The following day, Wu Ling returned to the Pure Virtue Musician’s Hall for what he felt would be the final time. He’d put an extra bit of effort into his makeup this morning and the soft peach-colored dress he’d chosen clung suggestively to his hips and trim waist. Perhaps it was a side effect of beginning to shed his mortality, but when Wu Ling looked at his reflection in the mirror after finishing his makeup, he felt that he’d become even more striking than before. Several young masters and young lords along the way had paused to watch as he passed and Wu Ling had to fiercely resist the temptation to seductively sway over to them just to whisper the truth in their ears. The results were certain to be troublesome and not worth it for the moment of shocked horror he imagined seeing on their faces. For now, such teasing would have to remain a fleeting fantasy but maybe one day, when accumulated enough strength to walk without fear of reprisal from even the most common of cultivators, he’d have a chance to see just how much he could torment the lecherous young masters that had leered at him and his classmates these past several years.
“Aesthete Wu, Aesthete Wu, over here,” Su Yao called as soon as she saw Wu Ling working his way through the crowd toward the school’s front gates. Instantly, the students, their parents or guardians, and all the mortals passing by on the street stopped to stare in Wu Ling’s direction. Several mortals moved quickly out of his way, clearing a path to his waving classmate at the entrance of the school.
“I see that Sister Xiang already shared the news,” Wu Ling said, maintaining his graceful swaying gait as he approached the entrance of the school. “You know you can still call me Sister Wu Ling if you want, Sister Su Yao,” he added once he reached the gates and his excited younger classmate.
“No, no, I want to but not until I Awaken too. Once I catch up with you and Cousin Xiang, then I’ll call you Sister Wu Ling again. Until then,” she said, cupping her hands and bowing in mock seriousness. “A Young Miss must mind her manners before cultivators.”
“Okay, that’s enough out of you,” Wu Ling said reaching out to pinch Su Yao’s rosy cheek. “You know your cousin and I became sworn siblings last night, so I expect ‘Cousin Ling’ from you from now on, understood?”
Su Yao smiled and ducked her head like a chicken pecking rice while they joined the other students before the class. Moments after the class had entered, their teacher stood before the gathered students with a sad smile on her face. “Everyone, I’m sure you’ve all heard but a student will be graduating today to begin her journey on the road of cultivation. Aesthete Wu,” the teacher said, stepping back from the platform. “Would you grace us with a final performance?”
Stepping before the class, Wu Ling looked over the faces of his classmates and the familiar group of parents and family guards that clustered in the back of the room. From fearing discovery every day when he started attending to becoming just another student in class, Wu Ling felt at times like he’d truly become ‘one of the girls.’ This classroom had changed him in ways he hadn’t expected. He’d initially come just for zither lessons but he was leaving with so much more. Not just the lessons he’d taken in other arts beyond the zither, or the classes in etiquette, entertaining, and the other things expected of a young lady of high status, but the camaraderie he’d built with a staggering number of fellow students over the years and all of the things he’d experienced with them.
The Pure Virtue Musician’s Hall had first and foremost dedicated itself to music and the arts, but the core mission of the school had always centered around preparing young women to enter refined society whether they successfully awakened or not. While it resembled a simple academy for mortals, the school’s vast alumni network included thousands of cultivators who had gone on to marry into prominent families or join prestigious sects. It was impossible to attend such a school without becoming connected to dozens of current and former students and among them, Wu Ling had found no shortage of genuine friendships.
A few days ago, he’d thought that he’d be glad to shed the disguise he’d worn so long in this place but now, standing here, he felt that he’d miss the casual closeness he’d built with so many of the young women here. Perhaps, if any of them awakened themselves, they’d meet again one day as cultivators and could pick up where they left off. For now, however, it was time to say goodbye.
“This piece is a little different,” Wu Ling said, taking his seat on the platform and setting down the antique zither. “It’s the piece that helped me to complete my Awakening and I wouldn’t have succeeded without the help of my Master in the path of cultivation. Perhaps it will spark something for some of you as it did for me,” he told the class.
