, or hint of sadism to be found. There was only pure regularity. She was simply correcting an erred child. Fixing their silly mistakes. Helping them grow.

She did, after all, fashion herself to be quite the effective mother.

Quite the loving mother.

Quite the perfect mother.

There was no way that anything she did could be a mistake. There was no way anything she did could be bad for me. She stood there, red robes fluttering in the wind, not for her own enjoyment; but for my own benefit. She watched over me, whip in hand, not to fuel her own sadistic enjoyment or to assert some sort of long-term psychological dominance over me, no. She stood there for me. She stood there for my future.

Even so, I couldn't help but scream out as the whip tore through my flesh. Ripping through skin, bone, muscle, and organs alike. The taste of her whip digging into the deepest crevices of my mortal flesh.

Once, twice, three times came the painful blows. Once, twice, three times did I scream out in agony. Once, twice, three times did my blood and organs paint the nearby bamboo pavilion in a crimson red.

Once, twice, three times did I find myself healed back to perfect normalcy. Sure, the damage left by Madam Lou was never permanent, but the pain remained. It always did after the Madam’s healing. She always made sure of that.

Even after spending several nights alone with her, the Madam had never breached the subject of her strange powers. She only spoke of cultivation and the power it granted in vague terms. She was purposefully avoiding the subject. Claiming I had yet to earn the right to even hear of its glorious splendor. I had not yet earned the right to speak of ghosts and Qi and resentment alike.

I was still empty after all.

For now, I was to learn the ways of the world. The ways of Madam Lou’s world. The world I had been forcefully dragged into.

A world filled with nothing but rules…. Rules, rules, and rules.

Did I mention rules?

There were no mistakes in this world of cultivators. Nor were there any fun jests or taunts. As it turns out, my uncles and aunts were quite incorrect in their portrayal of the mighty figures. Not only were real cultivators inhuman, but they also expected everyone else to be as well.

There was no time to retreat into myself. There was no time to dance with stars. There was no time to face that strange doppelganger. I had to be aware and awake at every single moment of every single day. I had to be perfect. The Madam also made sure of that.

And so, for the twentieth time in a row, I picked myself off the floor. Retrieving an empty bowl that I had dropped along the way. Of course, by the time it had reached its position cupped just above my head, it had somehow refilled itself with a scorching hot brew. More strange magic that I had yet to understand.

But what I did understand was how blisteringly hot that brew was. After all, my face had experienced it not too long ago.

Bowing in just the right way to the Madam, I distanced myself from her. Walking backwards in just the ‘right way’, foot directly behind foot. My head tilted ever so slightly down, as my feet brought me ever so elegantly backwards. The thirty second vertebrae of my back never at all rising more than three tea cups higher than the resting hands of the Madam.

Of course, the Madam had been watching me this entire time. Ever the attentive mother she watched every fiber of my being. Watching, and waiting for a mistake. Watching and waiting for but a single break in my newly formed decorum. Watching and waiting for the smallest of signs to commence punishment once more.

“ Mother. “ I eventually called as I found myself exactly sixty-three incense pots away from the Madam, “ May I approach? “

The madam did not immediately answer, leaving me to struggle in the position I found myself in. Forcing me to struggle for what felt like an eternity with my head bowed and scorching hot brew held above my head. I to fight not to let a single drop of the brew leave the bowl. For the loss of a single drop would lead to the lesson restarting and the taste of the whip to once again marr my flesh.

It only took another eternity and the near locking up of my legs for the madam to eventually call me forward. Her voice wrapped around my cold, empty, heart, tugging it in the oddest of ways.

“ Yes Victim, you may approach. “ Her sugary voice chimed.

And approach I did. That was until my tired legs quivered for only a moment and I paused for just a fraction of a second.

I made a mistake. A mistake that I knew would deeply cost me.

This time, the impact of the whip and the splattering of blood and bone was followed by careful reproach.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“ I’m doing this for you. “ The Madam crooned, “ It is important that you learn how to conduct yourself. Another less kind cultivator or ghost might not be as coddling as I am… they may take your life for such an offense… Mother is just doing you a favor… I am teaching you this so nicely…. My dearest Victim… Now…. Again… “

And again I went. Again I set forward at the command of my… loving mother.

—------

Soon enough, the Madam, my mother not of choice, had changed almost every aspect of my behavior.

She had shaped me into the spitting image of a cultivator. Not the image that my village had venerated and acted out for many years, but the image of a cold detached inhuman thing. Inhumanly graceful and cold in every single manner. Strange and alien in every way imaginable.

From walking to sitting, to standing, to talking. I was forced through torturous lessons, one by one. Each and every single one filled with pain and suffering. Suffering, that according to the madam, was a gift. It was, according to her, the most effective teacher that a student could possibly have.

