“Yes, I am the Illusory Butterfly Immortal Empress, Hua Jue,” the stunning woman in the painting said, smiling at Wu Ling as he stared at her in shock. “You have this one opportunity, Wu Ling. My words have helped you come this far, will you refuse to heed them now?” she asked, her musical voice driving all doubt from Wu Ling’s mind.
“Disciple Wu Ling pays respect to Master,” he said formally, dragging himself away from the bloody zither to kowtow towards the painting of the beautiful woman.
“Good,” the Immortal Empress said, her figure gaining depth and strength as she stepped out of the wall to stand before Wu Ling, every bit as much of a real person in this space as he was. “That you prepared tea to serve your Master speaks well of you but letting you continue to suffer would speak poorly of me as your Master. Close your eyes and listen,” she said, waiting only long enough for Wu Ling to comply before she parted her lips to sing a soft, swirling string of pure, radiant notes that calmed Wu Ling’s jagged nerves, mended his torn flesh and restored his flagging energy. “That should sustain you long enough for us to finish what must be done,” she said, reaching out and lifting him from his kneeling posture. “Now, show me your skills at tea and I’ll explain where you went wrong.”
“Yes Master,” Wu Ling said stiffly, before shaking himself loose and beginning to prepare the first steep of tea, using the familiar motions to regain his equilibrium even as Hua Jue’s presence threatened to overwhelm him.
“Time is limited so allow me to explain where you wandered astray,” she began, pointing a slender finger at the wall on which he’d written five words. “Five isn’t too many or too few, but the ones you chose lack the harmony that the rest of your construction held. Because of that, you spent twice as much energy on everything else and then had to spend even more energy to keep your lopsided structure from collapsing,” she explained.
“I should have corrected it before empowering it shouldn’t I?” he said, discarding the first steep of tea and preparing the second. “I knew after the chess game that I needed to maintain a sense of duality but I lost it in my calligraphy and I never fixed it.”
“It’s good that you understand. Words have tremendous power, more than you know. I’m pleased that you selected ‘Lover’ and ‘Artist’ as two of your words, that means we have two words in common,” she said with a smile.
“Master, what are your other words?” Wu Ling asked, unable to suppress his curiosity.
“My words are different from yours,” she said, her eyes gazing into an unfathomable distance. “I didn’t select my words and I have very little control of the process. My words were selected by my previous incarnation. In my first life, I was only able to pass on two words to my next life. I’ve become stronger since then and in this life, I have four words,” she explained. “Artist, Lover, Illusion… Prophet,” she finished her list after a short pause, as though she debated sharing the last one with Wu Ling. In the end, she chose to be transparent with her newest disciple. “Wu Ling, as your Master, I should tell you that the manual you have found was not sent to your Mortal Realm without purpose. I cannot foresee everything that will come to pass but I can see that without establishing a branch of my sect in your Mortal Realm and sending the manual along with it, two great tragedies are likely to unfold. One of those tragedies will affect your realm, the other will affect me directly in the future. Knowing that I may ask you to fulfill a purpose in the future, are you still willing to take up my manual and serve as my disciple?”
Despite the many revelations the Immortal Empress had packed into a few words, Wu Ling didn’t hesitate with his answer. “Master has assisted in my Awakening and provided a path for my cultivation. It would be shameful if your disciple refused to repay the kindness of your gift. So long as you don’t require me to betray my loved ones, I will follow Master’s every order as though it were Heaven’s Mandate.”
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“Your answer may change in the future,” she said with a gentle smile. “All disciples must grow and as your Master, it would bring me great joy to see you grow to reach heights that I never have. You are to become my disciple, not my unwilling puppet. If I ever ask anything of you that you find intolerable, you must voice your concerns. We should resolve problems together so that we both prosper. Now, let us return to the problem at hand, the words you have selected,” she said, returning her gaze to the calligraphy.
“While I am restricted to a small number of words that fuel my reincarnation, your words are different. The lack of balance in your choices can be corrected with a few additions. Allow me to show you,” she said, taking out a calligraphy brush of her own and adding words to the wall. “If you wish to be a Hero you must be willing to become someone else’s Villain. We are each heroes in our own stories and that includes the people who are villain’s in our own lives,” she counseled. “Likewise, if you wish to achieve your Dreams you must find the strength to weather Nightmares.”
“I can understand those,” Wu Ling said, readily accepting her explanation. “But why is ‘Fighter’ the opposite of ‘Lover’? Do you mean that I must also become a Martial cultivator?” Wu Ling asked, confused by one of the additions.
“No, Martial cultivators are something else,” she said with a shake of her head. “Your art is your weapon and don’t for a moment think it is any less mighty than a sword. With the manual in your hands you can paint guardian beasts into existence, conjure firestorms with your calligraphy, and much, much more. You can wield the might of your art to resist armies and topple empires if your heart desires to do so,” she explained, her words nearly causing her young disciple to spill the tea he’d just begun to pour. Smiling at him to relieve the tension she could feel building, she took a sip of the floral tea before continuing her lesson. “A ‘Lover’ must be a ‘Fighter’ because no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to hurt the people we give our hearts to. You can run from your enemies if you must, there is no shame in retreat. You can succumb to fear and pain when people threaten or wound you, but you can never turn away from the ones you love. If you do,” she began only for Wu Ling to interrupt as understanding dawned on him.
“If I do, then I’m not worthy of their love,” he finished, her message resonating with him deeply. He’d seen how much his mother risked to give him the life he enjoyed now and he knew how much he’d give to keep her safe in the years to come. He may not have found any genuine lovers yet but when he did, he wanted to be the kind of lover that his Master described, one who would fight for the people who mattered the most. “Why aren’t there words to go with Artist and Musician?” he asked.
“Because those words are more neutral than the other three,” she explained. “Balance never meant that when you wrote five you should have written ten, it meant that the more heavily something weighed on one side of your nature the more it cried out for something to balance it. Now that you have the balance you need, you should find success in what you started today. Congratulations my disciple on becoming a genuine Aesthete.”
“Thank you, Master,” he said with a bow. “Does that mean you’re going to leave?”
“As long as you cultivate the manual I left behind in this Mortal Realm, a wisp of me will always be a part of you, but don’t expect much from it. For real guidance, you’ll need to come to find me at the foot of the Divine Mountain in the valley where all rivers converge,” she explained, conjuring an illusion of a mist-shrouded valley that was home to countless magnificent palaces and pavilions. “This is the Myriad Path’s Divine Sect. To get there, you’ll need to grow beyond the confines of the Mortal Realms so take your time and build your foundation well along your journey. If you ever find yourself lost, call out for my aid and I will help if I can,” she said with a soft smile. “Good luck Little Ling, I hope that you find your way to me before it becomes my turn to pass on my crown to the Empress who will follow after me. Otherwise, perhaps one day another Empress who follows after will come to be your disciple,” she said with a soft laugh at the symmetry such an event would create.
“Empress who will follow…?” Wu Ling began to ask only to stop as the figure of Hua Jue blurred before reappearing on the wall with the lotus as nothing more than a painting. “I suppose I’ll have to ask Master next time,” he said, offering another kowtow toward the painting before closing his eyes in his Inner World to return to the world outside.