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Slowly, as his slender fingers danced across the strings of his zither, the gentle notes of ‘Upward to Moon’ filled the classroom. This time, however, a bit of Wu Ling's energy flowed along with the notes, conjuring a faint, illusionary silver moon behind him as he played. The illusion was weak and feeble and the cultivators in the back of the room could easily see through it, but for the mortal audience, it was as though they’d been taken out for a night stroll under the radiant moonlight.
Just as the audience fell into the rhythm of the piece, Wu Ling moved through the transition he’d written during his awakening before launching into the energetic ‘Sun on the Water.’ The illusory moon faded away to be replaced with the warm colors of the setting sun. Some in the audience, allowing themselves to be swept fully away by the music, could hear the faint sound of the sea behind the notes of Wu Ling’s playing and they could feel the warmth of the sun’s fading light on their face.
While both illusions were pale and feeble, lacking the substance of deliberate constructions, they clearly demonstrated that Wu Ling had left the world of mortals behind for good to join the ranks of cultivators within Silver Sword City, a world most of the class could only hope to join one day in the near future.
“I’m afraid that this is goodbye for some time,” Wu Ling said as he stood to leave. “If you do see me again some day though, I won’t ever deny the friends I’ve made here. Thank you for making me welcome here,” he said, bowing deeply and meaning every word he said. He knew that he lived in a different world from the one most of his classmates lived in. He’d been the most common among them with barely any family and no great wealth or status to his name but they had not only made him feel welcome here, they had invited him warmly into their homes and their hearts, not just once but many times over the years. Now that he was leaving, everyone took a few moments to say goodbye, to offer hugs or to demand that he visit when his circumstances allowed.
All across Silver Sword City, there were sharp dividing lines between cultivators and the mortals that made up most of the city’s population. In places like this, full of young people who still had the potential to awaken one day, the line could feel a little blurry. His younger classmates, like Su Yao, were excited, telling him that they would catch up to him soon. The older young women in the class, the ones approaching twenty years of age, knew that they were unlikely to awaken if they hadn’t already. The next time they encountered Wu Ling, they felt that they might have children of their own in this very classroom while Wu Ling would look exactly as young as he did now. Those were the hardest goodbyes to say because they recognized that their good friend was stepping into a world that they would likely never be a part of.
Several minutes after Wu Ling had left, after the hugging, the crying, and the blotting away of many tears, some of the girls in the class turned to each other ready to explode with what they’d just witnessed in Wu Ling’s final performance.
“Did you see that?” one girl said, certain she’d understood the hidden meanings in Wu Ling’s performance. “Wu Ling is clearly the moon in her farewell piece but she’s leaving to join her Master represented by the sun! Wu Ling is leaving us to pursue a romance with her Master!”
“The moon always chases the sun,” one of the other girls disagreed, “but that doesn’t mean the sun is her master! How many of us has she helped by painting portraits to give to the matchmakers? I bet she was matched long ago but needed to Awaken before she could join her fiance,” she asserted. After all, it wasn’t uncommon for arranged marriages to be contingent on one party successfully Awakening if the other one already had. Many of them were chasing after similar arrangements or already had one themselves. “Do you think her fiancee is a sword cultivator at some big sect?”
“I think you’ve all got it wrong,” a third girl interjected. “Wu Ling is the moon aching for the sun that slips beneath the water. The sun is her fallen father,” the girl said confidently, convinced she’d seen the real message Wu Ling intended to convey in her final performance. “She’s reminding us to treasure our parents before they’re gone, especially if we manage to Awaken and one or both of our parents are still mortal,” she explained, reminding everyone of the tragic circumstances of Wu Ling’s family and what awaited any of them who stepped into the world that their parents could never reach. After all, it was unheard of for a mortal to awaken after reaching twenty years of age. While many of the young women in the classroom were from cultivation families, there were also several whose parents were simply wealthy or influential mortals, hoping that their daughters would succeed where they had failed.
Several more ideas were tossed out by the young women and there were several debates about Wu Ling’s final message before the teacher managed to regain control of her class. Many of those speculations would turn into rumors that circulated in polite society for a number of weeks after Wu Ling left the class but at the moment, none of that mattered to Wu Ling as he joined Su Xiang outside the school and left to shop for more appropriate clothing that fit his status as a cultivator and, perhaps most importantly, wasn’t poached from his mother’s collection of feminine outfits!