Chapter 32- Messages From Above

Dear Daoist Shu
This is my second time writing a letter. The first person I wrote a letter to threatened to beat me until my shoes went flying off, which I thought was a very ungrateful response to me sending them medicine. I hope this letter goes better.
I want to tell you about this big tree I saw, and the monkey kingdom that lived on it. They managed to farm on the tree, it was that big. I thought it might be interesting to you, because they must be doing something right with the qi there, and I’d bet it had something to do with your Art of Wind and Water…
I wanted to particularly thank you for your lovely gift. I have named the lotus Little White, and I’m raising it very carefully. Maybe you could think of a name for the bird? I’m not very familiar with the tools, but I am taking my time and enjoying learning how to use them. Best of all, though, was the tea you sent.
Your special blend helps me calm down when the night terrors come. When I was in the barracks, my brothers were there to help me come back to myself. Now, they are far away. The ritual of making tea and the soothing flavor brings me back to the present. It reminds me that there are green fields and gentle rivers with broad trees to sit under, and kind people to sit with. I’m pacing myself, but I may have to trouble you for some more later.
Thank you again,
Tian Zihao
 
Dear Auntie Wu, I wanted to tell you how I have invested your spirit crystals. Before I left SORRY! I just remembered I’m supposed to start these with something about nature. I already wrote a letter with nothing about nature in it, and now I have to go back and add a new paragraph or something. I don’t know how that works. Draw an arrow from the bottom of the page to the top? The blue sky is all the more brilliant against the green of the trees, as soft breezes carry the scent of Camilla blossoms and memories. Steward Pan suggested that. He writes a lot of letters. I don’t know which tree is a Camilla tree. There is a very pretty garden on the barge, though. So before I left Bamboo Medicine Hut… Sister Hong suggested that could be a business. Rather than selling the tea dry, sell the whole service. I think I will have to be pretty careful who I offer it to, but clearly the elder doesn’t think it’s that big a secret or she wouldn’t have let a whole other sect find out about it. It feels a little weird, honestly, but everyone tells me I should do it. Anyway, I’ll earn some money and deepen my own understanding of the elements and my dao. I don’t know what my dao will be, Auntie. I want to help people. I want to heal people. I’m also sick to death of people making more problems for themselves. I used to wonder why the doctors looked tired even before they started work, and I get it now. You get better soon. Tian Zihao   Fellow Daoist Jun, Just a quick The blue sky is all the more brilliant against the green of the trees, as soft breezes carry the scent of Camilla blossoms and memories. I’m writing a quick note to say I think I have found a new way to earn from the tea- selling a tea service. Sister Hong suggested it and Brother Wang helped me plan a whole presentation around it. There are props. It’s quite incredible. Unfortunately, the Elder is steering us away from human habitation at the moment. Our next stop is some kind of big lake with lots of birds. I’m guessing a lot of cranes. But she didn’t say. Anyway, it’s still a week away. By the time you get this letter, I will probably have visited and been on to the next place. I’ll let you know how it goes when I finally get to try and sell it to another sect. Tian Zihao
 
_Dear Senior Sister Li, The blue sky is all the more brilliant against the green of the trees, as soft breezes carry the scent of Camilla blossoms and memories. I am very carefully using the darts you made for me. The binding process takes a long time, but I work on it every day. But that’s not the important thing. Things. The important things are these tree branches. It comes from a tree called White Mountain Goldheart Pine. We stopped by a mountain that had a small grove of them way up high. We had a job of working together to build a concealed meditation retreat up there. It took a week. Turns out none of us know how to build a house, or make sure a floor is level or anything. I don’t want to talk about making furniture. People will just have to bring in their own stuff. We all have storage rings. Goldheart pine- it’s pretty tough compared to normal pine even without processing. It is also super, super responsive to vital energy. I think it would make a good crafting material. Most of the branches came off a fallen tree and are dead, but I harvested a live branch just in case it makes a difference. If you can use more of them, let me know and I will pass on the location. Right now, I’m trying to keep it a secret so some greedy person doesn’t harvest the whole stand. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Your loyal customer, Tian Zihao_
 
Dear Doctor Pei…
 
Dear Senior Brother Su…
 
Dear Father, We are so high up, even mortal birds fly below us. When you sit out in the garden, you are looking straight into the high clouds, tracing the winding canyons in them and watching them drift and change with the wind. It is peaceful, mostly, and very beautiful. I hope you can watch the sky like I do, way up on the mountain. I work hard every day. I try to remember propriety but sometimes it is hard. The things you taught me about tea have become something I use every day, and may even become part of my cultivation. I think about you a lot. I think about all the frustration you must have felt, watching idiots advance around you while good brothers and sisters died. I am feeling frustrated too. Not because I’m afraid I won’t advance, but because I can’t see a way to fix this jam we are all stuck in. Do you realize that, not only did we dig this hole, we paid Black Iron Gorge for the shovel? And there are people digging it deeper every day. I try to go with the flow. Not to think, but to feel. To be open to the world, rather than running from it. But I find myself staring out into the blue sky, and dreaming of soaring between the clouds. It is quiet, in my imagination. And I am happy. I hope you are happy, Father. Your son, Ziha
 