Approach those better than you in a certain way. Approach those lesser than you in a certain way. Talk in a certain way. Hold yourself in a certain way. Write in a certain way. Look in a certain way. Speak in a certain way. Breathe in a certain way. Exist in a certain way. Dance in a certain way. Sit in a certain way. There was no break. There was no relief.

I was to become elegant. Or I was to die trying. Apparently, even if I did survive the demonic experiments done to me in order to form me into a better cultivator, I would eventually amount to nothing without grace and elegance. I would amount to nothing If I did not follow the social rules set before me. I would be worthless without the trappings of a placid and demure countenance.

Or maybe. Perhaps. Even if I had yet to do anything supernatural, perhaps being bound by the chains of elegance was really part of a cultivator's training. Perhaps the way one did speak, ate, and sat really did change the way one cultivated. I for one had no clue yet. But eventually, I would.

But that would be in the future and now was now.

Unlike most of her students, Madam did not have to beat any emotion out of me. The pain that I had gone through had already shattered my soul. My face and eyes had already been rendered blank at all times. There were no emotions for me to hide. No hidden motives for her to paint pure. Instead, the Madam found herself beating odd rules and regulations into my frame.

Because that's what elegance was apparently. A seemingly infinite set of strange rules and actions. Restrictions, and bondage, that somehow made one look graceful.

Though, for some odd reason, I felt the stars deep within my heart would have disagreed with that definition of elegance had they been asked about it.

—--

For three weeks I trained and slept in isolation. I was not yet ready to face other cultivators according to Madam Lou. Not yet elegant enough to meet my new family. Not yet restrained enough in my actions. I was not yet worthy of love.

I was empty. I was still broken. I was still useless.

I was Victim…

It was hard to tell what time it was in the strange courtyard I found myself trained in. It was open to the sky, but rolling mists and strange moons were all that I could find when I occasionally spared a look upwards. A previous me would have probably been ill at odds with this. But in my empty misery and desperate attempts to fill my gaping heart, I cared not about the sky’s circumstances.

Nor did I care about the blood that often fell from my cheeks, nor the tears, nor the odd eyes that peered past layers black bamboo.

I cared about very few things these days. And sometimes, I couldn't even remember what those things were.

Most of the things I had cared about had long ago been lost in that splintery chair. Or perhaps they had been lost in my new, adoptive, mothers embrace. Perhaps they were torn from me by that strange rock. Or maybe, just maybe, they had leaked from my eyes when I found myself sleeping on nothing but cold, hard rock, as I did for the past three weeks in an empty bamboo courtyard, surrounded by nothing but black bamboo and wailing moons.

I couldn't even move myself to care about my old friend, the wind.

The wind, oh the grassland wind.

I don't exactly remember when it had stopped its friendly games, its gentle caresses and its eternal playfulness. It had gone silent. Still. Quiet.

Just as the snapping deep within me had stopped because there was nothing left to break, perhaps the wind had left me because there was nothing left to blow around. Nothing left to caress. Nothing left to even befriend.

But maybe the wind had never been my friend. What if I had just been entertainment for it? A passing curiosity for its twirling majesty. A simple toy for occasional entertainment.

It would make sense. I was worthless after all. I was still empty. I was still nothing.

Shuddering once again as a bone spur pierced deep into my arm, I tossed out my latest batch of failed tea. My musings had led me to imperfection. A tear had found its way into my brew, ruining it. What a shame. And as for the tea ? It went to the bamboo. Steaming as it twisted and twirled through the air and into the odd forest.

At least the bamboo was getting something out of my failures. At least something was benefiting from my incompetence. I was still not perfect. Still not elegant. Still not worthy of love.

But I was working on that. Working very, very, very, hard on that.

The madam occasionally left me with strange items such as the tea set I found myself practicing with. There were lessons that I could learn without her presence. Things that even to the Madam, as perfect and motherly as she was, would be too boring to watch.

My current set of teaching tools was rather odd. In total, I was temporarily given a set of cups, spoons, and tea implements made entirely of grey bone. For tea leaves, I was to occasionally pick some from a box that smelled entirely too much of blood.

There was very little special about the tea set, other than the fact that it would maim and heal me when it felt that the tea I made with it was subpar. I didn’t quite know how the tea set knew when I made a mistake in the brewing process. Nor did I understand why it took so much offense to an incorrect amount of clockwise rotations with a spoon.

Maybe there really was an incorrect amount of times to stir a cup of tea. Perhaps the brewing of tea held immeasurable secrets. I really didnt know. No one really cared about this kind of stuff in the village. We were too preoccupied with giving these demons too much face. Painting them in too kind of a light. In the end, it left the sole survivor of my little grassland village empty. Oh so terribly empty.

Lost in my thoughts, I once again set about brewing tea under flickering moons of varying colors and the swaying shadows of blacked bamboo.