Dear Fellow Daoist Xiong…
 
Tian set down his brush. He didn’t actually have anything he wanted to say to Daoist Xiong. Maybe he should send a letter to the Manor Lord? The basalt tray he gave him was too big to use day to day, but it would be very important to his future business. It turned out that it wasn’t just basalt. When vital energy or qi flowed into it, subtle threads of red and gold and blue were revealed, winding their way through the inky black stone. It made the whole thing look quite mysterious. When Tian poured qi rich tea over the whole thing, the tray shimmered into life. The contrast between the poured boiling water to clean everything and the poured tea really made the whole presentation.
Brother Wang explained it clearly. He wasn’t selling the dao, and he wasn’t selling tea leaves, or even the tea itself. He was selling an experience. He owed his customers the very best he could reasonably provide, but it was up to them to find something meaningful from the experience. And nothing helped sell an experience like a little showmanship.
Tian was entirely willing to admit his vanity was tickled by the tray. It might not be a silver teapot, but it was very shiny and impressive looking. When you got right down to it, mortals could buy a silver teapot. But how many people had an immortal tea tray?
He sealed up the letters in envelopes and addressed them. The Manor used specially trained birds to carry a storage ring back to their home temples, and then those temples would send the ring onwards via missions to their members. The Elder was willing to provide Tian access to the system for free, provided he didn’t write about anything he shouldn’t.
Tian had a sneaking suspicion that “free” meant “Sticking Elder Rui with the bill,” but he was fine with that either way. As long as the letters got there. And the branches.
You know that won’t cut things off with the Shu girl, right? If anything, it’s going to have the opposite effect.
“Maybe. But I just can’t write “I would like to be friends, but only friends, are you okay with that or should I stop writing?”
You could.
“I really can’t. Maybe I should, but I can’t.”
Or you could dive into it. I’m not saying she’s your forever love, but there is a certain teenage thrill to experience. There is nothing like it, in fact.
“Now that really would be scummy.”
Tian had no idea why everyone was so interested in all of this. He didn’t see any of them chasing lovers. Why push him?
He dropped the storage ring with Steward Pan, then went to the garden to cultivate. A week later, they reached the lake.
“Go out and meet some people. Junior Lin is leading this time. Follow her instructions.” Elder Feng was relentless in her campaign to mend bridges, but she didn’t order Lin to join the tea and study sessions. Nor did Lin ask. Tian appreciated that. Lin was still a rock thrower at heart. At least, he hadn’t seen anything to really convince him otherwise. She could be civil. Funny, even, on rare occasions. But he could see the coldness and madness in her.
Some days, he thought he could see the heart demon peeking out of her wide eyes. Those days he would touch his own chest and feel the tar around his heart. It wasn’t as thick as it once was. His heart was harder. But so was the tar. That heart demon was weakened and wounded. It was not at all dead.
The flying cloud descended onto the shore of a long lake. It was lined with marshes, then dense forest some hundred yards or so from the water’s edge. Not a hint of a road or human habitation anywhere.
Tian looked over towards Lin, who had her eyes fixed firmly on the water. She looked reverent. “This is The Lake.”
Brother Wang gave her a bewildered look, and the rest of the group endorsed it. Lin shook her head and explained.
“It doesn’t have a human name. We honor it by not giving it one, beyond The Lake. The migratory birds that stop here don’t have a name for it either. It’s just The Lake they stop at for weeks or months at a time, usually during the dry season when other hunting grounds dry up.”
Tian could see ducks in the water, and a pair of geese, and dozens of long-legged cranes. Not giant cranes, just normal sized birds. Some with a red blaze on their heads, others with black necks and heads, others all white with black wingtips, yet more were an all over mottled brown. They strode through the cold water and stabbed with their beaks, hauling wriggling fish out for a final flash of brilliance in the sun before they were eaten.
“Who are we here to meet?” Wang asked.
“Them. She waved at the birds. “They haven’t awakened their spiritual intelligence, but most of them have some cultivation. They aren’t stupid. It’s just that their minds work differently than ours. Leave them be, unless they come over to investigate us. I’ll show you how to greet them when the time comes.”
A lake full of cultivating cranes. It was a genuine wonder of the world. A magical place he would never have seen if he stayed in the dump or the desert. A place of freedom, wildness, of no thoughts but the hunt.
Tian smiled and sat on the marshy ground, not minding how his robes were smeared with mud and grass stains. He watched the birds stride through the water, and watched them soar on wide wings. It was a perfect place, and a perfect moment. He tried to forget the others, tried to forget himself. For just a moment, he tried to just be. Breathing in and out. Becoming a part of the lake. A tree that stretched between earth and sky, surrounded by life.
It was only much later when he discovered the tar around his heart didn’t seem quite so thick anymore.